by Jan Marie Dore, Professional Certified Life Coach

One of the crucial steps toward living an authentic, self-actualized life is spending quality time alone. This is not always easy in today’s frantic 24/7 world, but I know from my own practice of yoga that a daily, routine practice that assists us in connecting with our own soul is vital to our emotional, spiritual, and physical health. Here are some thoughts on incorporating "me time’ into your schedule.

One of the enemies in the face of developing a healthy and vibrant life-style and charting a new, self-directed course is "busy-ness’. Effecting change in your life comes with establishing a regular routine. Personal practice is a period in the day that you set aside just for yourself. This is personal time in which you can develop a level of peace in yourself and come to understand the most important thing in your life - your mind and heart.

To experience this, find ways to create quiet time for yourself and time for creative silence each day. Take at least fifteen minutes a day to be in complete silence with no distractions or interruptions. You don’t need to do anything during this time.

Practicing silence, or quiet contemplation, allows clarity, order and a sense of ease and peace to emerge. When you become comfortable with silence, you plug into an energy source, and invite a natural order into your life that doesn’t require as much of your effort and control.

Without a personal practice, life is often a series of mundane and sometimes disorienting moments in which you are living on the surface. When you commit yourself to a daily personal practice, life becomes an experience of unfolding wisdom, like the blossoming of a flower. During this important time of the day, more and more of your own wisdom is revealed to you.

Your personal practice time does not have to last for hours; a quick ten minutes is good, and half an hour is excellent. The important thing is that there is a period in every day in which you take time to notice that you are living, breathing, being capable of connecting deeply with others, and developing qualities in yourself such as wisdom, patience, and compassion.

You might feel as though taking this time for yourself is selfish, yet in order to create a high quality life, you need the space and time to simply be with yourself. After a period of creative silence, it may take you less time to accomplish tasks. Your true values and priorities emerge and take precedence over competing demands on your time. You’ll be clearer on what you want and how you will go about obtaining it. You will get answers to questions you’ve been thinking about.

Connecting daily with the feelings in your heart and soul and what you love to do will lead you further down the path to self-fulfillment. Make it part of your routine. Time alone, or time spent in a creative or meditative practice will give you perspective, allow you to hear your own inner voice, and bring you serenity. You can simply enjoy a quiet sense of contentment, knowing that you have set aside the time to do something incredibly kind for yourself.

"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning... a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be."
    ~ Joseph Campbell

Make appointments with yourself to stretch, dance, walk in nature, read, journal, do yoga or tai chi, play a sport, paint or draw, meditate, focus on your breathing -- whatever practice brings you more alive and connects you to the deepest part of yourself.

Here are some ideas to start integrating daily time for you. Schedule time in your calendar set aside just for you and your chosen personal practice.

• List ten things you’d love to do if you had the time
• Pick one of your ten things, and find the time to do it
• Spend 30 minutes planning a daily activity that will bring you more joy or peace
• If there’s an artistic practice (painting, drawing, singing, writing, etc) you’ve been neglecting, pick it up again
• Establish a regular routine for a daily personal practice
• Take at least fifteen minutes a day to be in complete silence with no distractions or interruptions
• Practice listening deeply to yourself, listening to the voice of your soul. What gentle urgings or longings is it communicating to you?
• Start each day with an intention and a commitment to achieving the positive shifts you want in your life, and watch for miracles to happen!

© 2005 Jan Marie Dore. All Rights Reserved.

This article is written by Jan Marie Dore, Professional Certified Life Coach, Speaker and Writer. She has been a practitioner and, more recently, a teacher of yoga and meditation for more than 20 years. She incorporates the practices of wellness, centering, breath, mindfulness, creative alertness, self reflection, cultivating awareness of the now, and creative "time out" into her coaching and speaking philosophy. She aspires to show others ways to access their deeper selves, find the deeper underlying reality of who they really are, and design their lives from the inside out.

For free resources and programs on work-life balance and living your best life, visit Jan’s website at http://www.janmariedore.com.

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