Friday, May 30, 2008

Summer self-care (and Rhode Island)

One of the greatest challenges for me this summer (of an intense 11 weeks of leading a Clinical Pastoral Education unit solo for the first time) will be taking care of myself, what I like to call self-care. My history -- when I have a challenge I am excited about -- is one of working myself into a frenzy and burning out before it's over.

That may happen, again. But I'm going to try and be conscious about maintaining more of a balance this time. Bicycle riding is an important component of self-care for me. We're only in the fourth day of the unit, but so far I've managed to go out for two after-work bike rides, both of about 15 miles. And I'm going to try and go for a longer one Sunday (instead of doing prep work all day!).

More importantly, I think, is that I started out with a bike ride. That is -- on the very wise advice of my supervisor -- I took a week's vacation before the unit started. My girlfriend and I went on a wonderful short bike tour in Rhode Island, starting in Mystic, CT, and going to Block Island and back. It was great!

Here's a map of our route:

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1 comment:

SiouxGeonz said...

Cycling maintains sanity :D Keep it up!