My Rocky Mountain Heart

In August I made the decision to enroll myself into a 12-week life coaching program called The Great Big Journey.  This course comes with weekly writing assignments/prompts, 1-1 coaching sessions and several webinars with content around living your best life.  The interesting thing that I am learning through this Great Big Journey is primarily about DOING LESS and being more.  Sounds crazy, right?  But in all seriousness, it has become abundantly clear to me that I, along with all the other Type A’s of the world, tie a lot of our self-worth to our to-do lists.  We use this strategy of checking things off our list as way to feel accomplished, validated and worthy.  We use being busy as a way to distract ourselves from confronting uncomfortable feelings of insecurity, doubt, fear, sadness, regret, guilt, and shame.  Can you relate?  Do you keep going down that to do list even when you are exhausted?  Even when your body is saying, “ENOUGH ALREADY! PLEASE JUST SIT DOWN AND REST!”?  Do you feel like a failure when you don’t check every single thing off that last? Why? Who is it that assigns value to this to-do list? Who told you that completing every item on that to-do list makes you worthy or successful?  I would bet that NOBODY ever told you that.  This is something that many of us have learned from society, our parents, teachers, in high school and college – and somehow the implementation of an organizational system became a value system.  It became the way that we determine our worth at the end of every day.  It might sound crazy as you are reading this, but I bet if you can let that sink in for a minute and you get really honest with yourself, that you know the truth behind this observation.

Meanwhile, while exploring my own internal motivation systems, I am working with a lot of concussion patients in our outpatient clinic.  It’s an interesting dynamic because as much as they feel like I am teaching them about how to manage their symptoms, time and life – they are simultaneously forcing me to reflect on all these things in my own life.  For example,  just yesterday, I had a gentleman I am working with tell me that he is working from 5am – 9pm.  Every single day.  Granted, he owns his own business and he’s the boss man, so I understand that you can’t stop working completely – because hey, we all have bills to pay.  However, I asked him this question: “What would happen if you just stopped working at 5pm everyday?” I could tell I stumped him immediately.  He kind of laughed and said, “Well, what would I do?”  And I said, “You would just BE.”  You should have seen the look of bewilderment on his face!  Then I followed up with “I don’t know if you know this or not, but we are called human BEings, NOT human DOings.”  He laughed hysterically and said, “Not me, I AM A HUMAN DOING!”  We got into a lengthy conversation about work ethic and while working hard is commendable (trust me, I very much value a hard worker and I am very much one myself), it no longer is commendable when it is hurting you OR you are unable to slow down, rest and properly care for yourself.  Ultimately, this became a conversation about values.  He went on to say that he believes you have to “EARN EVERYTHING.” I, of course, had to disagree and say, “No, you don’t EARN rest because you work 15 hour days.  You just NEED rest and deserve it simply because you exist.”  Now without getting into the specifics of concussion and brain injury recovery, just know that cognitive rest is critical for long term recovery.  The more cognitive load people put on themselves while trying to heal from a brain injury, the worse their symptoms are and the longer it takes them to heal.

So what does all this have to do with you or me?  Well, don’t these same principles apply to ALL of us? Don’t we all have inherent worthiness because we exist?  Don’t we all NEED and DESERVE rest simply because we are here? Because we were created and put on this earth for a reason?  Why do we think that checking off ALL the items on the to do list makes us worthy?  And worthy of what?  What would happen if you didn’t make a to-do list?  What if everyday you let your intuition guide you?  What if you woke up and checked in with yourself and said, “What do I need today?” and then you simply TOOK IT?!?! How freeing does that feel to think about living life that way? It is possible.  It is possible to know your worth, inherently, and to treat yourself accordingly – worthy just as you are right now.  Without doing a single thing except being.  Perfectly imperfect and still worthy.  Right now.  And now.  And now.

Kind of amazing, isn’t it?

For some reason the book “Present over Perfect” by Shauna Niequist was jumping off the shelf at me tonight and so I opened the book to this previously highlighted quote in the introduction: “And beyond those things I’ve done, the more life-altering part of the work are those things I’ve not done: the moments that I’ve allowed – or forced- myself to stop, to rest, to breathe, to connect.  That’s where life is, I’m finding.  That’s where grace is.  That’s where delight is.”

So I challenge you with this: write a to do list and then throw it away or don’t even write a to-do list! Just for tomorrow, try existing from moment to moment and trusting your intuition to guide you.  Just try it, see how it feels for you and what it does for your life.  Maybe nothing or maybe it will be a life altering paradigm shift.  Just explore it.  See what you think.

Maybe you are enough.

Right now.

Just as you are.

Maybe you can relax.

And just be….