Hear Our Voice

Take it from me, this is tough.  It is so much easier to teach than to do.  And when your very nature, is of an “entrepreneurial” design with no pre-existing barometers of success, limits, or boundaries, like so many are today, the concept of “downtime” is a tough one, even for someone who spends so much time thinking about, writing about, guiding others to practice it, as I do.  I want so desperately for you to know and understand at your heart’s deepest level that your worth is already infinite.  That the gift of a religious sensibility is not first and foremost obligation, but gratitude, awe and wonder.  And celebration and joy and connection and energy and love, so much love. 

Wow is it hard to stay there.  Life so totally seems to get in the way.  This “practice“ of downtime isn’t about relaxation or leisure or vacation – I would argue it’s about bringing everything that looms large and menacing back into perspective.  Because if you’re one of those people for whom, crisis-mode feels like a singularly most important way to feel alive, aren’t you tired?  Aren’t you totally exhausted?  And in the process of always staying on the lookout and presuming a crisis of every next moment in your life, who are you missing?  I would suggest there are people in your life, very close to you, whom you have welcomed into your life because they aren’t the “crisis-type.”  How often do you see them?  How often, because they are not yelling “Fire!” do they get your attention?  Your focus? 

Your magnificently honed ability to throw on your cape and fix and solve and mend and also brood and worry, and disconcert yourself could perhaps be re-purposed to shower love upon those people committed to you, close to you, out of a spiritual practice of gratitude for what you already have, for what is already going well, for what really represents the truth of your life. 

If forever one’s gaze is focused “out there,” or “back then,” THIS very moment passes you by until….So downsize your fears and your worries and concerns and dive into a practice of Downtime.  If you do, you’ll then have a much better sense for what a real crisis looks like.

With love,

Rabbi Scott