This has been a hectic week for me.  The internet has been down, I’ve had a sick kitten to contend with as well as a sick computer, I had to spend two days on re-certification for a proprietary software program I teach, I completed one client training (the highlight of my week),  and an orthodontic appointment, (the most miserable part of my week).  Add to that my regular chores, an extra grocery shopping trip due to being tied up with Golden Chords all day tomorrow and Golden Chords practice all week, and, well, you get the drift.  Now I’m not telling you all this to get your sympathy.  I know a lot of you right now are thinking, “Welcome to my world.”  Yes, I know.  What I want to share with you is what I discovered today as I sat down to write this post.

While I consider myself a teacher with this blog as my classroom, I don’t always have my “lessons” planned out.  Often I don’t know what I’m going to write about until I sit down to write it.  Today was one of those days.  The first thing I do is think about what is going on in my life and what I’ve learned in the past couple of days that might be useful to my readers.  As I sat down to write this post, the thought came to me that what I really need to do is take some time to just chill out.  Do nothing.  Live in some quiet time and maybe reflect for a little bit.  But then I thought, No, I’ve really got too much to do today.  I need to work on my website design, I have to make a dessert for Golden Chords, I have to spread the leaves the lawn mower left yesterday onto the garden, along with the other 24 items in my Outlook to do list.  So I set about writing my post.

When I have trouble thinking of something to write, I go to my personal archive of motivational materials.  Today I went into my Brian Tracy archives, and what do you think my eyes landed upon first?  An e-mail newsletter I received two weeks ago but had not gotten around to reading yet titled, “The Magic of Solitude.”  Seeing as how this was right up my ally at the moment, I decided to read the article.

Brian says that we should practice solitude as often as we can, preferably one hour every day.  The process is to sit quietly, head and back straight, with no interruptions, no distractions, no reading material, no writing, no music, nothing to eat, etc. Just relax, breathe deeply, and let your mind flow.  The benefit of this, according to Tracy, is that “At a certain stage during your period of solitude, the answers to the most pressing difficulties facing you will emerge quietly and clearly.” Sounds great to me, so I decided to give it a try right then – before writing this post.

For the first 15 minutes, it was extremely difficult not to get distracted.  At first, I tried sitting in front of my computer, but it was just too tempting to want to read that e-mail that just came in.  So I closed the lid to my laptop to solve that problem.  Then I wanted to get out one of my books and read, but that’s against the rules as well.  I moved to the back porch, where I thought the distractions would be few since there’s so little out there, but then I saw that pile of leaves the lawn mower left and I wanted to get out in the garden – it’s such a pretty day and we get so few of those in November.  Then, I heard a voice saying, “Later, Debra, you will do that later.  Right now, just be still.”  So I became still.

For the next 45 minutes, I watched the birds clamor for their food, the leaves fall from the tree, and the squirrels hide their treasures.  I had all kinds of insights on my to do list – how to do them better or more efficiently – as well as many new inspirations.  But the most important feeling I got out of this session, was an overwhelming sense of peace.  I spent one hour of my day doing nothing, or at least it seemed like nothing.  Yet somehow, I felt like I suddenly had more time to accomplish everything on my list.  It’s just like the axiom that 30 minutes of exercise gives you 6 hours of extra energy; the one hour of solitude gave me countless hours of actual productivity.

At the end of my hour, I remembered a song I used to sing.  I don’t know who wrote it and I can’t even remember who recorded it.  I also can’t remember all the words.  What I remember are the following lines:

“So I won’t worry ‘cause there’s no hurry the world’s not passing me by;
For the Lord, He knows, just where each day goes, I know He won’t leave me behind.”

Now it’s your turn.  You know what to do.  Let me know what you get out of your one hour of solitude.

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Posted under Inspiration, Leadership, Motivation