For Inner Peace: Sit Down

I was supposed to head to NYC last night for a show my friend was performing in. I planned out an outfit, did my hair and GPS'd the location. I rushed to complete some writing, met a few deadlines and prepared to hop in the shower.

Then, it started pouring. 

I put away my outfit, told my friend I wouldn't make it and sat on my couch to listen to the rain. I used this as God's way of telling me to sit down — because sometimes we need to. 

Queens work...hard! So hard that sometimes we forget to rest; we forget to nurture ourselves. We sacrifice sleep and mental clarity for branding strategies and success stories. We forfeit meals for meetings. We forgo happy hours for overtime hours. We overindulge in our professional pursuits and let our personal life, health and mental wellness, fall by the waste-side. 

We tire ourselves out trying to leave lasting imprints on those we cross paths with. We sleep less and work more, to ensure success and professional fulfillment. We endure work and life, while trying to maintain an effective work-life balance - that of which is a challenge itself.

But, it's okay to be tired and it's okay to sit down. 

It's okay to step back from the crowd to breathe. It's okay to steal a moment for yourself - to use one minute of all those you give away, to cater to you. It's okay to spend all Sunday in bed watching Judge Mathis re-runs. It's okay to cancel a dinner engagement to cook yourself a homemade meal and enjoy it alone. It's okay to ignore a few work e-mails and text messages to bask in the beauty of your solitude. 

We have a desire to be everything to everybody and get everything done. We have deadlines to meet, friends to grab drinks with and second jobs to head to. We have personal dreams we're fueling and support to give others fueling their own. We have groceries to buy, events to attend and networks to grow. And the last thing we want to allocate time to is a break. 

Sit down. 

You don't have to be everywhere, all the time.

You don't have to respond to every e-mail all at once. You don't have to be all things to all people. Sometimes you can just be you, with yourself, in your own space. You can detach from the world and sit in the confines of wherever you choose and enjoy you. You can take take a break to take care of yourself, the way you've been taking caring of others. You can hog your seconds, minutes and days to dedicate to your own empowerment. 

You can disengage. You can be still. And, you can sit down and listen to the sound of the rain. 

You've earned it.