For the past
month I’ve been busier than I’m comfortable being. Too much doing and I begin
to feel a bit out of sync with myself. When I get too busy I feel squeezed,
which makes everything I need to do seem bigger until I feel as though every
minute of my day is scheduled. That triggers my rebellious streak, which pushed
me to play hooky a couple weeks ago for most of a day.
My newest taking
care of me piece has been attending a weekly 5Rhythms dance ritual on Sunday
mornings. I love going. However, in the
midst of my recent busy I’ve missed a few weeks here and there. I don’t like
that. When I looked at how to juggle things so I can go dance I realized I’ve
been here before and had lapsed into an old pattern.
Several times in
the past few weeks I’ve noticed I feel heavy; as though I’m carrying a fifty
pound weight around with me. When I asked myself what the heavy feeling was
about I got “responsibility.” Yep…in looking at how I could get dancing into my
schedule I crashed into a pile of “shoulds” around finishing a project I’ve
been working on, clients and other work stuff.
One of the things
I’ve learned this year is the amount of freedom I experience in my life exists
in direct proportion to what I’m willing to take responsibility for.
Considering the Eleanor Roosevelt quote, “With freedom comes responsibility”,
that seems a bit backwards. But over and over I’ve seen that freedom is a
consequence of taking responsibility, not the other way around.
Without realizing
it, I lapsed into my old pattern of thinking and being with responsibility as a
burden or a “have to.” (Another thing I don’t like about being this busy….it’s
harder to me mindful when I’m moving so fast.) When I looked at how I got to
this responsibility is heavy place again, it began with one old piece of
thinking. Once again I was looking at my responsibility to externals as more
important than my commitment to myself.
Yes, I am busy
and adjusting to a new schedule. That’s the physical reality. And somewhere
along the way I slid into old thinking and allowed the busy to push dancing out
of my schedule. It’s a good reminder of how sneaky and subtle my old patterns
can be.
The single
distortion in my thinking where being responsible for external things is more
important than being responsible to myself set off a chain of old emotions. I
felt controlled by my schedule. I caught myself feeling put out when people
asked me to do things because I already had too much going on. I often found
myself feeling grumpy and out of sorts.
And guess what? I
created all of that.
Busy happens to
most everybody. Ultimately is doesn’t matter what the circumstances are.
Circumstances and situations exist outside of me. I don’t live there. I live in
my relationship to those external things. That relationship is something I can
change at any moment.
However, I can’t
change what I’m not willing to own. Each time over the past few weeks when I’ve
said “I can’t go dancing because I have to X” I’ve given my power away to X. If
my inability to go dancing is fault of some external thing then I’ve set myself
up to be stuck in the same place until the external thing changes the situation
for me. I’ve set myself up to be the victim of circumstance.
I don’t like the
victim mindset. I don’t like to feel controlled by situations or circumstances.
I’m the one who puts myself there. Why is that pattern so hard to change?
Some of it has to do with the way we humans
are wired. In the podcast, Our Attempts to Feel Better,
Dr. Kelly McGonigal talks about how the default state of the human brain is
to interpret any experience we’re having as being about who we are.
Even though I wasn’t conscious of this, my brain jumped to
some variant of dancing fell out of my schedule because I was doing something
“wrong.”
That makes it
tough to take responsibility for what I created because it sets up an
either/or. Either I own that I did something “wrong” and get the chance to
change my relationship to what’s happening or I avoid the feelings that come
from being “wrong” and give my power away to the situation. Hmm…
This mindset ties
in to distorted thinking where responsibility is inextricably linked to fault
and blame….more either/or. If I’m responsible then it’s my fault and I’m to
blame. I lived like that for many years. Although I no longer believe that,
it’s still an old and very ingrained way of thinking.
I caught another
tricky bit here related to my inner critic and how I judge myself. Each time I
decided not to go dancing because I needed to work on something else,
internally I was rationalizing, justifying and making excuses for my choice.
That pattern of rationalize, justify and make excuses is one I’ve been working
with this year.
Each time I fall
into that pattern, I take away my power to change myself. Changing me takes times. As I’ve just been
reminded again, it’s not a linear progression. I practice the new for a while,
lapse into not paying attention, fall back into the old, catch myself and start
again. Today I’m gonna dance in my living room!
P.S. Happy 2015 everyone! New year, new stuff. I want to bring in some new voices this year via guest bloggers. Got a couple friends lined up to write. Also have switched blog day from Wed. to Thursday.
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