If... you wake up feeling low, lowly or low down, allow yourself the luxury of the experience. Allow yourself to remember that you are human and that life goes on... Avoid the things you do to deny where you are. Simply be! Perhaps you need the rest. Be present with yourself and what you feel for at least 48 hours. After that, pick yourself up, spruce yourself up in anticipation of the next wave of feeling...
-- Iyanla Vanzant

You could really use a break today – a break from having to get out of bed and enter the world as one of its working class. You could use a break from traffic, the office, school, responsibilities, parenthood, honeyhood – name it, you could use the break from it. Yeah, it’s only Tuesday and, no, nothing’s wrong. Today, you just don’t feel like being on.

Today, you’re just not “up.” Oh well, so what? Don’t you at least deserve one day. For gosh sakes, aren’t you always up and on? Aren’t you always moving and shaking, taking the world by storm, and blazing mighty trails? Weren’t you the one last week that single-handedly managed that awesome task everybody else balked at? Wasn’t it you who made sure all the I’s were dotted and the T’s were crossed? Wasn’t that you? Yeah, that was you. You need a break. Go ahead and take it.

Well yeah, you’re critical to the team and if you’re not present and accounted for, sure, you’d be missed. But, geez, let them miss you. Let the work go undone for one day. You can guarantee the work will be there tomorrow sitting right where you left it. And if it does move or somebody else decides to do it, the better for you, right? You need a break. Go ahead and take it.

Now don’t start making a list of the things you should be doing. We all know it never ends for you. Which is why you have to take a break today. Take it.

Please don’t start feeling guilty. You’re not going to leave anybody hanging and the building will not collapse in your absence. If you miss this one day, your children will still eat, your car note will still get paid, and the house will still be in your name. And nobody’ll think you’re a lazy bum. If they do, so what? Let them do all you do everyday then they’ll see that you just need a break. Go ahead, take a break.

And when you take a break, do nothing. That’s right, nothing. Don’t even break dead leaves off your plants. Lie in bed or sit in your favorite chair or spot on the couch. Read or watch court shows all day; catch up on your favorite soap if you want to. Eat what you want to (within reason, of course. You don’t want to lose your mind.) and wear whatever you feel like. Or be butt naked. Stretch out, and even though you’re not feeling “up,” celebrate the fact that you’re alive and have the luxury of taking a break so that you can feel whatever you want to feel today.

Tomorrow (or Thursday) when your “up” and “on” have returned, you can take pride in knowing that you honored yourself by slowing down and taking a break. If you’re just not feeling it today, be good to yourself by taking the day off, minding the business of your Self, and making no apologies about doing nothing but staying in tuned with you. You’ll thank yourself later.

Come on, take a break.

Sadiqqa © 2007