“You wore your busyness like a badge.”
Oprah said this to a woman in an interview. She popped on my reels and quoted the woman she was interviewing (I don’t even know who she was!), “You said you wore your busyness like a badge.” And just like that, the reel was over. That quick snippet was all I needed to set my head spinning. I flashed back to raising kids, working the night shift as an aide while going to school to become an RN, having (huge) annual pig roasts at the house, helping babysit my nieces and nephew, going back to school (starting my masters degree 6 days after my daughter was born) while still working, volunteering at The Parent Child Connection and in the classroom for my kids, making sure they were fed, dressed and engaged in some forms of activity. The list goes on and on of course, just like for everyone raising a family. Oh, did I mention, I was married to an alcoholic? Lots of verbal abuse was sprinkled in to everything listed above.
Why do we feel we can do it all without consequence?
But I WAS doing it all. I got this. I am woman, hear me roar! I was doing good things. I tried to make time for myself; go out with friends; don’t forget to go to the gym. Then the hypothyroid diagnosis came. My body was telling me to knock it off! But I didn’t listen. I was so tired. Back then I was still in the allopathic medical world so I just took my pill. No one even checked for auto-antibodies but they were present. My body was attacking itself with an autoimmune disease! But I was doing it all. I got this. Hear me roar… I’ll be fine. This is just what women do.
The lessons sometimes take a while to settle in.
So years go by and I’m not doing fine. My body is breaking down. I’m so much more tired. I can’t think straight. I have tingling in my hands and feet. My balance is off. It’s just too much. The lessons are starting to settle in at some level. I know I have to do something to take better care of myself. Divorce. Now I really am taking care of myself by valuing myself but now I’m also taking care of the kids and the house and still working. Not volunteering so much. So, that blank spot on my calendar, hum, I like it! I fill it with nothing! Nothing, the exact opposite of busyness. At first there is guilt: “Shouldn’t I be doing something?” “This feels weird!” “Am I forgetting something?” Doing. Doing something is the opposite of being. I learned I needed to be. Just be. Take that badge off and just be. Sit back and watch the kids learn how to figure out life by being a better example of how to take care of myself. Let them watch me be less reactive. Let them watch me find the love of my life and see this is how it looks like to be treated well. Let him help. Did you hear that? LET HIM HELP ME. Help me take care of bills/lawns/gardens/repairs. Do I know how to do it? Yup! Do I have to? Nope! Do I have to feel bad about not doing it? Nope!
This took forever to figure out!
I’m writing this to help you realize you should take the busyness badge off! Do it NOW! If you are in your late teens/early 20’s, don’t put it on! Don’t feel like you have to do it all. We are not built that way biochemically. The immune system, gut, hormones, cellular repair gets suppressed (among other things!) when we are too busy (in fight/flight/freeze mode). When I was volunteering with The Parent Child Connection we did a program with the film, “The Road to Nowhere.” It is about kids being pushed so hard to do it all and be it all, even in elementary school. By the time they get to high school, they are so pressured to be the best, do all the right extracurriculars, go to the best college, have the best career. The pressure is too much and they are burned out! Let’s stop the cycle and teach just “being” to our kids. Do it early and create pathways (neural networks) in their brain and they won’t ever wear the busyness badge.
Things to do:
- Being busy is a neural network. It is hard to rewire your neural networks once you have built them, but it’s not impossible! There are a multitude of studies about meditation! The health benefits are proven. Please do it daily! Even 1-2 minutes to start. Use the app: InSight timer
- I am a graduate of The Gupta Program for neural retraining. It was really helpful to rewire my negative thinking patterns. It teaches that we are born with a negativity bias to protect us from danger. The world has changed, we don’t have to ALWAYS be on the lookout for the saber tooth tiger. But our ancient brain/amygdala doesn’t know that. So we have to remind our brains to look for the beauty and calm it down. Use this program because it is very hard to shift these thought patterns by yourself.
- Go outside! Being in nature is grounding. Take in the beauty.
- Leave the empty spaces on your calendar. If someone asks you if you can do something on that day, say no! It’s ok to have blank days for yourself to do nothing and not feel guilty about it. I remember the 1st time I did that. I said, “Let me check my calendar and I’ll get back to you.” When I looked, the day was blank and I needed a blank day. I responded, “I’m sorry, I can’t that day.” Now, I don’t even say I’m sorry!
- When someone relies on you to do something all the time, re-evaluate how that came to be. If you stopped doing “it” for them, could they do it for themself? Could they find someone else to do it? I bet they could but it’s just a habit to let you do it. This applies to bosses, family, friends and neighbors. All the little things add up to being too busy.
- Do your kids really need to be in an extracurricular activity every season? Do they have to be in more than one activity in a single season? Do they have time to decompress and just be kids? Let them be bored and make them be bored outside. I bet they won’t be bored for long. The outdoors are filled with magic. It’s a shift which could take some time getting used to but it will pay off.