Busy is an easy way to hide from life and to run from problems. Learn how to stop using 'busy' to escape what must be faced...
I can't tell you the number of times I say to people, "I'm so busy." Truth be told- my schedule is always jam packed. All my friends know that phone calls from me are few and far between.
When I'm not exercising, writing, or creating online courses, I'm enjoying the beautiful Wyoming outdoors or getting ready for bed. My life is full and I rarely have a moment where there's nothing to do... and I've created a life that's hectic and busy, partially because I like life that way and, truth be told, partially because there are things I'd rather not have to sit with... and then one day, I came across the Brene Brown quote below and it stopped me in my tracks...
We are a culture of people who've bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us. - Brene Brown
I had to sit with Brene's truth for a number of days. It struck a chord in me because, for me, it was true. So long as I was busy with a jam packed schedule, I didn't have to deal with my health, my sadness, my sense of loss, my yearning for more, or my feelings of anger, disappointment and hurt. I didn't have to face any of that stuff and, naively, I assumed as long as it stayed under the surface, I could continue moving through life and all would be well.
But you can't heal what you're unwilling to face...
I've been struggling with getting my nutrition in check. I've been completely unwilling to give up the things I KNOW I need to give up if I want to get pregnant with Baby #4. I've had no desire to give up caffeine, gluten, dairy or wheat... NONE... when, ten or so years ago, I was able to give all of that up for OVER A YEAR and then got pregnant with my second child pretty easily.
And while I spent so much time mentally beating myself up over it, here's what the truth was: I didn't want to give up my bad nutrition because it would force me to NOT be busy. It would force me to sit with myself. It would force me to slow down... and then what would happen if I slowed down? Oh... I'd actually have to face myself. All the grief, all the loss, all the pain, all the hurt, all the anger, all the disappointment. I'd actually have to face those emotions and FEEL them... and, in the face of that, I didn't even approach the goal of changing my health habits so I could transform my fertility... and I'm still battling that... and what does it boil down to?
Busy is my way of not slowing down enough to face what hurts.
Can you relate?
And here's the truth of all of that: Busy won't fix what I'm running from.
So how am I going to deal with using busy as a scapegoat?
I'm going to follow the advice of Eleanor Roosevelt and MAKE myself face what I'm unwilling to face. I'm going to be willing to slow down, be willing to take a break from 'busy' and be willing to trust the process of life and my ability to handle whatever emotions come my way... and then I'm going to take this slowing down (and releasing 'busy') one day at a time. If I go too far too fast, I'll get overwhelmed, I'll freak out and I'll run back to safety.
No, the only way I'm going to stop using 'busy' as an excuse is to take things one hour at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time.
That may not be the answer you want to read but it's the best answer I'm going to implement. It's time for us to question why we're so 'busy' and make sure that our form of busy is a way of getting things done and not a method of avoiding real life...