Dolce far niente
The lost art of doing nothing and why it is a necessary part of my life
The new year has started, like really started. The excitement and rush of New Year’s and the haze of the shortest, darkest days of winter are behind us. The last festive decorations have been packed up again, and the first spring crocuses are popping up thanks to the mild temperatures we’ve had this past week. Most of us are back to our regular routines, with 8 hours a day behind screens under gloomy grey skies.
That kind of routine makes me restless, sometimes frantic even. I feel tired but also unable to relax. My breath gets shallow, my chest tight. I have a hard time getting off the couch. The only thing I’ve found to help – when I find the discipline and willpower to do so – is to get my body moving. Go for a walk, spend a few hours in the kitchen, and clean the house. With a podcast on to ease into it, though it is more effective to do it in silence. As I am confronted with my thoughts, it is a practice to bring my attention back to the rhythm of my feet on the earth or my knife on the cutting board. That’s what ultimately gets me out of my head.
When the dullness and boredom of grey days and sticky routines take over, I desperately need something exciting to look forward to. I mull my head over all the possibilities to get away. With friends or alone, to a warm country far away or closer to home, but nothing feels right. Most of this thinking ends in analysis paralysis and has yet to get me any closer to a satisfying resolution.
In these moments, I feel so far removed from what I want and what’s good for me that I’m prone to making bad decisions. I take on the ideas of others like they’re my own, which often leads to frustration or disappointment. So, when I asked myself last week what I long for the most, the answer was as simple as it was surprising: absolutely nothing.
About nine months ago, I experienced one of my life's most unexpected blissful periods. After spending two months at home with burnout symptoms, no obligations, and a lot of time in quiet and solitude, something started to shift. I started feeling more at ease, relaxed, and creative than I’d ever felt before. And my mind – oh my mind – had never been so quiet.
I would give a lot to experience that sense of inner quiet and absolute relaxation again. The secret recipe to this state of absolute bliss? No schedule, an excuse to say no to anything that didn’t feel good, very little screen time, and walks outside every day – sun or rain. Sounds attainable, right? No, I didn’t think so.
It is, of course, an absolute luxury to have spent weeks on end living life like this. And at the same time, it was an absolute necessity. It was the only way my body could break down the overload of cortisol it had produced in the months and years leading up to that moment and restore my brain's normal functioning, which had been reduced to that of a goldfish.
So, I decided that if I wanted to prevent my stress-induced uneasiness from worsening again, I’d have to recreate those circumstances. I booked a weekend-long silent retreat, followed by four days in a small cabin in the woods in a remote corner of The Netherlands – alone.
When I shared my plans with others, their reactions varied from ‘That sounds delicious, I’d love to come with you!’ to ‘What are you going to do?’. I guess solitude isn’t for everyone, and I completely get that. Honestly, the latter is a thought I’ve regularly had since I booked. Even though I presume it’ll help me reduce some stress and reconnect to myself and my creativity, there are no guarantees. Also, the idea of the Dutch countryside in February doesn’t exactly align with my idea of vacation and the cool, adventurous, traveled person I’d like to be.
Still, my heart deeply yearns for this alone time in nature, free from obligations and social commitments. As a highly sensitive introvert, alone time without obligations is a necessity that is as hard to come by as it is to live without. A lovely, symbolic coincidence is that I’ll be away the week I called in sick exactly one year ago. It sounds like the perfect timing for some reflection, recalibration, and practicing the art of doing nothing – dolce far niente. Perhaps I’ll make it a yearly ritual.