I feel like I sabotage myself by distracting myself with other tasks or activities I need to do and busying my brain to avoid the stillness. I start out ok as it’s at the front of mind but then I get distracted and busy and completely forget that’s what my intention was.
It’s almost like I need to camouflage my stillness as a task or activity to help it grow into something I do more automatically. Or is it I don’t feel stillness has the value that the outcomes from a task has? As a child I was told to never have idle hands and it was lazy to not work… hmmm… starting to unpack this as I write lol
How many of us have been taught it isn’t okay to rest? ‘Plenty of time to rest when you’re dead’ or ‘you can rest when the work is done’ and then we choose jobs like teaching / farming / hospitality/management positions / self employment that never have an empty tray!
What a Catch 22!!
No wonder we don’t know how to be (still). Or make ourselves ill to have a rest. Or go into a slump when we aren’t feeling productive.
I feel like the first step is recognising that need to be busy- go you!
And thanks for sharing Denise- you are helping me to unpack it too 💛🙏🏻
Denise, I may be wrong, but I'm pegging you were raised Cstholic as the saying I used to get was, "idle hands are the devils workshop". Hence my mother was frenetic. I'm so glad I was able to recognise this throughout my life and not take her issues on board. Lots of work done there. I just wanted to share that with you.
Thanks for sharing Jacki. So many of us are examining what we accepted either through conditioning, DNA and / or past life experiences. Religion and old survival patterns surely contribute. Isn’t it awesome to know we can choose something better?! 💛
WORKSHEET LINK HERE: https://open.substack.com/pub/michellecowles/p/worksheet-setting-boundaries-from?r=2sgc27&utm_medium=ios
Thank you Michelle 💛💛💛🌈🌈🌈
I feel like I sabotage myself by distracting myself with other tasks or activities I need to do and busying my brain to avoid the stillness. I start out ok as it’s at the front of mind but then I get distracted and busy and completely forget that’s what my intention was.
It’s almost like I need to camouflage my stillness as a task or activity to help it grow into something I do more automatically. Or is it I don’t feel stillness has the value that the outcomes from a task has? As a child I was told to never have idle hands and it was lazy to not work… hmmm… starting to unpack this as I write lol
How many of us have been taught it isn’t okay to rest? ‘Plenty of time to rest when you’re dead’ or ‘you can rest when the work is done’ and then we choose jobs like teaching / farming / hospitality/management positions / self employment that never have an empty tray!
What a Catch 22!!
No wonder we don’t know how to be (still). Or make ourselves ill to have a rest. Or go into a slump when we aren’t feeling productive.
I feel like the first step is recognising that need to be busy- go you!
And thanks for sharing Denise- you are helping me to unpack it too 💛🙏🏻
Denise, I may be wrong, but I'm pegging you were raised Cstholic as the saying I used to get was, "idle hands are the devils workshop". Hence my mother was frenetic. I'm so glad I was able to recognise this throughout my life and not take her issues on board. Lots of work done there. I just wanted to share that with you.
Thanks for sharing Jacki. So many of us are examining what we accepted either through conditioning, DNA and / or past life experiences. Religion and old survival patterns surely contribute. Isn’t it awesome to know we can choose something better?! 💛
Hi Jacki brought up Christian but similar messages I imagine. Yes idle hands 🙌 so wonderful you could recognize it and not take that on :)
Another fantastic, thought-provoking article. Michelle, do you have the boundary worksheet somewhere? I couldn't click on it.
Hi Jacki- again, thank you! The worksheet was posted in December and I’m away from my desk and don’t know how to add it- as yet! I’ll fix it asap and it is here for the moment. 💛✨https://open.substack.com/pub/michellecowles/p/worksheet-setting-boundaries-from?r=2sgc27&utm_medium=ios