I’ve got back from giving a three day managment skills course – Great group, so very enjoyable. I’m on my own right now and it’s just struck me how much I NEED to be on my own after spending three days away. Training in itself can be quite exhausting, you give out so much energy, you’re “on stage” and the attention is on you for most of the time, so it’s vital to recharge your batteries.
But how many of us don’t consider how much of our core energy is being sucked away in our daily interactions with people? How many people don’t consider the importance of “me time”, of being on your own, of only doing what you feel like doing regardless of the rest of the world. I would say that this “me time” is as important to us as the food we eat and the air we breathe. In my case, my quality time alone actually NOURISHES me and I definitely have a sense of being more together as though the centre of me becomes more solid.
The society we live in is constantly calling us – our families want to be with us, so do our friends, we have work commitments and we also have the pressure now of our social networks. We are bombarded and buffeted about by outside pressures and expectations, we are constantly giving these relationships our priority and then we wonder why we feel unfulfilled, stressed and somehow not “together”. If we actually said “no” to some of these social and family demands on us, we would find that we start to feel stronger. There really does come a time when we have to say no. There comes a time (often subconsciously and in forced circumstances) when we have to give the most important person in our lives the attention it deserves – ourselves.
Being alone gives us the chance to renew energy so that when we are interacting with everyone else we feel strong, we have a better sense of our own identity and consequently have more to give the people who we are with in that moment.
I’m sure you can think of people you know who seem “whole”, who are sure of themselves and have clarity around where they are in life. And I’m sure that if you were to ask them, they would tell you how important their “me time” is to them and how it positively contributes to their success in life in general.
So, if you phone me to meet up over the week end and I’ve already been out twice already, I’m going to have to turn you down – nothing personal, I’m just giving priority to the most important person in my life, but which means that I’ll have more to contribute when we actually do meet up!
