At about 8:29 pm, I saw 2 Facebook posts from Mona and Joshua about “Earth Hour“.
I didn’t know what it was but pretty quickly learned it was an hour, starting at 8:30, where everyone was supposed to shut their lights off to help decrease energy consumption. I quickly decided to take part in it.
My intent was to do something good for the world, but man – it felt really good to have to be home and away from the computer for a bit.
It seems like lately if I’m home and don’t have a friend over, I’ve gotten into a habit of wanting to check my email all the time. I think I trained myself when Burn Your To Do List was in constant crisis mode, and I haven’t been able to reel myself out of it.
After I visited Elysia and Andrew in Mexico (AMAZING time there btw), I thought I had kicked the habit… but no such luck. I came back to the computer in full-force.
Earth Hour was super-awesome, though. In one hour of solitude (after not allowing myself to check email via my cell – I was tempted!) I was able to:
1. Write out a few pages of ideas for a marketing concept I’d been completely stuck on all week
2. Understand how to approach a situation better
3. Do some deep stretching (made myself to go through poses that are normally uncomfortable, and feel super-loose now)
4. Get some good meditation in
…and I’m feeling GREAT.
Before BYTDL, I used to make sure that I shut my computer off at least an hour before bed. It helped me go to bed calmly (they say you should never go to bed while your mind is still in “alert” mode). This was another habit I lost once I felt I needed to be at the computer all the time to fix any crisis. It was really quite fantastic too though – helped me make sure to get reading or journaling time in (both two things I really love to do).
I am getting back into that now… and I am also hereby proclaiming “Earth Hour” for myself once a week (so maybe I’ll call it “Rachel Hour”. ;)). I will be shutting off all my lights, computer, and taking time out for me. It’s probably going to be one of productive hours (if not THE most productive hour) of my week. Not only will I be able to stop my automatic “get to work!” tape and think about things in a different view, but I’ll be able to replenish myself.
This is the first step in getting back to pre-Burn Your To Do List Rachel. Next step is re-joining all my classes (or trying fun new ones). Soon after that, I will conquer the world. :)
If you did Earth Hour, how did you feel about it?
