TRUE LIFE: I am addicted to keeping busy
I am not the kind of person who can sit on the couch all day watching Netflix. Not passing any judgments on people who do sit on the couch all day watching Netflix, because some of my closest friends are those people and I envy them. Sure, an hour or two of Parks and Recreation episodes ain’t no thang, but I am generally moving, on-the-go, traveling from one place/job/meeting/event to another. I keep busy. I am addicted to it in a lot of ways. Throughout my undergraduate career, I was that girl who loaded up classes, added extra credits, and said yes to almost everything that was fun or exciting or responsible or could give me any sort of life/work experience that I might need in the future. I am a dance teacher, yoga instructor, Rooted facilitator, kids exercise coach, and a nanny. This list is not the kind of list that begins a person’s biography on a company website. This is not what I have done in the past. These are all of my current titles. I work 5 different jobs and I am one little person! Family members call me a “go-getter,” and my friends call me a superwoman, but I’m pretty sure they all just think that I’m a little crazy.
The thing is, sometimes, I take a step back from all the busy and I ask myself, why do I do it? It is not like I don’t enjoy stillness – some quiet once in a while. In fact, I cherish it. My favorite part of yoga is savasana, aka the 5 minutes at the end of class where we lie on our backs, breathe and meditate. I truly enjoy our emotional check-ins at Rooted where we take a few moments to close our eyes, take a few breaths, and ask ourselves “How am I feeling right now?” And my ultimate happy place is lying in bed, half awake as the sun hits my face and I get to just be – warm, still and wrapped up in blankets. I cherish these moments because I am pretty sure that my brain and body need them to stay healthy, but also because they give me some peace of mind.
As I facilitate more and more sessions at Rooted, I am able to spend more and more time journaling the Rooted way. At the end of every session, we take time to do some stream of consciousness writing. It means that whatever thoughts pass through my brain are written down as they do so. Lately, my thoughts and my writing always come back to my multiple jobs, the busyness, the balancing act. But ultimately, I find myself writing about how I FEEL about the work I do each day. Journaling and sharing in these sessions has helped me hone in on why I do the things I do – why I take so much of it on. I have landed on something, that for now, I come back to in moments of stress and frustration. I take it all on because I enjoy helping people. At the end of the day, for me, if I have helped someone find some peace, some happiness, some truth or clarity, I am content.
Rooted has helped me make discoveries about myself – like, why I commit to so many things, what it is that I truly enjoy about my many jobs, and that I need silence and calm to balance myself out. It has made sense out of all the confusion I have been feeling, and it has taught me how to accept myself, my choices and my imperfections. Now, I am talking to all of you out there who are feeling overwhelmed, overburdened or overbooked. I dare you to take the risk and try Rooted on for size. I cannot promise that you will find clarity or self-acceptance. But I do know that you will feel something, and those feelings might lead to understanding.
