A Professional Doer

Earlier this week I was with my nutrition coach and awesome friend Sarah Jenks when another one of her clients walked by. When she saw us she stopped to make it known that she was taking care and time for her self. After just getting a manicure and massage she was headed home for a bubble bath. As she determinedly made her declaration I could sense the uneasiness in her energy.

I forgot about the incident that happened on Monday until about an hour ago. 5 pm on Thursday. I had gotten my work done and was leaving when I noticed something. I now felt that same uneasy energy. Was it so awful I was going straight home after work? What would I do? This was not the norm for me and perhaps it’s not for many of you.

I fear we have all gotten a little too comfortable with always doing something. My days usually start with me leaving my apartment at 8:30 am and not returning till 10:30 pm or later, almost every night of the week. I, Kelsea, have become a professional doer.
Whether it’s a class or dinner, the gym or a coaching session, I am always doing something.

I love my life and all that I fill it with, however something has become quite off balance, and I am starting to feel the consequences. Too much of anything is a bad thing. So no matter how much I love my post work activities, I need to love me more.

It’s been several months now of “doing” and by the end of each week I am drained. I have a hard time getting up in the morning, am having trouble falling asleep and my bedroom, is a mess. Constantly eating on the go, or not at all and putting some of my important priorities on the back burner, has become the result of spreading myself too thin. I have no “me” time anymore and I am the only person that can fix that. No class, dinner or even a life coach, can help

We tend to wear our busyness like a designer handbag. As a symbol of status and pride, when so often the truth is it costs us too much. We think the more we do, the more important we will feel. Our self sabotaging thoughts tell us if we are not constantly on the go, then we’re lazy, anti social and other lies our mind creates.

After unrecognizably participating in this experiment, I can tell you that is not the truth. It is doing too much has made me lazy (and flakey) two adjectives I normally would not use to describe myself. I wish I spent more time at the gym, I have a tower of books I am dying to dive into and my living space resembles my chaotic schedule. Nothing I am proud to write. As a life coach I should know better, but perhaps I had to experience this first hand to remember how not to live.

My favorite author and spiritual activist Marianne Williamson says that our mind tells us that when we are doing nothing, we are nothing. However, quite the opposite is true, when we are doing nothing, we are everything. In these “nothing” moments is when we can take time to reconnect to ourselves, and in that reconnection we begin to connect to everything that matters most.

Its 6:30 on a Thursday and I am home, and when someone asks me what I did tonight, Ill proudly say, “nothing.”