If any of you read Naomi's blog, then you may have seen her post some words regarding this article. After I read it I was both happy and ashamed because the article hit me right where it hurts. My whole life, I've always been in a rush. It's always go, go, go and if I ever stop I have a gut-wrenching feeling of anxiety. I struggled with anxiety for most of my life and I think I made it a habit to always be going because if I ever stopped I worried. I always felt that if I wasn't doing something, I must be just wasting away.
It took a yoga class for me to realize just how bad it's become. At the end of class we had about 5 or 10 minutes of meditation at the end: I felt as if I was going to explode. There was NO WAY that I could just lay still for that long when I could be showering after my long workout or going grocery shopping or vacuuming my living room or anything else but this. After a few minutes though, I realized, "Hey, this isn't so bad." It turned out to be great. Stopping for those few minutes made me realize how healthy calmness could be for a human. Before I had seen it as almost a weakness for me and within only a few moments, I had realized that this is a necessity, not just an indulgment people take.
In the article, Rachel talks a lot about enjoying her life with her children and how her youngest taught her how to do so. I don't have any kids yet (or anytime soon), but I do have a wonderful man in my life who happens to be both loving, patient, and at times painfully slow. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm known to push my way out of an embrace because, and sadly these are my own words, "it's not productive." After I read Rachel's words, I felt like it was exactly what I needed to make me realize that being busy doesn't mean that you're living life. I would love to see -- and say for that matter -- these words daily: "I will not say, "We don't have time for this." Because that's basically saying, "We don't have time to live." I think from now on, I will try to live those words and remind myself that cramming as many things as possible into one day isn't necessarily the best way to go about your life.
I've been practicing these thoughts of mine for a few days now and it's been such a relief. David and I even sat on the porch for a full 15 minutes of doing absolutely nothing and I was able to enjoy it. This is what life really is. ahhhh.
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