do you have ten minutes?

I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed this week.

With life. With projects and all of the things I want to be and do.

Usually I would make a list. Go into attack mode. How am I going to solve this? Break it down. Make it happen.

But this time, I decided to do the complete opposite.

I took a glass of water out onto my porch and sat still for ten minutes.

It was extremely difficult. The mental tally was going of all the things I needed to be doing of all the things that I could be doing. It only takes ten minutes to reply to an email (thoughtfully), unload the dishwasher, start a new load of laundry, check to see what’s going on this weekend, read an inspiring article.

Ten minutes. You can do so much in ten minutes.

I forced myself to sit there. I set a timer on my phone.

When something popped into my head that I felt compelled to remember or to look up or make a note of, I reached for my phone.

But then I said, no, it can wait and put my phone back down.

I reached for my phone seven times in ten minutes.

I wasn’t trying to meditate. That wasn’t the purpose of the exercise. I know that meditation is helpful and that being able to clear your mind and connect with your body is an invaluable skill.  I do that in regularly in yoga. It is worth noting that most of my at-home meditation attempts result in napping which also comes highly recommended.

But during this ten minutes I wasn’t trying to focus or reel in my thoughts. I let them wander and go wherever they like.

I can’t explain why or how this worked, but after hitting pause for that ten minutes I felt remarkably less harried.

There are moments in the day when I get this panicky feeling rising up from my belly to my chest where I don’t know how everything is going to get done. When everything seems a little too loose. All the shoes are untied and someone is going to trip. Something is going to slip.

So today when this feeling started, I tried it again. I took my ten minutes on the porch letting my mind go wherever it wanted.

And what do you know? The same result. The feeling passed. I did nothing when every cell in my body wanted to do something.

Two ten-minute time outs does not a scientific study make. But if you ever get that feeling, it might be worth a shot.

I mean seriously, you have ten minutes don’t you?