I finished my five day spiritual retreat, a success. I got off track some on day five, next time I’ll do four days. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected. I had a little struggle about how to use my iphone, if at all. Decided to check messages, emails and phone calls and not use it for anything else.
I got some good insights, some of which I’ll share with you:
- I’ve been constantly doing and almost no being. Need to balance. One strategy is to spread out my to do list. I’ll keep my basic structure of the things I need to do on a regular basis, usually just one a day, like the gym for example, and try to add only one task to each day.
- The importance of the practices of: sitting, not thinking, breathing tool, awareness, getting out of doors (in addition to my daily quiet time with prayer, meditation, reading, and journaling.)
- A lot of things really don’t matter very much.
- “You fill up my senses,” song by John Denver, came to me. I’ve been filling up my senses with tasks, reading, music, and even prayer. All these are good, but I was leaving no space for anything else, such as feelings, certain ideas, insights, etc. Space and silence are important.
Personal Notes O the Day:
- It’s been six days now and it’s working well so far. A big change for me.
- I read excellent books which were very helpful:
Make me an instrument of your peace – kent nerburn
Hallelujah anyway: rediscovering mercy – Anne Lamott
The name of God is mercy – Pope Francis
The naked now – Richard Rohr
Present over perfect – shauna niequist
I chose these books simply because they were available. By interesting “coincidence,” they were highly synchronistic. Whether you are of a spiritual bent or not, I highly recommend the Niequist.
3. With ADHD, we need structure and schedule and strategies to get things done, but we need to make time to be. And I think just being, and the practices that help, are especially hard with ADHD. But maybe especially important.
doug
Links:
Being – my sister suggested this before. I’m only now getting it.
Not Thinking – I don’t understand this; need to read it again, slowly.
Not Thinking- This is more clear
#ADHD, @addstrategies, @adhdstrategies, @dougmkpdp
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