After a whirlwind of travel for nearly two weeks, designed to help me build my “inner warehouse of stillness,” on my elusive quest for worklife balance – I have landed at a colleague’s home in Boston. At 6am this morning in a deep silent contemplative state, I thought about the last two weeks of quiet time and the “detoxification program” that I had undergone.
Honstely, most of us can more than justify a “mental health day” from work – on occasion. And a new study suggests that a lot of you out there agree. 82% of employees admit to taking “mental health days” to recover or recharge. Interestingly, work stress was not the most likely cause of skipping out.
You know times are tough in the sensory overload department when New York Times Food Writer Mark Bittman departs from his culinary ways to write about his experience of a “virtual break” from all the techno-stuff that weighs most of us down in our workplace or career.
Friday morning, to my delight , I heard the pitter patter of little feet outside my door when I was staying at a friends house. After a faint knock, a little head peeked its way into the room to check if I was still sleeping.
The toddler, Tori, was checking to see if Aunt Judy was [...]
Ed Mills from Evolving times started a meme that asks, what would you do with an extra 36 hours each week? Pricilla Palmer from Personal Development tagged me on this and I’ve given it a lot of thought. Especially in the wake of all the writing I’ve done recently on conquering sensory overload in a 24/7 world.
For me, it’s less about a list than a way of being. I would take 24-hours of it and use it for complete silence. No news, no music, no cell phone, no Black Berry. It’s from that space of peace that I truly believe we can all attain limitless knowledge and peace. But it’s not something that comes overnight. We need lots of 24-hour periods to cultivate that stillness and creatively percolate. And the intention set during such a period is a crucial part of the process.
When you’re that still for a long period of time it feels as if there is no time. It’s stretched to another level of consciousness and becomes limitless. Have you ever noticed that time seems to fly when you’re at an exciting movie, taking a long day at the beach, or spending time with good friends?
When I spotted this sign while preparing for a hike on a delicious day in the mountains of Woodstock two weeks ago, I thought not of unloading my backpack – but instead the ridiculous amount of e-mails that were loading up on my Black Berry during my outdoor trek into the wilderness.
My beginning moments of [...]
I was startled when I learned that New York ranked third in Blackberry addiction. The stat is from an AOL study which claimed that Washington topped the list followed by Atlanta. But how might New York, the financial capital of the world (except for this week, not so much) fall behind the likes of cities [...]
