I have a Day Designer 2018-2019 planner, and as I was planning my Coffee and Conversation interviews this month, I did not notice how much my months bled with ink of different colors.
Confession: I bought 5 different color pens to better organize the chaos: yellow= work, green = health & fitness, blue = Steep Life and my passion, purple = social & church, and pink = my marriage and time with my man :)
But unfortunately, some plans have been bleeding together more than desired. I find myself at times feeling overwhelmed, ran down, frantic, hurried, distracted and just flat out tired.
In all the fun of planning and participating in social events, I had no idea how much my planner bled.
My husband and I have had our weekend’s packed since the second weekend of February. This is what our Saturdays have looked like:
February 9: Michael’s birthday party with close friends
February 16: Helping some close friends move to the house that they just bought
February 23: Hosting a Bridal Shower in my home for my future sister
March 2nd: Nephew’s 1st birthday at my grandma’s house with family
March 9: Attended a Dear Friend’s Bridal Shower
March 16: Hosting my husband’s Best Friend’s Birthday Party in our home
March 23: Attended my Brother and Soon to be Sister’s Wedding Shower
My husband and I have had 7 consecutive Saturdays jam packed with hustle yet flooded and overwhelmed by memories I will never regret being a part of and even creating. This only represents my Saturdays. This does not include spontaneous Disney trips on Fridays and even more spontaneous bowling nights on Sundays, and Michael and I had the pleasure of hosting friends in our home that wanted to visit a few weekends as well. This does not include church on Sundays and the hustle and grind of work Monday through Friday.
My husband, Michael, and I this past weekend had a free Friday and Saturday, and I did not realize how much I have missed being plan-less. This weekend was a breath of fresh air that was very much needed between the last 7 weeks of hustle, but I am grateful for taking the time to check in with myself.
On Mondays after posting the “Coffee and Conversation” feature of the week, I will celebrate and reflect about what I want to do next in my writing. I began to look at my calendar this past Tuesday to see where I could add more to my already busy week, and I paused and thought about my day, and I was flooded with thought:
Reflecting. Breathing.
Feeling a slight headache from the exhaustion of my day.
Reflecting on how hurried I have been from my drive home, speeding.
Gave my husband a 2 second greeting, the drive to accomplish drove me to run upstairs to change into my workout clothes in order to complete my workout for the day.
Workout, check!
I sat at my desk, wobbly from finishing a 40 minute cardio workout.
Sweat seeping through my workout pants.
Reflecting. Breathing. Trying to catch my breath.
Looking at my schedule, my bleeding planner, seeing where I can force, forge plans to my already over-planned life.
God caught me there, in the overwhelm of it all.
I grabbed a full cup of water, half of a banana, and two tylenols to kill the headache, and instead of planning, I took a breath and made room for my passion.
I closed Pages on my iPad and retreated to my Kindle app, turned on “do not disturb”, and I opened Shauna Niequist’s book, Present Over Perfect for the second time.
My mind was already making a deal with whether this time was worth it.
Would it fit in my already busy schedule of needing to clean our room, dusting, vacuuming, preparing dinner, getting ready for a meeting?
Those things could wait, my soul said.
So I chose to say “yes” to what was going to fuel me and not fry me.
I read and read.
Still and quiet.
I was able to read exactly what I need to fill this empty cup:
“I have left behind some ways of living that I once believed were necessary and right that I now know were toxic and damaging - among them pushing, proving, over-working, ignoring my body and my spirit, trusting my ability to hustle more than God’s ability to heal…But there is a peace that defines my day, a settledness, a groundedness. I’ve been searching for this in a million places, all outside myself, and it astounds me to realize that the groundedness is within me, and that maybe it was there all along…Now I know that the best thing I can offer to this world is not my force or energy, but a well-tended spirit, a wise and brave soul. My regrets: how many years I bruised people with my fragmented, anxious presence. How many moment sof connection I missed - too busy, too tired, too frantic and strung out on the drug of efficiency…You don’t have to damage your body and your soul and the people you love the most in order to get done what you think you have to get done. You don’t have to live like this.”
Make time to breath. Sometimes we do not even realize that there is a pause or lapse of quiet where we can take that deep soul breath that will refill us with everything that we have been pouring out into others.
We cannot heal if we always hustle.
I wanted to approach my “Coffee and Conversation” series different this week. My weeks have been so full, crazy, and busy, and to add one more line of ink on my planner would have only added to the chaos. I wanted to say “yes” to my self-care, to my need to slow down, and it came from this pause of looking within.
Less is more; when we say yes to something, we say no to something else.
As I go on more intentional coffee dates with “Busyness”, I am realizing that its presence is with us more than we think.
Choose healing and less hustle.
Choose to embrace beauty over being busy for the sake of just being busy.
Choose the present over the perfect.
More grace and gratitude, and less grit and grind.
What are areas in your life that you can say “no” to this week, so you can say “yes” to something that is going to really fill your cup?