Living at the Core 11: Setting Boundaries - Email

The arrival of the mail was always a highlight of the day around my house growing up. The anticipation of wondering whether or not something had arrived for us often prompted races between my sister and I to see who could get to the mailbox first. As soon as one of us caught sight of the delivery car pulling up alongside our fence, we dropped what we were doing and started running. Often one would go out the back door, while the other went out the front door. Towards the end of my high school career email came about, and with it the possibility of on-going arrivals throughout the day and night.

It comes as no surprise to me that when considering gluttony, one related area of growth for me has been frequency of checking email. Recognizing a tendency for it to be easy to be overly preoccupied with connecting via technology has influenced me to opt out of having a smart phone with email access and social media. Even without that access, at different points in recent years, I have noticed that having my email open or checking back all too often - just in case - is a distraction that is an obstacle to efficiently focusing on other projects or being present to others.

I have experimented with limitations over different periods of time, but this fall I set an intention that is the most restrictive yet - a goal of once/day Monday-Friday from mid-August to the end of Ordinary Time. Applying the concept to both work and personal email, as I formalized my intention, I wondered if it was a reasonable restriction or not. What if my students had a time sensitive question on an assignment that was due? Would I receive emails where there is an expectation for immediate attention that I wouldn't see in time? Yet, I also recognized that a big part of it is just the layer of habit. I also realized that likely the "world wouldn't end" if I only checked once/day and decided to move forward and approach it with an inquiry stance. 

While there have been multiple days where I have not met that intention, my checking has definitely decreased as a result, and I have reflected on how to more faithfully align over time. For example, I make notes of emails I need to send or tasks that I need to consult email in order to complete when they come to mind throughout the day and am now focusing on actually remembering to consult that list when I have my email open for the day. When I feel the urge to justify why I should open my email back up for a specific task, I am getting better at asking myself whether there is really a valid reason why it cannot wait until the next day and how I can limit myself to completing that task and getting back out.

When I was crafting my intentions for this phase of the liturgical year, my spiritual director let me know they would help me have a more clear picture of how I am making myself available to God and to others. Voluntarily limiting email access throughout the day has been helping me to focus on different projects. That efficiency is supporting me in being able to protect the time that I have set aside for family.

Detaching from the urge to be connected to email throughout the day has helped me to put the level of need in perspective. As the timeframe of my intentions phases out, I intend to I maintain a strong resolve to be intentional and careful with the role of email in my personal and professional life.

Motherhood Self-Care

About a year ago, while we were downstairs in the youth room with one of our LifeTeen core members leading a LifeNight, another team member who is also an acolyte set up the church for Adoration. I didn't know what he was envisioning. As we transitioned to the dark church with the Eucharist surrounded by candle-light, I kneeled down in prayer and the words flowed in my thoughts, "This is beautiful."

In response an image flashed in my mind of my baby in my arms and the words, "This is beautiful too."

I previously recognized the Eucharist as my most powerful form of self-care. Last night I was pondering how this whisper in my heart during Adoration is being confirmed again and again over time - within my vocation as wife and mother, holding my girls is the biggest gift from God, bringing me more consolation, peace and strength than perhaps any other aspect of my vocation. As my girls get older, the time holding them gets less and less frequent, and eventually it looks more like quiet moments spent physically close together, such as reading, writing or even watching a movie in the same space.

Though I do not like feeling like a jungle gym at daily Mass when my 4 year old is wanting to be held but also restless, there are also those times when she is calm and rests in my arms. Holding my girls in those still moments makes me feel a sense of peace that this alone is enough confirmation of why I am in this vocation, that God wanted me to be able to experience this and that he wanted me to be able to nurture in this way.

With these thoughts in mind, this morning I woke to read yesterday's reflection from The Catholic Mom's Prayer Companion: A Book of Daily Reflections that I forgot to read as part of my normal routine on the actual day. Mark Hart's words aligned and resonated with me, "Whether you are a mother through natural birth, adoption, marriage, or fostering, or you are a spiritual mother, God anointed you for this vocation. Your motherhood is the highest affirmation God could pay you. Beyond the sacraments, there is no greater invitation to intimacy God could offer you than your motherhood" (November 21).

Living at the Core 5: Retreat

Previously, I wrote about how the most powerful forms of self-care keep God at the core. In my day to day life, this means I have intentional rhythms and routines that help me to maintain a comparatively higher level of peace through strengthening my relationship with God, such as starting my day at 5 am with Scripture and reflection followed by any combination of prayer, reading, and writing; attending daily Mass and weekly Adoration; and praying the Rosary daily.

Making these intentional shifts have meant the difference between regularly feeling like I was drowning and being able to have an overall sense of peace and calm, lower level of stress, and a solution-oriented mindset. Nonetheless, sometimes I can feel the impact of a busy life starting to build and recognize I need a more extended rest. In the early winter I started to think about how I could probably really use a silent retreat; yet, I also knew I wanted to attend the first women's conference hosted at our diocesan retreat center. Logistically, I was having a hard time figuring out how to make it work to block out both that weekend and another time for a retreat.

Instead, I started to think about the retreat center, one of my favorite places and somewhere that I associate with great peace. Even if there was not a directed silent retreat, I thought a couple of days there prior to the conference would nurture me. As the days grew closer, I could tell I was going to need this even more than I had anticipated, aligning with just finishing up the academic year.

It ended up being perfect. Rather than having a structured schedule, I knew types of activities I wanted to do: attend Mass and Adoration (there are 3 parishes within a half hour going in different directions providing for a range of options), read, write, spend time in the Chapel, walk, rest, sit in nature...

Now, it is back to my "real life" with one foot in summer vacation and the other in doing some work at the university and church. As I continue to refine the patterns of my days through liturgical and academic seasons, I will be keeping a couple of days of retreat annually as an option in the back of my mind.