Pop Quiz:
Is my life too busy lately? Why?
1. Why have I chosen to do so much?
2. What am I building and where am I going with my current lifestyle?
3. Is there a better future to it?
4. Is that future costing me my present happiness?
5. What am I missing about myself because of my current lifestyle?
Is your life is too tightly scheduled with goals, projects, ideas, plans, coulds, shoulds, have to’s, commitments, obligations, expectations, and concerns? This may make it difficult to orient around your values and to find peace and fulfilment. Life may feel like nothing but constant struggle to keep up. In the next few weeks, you’ll be examining areas where you could downsize and simplify.
You can set the pace at which you simplify your life. Some people immediately toss out 50% of their goals and projects while others gradually phase out commitments over a six-month or one-year period. Try taking on some dramatic simplification if you feel you are stuck in a rut and need some shaking up.
A note of caution: When some people start simplifying, there can be a readjustment. Your priorities might change, things you once held sacred are now meaningless, some folks catch colds as their body changes and shifts. Don’t panic – take extra Vitamin C, drink water, get to bed earlier while you are going through the simplification process – it will get better!
Why are we naturally drawn to keep our lives so complicated and busy?
Most of us were raised with the notion that hard work is the key to success and that if we aren’t successful, we simply need to work harder. Some people have busy minds and, to keep themselves mentally challenged or stimulated, they do lots of stuff or create a lot of projects or situations that keep them busy. We use stimulants such as caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nicotine and adrenaline to keep ourselves moving. Technological changes, cell phones, iPads, Blackberries, e-mail, Twitter and Facebook all increase the pace of living and change so we feel the struggle to keep up with it all.
The media has affected us more than we realize.
Instead of looking within, we look without to determine what we want, how we should live, what is important. The media can have a powerfully seductive influence on our thoughts and beliefs about what success means, looks like, what happiness is supposed to look like. We end up being the pawns of a huge cultural and media hype and unwittingly strive to create a life that we don’t even want.
“Never try to keep up with the Joneses. Instead drag them down to your level. It’s much cheaper.” Quentin Crisp
The process of simplification can be threatening.
You may experience both physical and emotional symptoms of withdrawal as you reduce adrenaline and start to slow down and simplify your life. There is a physical change in the body as you shift from being cluttered to being spacious. The newfound space and time may feel foreign or odd at first but give it some time. As the brilliant coach, Thomas Leonard said, “The gateway to peace is through boredom.” You may need to feel bored at first before you experience real peace.
Benefits of Simplifying Your Life
1. You will reconnect with your values, feelings, intuition, creativity and spirituality – none of these are accessible when you are too busy.
2. You will begin to make different, better, cleaner choices than when you were running around like a headless chicken.
3. You will begin to practice extreme self-care because you will now deeply feel the costs of not doing so as you become more sensitized and less adrenalized.
4. You will have a sense of space and peace to grow, to simply be and to enjoy your life.
Homework for this week:
Spend some time thinking and writing in your online journal about what changes you could make that would truly honor your core values. Determine where you are chasing media-inspired standards of success and why you feel you have to do this. Spend some time in nature, even if that is to sit under a tree in a park or in your own yard and contemplate ways you could simplify your life, both large and small.
Above all, don’t panic. We’ll be working on simplification on all levels as you work through The Ideal Life Program and we’ll be focusing on the above areas over the next few weeks. For some of you, this will mean subtle tweaking and adjusting, and for others it may mean selling a big house, downsizing, relocating, quitting a job or ending a relationship or all of the above.
10 minute option. Just jot down the answers to the pop quiz in bullet points in your journal.
Enjoy!
Talane
Bonus Reading:
Simplify Your Life: 100 Ways to Slow Down and Enjoy the Things that Really Matter by Elaine St. James
Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston
