In praise of taking a mindful break

Image courtesy of SXU - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1032904


I've just got back from a weekend away, visiting my Dad in the lovely township of Whitianga, on New Zealand's Coromandel peninsula.

Gryphon (my husband) and I went up there because it's been about seven months now since I've seen Dad - petrol prices having gone up in the crazy way they have (it's a three-hour drive out there), and Gryphon's and my combined timetables from work and study having been basically prohibitive, and... well, lots of other excuses if I look for them. The net result has been that there hasn't been any filial visiting. This was remedied this weekend, and it was a wonderful, wonderful break.

While Dad has a computer, I deliberately didn't go anywhere near it after the first evening I was up there. I basically read, chatted to family (my aunt and uncle live up there as well, so we got to see them as well, and my cousin and her little one), and perhaps more relevantly for my health and ongoing peace-of-mind-recovery, I had two much-needed early nights in a row. I think I coughed a little less while I stayed there too.

I didn't actively meditate while I was up there, but I did take advantage of the moments I was given for mindfulness. There was a moment where we went for a drive as a family, and stopped beside the beach. Being so close to midwinter, the wind was icy - which made for interesting potential for being mindful of my physical body - but at the same time, it was bracing and refreshing, and helped to blow away some of the cobwebs that had been building recently.

I found myself just standing there, looking out over the water for a bit, watching the gulls and other seabirds out on the harbour, diving for whatever delicacies they'd discovered swimming below them. And I let my breathing deepen and slow, and before I knew it, I was breathing to the rhythm of the tiny waves that were oh-so-gently breaking against the golden-white-sand-shore. It was a case of breathing in, breathing in, holding, holding as the waves built... and then as each small wave crashed (it's a very sheltered harbour, so the waves don't get particularly big), I let my breathing tip over into an exhale. Breathing to the rhythm of the ocean. Not doing or trying or controlling... just allowing.

I wasn't out there that long... a few breath cycles only (it was too damn cold, for a start!) But I didn't need to be - I think I was pretty much there exactly as long as I needed to be.

There were other moments like that over the course of the visit. I have a sneaking suspicion I need quite a few more days like that to get myself back into balance... and I'm hoping it won't be another seven months before I head up there again.

Meanwhile though - it was just a couple of days away. And wow... I'm seriously grateful for the difference it made.

Now, of course, it's time to get back to 'real life' - work begins again tomorrow. Perhaps my task for myself this week is to bring some of the mindfulness I felt while I was breathing in time with the ocean back into my worklife.

It can't hurt to try it and see what happens, after all :-)

Blessings



Starfire