Leisure connections

Making a healthy connection to leisure activities creates a sense of personal power, relaxation and balanced lifestyle.

Devoting free time attending to YOUR needs, interests and feelings injects fun, enjoyment, laughter and expanded awareness into yours and others' lives. Many times, others' needs are nurtured, to the detriment of ourselves. Everyone benefits when we take the time to self-nurture.

What is leisure?

1. It is ANY activity.
2. It creates a sense of enjoyment for YOU.
3. It is YOUR choice.
4. It is YOUR free time.

It is not necessarily the specific activity that determines if your choice is healthy or unhealthy. Rather, it is how you connect to the choice you have made. For example, I can derive a lot of pleasure in the process of creating personalized greeting cards BUT this same activity can be stressful if I do it to meet others' expectations by deciding to churn out 200 of them as holiday cards for all my work and personal contacts.

Healthy leisure promotes:

1. personal growth
2. connections to feelings
3. connection to other people
4. positive feelings about yourself
5. time to nurture yourself
6. living in the moment

Unhealthy leisure produces:

1. apathy
2. boredom
3. anxiety
4. possible destructive behaviour such as substance abuse

Creating a history of healthy leisure connections has a cumulative affect that eventually replaces old, unhealthy patterns. The benefits are endless.

Have some fun with it!