I’ve stopped using the word busy to describe the activity of my life. It still slips out sometimes. Nevertheless, along with “should”, “shouldn’t”, “need to”, and “have to”, I’m striking it from my personal dictionary. 

Why, you ask?

You’ve heard me say a thousand times 🙄, we create our lives with our thoughts and words. They are the blueprint for the life we experience.

So let’s talk about busy for a hot minute. 

How often do you tell yourself, you’re busy or too busy. You have too much to do. There’s not enough time.

For a long time, I wouldn’t ask for help because I believed I was busy therefore so was everyone else. 

These were the stories I told myself and, while they may have seemed true because most people believe them…they don’t have to be. 

The dictionary defines busy as, “having a great deal to do” and “keeping occupied”. 

When I worked in a corporate job, everyone was ‘crazy busy’, me included, until I decided not to be. We wore busyness like a badge of honor. In this western culture, value is often tied to productivity. If you’re not busy you’re lazy. 

Does this sound familiar to you?

Keeping busy started for me as a child. “Don’t just sit there, do something!”

On summer breaks, I would ride my bike to the local free library. Mrs. Barber, the librarian, would help me find books that fed my interest. Then, I’d go home and read. My mother would often ask me, “are you just going to sit there and read all day? 

Busyness is a thread we have collectively woven into the fabric of life. When we are constantly busy, we are often trying to prove our worth. This, dear friend, is perfectionism at work. The deep seeded idea that we are not enough as we are…we must try harder and do more to prove it. 

This is a real problem for many of us…we’re often exhausted, feel lost, and overwhelmed. And, honestly, I believe overwhelm comes from living life in a way that is actually underwhelming to your soul. Meaning, you’re doing shit that seems important on the surface but doesn’t truly feed you at the soul level.

Busyness leaves no room for BE-ing, relaxing, resting. 

Trisha Hersey writes in her powerful book, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto

“Loving ourselves and each other deepens our disruption of the dominant systems. They want us unwell, fearful, exhausted, and without deep self-love because you are easier to manipulate when you are distracted by what is not real or true.”

Trisha Hersey

The dominant (patriarchal) systems are what keeps us striving for some ideal of perfection to prove we are of value. 

Until we safely allow ourselves to feel that sense of unworthiness – yes, feel it all the way through – (which by the way isn’t true…but learned), we will never know our true worth. Sounds counterintuitive I know, but what I believe we are all seeking is a deep, abiding sense of wholeness and that doesn’t come from the doing of anything or the opinion of anyone. You are already that.

Let me ask you this. 

Would you like more space in your life to simply BE. To be “lazy” if you wish. To rest. Be bored. Be still. Quiet. Do nothing…

I wonder if you can?

Your first thought might be… “who has time for that?”

Here’s the rub…

All that busyness and striving to be worthy is the thing that keeps you, and me, from our true nature and living the life we dream of.

If you truly want relief from the busyness, overwhelm, and striving you must pay attention to what you are making familiar in your life through your thoughts and words first and foremost.

If you’re waiting for the right time to do this, let me remind you, it’s always now. Now is all you have.

So I invite you to think about what you are experiencing in your life. How does your life feel to you? Is it what you would love (or even like) it to be? 

Words are magic. Whatever you make familiar in your language will eventually find it’s way into your experience…just like the busyness has.

Too busy to rest and relax? Too busy to pursue your dreams?

Find a new story…one that supports what you desire.

I’ve replaced busy with full. I love being full…having a life that is full…

For me, this full life is one of of adventure.

Full of joy.

Full of kind, loving people. 

Full of interesting things to do.

Full of love.

Full of aliveness.

Full of magic and mystery.

Full of quiet time to be.

Full of space to breath and relax.

Full of rest and play. 

I’m choosing to have a full life. 

Full of adventure.

Full of love and kindness everywhere I go. 

Full of spaciousness – even during the holidays when we tend to pack in more – there is space to breath and be. 

Full of generosity, abundance, and joy. 

The things I get to do are all part of a full, beautiful, and bountiful life and I get to choose what things I put into my life…how full I want my life to be. So do you. 

How much time will it take to begin to see this full life come into being?

That depends on you…on your willingness to believe it’s possible, to embody it, to rest and become it while the world around you is drowning in busyness. 

If you’re craving more rest, more space, more time to be…pay attention to how ‘busy’ you think you are and take one tiny step to be less busy and more full. 

XO

PS: Feel like you’re drowning in busyness? Feeling overwhelmed? Let me throw you a life line with my signature experience, Women Writing Their Lives. Click this link to get all the details on the next upcoming session.