A term associated with running away from the enemy when you know that you have been defeated! And it can feel a little bit like that in the current climate, with the extra demands on our time in most part due to the rapid development in technology, which means any spare moment between tasks is taken up with catching up on high levels of comms unheard of even 20 years ago. Human evolution – the process by which humans originated from apelike ancestors – spans over 6-7 million years. And yet here we are having to adapt in less than 20 years to a way of life we didn't evolve for. Bombarded with excessive information on a daily basis (much of it negative) and due to the addictive nature of social media, many of us trying to keep up with an algorithm that never rests....is it any wonder we are feeling overwhelmed, anxious and fatigued?

When I had the realisation that it was beyond my control and that I didn't have to 'keep up', I felt a sense of relief. There has most definitely been a tipping point for me where I knew it was ok to let go of being able to manage it all promptly (comms being the main one!) – that the problem is not necessarily my ability to cope (and yes of course we all do have varying levels of resilience) but that it's not necessarily the life that we chose. 

So then it's up to us to take responsibility for our own well-being, to take moments where we don't have to do or be anything for anyone else, we can take off our masks, and simple watch the world go by (often quite fast).

This is what I am trying to create in my places of retreat, not a giving up but a letting go of the need to be dictated to on how fast I should achieve my objectives, how much of my well-being I should sacrifice in order to 'keep calm and carry on'.

And don't get me wrong, there is most definitely a place for that, but for me it is not in serving the machine that is rampant neo-liberal capitalism,