Moments of Calm

How has your week been?  Has it been calm and serene, or has it been filled with busy days and crazy nights.  Mine has had a fair sprinkling of both.  Working in a hospital doesn’t lead to too many moments of calm, but I have begun to some routines this week which I think have helped.

Reflections and Gratitude

Like most hospitals, the one I work in has a chapel, along side a couple of other ‘quiet rooms’ or rooms for reflection and contemplation.

This week completely unintentionally I found myself in front of the chapel and decided to go in.  Its not the first time I’ve been in.  I have often been known to shelter there after particularly gruelling situations the nature of my job sometimes leads to.  However, on this occasion, I walked in with no agenda other than the intention of taking a few minutes to be still and prepare myself for what I knew was going to be a hectic day.

It made such a difference to my day.  A few minutes to express gratitude, think about the important people in my life and focus on the day ahead (in that order), in a peaceful environment was exactly what I needed.  I have promised myself that this will become a regular feature of my week.

Brain Splurge

A more common phrase is Brain Dump, but I don’t like this, so I’ve devised my own phrase to describe the process of getting everything out of your brain in one big splurge.  I always have lots of things in my head. Ideas about things I want to do, or write, or create; places I want to visit, people I want / need to see and of course all the day to day living and things that need to be done to survive.  A few days ago I realised, I was full of ideas and thoughts but actually achieving little and feeling overwhelmed by all I wanted to make happen but wasn’t able to.  So after reading something by @abookishbaker, I was inspired to get it all out onto paper.  What followed was a happy half an hour sitting in the sunshine scribbling down absolutely everything that was on my mind, in a haphazard way.  I then put all these random thoughts into categories, and looked realistically at how and when I was going to achieve them.  What resulted was a set of lists which I have since found extremely helpful.  The whole process was so calming, I can’t tell you how much better and more in control I felt at the end of it.

Setting Limits on my Phone Use

This is something both myself and my husband have been doing this week.  Like so many people, we are aware of how much time we spend looking at our little screens. We agreed this week, we would use the settings on our phone to disable everything but messages and actual phone calls from 9pm until 6am.  It means that if we are watching TV together (which in itself is often quite rare) we are watching it fully rather than with one eye on the phone every time a notification comes up and it means if we are reading or chatting we are giving both activities our full attention.  We both agree its been a successful exercise and certainly a calming one, so we are set to continue!

Have a wonderful week filled with special moments of calm.