conservation
In a moment | Issue 31
When I started writing these reflections, I wanted to share the practices that have helped me find a bit more calm and ease in my day-to-day life. Things I learned as a restorative yoga teacher as well as tools I honed working in a high-pressure job. These include breathing exercises, meditation, sunrise walks, and restorative yoga among other practices.
Each of these allows for rest, perhaps a resetting of the nervous system or a means to rebalance when life or work demands become a bit too much.
As I used these tools more regularly, I noticed a pattern emerge. A cycle revealed itself.
It would start with me extending my energy, which would lead to me overextending my energy, leading to a feeling of depletion or burnout; I would then turn to a restorative practice. However, when I felt renewed, I would simply restart the same cycle.
The renewal practices I engaged in seemed to only maintain this ongoing cycle. I realized I needed to add another layer to these restorative practices. I needed a way to disrupt this cycle of overextension.
Through reflection, I discovered the heart of the issue stemmed from how I viewed my own energy. I saw myself as a renewable resource that could be eternally recharged. However, there was something vital missing from this equation. I hadn't considered the primary currency that we as humans spend in life. The currency of time.
And time is not a renewable resource.
You cannot carve out more time, reclaim time. You cannot purchase, negotiate for, or access more time. You simply have the time allotted in your one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver would say.
When I started seeing the time that I had as limited, I recognized the importance of conservation. I became more selective in how I would spend my time, where I would spend my time, with whom I would spend my time.
I realized that if I'm engaging in practices that allow for restoration and then return to a way of being that is wasteful of my finite resources, the renewal only maintains a cycle of depletion.
And so, I invited a shift in thinking about my practices.
Rather than simply resetting, how can I invite conservation into these practices?
I view conservation in this context as setting boundaries or guidelines for the use of my limited resources. As I engage in a walk or a restorative yoga practice, I take a moment to pause and connect in with my energy. To see all the ways I may be overextending and negotiate new boundaries for myself. Create new terms for how I will reach out. By merging conservation with restoration, I'm creating the conditions for sustainable growth, movement, transition, and evolution.
To help you work with the concept of conservation, I have created a meditation focused on this very concept. A practice that invites you to draw back your energy and then form an agreement for how you will extend your energy back out.
Give this meditation a try and see what emerges.
How can you apply a conservationist lens to your time, to your energy?