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Health & Fitness

Compassion Speaks: Making Space for Compassion - Time Out

by Susan Becker

Somewhere between the time I was an elementary school student and now, "time out" was invented.  Not the time out in a basketball or football game, when someone recognizes the need for re-grouping.  The time out I'm talking about is also a break in the action, usually out of desperation, as in "Go to the Time Out Room and think about how you're acting!" " or "Sit in the Time Out Chair until you're ready to behave."  Taken to the extreme, time out can mean one is banished from this place, separated from the tribe.  The principal's office!  Or worse, suspended!

Needing Time Out
Classroom settings, particularly those in which adults are hopelessly outnumbered, come to mind.  When neither self-awareness nor  the vocabulary to name  fear, boredom, anxiety, physical discomfort, or worry is available, and gentle or not-so-gentle correction doesn't' work, time out happens.   I'm aware that sometimes time out is necessary for the sanity and - even safety – of the one in charge, for the common good, and probably for the one directed to it.   Whatever configuration it takes, it's not the place to which one wants to be sentenced.

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At some point, though, the concept takes on respectability.   It's called vacation, a mental health day, retreat, quiet time at home.  The space becomes Aruba, the mall, a walk in the woods, a comfortable chair.  The difference between then and now is recognition that something is not quite right. 

Running on Empty
Today most of us can make the connections.  We have names for the negative energies that work on us.  We know when we're running on empty; It shows up in lots of ways:  bumps in our relationships, procrastination, our miserable attitudes toward the task at hand, a sense of dread even before our feet hit the floor.  When we still don't get it, things like our aches and pains, GI distress, and fatigue do it for us.

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Once we have some insight, the vocabulary to describe what we experience, and options for self -care, our challenge is to connect the dots . . . not always easy in a social construct that still rewards coming in early, staying late, and working weekends, and continues to seduce us no matter how enlightened we think we have become.  The archetype of the noble hero-martyr for the cause is alive and well!

How well do we know, not just in our heads, but in our deepest selves, that it doesn't need to come to this?   When was the last time you called in well?  Turned off your cell phone and spend 15 minutes alone in silence?  Took a walk around the block?  Spent a few hours in a quiet place where they feed you, make sure you've got something to read if you want it, and leave you alone?  Ran away from home for a day or two?  None of these are luxuries any more than decent nourishment and adequate sleep are.

Time Out!
The last thing any of us needs or wants is a boss or a co-worker or a family member or friend telling us we need time out.  And it doesn't need to come to that.   With a little experimenting, most of us can find a workable combination of practice that will, for the most part, keep us in pretty good balance.  It can always be tweaked as needed.

The week before Christmas, I put myself in one of my favorite time out rooms.  It is a 20x20 room in a small retreat house.  About 50 yards east is the dining room, and the chapel is a one minute walk up the path.  I do this once a year or so because, if I don't, my day-to-day concerns and responsibilities start to seem heavier than they really are, and, even with 65 years between me and kindergarten, I'm still capable of acting out.  I do a lot of sighing, tend to sleep badly, and my favorite phrase becomes "It's all too much."  I thought maybe translating it into Latin:  Nimis est!" would make a difference.  It didn't.

Those who know talk about a "spiritual practice" that brings "balance."   Sometimes I frame it that way;  but usually it's just about doing what is necessary to arrive at the end of the day having met  people and challenges with grace and humor.  It's not all that complicated.



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