clear out the busy
when there’s no place left to run
you are forced to stay
I promised myself I would give myself some time off over the last two weeks of the year.
It’s meant to be time to rest and recharge. For once, I’d like to complete my year-end-review before the end of the year, and enter January with some sense of where I’m headed.
So I gave myself this time to be. Without pressure of doing. Without pressure of worrying about what comes next.
I stocked the fridge and pantry so that I have enough food for a couple of weeks without needing to run out every day.
I have no errands to run. For most of the past 20 months I’d find a livestream yoga or sound healing class on ClassPass. But they recently stopped offering livestream classes. So now my evenings are free.
In theory I have plenty of time to tend to my year end review and 2022 planning and rest and recovery.
Perhaps it’s what you yearn for:
Time alone, to just be, without having to run around doing.
I yearn for it.
I know the importance of this. I write about it so often it’s nauseating. I speak about it and teach about it.
And I struggle with it.
As much as I desire it, I resist it. I do everything I can to avoid it.
Stopping the busyness is torture.
It forces me to confront my anxieties and fears and doubts.
I shouldn’t even be writing this blog post right now. My commitment to publishing a daily blog post may seem noble, but I know that it’s an escape from the real inner work.
It’s the only diversion I have from the fear and panic that well up within me.
It’s also the only evidence that I have that I’ve made an attempt at contribution to this world.
It’s the only evidence that I’m still alive.
So many days I don’t feel alive. Although I show up here, I haven’t been active on social media. People forget you.
I feel isolated and alone and lonely and I feel like I’ve already died. And then the pangs of pain well up in the silence and remind me I am still here.
Without busyness, without a place to run to, without the pull of urgency of something that must be done for someone else in this moment, I am forced to confront all of these emotions and sensations.
The emptiness and loneliness and doubts and fears.
In the silence, the stories in my head that tell me what a mess I’ve made of my life grow ever louder, until I am drowning in them.
In the stillness, I am forced to feel the lump forming in my throat. The way my jaw clenches and my hips burn. The stabbing pain in my neck and upper traps. The pulsing behind my heart. The contraction in my chest and belly.
Escape hatches surround me. Social media. Television. The internet. Email. Work. Writing.
I could drown all of this in a glass of wine, a pint of ice cream, a bowl of chocolates.
And the “healthy” pursuits also beckon: another workout or yoga practice, meditation, healing practices, a good book. That year-end-review. Planning. Strategizing. Figuring things out.
These would seem “acceptable” but even the so-called “good” practices can be an escape.
A virtue, done in excess, becomes a vice
Over the years, I’ve followed nearly every escape route I could find.
At some point, we must set aside the busyness to confront what we’re trying to avoid.
As uncomfortable as it is, I know that this is the practice: to stay with all that is arising, to welcome these emotions and sensations, to be in the darkness.
It is time to stop running.
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