“Busyness, at it’s core, is about misplaced priorities.” A truthful, humbling quote from a must read blog entitled “A Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy.”
We are overwhelmed. We are stressed. We have no time to breathe.
We consider car rides to school or practice our quality time with our kids.
We rarely, if ever, eat at home with our entire family.
Our minds are scattered, thinking of all we have to do. We are constantly beating ourselves up for the things we forget, the things that fall through the cracks.
We are frazzled, frenzied, and we feel powerless over our lives. Our powerlessness is a result of living mindlessly, on auto-pilot, constantly fixated on our past, or our future to-do list.
We are never in the present moment.
There seems to be two types of people. The “crazy busy” ones, and those paralyzed by the overwhelm. Both are equally lost, empty– letting the external world dictate their lives.
This busyness transcends everything in our lives. From our relationships to our eating habits, even to those things that we do actually do for ourselves. Just think how many times you rush through a workout, or lay at yoga during savasana thinking “I really have to go, I don’t have time for this.”
I refuse to utter the words “I am busy” anymore. I used to fall into the “crazy busy” bracket. I am the type that makes lists in black pen, and checks off each with a red check mark. I used to pride myself on all I could accomplish in a day. Busy, to me, was a badge of honor. It made me feel accomplished and goal driven. But you cannot be all about busy in one aspect of your life, without being all about busy in ALL aspects of your life.
My busyness resulted in more laundry, cleaning and chores, than quality time and enjoyment with my children. My busyness resulted in a bad marriage. My busyness resulted in poor health and added weight.
My busyness stole the joy out of my life. It stole my conscious choices, my present moment, my health, and my calm.
I was a ball of energy, but that energy was impatient, frustrated, stressed and overwhelmed. Not a good energy at all. Energy can also be defined as our life force, and our emotions dictate our life force. I did not want stress and overwhelm to be my life force.
What causes our busyness? I can only speak for those, like me, that live a privileged life. We have misplaced priorities. We are doing what the world tells us to do, instead of making conscious choices based on our own internal value system.
How many women do I speak to that say they don’t have time to cook healthy meals for their kids because of their sports schedules? They say this as if they don’t have a choice. We think academics and extracurricular activities are what will make our kids successful, never considering what we ALL (parents and children alike) are sacrificing along the way.
We are sacrificing OUR physical and mental health, OUR character, OUR values, and we have lost sight of what is truly important in life.
The book the “Price of Privilege,” by Madeline Levine PhD, describes “privileged kids” as the most at risk kids in our society. They are being raised with a value system based on materialism. Core values described by Levine as “focusing on wealth, image, status and material consumption.”
Our kids are not studying to learn, they are studying to get good grades, and get into a good college. That is why cheating is so prevalent.
Our kids are not playing sports for the fun of the game, or important life lessons. They are playing sports to win, or to get into college.
Our girls are not eating healthy food because they respect and love their bodies. They are dieting because they feel shame, and contempt for their bodies.
We are not the smartest nation, despite all of our studying, standardized testing, and our over achieving academic institutions. In fact, Finland ranks number one, and they don’t even give homework until high school, and have only one standardized test in all twelve years of schooling. For more on how Finland differs from the US, here is a great article.
We are, in fact, number one in our rates of depression, anxiety and mental illness. It is said that depression is an “illness of the affluent.” Why? Because we eat garbage, and money and materialism is our priority. And we are willing to sacrifice our relationships, our health, our environment, and our children’s well-being in the pursuit of wealth, large houses, fancy cars, designer clothes and other “stuff.”
There. I said it.
Keeping up with the Jones’, maintaining a materialistic lifestyle, caring for all of our stuff, and making sure our kids follow in the same pursuits, is keeping us really busy that is for sure.
But clearly this is NOT fulfilling us, or our kids. This culture of materialism is robbing us of healthy, happy lives.
This is my why.
This is what I do as a Healthy Life Coach. I help people break free from this culture of busyness, materialism, and misplaced priorities. I support people in making conscious choices based on a new value system.
A value system that honors authenticity, integrity, health, calm, self awareness, and social consciousness.
My Healthy Life Clubs are fun, therapeutic, cathartic, informative, inspiring, and empowering.
As one beautiful HLC member stated:
“I am moved. I am empowered and I am in the process of huge transformation. It’s so liberating when women sit around and discuss things in life that matter- to us, to our family, community and beyond.”
Or as another member said “This group is more than just food talk, its about changing your self talk. It’s about transforming your mind. It is about nurturing your soul. And lots of nourishing healthy food!”
If you are someone that resonates with this blog, I welcome you to consider joining my next Healthy Life Club. Stop waiting until the right time to pursue a healthy, joyful life, define your priorities today. All the details are in this link and it starts in a week, so let’s do this, together!