Book Worm Wednesday ~ Blog Hop

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Welcome back to our humble little monthly book hop. Please feel free to share our hop far and wide, and of course please feel free to link up with any and all book related posts! Really, anything you've been reading that has meant something to you, whether it be a humorous/thought provoking/touching/or just down right entertaining book, article, post...you name it, we want to hear about it. Reading is fun! It's great for the mind, the heart, the imagination. What have you been reading?

I've been doing less reading than I'd like to these days. The month of September has been a cyclone of homework assignments (the kids' and my own...I'm back in College, can I get a "Woot! Woot!"), kids sporting events, dance classes, my work as a Pilates/Yoga instructor, household maintenance and garden projects...there's more, but you get the idea. I'm still trying to find my groove. I'm certainly more organized than I was several years ago, having four kids is reason enough to force a free spirited woman into the comfort and safety of a more ritualistic, routine lifestyle. That being said, these last several weeks I'm feeling like Tamar needs to get her groove back!

On that note, yesterday I decided to take a Time Out, per the advice of a wonderful article I read on Zen Habits. Tuesdays are my least hectic days so it was the perfect time to sit down with my calendar and some blank paper and set to work on sorting myself out. "What are my priorities?" I asked myself, and I applied this question to every facet of my life: business, relationships, academic, parenting, spiritual, leisure. Then I had an epiphany...

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I am coming to find that leisure is truly important. More often than not we overlook leisure or put it at the bottom of our lists...lists that are so long that we can't possibly get to the bottom, and therefore whatever is down there almost never gets done at all. While our work, our relationships and all of the other facets of life that I mentioned can be very gratifying, I am finding that sitting with myself...alone...and being comfortable with that, not only comfortable but really enjoying that is hugely important. Leisure time can of course include loved ones (partners, kids, good friends) and that is a big part of sustaining health in the relationship department, but I am talking about loving yourself. Loving yourself enough to not just take time (and sometimes it really feels like you have to take it!!) but to make time for things that you alone enjoy...a massage, a hair cut, curling up with a good book or your guilty pleasure of reading gossip magazines, a yoga class, 5 minutes to yourself to do nothing. Whatever it is, when you make and take time for these solo pleasures, you are showing love to yourself and allowing yourself to be known...known by none other than wonderful, spectacular YOU.

Not only that, but when you know yourself and love that person that you are, you automatically become more capable in all other areas of your life. You become someone whom others can love more easily: you are no longer--knowingly or unknowingly--pushing them away because of underlying resentment or just a need to have "a moment, just one precious moment." When you know and love yourself, you become someone who can be counted on: in making time for yourself you also create more time for everyone/thing else since you no longer have to steal time away from those other people & things to fulfill a desperate need to do something, anything for yourself.

Finally, to wrap this whole discussion back around to books, I am excited today to crack open (digitally) a book that I have been given the opportunity to read on Kindle for a review. The book is much needed right now, it's called The Staying Organized Survival Guide, by Chloe Wilson, check back in November for my review and a giveaway in which you can get your own copy to download for FREE. :)

In the meantime, I'll be putting the strategies I learn into play, and doing the make/take of time for myself...hmmm...a massage sounds GREAT.

P.S. Don't forget to link up your posts below!

Tamar