Hey, it's Antrice, and I just wanted to record a quick little hello for you.

Several people have been asking, what's going on with the podcast? Where's Antrice?

If you're new to the podcast, you might be wondering, hey, how come there hasn't been a new episode in so long? Why is Antrice so quiet?

Well, if you're on my email list, you already know this, but back in May, I decided to hit the pause button on the podcast and life and everything else.

I decided to take some time off to be with my niece who has a very rare and

aggressive form of stomach cancer. It has been a really tough couple of years

actually but the last few months are pretty scary and we're not out of the woods yet but she had a big big surgery in June and she's recovering well. So that is where I have been. I took some time

off to just be with her. But it sort of got me thinking about taking mental health days. I mean, have you ever taken,

we ever just decided, oh, I need a mental health day. I decided I needed a mental health month which has been significantly extended but I'll tell

you all about that in just a minute. I don't know about you but people often comment that I am so lucky to be an artist to be able to work whenever I want to and to have what they envision as a very carefree creative life.

And it's partly true, I am lucky and I am privileged and I am making choices every single day that allow me to create the life that I want to live.

This decision to take time off for my niece was kind of a no-brainer for me. But now that we're on the other

side of the surgery, I'm realizing just how badly I needed a mental health month.

I needed to take some time for myself

and to just be.

So that is exactly what I'm doing.

And I've been thinking a lot about why it's so hard

for so many of us to allow ourselves to just be,

to sit quietly without expectations, guilt, or anxious thoughts about all the things that we should be doing. We say we don't have time. That's what I hear most often that taking time off, taking a day to just do nothing, to just be with yourself is a luxury that only other people have.

I've been talking to clients and friends about this. I have a friend who has an adopted son that experienced a lot of trauma early on in his life and

there's a lot of guilt sometimes about taking time to be just for yourself.

That it's selfish that we should be taking care of other people in our lives

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