We live in a world that seems to think busy is better and that equates busyness with productivity. People brag about long work hours and not taking vacations. Americans are especially bad about not taking vacation and working extra hours. I used to be one of those people who spent long hours at work and who was always plugged in. However, a few trips to Europe and some enforced downtime has made me realize that busyness isn’t equal to productivity.
I’ve been home for the last six weeks while my client decides what they want to do and the first two weeks were brutal because I had no clue how to spend my time. I had a few things to do for work, I had blog posts and classes I wanted to work on, and there is always housework, but it was hard to find enough to do all day. We visited museums, went on excursions, but there was still empty time. I tried filling it with working long hours on my blog and on the course I’m launching, but I found that I reached a point where I couldn’t write anymore because I didn’t have any fresh ideas.
The third week I settled into a routine and I started journaling more, I started listening to good stuff online, and I started just being. I made time to sit outside with a cool drink and watch the clouds. If it was raining, I sat in my meditation room and just was. I didn’t necessarily meditate, but I just sat there and let myself be truly aware of my surroundings. I paid attention to the prayer flags fluttering in the breeze, I truly saw my tomato plants, I just was.
For someone used to being on the go constantly, just being was really uncomfortable. My journaling brought up emotions and hold hurts that I thought I had dealt with and I found myself seeking busyness and food to bury those emotions. Even as I wrote this sentence, I found myself getting up to go to the bathroom and on the way back to the chair finding distractions that would allow me to keep avoiding the emotional pain.
However, those were momentary distractions and I found my way back to the chair and remembered how far I’ve come in the last six years as I was able to identify the feelings and the need for busyness for what it was, a way to avoid emotional pain. The person I am now was able to sit with those feelings and acknowledge them instead of running from them. I know when I was in a disastrous marriage that I used busyness and work to avoid dealing with issues. I felt no one could call me out if I was working because I was providing for my family. Who could call me on that?
I’ve come to realize over the last few years that my body does need downtime to rest, to recuperate, and to recharge my batteries. What I’ve only come to realize lately is that taking a sacred pause actually helps me create, because the pause gives my creative brain time to connect dots that my rational brain might not create. As I was writing Boudica Rising: Reclaiming Your Inner Warrior, I would have an idea in mind for a lesson and I’d sit and try to write it, but the words just wouldn’t come out write and I kept deleting everything I’d written. The first few times that happened, I tried to push through it because that’s what a productive person would do. However, I soon realized that when I actually took a pause and came back to the page, what I wrote was better and I wrote faster.
Increased productivity isn’t the only benefit of a sacred pause. A sacred pause helps me reconnect with myself and with spirit. When I make time in my life to just be, I feel rejuvenated and reconnected with myself. I feel as if my spiritual batteries have been refilled and I’m better able to be present for myself and for others.
Cairn by Cairn 