A short transcript excerpt from Shawana Ward (Awaken Podcast) advising listeners to set aside 15–20 minutes daily for intentional self-time to discover personal likes, practice mindfulness (meditation, prayer, cleaning, reading), and gradually increase that time to longer periods (e.g., an hour or a dedicated day). The passage emphasizes listening to one’s thoughts and feelings as a route to self-knowledge and reducing guilt about self-care.
Chapters
When you are used to running things and making sure that everything flows, it's very hard to jump to that. So I say 15 to 20 minutes a day. You know, at first, just for you, you need to figure out something that you love. And the only way you're going to figure out what you love is by spending this time with yourself. Because a lot of people say, well, I don't really know what I like. I know that's why you got to set this time aside so you can sit with you, so you can hear your thoughts, so you can feel your feels and figure out what you like and what you don't like. Because I had no idea. It shocked me that I didn't know, because I just thought I knew me. So putting aside that intentional time, and the more you do that, the more you learn yourself, the more you don't feel guilty about increasing the amount of time that you need for you. And then it can go from an hour a day to, okay, Saturdays are my days, just starting off with little small segments of time. And I always say, if you can outside of that, do some type of mindfulness. And mindfulness is cleaning, meditation, prayer, you know, sitting quietly, reading. I always say, find a mindfulness practice that works as well. But that time, I think, is so important. You have to spend time with yourself.
