This holiday season I ran into a couple people I hadn't seen in a while. My
interactions with them reminded me of how far I've come to rehabbing my rushing around do do do mentality. One person had mentioned how I hadn't been around as much, out and about (insert Canadain accent). She chalked it up to me being in a new relationship the past 18 months.
And I realized that me not being out and about as much had to do much more with me learning to spend more time slowing down. I think I CREATED this on-the-go reality so that I could avoid a deeper more quiet part of myself where I can observe my thoughts, attitudes and things that might be keeping me stuck. I know that I was overly busy in the past because I wanted to avoid a painful sense of loneliness when my daughter was with her dad. Or avoid the fear of being without family in a big city with no safety net to catch me if I fell as a business owner. I also didn't like spending too much time alone at home with a child and to get her out with other people socializing. I was afraid I wasn't really enough for her.
Now, I stay in when I'm tired. I cook more meals at home and actually enjoy doing so. I don't over schedule myself socially. I'm scheduling fewer clients in and letting go of work commitments that under pay me or aren't aligned with my core values.
But this change is in sharp contrast to the way I've been living my life for years. In fact, I still fight with sometimes nagging guilt that I should be doing more, find ways to be more productive or even keep trying to grow my vision for a bigger business. I think I might be fighting the fear that my world will fall apart if I'm not doing a lot to make sure everything will keep being ok.
I can tell you that now that I've slowed down a bit with much more to shift in this direction, I have a lot of rehabbing my body and mind. Old habits die hard. I can feel that my body needs time to restore it's energetic stores, that I need to learn to take on less emotionally from other people and that I'm actually a way more chilled out person than I used to believe.
Last night, I cooked a turkey dinner for 12 and it was awesome or so they all said :). I prepped a lot the day before so that I wouldn't have to be stressed the day so that all the dishes were timed just right and all the food was hot when placed on the table and not overcooked etc.
It's come to be my understanding that the more gaps I leave in my schedule, the more I have time to prep for things coming instead of always trying to catch up. I realized that to live a life that doesn't require a lot of rushing around, it takes time. We have to prepare for living life this way. Sound contradictory? I don't think so. I'm just getting better at not expecting so much of myself all the time. Sometimes people don't really get how to interface with this newish attitude.
We live in a world where the current to always be 'doing' something can sweep us up and take us away further from our true natures.
Now when I spend time with loved ones who are still caught up in rushing through life and aren't desirous of a different way of being that is more present, it's starting to feel incongruous.
“Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature; it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something.” – Carl G. Jung
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