Are you brave enough to stand still?
This year started with an epic month-long cold that would not let up. I found myself struggling to balance the enthusiasm of wanting to jump on the 2020 bandwagon of goals and to-do lists with the needs of my body. I spiraled into a depressed and anxious state, overcome with frustration and doubts about my own worth. In the middle of this time, I wrote this journal entry at the top of a page: “Are you brave enough to let yourself rest? Are you brave enough to do only one thing at a time? Are you brave enough to listen to your body? Are you brave enough to stand still and know that your dreams are still coming true?”
Yesterday I woke up sick with another cold, only a month after recovering from the first one. But instead of getting frustrated and depressed, I am coming back to these words. I am coming back to trusting my body, and knowing that only she knows how much rest I truly need. I recently read Kate Northrup’s book, Do Less, and it helped to shift my perspective around my worth, my output and my schedule. Northrup looks at time management through a feminine lens, focusing on our cyclical nature as women, and the importance of building in rest and reflection into our schedules. She argues that you can actually get the same results (or better) by working less.
When I take a look back at the past month, I can actually sense that this is true. Even though I was sick and had a lot of “off” days, I was able to make some big steps forward on the days and weeks where I had more energy. I set up my home recording studio, wrote a lot of songs, and collaborated with some new people. When I take a step back I can see that everything that needed to get done got done, in its own beautiful time. My worrying or beating myself up does not make more work get done, it just takes more energy away from me. So I am taking this opportunity to learn to be ok with doing less. I am coming to terms with the fact that I will never complete “everything.” I am making shorter to-do lists. I am focusing on how I want to feel instead of what I want to achieve.
Why do I say this takes bravery? Because so many of us, myself very much included, are conditioned from a young age to equate our worth with our output, our busy schedules, our achievements. I was always a straight A student and got seriously addicted to that consistent praise and acknowledgement. As an artist, I typically felt like I was only as worthy as the project I was working on. I chased the feeling of completing something and putting it out into the world, only to feel let down by the world’s response. Nothing was ever good enough for my own high standards. I was always hard on myself, and struggled to let myself off the hook in a healthy way. Like so many of us, I often used alcohol as a way to signal to myself that my work time was over, that I could stop thinking about all my goals and projects and just “relax” and “have fun.” The accompanying hangover the next morning was also a good excuse to take a day off and not push myself to do more, because I physically couldn’t.
I got so tired of living this way. I had to stop and acknowledge that if this pattern continues, I will spend my life chasing something that I have made impossible to attain. So, for me, it takes incredible bravery to step out of those deep beliefs and thought patterns and dare to trust in something new. It takes bravery to sit at home all day and be quiet with myself. It takes bravery to let go of some of my goals so that I can give more energy to others. It takes bravery to build in days of rest into my schedule instead of relying on getting sick or hungover as my only out. It takes bravery to allow life to get messy and fall apart, and to wait for it to come back together on its own time frame. I’m starting to trust that it always does.
I cheated today, because I wrote this blog post, instead of doing nothing all day. But you know what? I let it be really easy. Now it’s back to the couch and drinking my healing teas. I’ll leave you with a little Ayurvedic wisdom and my favorite tea recipe for a spring cold:
- 1 inch piece fresh chopped ginger
- 1 star anise
- 5 cloves
- 5 peppercorns
- 1 piece cinnamon bark
- 1/2 tsp powdered licorice
Boil in 2 cups of water for 15 minutes. Strain and enjoy with or between meals! Remember to avoid all dairy, fruit and wheat when you have a cold. Remember, you don’t need to wait to get a cold to let yourself rest.