What Are You Running From?

Last week we talked about busyness and how it’s not a badge of honor. If you didn’t get to listen to it yet, I would encourage you to go back and catch up, because today is kinda like part two of that episode. I’m continuing with the topic of busyness but this time from a different perspective. There were a few points that I briefly touched on and I want to dive into more. Let’s talk about how busyness can actually be distracting us from our most important work. 

A busy season is different than a busy life. And I want to make that a clear distinction. When you add a new baby to the family or school starts, or you’re moving, or things like, yes you will find yourself in a busy season, but it’s just that a season. 

When busyness becomes the theme of your life, and not just a season, when you find yourself filling the calendar to the brim, I think the real question you have to ask yourselves is… what are you running from? What are you distracting yourself from? What are you afraid of that you feel like you have to keep yourself constantly occupied?

See when you’re busy all the time it’s like you’re turning off your brain. You’re filling up your space with your to-do list and your schedule so you don’t actually have to be alone with your thoughts. 

As a society We keep our minds occupied with activity, tv, social media, all of these things- we say that we’re really busy but we just scrolled Facebook, or Instagram for hours. We say we’re so busy yet we just binged an entire series on Netflix. 

I am not bashing entertainment or social media at all. I actually love social media, I run my 6 figure business from it and I believe that it can be really beneficial at times when it’s done right. Those social platforms can be used for good, entertainment and movies can be good but everything in moderation friends. 

Busyness keeps you from truly living, it keeps you from being fully present and enjoying the moments because we are so distracted. 

If you have 2 minutes to yourself, do you quickly jump up and find something to do, do you find a way to busy yourself so that you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts? Or maybe you are zoning out and numbing yourself with social media or entertainment?

Again, the important question to ask is what are you running from? What are you hiding from? 

Busyness is modern-day laziness because while you might be able to cross a lot of things off on your to-do list… what are you actually accomplishing? Are you using your busyness as an excuse to not do the things you know you should be doing? 

Your life may be very busy and very full, with a lot of different things, but is your life fulfilling?? 

These are all important questions to ask yourself and do some self-reflecting. 

Back to busyness…When is the last time you had blank space on your calendar? Or when is the last time you just went outside with your kids, put your phone down, and just played with them, Without a time limit, without something to rush off to next, you were just present and in the moment? 

I’ll never forget there was this one afternoon and the boys wanted to go for a walk down our dirt road. We started walking and looking at everything along the way, all the flowers, rocks, grass, bugs, you name it. We were just taking time to observe nature, without an agenda or a plan. Literally taking time to smell the flowers. And while we were walking Charlie noticed this bright yellow butterfly. I had never seen one that looked like this before.  Here’s the crazy thing, since that day I can’t even tell you how many of those yellow butterflies I’ve seen flying around our property. And I just thought oh my goodness how many times was I outside and I was missing things that were right in from of my face because I wasn’t being present in the moment. My mind was wandering and scattered. I couldn’t focus on where I was or who I was with or what was around me because my brain was all over the place.

Part of living an extraordinarily normal life is being able to enjoy the little moments. Being fully present, even when your to-do list is a mile long because you have trained your brain to focus and zero in on what’s in front of you. This is a learned behavior and skill that you can improve upon. 

You can start out small and gradually work your way up. You have to make space and practice being alone with your thoughts; you have to practice bringing your mind back when it wants to wander and you start getting distracted. You have to practice disciplining your thought life. 

When you are so busy and living a really distracted life, you have to ask yourself, what am I running from? Why do I not want to be alone with my thoughts? Why is it so difficult for me to sit in silence for just a few minutes? Because friends I’m here to tell you the root problem of what’s going on is not going to just disappear because you keep suppressing it by filling your calendar. 

Busyness crowds out self-reflection, and we don’t sit alone with our thoughts.

Ya know what We’re going to practice right now actually, we are going to sit in silence together for 30 seconds, that’s it just 30 seconds. Do not shut off this podcast because you don’t want to be alone with your thoughts. Come on friends let’s do this together. Don’t look at your phone, don’t do anything else, if you’re in a place where you can close your eyes do it. your 30 seconds begins now…

okay, times up. How did that feel? Were you anxious? Did you feel uncomfortable? Did that seem like the longest 30 seconds of your life? 

Start small. Start with 30 seconds each day, then work your way up to 2 minutes. And then up to 10 minutes. It will get easier the more that you practice. 

If you feel like you need a little bit of help or some guided mediation you can search youtube, there’s tons of free content there. Sometimes focusing on a word can help or have a journal that you can write in while you’re cutting out distractions and being quiet. It can help you process your thoughts a little better if you can write things down. I also like to use to calm app for some guided meditation but that app is something you have to pay for, but there is a 7-day free trial if you wanted to test it out. 

But friends I can almost guarantee you that about half of you right now are already coming up with all of these reasons why you can’t spend a few minutes in silence with your thoughts. I’m talking about 2-10 minutes out of your 24 hours in a day. Stop running from your thoughts, stop hiding, and let’s face this together 

I’m speaking to myself in this episode!  I am not coming to you guys from a place where I have mastered this because I still need improvement in this area. It’s one of those things that easily get out of alignment and I constantly need to bring myself back in to focus. Let’s be intentional this week, to take a few moments, to quiet our minds, and to be still. To do some self-reflecting and start bringing the unconscious to the surface so we can deal with what’s really going on in our thought life!