Addicted to busy?

Russell Brand says in his book 'Recovery' that the biggest thing humans are addicted to is problems. Addicted to having, finding and creating problems.

I reckon ‘Busy’ might be a close second. Being busy is a wonderful distraction in life and an addiction for many of us.

I have spent the past two weeks coming off my busy high. I love busy. I love action. Dashing and darting around. Busy makes us feel important and it takes away the need to be present in our current realities. Busy makes us feel successful - being busy plays into our self worth.

What are you worth if you are not working?

What value do you add? To who?

Many of us have been raised by busy people. Hard working people who believe that you should be judged on your ability to do. How much you can achieve - what you get done - these are all measures of ‘good hardworking people’. Lying on the couch, sleeping in the day, watching tv, are considered by many the work of the lazy! These pre-programmed beliefs might be making it very difficult for you to relax right now…

Going from busy to lockdown has given me the equivalent of the bends! My body needs to decompress slowly. I need to pace my re-entry into the ‘not so much working’ world. I am still working but certainly at a much slower pace than I have been running at for the past 10 years!

No planes to catch, no hotels to check in to, no meals to order, no bags to pack, no outfits to plan - I am grieving my old life!!! A life that I created. A life I loved!

When you are busy, you miss what is really going on in the world. Not what’s going on, but what's really going on. You miss the look on your kids faces when you have to rush out the door to work. You miss the look on your partners face when you tell them you won’t be home for dinner.

A month ago we were all running from meeting to meeting carrying cardboard coffee cups as badges of honour to prove how essential we were!

And then we all hit lockdown. Busy is no longer a thing - unless you are one of the incredible people running essential services - the people out risking their health everyday for the greater good of others. The selfless carers, the delivery people, the supermarket workers - if you are one of those please stop reading for a moment and take a bow…

What about us other hamsters whose wheels just stopped? 

My business crashed overnight. Work cancelled. Events disappeared. Contracts gone. It was a sudden stop. There is an element of shock and adjustment for us all to go through. Lucky we have plenty of time and space to heal! Or is it? Change is tough. Some of our lives have had a radical shift. Please acknowledge this and be gentle with yourself. 

• Take some time to write what this all means.
• Chat to others in similar worlds about the changes you are going through.
• Write out some plans for what your future might look like in three months and in six.

I have plenty of things to get on with - I am a factory of ideas and content! I am a crazy optimist who genuinely thinks that we will come out of this as better people than when we went in. 

The tough work is getting through it. Staying well and staying sane.

I am releasing the need to be busy. I am giving myself permission to do nothing. But I will be dressed up while I am doing it!

xx

Lisa