The Necessity of Planned Breaks

I used to be the girl who pushed herself to the absolute limit. After having a a complete and total meltdown, I’d beat myself up for failing to manage stress well, and wonder how I ended up all mangled and worn out. Then, out of desperation, I’d go into total seclusion, where I’d sleep my way back to health and recovery, so I could emerge renewed and ready to do it all again. After repeating that cycle on a fairly regular basis throughout my 20s and 30s, I decided I was sick of living that way.

Enter my 40s.

This is a decade of wisdom and courage and insight (and also weird, wire-like hair and large leg veins and short-term memory loss). These days, I rarely push myself to exhaustion and then wonder what the heck happened. I mean, I still have the occasional meltdown, but, when I do, I know EXACTLY what happened. I didn’t properly balance my chaos with quiet.

Now that I’m older and wiser (and veiny-er), I’ve discovered the necessity of planned breaks.

I look ahead to my day, my week and my year, and proactively and deliberately schedule periods of complete rest. Even when I’m not yet exhausted. Long before exhaustion has a chance to even creep up on me, actually, I’m penciling in silence, solitude, rest, and recovery.

And so, it’s time for me to take an extended blogging and social media break.

(I always get so nervous and excited and scared when I announce this!)

I’ve been anticipating this break for weeks, toying around with different versions of a “break.” Even as I’m typing this, I’m wrestling with what the break should look like. In the past, I’ve scheduled guest posts. Other times, I’ve done a “Best of The Year” series. Still, other times, I’ve gotten off line completely until January.

Because my entire online life is interconnected, it’s impossible for me to break from only one medium (say, Facebook or blogging) without all the others being affected, too. It’s hard to truly “break” from anything when I’m still receiving notifications and comments. It sucks me in completely. That’s no break!

After years of trial and error, I find my writing is richer and my ministry more meaningful when I live periods of time completely away from social media. Who wants a weak and meaningless life, anyway? Not me.

I’ll be gone completely from on-line stuff until January 2016. I’ll be tending to super-important things while I’m away:

I’m looking forward to doing all the holiday-type things with the fam.
I have a ridiculous amount of books on my nightstand begging to be read.
I have several dangling projects I’d like to complete around the house.
Pumpkin bread!
And I promised Elliana we’d watch Elf at least once, every day, from now through Christmas.

So, bye-bye for the remainder of 2015.

I pray you all have a Well-Balanced Thanksgiving, a Peaceful and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will see you right back here in January.