A Reboot Weekend to Find Myself Once Again

And the everyday cycle of losing and find oneself

Do you ever feel like you need to reboot?

Not recharge, necessarily, but reboot.

Like you've had too many tabs opens and the operating system is a little overloaded and you're lagging a bit. Even as you close the tabs, it's like you're still whirring away at those other things.

It’s a rainy weekend

Saturday morning. Slow, heavy drops tapper at the kitchen window and I have a cup of coffee and my journal out.

I'm making a summer vision board, copying over intentions from my summer planning. I set those intentions three weeks ago, and they feel weirdly distant now.

My thoughts have been elsewhere.

The past weeks have been energised, focused, active. I've lost myself in an engaging project at work. And I spent my last weekend all wrapped up in repainting the bedroom.

Now, on this rainy, quiet weekend, I've shut down the tabs. The work project is completed, or has entered a new phase. The bedroom is a beautiful shade of dark green.

And I find myself staring into the middle distant, feeling a little lost.

The joy of losing oneself

To lose myself is one of my favourite feelings. In a creative project, in trying to figure something out, in learning, in a good book.

It's a freedom from the self, a slightly obsessive marvelling, an immersive focus that makes much of everything else disappear. Flow.

But once fully and properly lost, I am, in fact, lost. Getting back out of the focus is disorienting. Like the compass is gone, I've reached the destination, and forgotten how to navigate without it.

Or, like the operating system is still whirring away at that thing, and starting something new is just slow and laggy.

So, it's a rainy weekend, I've forgotten how to human. It takes me a full day to figure what needs to be done.

I need to turn my brain off and on again.

Rebooting

So, how does one reboot oneself?

Well, I can't say I know too well, really. There's no handy power button.

But here's what I try.

First of all, I give myself the task to reboot. A little direction, just for this weekend. I make a small list.

I brave the rain for a walk in the forest. Take a shower. Make lunch with nothing in my ears, no podcast or audiobook, just me and the food.

A load of laundry. Cleaning is not a favourite pasttime of mine, but I'm often drawn to it when a reboot is needed. As if the clean slate is physical as well as mental.

I create a spread for July in my journal, write down intentions, plans and ideas. Orient myself in time.

And I write, here, about this need for a reboot.

Found, again

I love to lose myself in something. But I also love to find myself.

To be free of the self; to be very close to myself.

It has stopped raining. I bring my journal out to the garden. Look over my intentions again. For July, for the summer.

They don't feel so distant anymore. I ponder what I want to do with them next.

The weekend has passed, it's Sunday evening now. Maybe I will lose myself again, this week, in that next phase of my project at work. And maybe I'll have to find myself again.

I gaze at the fluffy white clouds drifting by. Before, I've attempted to stay in this state of mindful peace, deep in my intentions. I've been frustrated by how long it takes, sometimes, getting back to it. To myself.

But I see now that it's a cycle.

The finding, the losing. The intention, the focus. The being, the doing.

The answer can never be to not immerse myself in things. To not lose myself. I mean, how fun would that be?

And also, how am I supposed to find myself if I'm not lost?