Friday Five ~ quiet time

Rev. Pat Raube brings us today's topic from RevGalBlogPals:

"Our Friday Five is very simple today.  Share five ways you've learned to care for yourself when life becomes overwhelming.  What does the pastor do after a rough day in the office, or at meetings, or at a bedside, or even, in the pulpit?  Share your best five self-care strategies, and, with any luck, we all will learn at least one or two new ones."

1.  Time alone is especially necessary for an introvert.  I like to find a quiet place where I can escape into a good book.  It can be fiction or nonfiction, as long as it totally engages my attention.  That means serious study that intrigues me also renews my spirit.  My favorite caring-for-self that I've read today is from Tiffany, who wrote:

"As an Introvert on the MBTI (INTJ), I need LOTS of what I like to call Tiffy Time.  Therefore I’m always looking at my calendar and making sure I’ve booked some in.  I have no problem saying, 'I’m not available at that time,' even if the calendar is blank.  I’m not available BECAUSE the calendar is blank."

Perfect!  I had to learn to schedule "me-time" on my calendar.  I'm also INTJ on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and have been known to do the same thing.  When I need to, I can say, "I already have something scheduled for that day" (or time) — because I do.

2.  Playing the piano is a form of meditation for me.  I can pound out a loud melody to rid myself of anger and frustration, let my fingers dance to a playful tune when I'm down, or express something in a minor key when I'm feeling pensive.

3.  Sitting outside, listening to birds (and distant traffic?) can be a time of meditation.  In other words, I try to be mindful, as the Buddhists say.  I pay close attention to something I see or hear:  ants crawling over a crumb someone dropped, birds calling back and forth to each other, the brilliant color of a nearby flower as it sways in the slight breeze, the way shadows fall on the things around me.  I am most relaxed when I center myself in the moment and become present to myself and my world.

4.  Laughter is always good.  Do you remember that Abraham and Sarah laughed when told they'd be parents?  (Yes, they BOTH laughed — see Genesis 17:17 and 18:12.)  They named their son Isaac, whose name means laughter.  Buechner wrote a book about Jacob, son of Isaac, and called it.....

Son of Laughter by Frederick Buechner, 1993

And Norman Cousins laughed away his illness.  Though I read this book more than three decades ago, it made such an impact on me that I still tell people about it.  I even bought another copy of it.

Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins, 1979

Told that he had little chance of surviving, Cousins developed a recovery program incorporating megadoses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films.  "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported.  "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."  (from Wikipedia)

5.  As a Wordsmith, I enjoy playing with words — and even have a separate blog just to explore words in a playful way.  Joyful Noiseletter is "an exuberant newsletter to myself about joyful things, like words, which I enjoy."  And sometimes, this overlaps with #4, when I laugh at word jokes and cartoons.  Surely preachers will enjoy the "syn-sin" cartoon, right?  Today I learned about Mount Washmore.

Mary Beth says her "laundry goes un-noticed even when I am tripping over Mount Washmore."