Adlib...A Sense of Place

Word from LuAn Mitchell-Halter on taking time to rest your ambition.

I think everyone should have a sanctuary. It might be a special corner of your garden, a special chair in a quiet corner or a home office. My sanctuary is a bathroom. It has more art on the walls than in my entire first home. It's decorated lovingly with my favorite colors and fabrics. There are gold butterflies on the ceiling and candles everywhere.

A custom-ordered tub has lots of jets, providing me with wonderful back and foot massages. The woman I ordered this special tub from cautioned that I really shouldn't buy it because I wasn't tall enough. I told her even though I'm only five foot, four inches she shouldn't worry - I'd wear my high heels! Perhaps the best design feature of my special sanctuary is a lock on the door that ensures my privacy. Almost every day I soak in a bubble bath in my tub and enjoy solitary thinking time with a fragrant bath bomb.

If you think this sounds selfish, you're missing the point. This ten or 15 minutes to myself is an investment that pays off handsomely. I tell my family it's my timeout and they're happy to respect that. I'm a better parent, a more thoughtful manager and a more effective leader as a result of time in my sanctuary. I have instincts that I trust implicitly. They tell me to take a little "time away" now and then, and I listen.

One of things I contemplate in my sanctuary is balance, and what it means to me. A balanced lifestyle means different things to different people. We all need to devise our own definition of balance: that point where we're comfortable, productive and in balance. A few minutes spent in your personal sanctuary will remind you that 10 years from now you'll remember your child's school play more than those extra hours spent straining away at your desk, probably slouched in all the wrong postures plagued with guilt because you are missing an important time in one of your children's lives. One of the points in my new book is to remember sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day. A few minutes in your sanctuary is the right time to realize it's important to remain flexible. Things will always come up, and if you have to shift a few things, do it and let go. It can really take the wind out of your sail if you got an overloaded to-do list and you don't accomplish a bunch of things on that list. It's much more rewarding and effective to focus on the important priorities than to be worrying about an unrealistic, long list that drains your energy and brings you down.

My sanctuary is a place that helps to keep me balanced, to remind me of the importance of my personal life. Work is important, but it's not everything. Some things have to give or you risk some very precious commodities, and we all know you can't turn the clock back. There's no place like a personal sanctuary to remember that.