I choose not to be available, I choose to set boundaries. Retreat until I gather the strength to clear the crowd. Hide from the world and hide the world from myself. Until I feel I can re-emerge, strong, purified, calm and ready.
There are too many stimuli around us. Too much information, mostly unnecessary, burdensome, useless. Too much news, pictures, words, sounds.
I imagine the brain as a drawer into which I put all this nonsense. It gets crowded, I can’t close it, I can’t find what I need in it, things fall out of it, new ones can’t be inserted, everything is cluttered and chaotic.
I choose to switch off sometimes.
I choose not to be available.
Doing ordinary housework slowly and dedicatedly and just thinking about it.
I choose to cook lightly, cut the vegetables by hand and think only of those vegetables and how to cut them as nicely as possible.
Walk along the river and look at the water and the people and notice what the colors of the clouds are.
Drink coffee, squint, smell that wonderful scent and feel every sip.
To silence myself. Listen to myself. Retreat until I gather the strength to clear the crowd.
I choose to set boundaries. Disconnect myself from the power supply. Learn to keep quiet.
Keep quiet. Not everyone can. It’s a long way to get there.
Touch myself within myself. Check how am I. How really am I doing.
Get away from the world and take the world away from me. To gather strength, to gather energy.
Until I feel I can re-emerge, strong, purified, calm and ready.
Mischievous Words by Marta 
I love this and this resonates so deeply with me. I do this, but I’ve never been able to put what I’m doing into words until now. Especially the part about cutting the vegetables and paying attention to only the vegetables you’re cutting. I believe that falls under he category or mindfulness. Something I’ve been trying to conceptualize for a while. ✨
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Lovely post! It also really resonated with me because I frequently choose to pull away for a while and be with just myself.
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Adore this, I do the same I frequently need to sequester myself, to just switch off and unplug. Sometimes I just need to refresh my soul with silence and calm.
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This is a great post. It’s necessary to take a break from life itself sometimes! Thank you for sharing!! Definitely something we should all be trying to do!
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I totally get this, I just unplug sometimes to gather myself and re-emerge, I choose calmness, silence, do what’s best for me
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This is simply great. Sometimes we need time to switch off– time to truly live and pay attention to ourselves.
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bravo you for being able to unplug. often i will avoid my phone for the evenings and folks will be so confused why i didn’t respond to a text or etc. but you’re so right — it can be so refreshing and helpful in clearing one’s head.
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I like those times too. The moments we can call our own. Sigh. Starring blankly sometimes is very relieving
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I came back today to share this with a friend. I have never been able to explain to them when I switch off that it isn’t personal. This post has helped me share with my friends that sometimes I just cannot be available. It hit home and my ‘friends’ get it now. I am not ignoring them like they think I am just switching off.
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Sometimes we need a breather in our life, feel the breeze, notice the color of the sunrise and all small things in life. In this busy world, we need to pause and appreciate the beauty of nature.
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It really matters that you sometimes need to choose you and what’s good for you. If you let everyone get to you, it can be chaos and madness.
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I love this sometimes you need to unfollow people in real life I’ve already do that and always love yourself.
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I remember back when I was still in the corporate, I deliberately set my Skype status as offline, just to hide on many toxic coworkers, lol. And I only available via email. It gave me peace of mind.
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Love this. How we spend our time is so important right now especially. As you said doing whats right as individuals serves us well and is healing. Take care and stay healthy.
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There is a need to disconnect and disengage when you just don’t have the energy for things beyond yourself. This is why self care is very important. Before we can take care of others, we have to make sure that we are taken care of first. Clearly nothing wrong here.
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Wow I needed this, thanks for sharing!
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YES!! You know what annoys me? People who think they HAVE to be available for work stuff 24/7! Our working hours and breaks are set in the law as well as in our contracts, and anyone who gives up their own time against the law and their contract is a twat. Every time I go for lunch, my phone goes crazy with work stuff. But I’m having lunch, and nothing is so important that it couldn’t wait for an hour (unless you work in intensive care in a hospital, of course). So I turn my notification off and ignore them until I get back to my desk.
I choose to keep my time to myself. There are people who’d argue with me on this but no, if you sacrifice your own time for the sake of work, which doesn’t pay you according to your input anyway, then you’re peeing in your own cereals.
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Sometimes, we need to back out,retreat or keep distance from people or circumstances. We need to rest in the meantime to gain strength to fight again.
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I loved your post and it resonates with me in so many levels. More and more I’m making the choice to give my time very selectively and only to those that show me love and happiness to be sharing that time with me. I switch off distractions and rather read a good book or just enjoy a coffee in my sunny kitchen. Thank you for sharing!
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Beautifully written! I have to switch off at least once a week lately for my sanity. Life has been more than stressful. I’m better overall if I take care of myself first.
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For me, it’s okay to switch off sometimes and let ourselves breathe and reorganize so we can do things again. Thank you for sharing with us your feelings.
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I compared my brain to an overflowing drawer just the other day – but you put it so much better! Going to use this post in the future when I can’t describe the feeling of having too much going on.
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We’re same. Sometimes, I take time to relax and meditate to bring back that energy again. We really need take time to rest.
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Love your post! It is really important to “switch off” and reflect. Definitely gonna share this!
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What a lovely post!! It’s so important to step back sometimes! Thankyou for sharing 🤍
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Good for you!
This is my biggest struggle during this lockdown, that I can’t ever be alone within my house and the weather hasn’t been cooperating for a walk or run and alone time.
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I love this! I choose to switch off sometimes too. You have really captured the importance of it here.
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I love this. It took me years to learn how to disconnect and how to say no.
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I really like this. There’ll be times where I’ll take a few days and make that time for myself. I’ll usually shut my phone off and just focus on what I need to.
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I choose to switch off sometimes too. A lot of times it’s really needed to be able to cope or deal with the real world.
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I really like this. It’s hard during the lockdown because your home life and your work life are so mixed up, there’s no physical separation between them. So, it’s even more important than ever to switch off and take some time for yourself.
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Deep… really detailed though, I like your style of writing!
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I do the same too. It really helps me to keep my sanity because the real world sucks sometimes.
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I love taking time for myself and tuning out the world around me… I feel it’s so important to relax and unwind by ourselves, a kind of meditation. I leave my cell at home or in the other room and make a point to not have it around me when I need silence, it makes people frustrated when they try to get ahold of me during those moments… but what can I say 😉
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I can totally relate to this post. It’s s important to set boundaries for yourself! Very well written 💖
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This is most definitely something I need to do soon. I feel like I’ve not switched off for ages and I need to take some time for myself to gain a little perspective on things 🙂
Louise x
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Honestly, this is SO important. We live at a time where social media and cell phones have us believing that we have to be connected to the world 24/7. However, to try to keep up a schedule like that will lead to burn out! We need to take that time to unplug, switch off or simply ‘not be available’ as you described. That ‘me’ time (whatever you’re doing) is key!
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