279: Holly Worton ~ Downtime: Are You Getting It?

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I’m back again, with another solo episode! I have a problem with downtime: giving myself permission to “be lazy” as I often call it, even though I know that’s not what it is. You’ll have gathered by now that I do a lot of work with myself. I also consider my solo walks (especially those to sacred sites) to be work with the land.

I was in Avebury last week, from Thursday to Saturday, visiting all my favorite sites and receiving another story from the trees for my next book. I came back exhausted, even though I hadn’t really walked all that much. What’s more, I came back with the need to really go within and spend time working on my Druid lessons and do some journaling. Sunday was essentially a personal day, where I spent most of my time reading a couple of books and just relaxing. Monday and Tuesday I also felt the need to just integrate whatever energy stuff happened in Avebury, so I hopped on the computer to get some work done, and then I gave myself permission to just BE: to read, to relax, to rest.

But I have a lot of guilt around my “lazy days,” even though I know they’re an important part of the inner work that I do. In this episode, I talk about how to make sure that you give yourself permission to have downtime or integration time in your life.

Listen To This Episode

What You’ll Learn

What is downtime or integration time
Why we naturally need integration time for the inner work that we do
How do know when we need downtime: what are the signs?
How allowing ourselves to have downtime also helps us to slow down and avoid burnout
Why you may feel guilty around this and how to release the guilt
What to do in your downtime
Where to go in your downtime
Why you also may want to pay attention to where you are in your cycle

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Transcript

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Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 279. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Today, I am going to talk about downtime, do you get enough of it? Do you get any of it?

So, this is a topic that I have been thinking about for the last few days, and I brought it up in my Patreon Group and felt like I needed to go a little bit more in depth into it. It is something that is really important, and yet it is something that I feel really guilty about. I also brought this up this morning in my MasterGut group and I was not the only person experiencing this kind of guilt and uneasiness around downtime and integration time and so I thought that this might be useful to you. So, let’s get into it.

Downtime: what is it?

This all started because I was in Avebury, staying at the house, last week, it was Thursday through Saturday, I spent a lot of time walking the land and I collected one tree story for the book, but I was mostly just being outdoors and being at certain places, and there is one particular place where I just sat and kind of soaked up the energy, Swallowhead Spring. I was there for quite a while, longer than I usually go when I visit there, and it just felt like, even more than walking, I really needed to just sit in certain places and just be there (not all, but most of my favourite spots) and just sat there. I wasn’t necessarily meditating, I wasn’t necessarily doing any kind of energy work, it was like I felt I just needed to be in those places. And when I’m in Avebury, and when I am walking the land, and when I am going to these sacred sites, I feel like I am working at an energetic level, I don’t really understand what’s going on, I don’t know whether I am downloading energy, receiving energy. I don’t fully understand it, but I know I am doing something, because I am always really hungry, and I am always really need meat, like beef, like really kind of high calorie, dense, grounding kind of food and lots of sleep to recover. So, I knew something is going on, but I don’t consciously understand it.

So anyway so I was there doing the energy stuff that I don’t understand and then I got back on Saturday afternoon and did some work, didn’t get much done, Sunday was just a personal day, that was very much a lazy whatever-I-want-to-do day. So, I spent a lot of time reading a couple of books and just relaxing. And then Monday and Tuesday, I got some work done in the mornings, but I also really felt like I needed to spend some time with myself, just be, read, relax and rest and then yesterday, which was Tuesday, I started to feel really unsettled. And I get this sensation, every once in a while, I haven’t really been able to pinpoint, I know it usually happens at a certain point in my cycle, but not always and not necessarily at that point. So, in summary, {laughing} I feel like I am not being 100% clear here, so for the first couple of days I felt like I was kind of integrating the energy that I had received when I was in Avebury, and then yesterday with that unsettled feeling, I don’t know whether I was still integrating stuff or what was going on. It got to the point where I didn’t want to read, I didn’t want to take bath, I didn’t want to do anything, I didn’t want to meditate, I didn’t want to listen to a guided journey, I didn’t want to do anything. So I just thought: I am just going to watch some Netflix, and so I just did. And that just kind of kept my mind busy and distracted, which I think is a really important part of allowing this integration to happen.

So, going back to my original question: downtime, integration time, what is it? So I think there are different ways of working, of kind of looking at this and working out what this is for you. So, downtime, could simply be rest and relaxation time that you need so that you don’t get burnt out, we all need it. We all need personal time, we all need selfcare, we all need those kind of lazy, relaxing days. But I think what I am thinking about here, is something that’s a little bit more, for those of us who do I lot of inner work, a lot of mindset work, of energy work, we may need time to integrate all that work. And I have talked before on this podcast about how I will go through kind of natural ebbs and flows when I do this work with myself, so for a couple of days, a couple of weeks, or x amount of time I’ll do lots of mindset work, I will do lots of energy work, I will do lots of inner work with myself. And, then, I will just kind of naturally stop for a while and that could be a few days, it could be weeks, it could be a month, and I just naturally don’t do anything, I don’t feel drawn to do anything, I don’t even think about it. And, to me, that is my system just naturally allowing itself time to integrate all the work that I have done. In the same way that I needed some time to integrate all the energy work that I was doing from Avebury. So that’s what I mean when I talk about downtime, or integration time, we naturally need this integration time for all the inner work that we do, whether you realise you are doing it, or not. You also need downtime to avoid burnout, as it really helps us to slow down, take care of ourselves and just be.

