As I do every Sunday night, I look at my calendar for the upcoming week. Who am I seeing? How does each day look? When do I begin tomorrow? Because I love what I do there is no dread etc. that I need to “go back to work.” Instead, it is more about how can I best prepare myself?
As I prepared to start my week this week, I got a text and then an email from a dear friend who suffered a mild stroke late last week and was taken to the hospital for a couple days with thankfully no long-term implications. Shortly after, I got an email from someone else canceling an 11:00 meeting because he woke up ill and didn’t have the strength to meet via Zoom. Now someone else has just called to say they are ill. Perhaps too much running around.
The message for me in all this is, what are we all running around for? If she has been overworking with too many clients to get her business expansion completed, if another has been running around making contacts, and the last finally getting out and about after such an extensive COVID shutdown, what is our main goal? What is our main motivator?
We all want and need a purpose in life.
We all need others in our lives. We all want “success,” whatever that means but at what cost? For each of us, there is also the need to sense? Know? Intuit? when enough is enough. Somedays we have the energy to conquer the world. Other days we have the energy to move. How do we balance it all out? How do we claim permission to go slower on those lesser energy days? What do we need to do to give ourselves permission to say that today I will attend the meetings I committed to and truly be present, but I am not volunteering for anything, nor I am making any promises that demand immediate attention?
Service to the world is an honorable thing. Service to ourselves is a necessity…. American culture is extremely focused on productivity versus simply experiencing life while we are living our purpose. I was always impressed with the European culture’s idea of Siesta. Stopping in the middle of the day for the wonderful main meal of the day and then a nap before returning to work. It raised the quality of life rather than having folks “push” to get through the day hungry or exhausted before collapsing at home.
What is your quality of life?
How well do you take care of yourself so that your immune system is not weakened by too many stressors, because of so much “pushing” and/or “running around”? Are you willing to stop and reassess your life? Are you willing to put the quality of your day-to-day life above the quality of your next vacation? Are you willing to put your quality of life, laughter, and healthy eating, above some fears or illusions of survival and success?
For most of us, certainly not all, here in the USA survival is about cutting back on overspending, watching and/or cutting back on unnecessary expenses. Learning to tell the difference between needs and wants is a great way to start. Our quality of life on a deeper level is about the joy, the warmth, friendship, and love we allow in. I call you to stop long enough to experience being loved, and loving others. Stop long enough to know what your body may need to be at peace as a way of life and finally, love yourself enough to provide it, daily…
