When did busy become a good response to “how are you”? Do people take pride in being busy or is it just the state of affairs for many of us? Is it just a way to give a neutral one word response to a simple question or a reason to mutter it and keep hustling along to the next task that life throws our way?
We are busy. Busy busting our chops to earn an income, busy spending our hard-earned money on shiny new gadgets. Busy taking care of our families. Busy socializing with our friends. Busy at work, busy at home – busy, busy, busy!
If you dream of living your life in a manner that maximizes health, wealth and happiness; then I suggest you slow down. Sometimes we get so caught up in being busy that we forget to think about the big picture. We forget our true goals and lose sight of; or worse never determine our destination.
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there”
Lewis Carroll
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up someplace else”
Yogi Berra
I have spent the last few years learning to slow down. I spend 10 minutes or so every single morning sitting, just sitting. I close my eyes and take what I call quiet time. I have been doing this for about 4 years and sometimes I find it really easy to do, and other times I struggle. But I do it, day in and day out because it helps me find my Zen. It helps me turn off the busy and turn on the quiet. Taking this time to myself helps me stay on the path to my destination. I feel like I am approaching an intersection and my destination needs to be re-assessed, updated, modified. I want to know where I am going and what road will take me there.
It is during my quiet time that I often get a hint, from the recesses of my mind, of changes I should make to improve my life. Changes that will allow me to maximize my health, wealth or happiness. Quiet time is just one of the tools in My Little Blue Toolbox!
When we are busy all of the time, we don’t hear these messages, or don’t remember the message. It is during these busy times that we get stuck in a rut; spinning our wheels but not getting anywhere.
In the past, when I listened to these hints, wrote them down and pondered them a bit I was able to figure out what path in life to choose.
In 2013, I took 2 months off to spend with Mother Fran at the lake. Towards the end of the time period, while taking my quiet time I heard and received this message “you can’t move the lake but you can move closer to the lake”. I knew instantly the truth of this statement and immediately knew that I would be moving back to the Finger Lakes after 20 plus years of living in Massachusetts.
On another occasion, during my quiet time I heard the message “you need to get out of debt if you want to live the life you dream of”. A plan came to me the same day and I paid off my final $15,000 school loan in less than 1 year.
Over the last few months, I have heard a few more messages while taking my quiet time but I haven’t quite figured out how to interpret them. The 2 examples above hit me like giant AHA moments and the clarity of the message and the full understanding of how to implement it were clear to me immediately upon receiving it. It was like a light bulb went off in my head.
The messages, I have been getting lately are less clear and I have not yet figured out how to interpret the message or how to implement them. I have written down the new messages and spent time pondering them, trying to figure out what they mean but I haven’t been able to complete the riddle. Each one of these messages is like a puzzle piece or a key but I am not sure what to do with them.
It is only by slowing down, taking my quiet time that I will be open to receiving the full message and the implementation plan. I think it is a message regarding how to use my health coach certification credentials in a new way, but the details are still fuzzy. Sometimes I get a vague feeling that I just missed a hint or a glimpse of something that would help me understand how to fit the puzzle pieces together and I struggle to regain that moment but it is gone.
I think I have spent too much time thinking about it, researching possibilities and filling my brain with too much information. I honestly believe somewhere in the recesses of my brain; I know exactly what I want to do with my health coach certification. I just need to slow down, quiet my mind and listen as the answer is revealed.
Don’t worry, you will be the first to know once I figure out what the puzzle looks like! I have confidence in my quiet time because it has helped me solve impossible problems in the past!
Lake Girl