So, how do you know when you need downtime, what are the signs? So, for me, it is just the sense of feeling lazy, and that’s why I often call this my ‘lazy time’. And I know that’s not the best word for it, because it does indicate the sense of guilt that I often have with downtime or integration time, but there you have it. I just often feel lazy, I can’t focus, I can’t get anything done, sometimes it takes me a while to identify that, and so I will sit in front of my computer and I will just be browsing the Internet, or playing games on my phone, doing stuff that is not my normal work, it is not writing, it is not answering emails, it is not working on my website, it is not creating content. It is nothing productive, except it kind of is, because what it does is it keeps my conscious mind occupied, so that this integration stuff can happen in the background.

Now, I have encountered this concept a lot, over the years, my business coach Lisa Wechtenhiser, who also does readings and all kinds of powerful work and is really good about helping you have deep, unwavering trust in yourself, that’s her thing and that’s what she has really helped me in addition to business stuff. She would always say that when she is playing, I think it was Candy Crush she used to play, one of those games, she always said that she knows when she is playing Candy Crush or whatever game it was that she was playing, that it was her integration time, that it was time for her to get the downloads and integrate the work that she had done, have stuff happening in the background that wouldn’t necessarily happen during the day. It was like she needed to occupy her conscious mind so that this stuff could happen kind of underneath. And it is a concept that I have also heard from my former spiritual teacher who would often say, at gatherings he would sit and tell stories, tell jokes, and he would often say that that’s not what he was there for, that while we were sitting there laughing at his jokes, and listening to his stories, and kind of being inspired by him, he was doing energetic stuff in the background and kind of slipping stuff into our minds {laughing} like good stuff, because our conscious minds were occupied with the story, or the joke, or whatever. So, I think this is a really important concept to be aware of, because it is so easy for us to think: oh, I’m playing scrabble on my phone, or I am watching Netflix, and I am being lazy. And sometimes it is avoidance and sometimes it is what we do to waste time or to procrastinate, but that’s not what I am talking about here. And you will know, if you are in touch with yourself you will know if you are doing this stuff to procrastinate, to avoid something that you want to do, or need to do, or should be doing, or if it is just that you need downtime, you will know, you will know and I am very much aware of the fact that most of the people in my life are going to be, I mean, yes, sometimes we self-sabotage, but also we can be very focussed and we can work quite hard, both with the inner work, the outer work, the practical work. And, we may not find it easy to give ourselves permission to be lazy of have this downtime or integration time and it is so, so, important.

So, give yourself permission to have this downtime and do whatever mindset work you need to do to make it happen. I have not done this yet, but I am going to make a mental note right now, to do some belief statements to give myself permission to have downtime. So, it could be something as simple as: I give myself permission to have downtime or integration time / It is safe and appropriate for me to have integration time / It is safe and appropriate to give myself time to be lazy. Whatever statements you want to create, or however it is that you do mindset work, but those are kind of the general concepts. Do the subconscious work you need to do to give yourself permission to have this integration time and I am very much aware that by telling you, or suggesting, that you do some mindset work that’s given your system more stuff to have to integrate, but that’s fine, for me this is a never-ending process of growing, identifying how I want to grow, and changing my mindset so that I can achieve those things, and become those things, and experience those things and then have the integration time, give myself the integration time, to integrate that stuff. So I hope that kind of makes sense.

