What is it about the workday that appears to dull my sense of awareness—awareness of Self, spirit, others, life…? What is it about this lifestyle that produces fatigue, unconsciousness, a restrictiveness rather than space…?

For 16 years I was a homemaker. In this space, I lived in my own rhythms—doing what needed to be done for home and family—and what I wanted to do. And then I moved in to the work place. Mostly I liked my work, but soon I discovered what I didn’t like— the lifestyle the workday created. That routine of getting up earlier than I would following my own rhythms. The requirement to be in a fixed location for a certain number of hours. Then, home to homemake—cook dinner, pick up around the house… By the end of the day all I wanted (and still want) to do is stare at a screen showing a good movie while eating something sugary.

I work at a school and this week we are on spring break. Upon the first day I feel how lovely it is to experience myself (again) without the workday routine. I feel myself filled with a bit more space—becoming more present to my natural rhythms. Not being in a fixed location, adhering to a time frame I move about in accordance to that rhythm.

I notice variety, similar to the weather we had—tornadoes in the southwest and where I live watching a sunset in the west and dark skies in the east producing lightening and rainbows. Then, followed by snow showers at night. My day was filled with moments of self-expression, creativity, errands, homemaking, connection with my kids and husband and downtime to just stare at that sky and write in my journal. None of this variety breaks through the dullness and fatigue I feel during the workday week.

When Monday, April 7 comes and the 5:45 alarm wakes me from a sound sleep and I enter the workday rhythm I have some options.

Option One: Resume the familiar routine becoming unconscious and dull = no change.

Option Two: Tell myself how I am going to stay conscious within this routine = no change.

Option Three: Intend to create a new way to make a living which matches my natural rhythms = potential change.

Option Four: Accept the unconsciousness which occurs in a routine— not making it bad or wrong or unworthy of my life. It just is. Discover the value in a routine and create variety on the outskirts of this routine and be pleasantly surprised how that variety bleeds in to the routine = transformation.

Our minds tend to create separation. In this case my mind separates the workday lifestyle from the non-workday lifestyle. Often from here the mind judges one as bad and one as good. Then time is spend using mental energy fighting the bad one.

I don’t know what option I will live from as I return to the workday life— or if I will find a new option entirely. But here is what I do know— in this workday break I find again what matters, what makes me alive and balanced. Writing. Hearing the seagulls screech in circles while the sun sets. Giving my husband a neck massage after a long work day. Reading. Listening. Being. Creating. My kids. Puttering around the house as if I have nothing else in the world to do—because I don’t.

Happy Spring,

The Soul Reporter