“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi
March 2013
It was 6.30 and the morning light started creeping in through the blinders. Lying in bed I reiterated my to-do’s for the day.
I got up and looked in the mirror, seeing a tired woman with sleepy hair looking back at me. No smiles, no grins, no energy.
I didn’t want to see it, but I was exhausted. When I thought about the weeks ahead, all I could see was a never ending drag.
I didn’t know what to do about it, so I went about my day, plucking away at my to-do list. When it was time to stop working, I looked up from my laptop wondering what the best use of my free time would be.
Did I want to read? Or listen to that inspirational interview? Or do one of the courses I still hadn’t finished?
This was my idea of fun, doing something that wasn’t directly related to work, but was still productive in a way. And because of that, I felt as if my workdays never ended.
I knew that I wasn’t feeling as alive and energized as I wanted to, but quite frankly, whenever I asked myself “What do I want to do next?” I couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t driven by a desire to be productive, even in my free time.
I noticed that I didn’t know what to do with myself when I wasn’t working. Which, for a life coach who’s all about creating a life you love, was more than scary.
So this is when I stepped up and vowed to change things. I was determined to take better care of myself and remember what fun felt like.
Since I didn’t have the slightest clue what to do, I did the next logical thing: I put myself in bed. If I couldn’t come up with things I wanted to do that weren’t productive, I’d just stick it out and stay present with myself, until I knew. But I wasn’t gonna risk doing anything particularly exciting.
So I put myself to bed, in the middle of a Tuesday.
I had to do something that drastic (and boring) just to wind myself off the drug that is productivity and getting shit done. Lying in bed was the least productive thing I could think of.
At first not much seemed to come out of it. Most of the time I just lay in bed thinking of what I wanted to make for dinner or contemplating whether or not I should get a new lamp for my desk.
But after a few days of bedtime, plus a few attempts to take walks or do “completely unproductive things” like reading fiction – something shifted.
It was as if my intention to take care of myself, to listen to my intuition and make a change, was enough for my intuition to wake up and start sending me signals.
I was proving to myself that I didn’t want productivity anymore, and was choosing fun and feeling alive instead (even though my bed was boring, it still helped with that).
Sometimes, when we feel “I don’t know” about what we need to do to make a change, it’s easiest to just do the next best thing that comes to mind that would help us figure stuff out – even if it looks a bit stupid.
For me, that was hanging out in bed and being very stubborn about it even when it felt ridiculous to lie in bed in the middle of the day.
If you can relate to this story and feel like you spend your days drowning in to-do lists, I encourage you to become a little stubborn as well. Even if you have no clue how to go from busyness and productivity to fun and play, please take this moment to make a commitment to yourself:
The commitment to chase feeling alive again, and to do things that light you up – often.
How do you do that?
Well, instead of handing out a step by step list that would turn into just another to-do list, here’s the simple question I have for you:
How can you start playing a little more? What did you use to do for fun that feels too unproductive today?
Sit with this question (get in bed if you have to) and feel free to let us know which of those things you most want to start doing again.
If you’d like to explore a more feminine, soulful approach to going after your goals & dreams, you might want to join me for The Homecoming Retreat. That’s 4 days of sisterhood, luxurious self-care (yoga! massages!) and lots of wisdom on living life with ease + grace.
Click on the image below to learn more and sign yourself up.