So, what to do when you have this weird feeling you can’t focus, and you know you are not procrastinating, and you need the downtime or the integration time. So again you will know at the gut level whether you are just procrastinating or whether you need this integration time and part of the way to know that is just your intuition, your gut feeling, but the practical also way is: have you done much energy work, or mindset work, or anything like that lately? It was clear to me that I needed integration time because I had just spent three days in a place where I know deep energetic stuff happens, so that was obvious to me. So, what to do, whatever it is that keeps your conscious mind occupied, whatever it is that you feel drawn to do. And I suggest that you get out your journal and make a list of things that you can do in your integration time. I am going to read out a list of ideas, some of these things are going to appeal to you, some of these things aren’t going to appeal, if they don’t appeal don’t do them. There may be days when you need integration time and some things that normally give you that sense of downtime, or integration, or relaxation, will appeal and sometimes they won’t. You are going to need different things different days so, it is good to have a list so you can kind of pick and choose from that list and say: oh this is what I need today. So it could be Netflix, it could be watching films, it could be watching a series, it could be binge-watching something. It could be reading, especially fiction, because fiction helps you take your mind off practical stuff and learning stuff and it takes your mind into a world that is not like your world. So I think reading fiction especially can be really useful. Exercise, exercise especially repetitive stuff like exercises that you have to count, whether it is abs, or squats, or burpees, or running, running can really put me into a meditative state, so can walking. So any kind of exercise that either occupies your mind because you are counting something that you are doing, or that just puts your mind into that meditative state can be good, can give you that integrative time. You could listen to an entertaining podcast, and this is kind of like the fiction books vs non-fiction books, so maybe listen to a podcast that is not necessarily learning, that is maybe comedy or something that is entertaining rather than learning. However, you might find that listening to a learning podcast is good because it keeps your mind occupied and the stuff can happen in the background, I don’t know do what works for you. You could take a bath, you could take a bath with a book, you could take a bath without a book, you could take a bath with candles. Do what works for you.

Any kind of self care is good. There are baths, but also exfoliating and doing facial masks and that kind of thing, that kind of thing really felt good as I was kind of having my downtime, integration time. So it was like, Sunday especially, a combination of spa time, home spa time and reading. So do what works for you. You could meditate, you could listen to a guided meditation, you could go for a walk, you could play games like scrabble on your phones is good, or Candy Crush if you do that, some of the stuff that distracts your conscious mind so that the energetic stuff can integrate. And if you thought of anything else as I was reading off that list, write it down, this is an exhaustive list there will be other things, gardening, gardening is good. Gardening is really lovely because you are really focussed on what you are doing. So any kind of task…cooking (!) cooking is good. Any task like that where you are really focussed on what you are doing, means that this integration stuff can go on in the background.

And where to go when you are doing this? This could be wherever you want, go outdoors, go indoors, when I am feeling like this, I feel like I really need to avoid my office, it is like I am allergic to my office, I just can’t be in that space where I do work. So, sometimes I will go for a little walk, sometimes I will go downstairs and sit in my chair with my cats. I generally need to get out of my normal working environment. So, go wherever you need to go. If you are cooking obviously you are going to be in the kitchen, if you are taking a bath obviously you are going to be in the bathroom, somethings are obviously, but get a feel for what you need: do you need to be outdoors? Do you need to be indoors? And just feel into that and do it. The last few days have been really cold, so I really haven’t felt like going out much, I really felt like sitting with the heater and even my hot water bottle {laughing} I have been filling up with hot water during the day and sitting with it in my lap as a I read which has been really nice because my cats like it because it is warm, so they will often sit in my lap. And that’s just a really lovely experience for me. I really like sitting in my green chair, downstairs, with everything warm and my cat purring in my lap, it is very much a self-care thing for me, but it really helps me in those integration times.

So, do what’s right for you, go where you need to go. And, also, if you are a woman pay attention to where you are in your cycle, because you might be in one of those weeks where you naturally feel drawn to go within rather than to go without. So, like I said, I know there are certain point in my cycle where I feel like this and those are generally the last week as I am approaching the bleed and then during the bleed, so check where you are in your cycle. I am in week four, and so it is also kind of natural for me to have what I call lazy days where I want to just go within my little cage and not do work, but more kind of inner stuff. And that also is good for stuff like this podcast because it helps me to be more reflective on what’s going on on the inside, so I can share that with you, but I wouldn’t necessarily feel drawn to doing client calls on these days.

So, I hope that all makes sense, and I hope you find this interesting and useful and I hope that you will use this as an opportunity to give yourself permission to have downtime, to have integration, and to trust that you will know when it is that you are procrastinating and when it is that this is integration time that you need. If you have any questions please let me know, you can drop me a line and let me know what your questions are and let me know what you thought of all this. My email is: [email protected] or you can join the community on Patreon, if you go to http://patreon.com/hollyworton and join me there. Like I said I first mentioned this in the Patreon and I am often sharing little things that I think are useful to the group in addition to the mindset work and energy group that I am doing in there.

So, if you are interested membership starts at just $1 a month and you get exclusive access to stuff that I don’t do anywhere else, including special offers for discounted 1:1 sessions and special packages for services that I won’t be offering anywhere else. I just put up a brand new package at a very discounted rate, and people are starting to snap that up and I did the first session today and it was fantastic. So, I look forward to doing more of those.

So, that is all for now, thank you so much for listening and if you enjoyed this episode you could also leave a quick review on Apple podcasts it would mean the world to me.

Next weeks episode: I hope will be one with the fabulous Jo Casey, we started recording today and then had a little bit of an interruption, so we will pick up recording hopefully next week, which means that I should be able to have the episode for you next week. If not, it will be me again and then Joanna Hennon will be back in a couple of weeks.

So thank you, thank you, thank you for listening and remember to visit: https://www.hollyworton.com/279 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you so much.