Day 193: Gifting myself with attention

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/embracing-light--self-portrait-jaeda-dewalt.html

02042013

I am at the moment at the culmination point of all the projects I have been very busy with for the entire spring. I am running out of time and every deadline seems to be at the same time (not all of them actually are and this is a matter of laying out schedules based on facts).

I have been facing new points while also working on an ever-increasing and tightening work load and schedule, and I have had an intense time and managed to keep myself together just barely. I have had 4 days off from my paid job, but I have not been on a holiday but working 12-hour days at the theatre – and so it is going to be until next week or so, with everything else in my life demanding my attention at the same time. And so when I landed back on my day job with a myriad of points-in-process running through my head and with an ever-growing fear that I am just not going to make it, that I am going to kill myself - that I am going to die with all of this because if I increase the amount of time I work it will be away from sleeping and writing and that would be self-compromise and a suicide, and I refuse to do that – I ended up at a point where there was no thought, no conscious trigger, but a movement from within me as my physical existence or whoever I am beneath all this that seemed to say: Enough. And I took two deep breaths and it was like a dam breaking, I cried and gasped for air, and I felt like I was facing myself for the first time in days, as if I took myself on the palm of my hand and finally carried my shaken self as if I had been shouting for my own attention for all of these days and finally stopped neglecting myself.

This is interesting because I have seen how this need of my own attention has been reflected into a wish that someone would show me attention – someone else – anyone – which has then been morphed into blame (“why does he never ask me how I'm doing”, “why do I give everything and get nothing in return”, “why does no one care about me”) - when it is obvious that I am just projecting my needs on others and casting the responsibility of my well-being on other people when it is in fact MY responsibility to take care of myself, to care about myself, to care for myself.

And so today I realized the importance of “having some me-time”, lol. And it is not just about dedicating some time off my day to myself solely (in which writing is a great tool), but to teach myself to have that me-time in every single breath. It is especially important at a time like this where I'd have the least time to spare for anything but work, because this me-time is what keeps me from falling apart under all this stress. I am moving at light-speed and if my rocket ship ain't well maintained all the time the screws are gonna come flying off and the ship will crumble! (lol, I'm totally giggling at this analogy because it RULES)

I commit myself to teach myself through consistency to gift myself each and every breath that I take – in practice meaning that I teach myself to be aware of each and every time I inhale and exhale and to direct each and every breath within and as myself, and that when and as I fall out of breath I forgive myself and try again, because I see, realize and understand that this can only ever be done through consistent practice and self-support – and I commit myself to practice for as long as it takes to build this into an automation, so that my self-aware and self-directed breathing is as automatic as my thoughts are to me now.

I commit myself to realize when and as I breathe that each and every breath I take is in fact my gift to myself as Life.

I commit myself to keep on dedicating a segment of my day, at least 1 hour but preferably more, to writing this Journey to Life blog where I gift myself my own attention and support to whatever I am processing at that moment.

I commit myself to realize that each and every breath that I do not live within and as self-awareness is in fact self-compromise because my attention and focus is then projected elsewhere, which is when I lose myself and suffocate myself.