Confession time. I’m addicted to being busy. Slowing down? It’s not my forte. Over my handful of decades on this earth, I’ve had to force myself more than once to quit a few things, because I’d taken on far too much. I’ve had problems saying “no” to things people asked me to do.
Now, as a mom, I find myself filling our calendar with classes, “field trips” to the library and park, and play dates with friends as a way to keep the kids entertained and happy. Being busy can be good. It keeps us active, as well as engaged with others, but sometimes busy leaves me feeling, well, a bit frantic.
Addicted to the Crazy-Busy Life
I think a lot of us are addicted to the busy life. There are always things to do, people to see, so much of life to experience. I see it happening with my kids too, and only one of them is school age! There’s this thought that if we don’t do it all, then we’re somehow missing out on something. FOMO, for real. But there are problems with this addiction to being so busy.
As the brilliant Brené Brown has said, “‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us.”
I got that reminder loud and clear a couple weeks ago. Just before heading home after the long Thanksgiving weekend, I hurt my back. And Sunday, I ended up in bed practically the whole day. Sounds kind of blissful right? But it was painful too…laying there, trying to relax to get my back to feel better, and then thinking of all the things I needed (and wanted) to do.
In Praise of Slowing Down
After a couple hours, though, I had this thought… slowing down? This stopping to take a breath and just relaxing? It’s good for the soul, too. It gives us perspective.
Lately, I’ve been researching butterflies. I’ve always been interested in them and how they start as one thing in life and change into another. (I also now have some stories in the works about them).
Lessons in Slowing Down From a Butterfly
One of the most striking things about the life of a butterfly is this: caterpillars shed their skin a few times before they spin their cocoon or turn into a chrysalis. Then the big change happens in the cocoon. When it’s time to break out (which ranges anywhere from a week to months depending on the caterpillar), they don’t fly right away. They need time to spread their wings and dry them out. If they attempt to fly too early? They can fall. They risk damaging their wings. And if that happens, they risk never taking flight.
Not everything in life needs to happen right now in this moment. In our modern day of immediate satisfaction, we’re so used to getting what we want right now. But there’s beauty to slowness. There’s beauty in taking time, to beating our wings and letting them dry until they — and we — are ready to take flight.
I’m working on slowing down, even now that my back is better. I’m working on taking breaks, and, this is important, giving myself permission to do so. It helps that I feel my most at peace, and my most creative, when I slow down and just take a break…but it still takes practice.
It’s hard when I see the mess growing in the house. It’s hard when I think of the things I want to do with my business and my writing. It’s hard when I feel like I’m choosing between playing with the kids, or getting chores done. There’s a reason I write about the “pursuit of work/life/harmony.” Because the juggling act? It can be hard.
But sometimes, we just need time to be. To sit, to take a breath, to relax. To beat our wings a few times before we take flight.
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