The Year of Doing Nothing (post 1.04)

In addition to non-striving, the idea of eliminating as many "shoulds" as possible was appealing to me.  I had been wanting to dive into my practice in a deeper way for awhile, but I was frequently plagued with the "shoulds" that kept interrupting the flow of my day and disrupting my good intentions.  I should clean out the closets.  I should get more organized.  I should get my son to the orthodontist.  I should send an email to that long lost friend.   I should check out that sale at Coldwater Creek.

Obviously, there were "shoulds" in my life that had to be addressed at some point and there were "shoulds" in my life that didn't have to be there at all.  The sum total of "shoulds" was using up a lot of real estate in my head.  I needed to reduce these.  I also had a sense that I needed to examine how I handled the "shoulds".

When I am on retreat at Kripalu,  I gradually slow down and let go of the "shoulds".  There is a spaciousness that enters my days that I don't have at home.  Of course, at Kripalu, I'm not doing laundry, cooking, grocery shopping; it takes about 24 hours for my whole system to slow down enough for me to realize I don't have to keep up the hectic pace of daily life.  I take a deep breath and time expands.  How could I structure my life so that more of this was happening for me at home?  How could I set up my life over the next 12 months so that I could be on sabbatical, as I defined it?  So that I could dive into my practices in a deeper way.