Making Time for Ourselves: The 10-20-10 Ritual

By Paint Her in Color Founder, Laura Spiegel

Are you going to be on the front porch when I wake up?” my daughter asks sleepily. She is lying in bed, pink stars blazing overhead, the strains of music strumming faintly.

“Do you want me to be?” I reply.

“Yes,” she yawns and closes her eyes. “See you in the morning.”

As I close her door and head downstairs, I shake my head at the power of my new daily ritual.

A social worker recently shared with me a tip for squeezing in a bit of self-care during the frenzied day. It’s called the 10-20-10 ritual. 10 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes somewhere during the day, and 10 minutes in the evening – three small windows of time that we can hold for alone time and self-care.

Alone time looks different for all of us. For some, it’s a hot cup of coffee and a quiet kitchen. For others, it's writing in a journal or saying a few prayers. For me, it’s about sitting on my front porch, listening to the birds, and trying to keep a quiet mind.

Sometimes, my ten minutes flies by with no other fanfare than the crab apple blossoms floating softly to the ground. Other times, I make a list of all that I am grateful for – of all the little things that I take for granted most days. Safety. Health. Family.

Still other times, my solitude abruptly ends when a little girl bangs out the front door and plops onto my lap. I kid you not. It literally just happened.

These days are the best. My daughter will be seven in July, and I sometimes wonder if her days of snuggling on my lap are short lived. For now, I’m just soaking it in.

Some mornings, we sit in silence. Other times, we chat about our dreams from the previous night. Today, I start to tell her about mine then think better of it. My dreams from last night were more of the usual – fraught with uncertainty, fear, and humiliation.

When I tell my husband this, he remarks that my dreams sound like Anakin Skywalker’s. Maybe I am wavering toward the dark side, he wonders. We’ve been watching a lot of Star Wars lately.

I make a note to process that one later…

It’s late afternoon, and I’m back on the porch. The phone is dinging, and the computer is pinging, but I’ve shut the door behind me. The wind blows softly, and the sounds of neighbor kids echo in the distance. Alone time again.

Two minutes in, the silence is shattered by shouts of “Mom?” “Mom? Mom! MOM!” My son barrels to the front door. He’s found my hiding spot – er, I mean, my quiet spot.

“I’m relaxing!” I shout through the open screen. “Get your own chips!”

It’s not always easy for us moms to find alone time. I mean, we can, but 3 AM racing minds and night sweats don’t count.

When I can find even brief pockets of time throughout the day, it’s worth it. I breathe. I close my eyes and try to feel the warmth of the chair beneath me. The smell of hazelnut coffee in my hand. The feel of the breeze on my cheeks. I try to close my eyes for five or six breaths.

When I reopen them, more often than not, my mind feels quieter. The sunlight brighter. The world around me a little calmer.

I haven’t been able to do this every day. But when I do, I find that I’m a little more receptive to the kids’ demands and selective hearing. My eyes are a little less bleary as I slog through emails and navigate the day’s work.

And I love how my daughter has come to look forward to our morning moments. She has cystic fibrosis, so I know how important emotional self-care will be for her as she grows. She will need to find ways to quiet her mind. To sit with and acknowledge her worry or her fear or her pain – and then do what she can to let it go. To experience moments of gratitude and peace.

I love that we’re learning to do that together.

My 10-20-10 experience isn’t perfect and probably never will be. But it’s a start.

And I’ve got a summer’s worth of mornings to sit on my porch, a vibrant soul beside me.

How do you carve out time for yourself? Drop me a line at laura@paintherincolor.com to share with our community what works for you!