Be a human being, not a human doing.

I have had a lovely couple of weeks off work, away from social media and totally unplugged.  We’ve recently moved, to a house which is a bit of a ‘project’, so it was also great to get away from the endless to-do list of all the things that go along with moving and renovating.

I went with the best intentions to leave work at work, and leave the to-do list undone, knowing that it will all still be there when I got back.

It was surprising to notice how difficult it was to really switch off.  I consciously thought “right, now it’s holiday time, hurrah, I get to stop for a while”.

But my brain had other ideas.  My mind is so used to constantly being ‘on’ that it didn’t want to switch off and stop.  I tried to relax but it kept popping up with ideas and thoughts and tasks, “this needs doing”, “better just send a quick email about that”, “don’t forget the other thing”, and so on. And on.

I am sure I am not the only one with an errant brain that doesn’t know when to stop.  Maybe it’s because we don’t practice it enough.  

Too much doing…

We spend much of our time in doing mode, achieving, planning, striving, consuming.

We fill our days with busyness, meetings, zoom-calls, everything always clamouring for our attention with increasing urgency, demanding our attention, asking us to do more.

The more we do, the less we stop and just be.  We don’t stop to consciously choose our path, we react to what is in front of us, and get caught in the rollercoaster of modern life. Too much doing.

…Not enough ‘being’

To get better at resting we need to practice it.  Move from doing mode to being mode.

Aim to be in a state of rest.  Instead of always pushing to the maximum possible and filling every second with distractions, see if you can choose to just be.

Instead of doing something productive, worthwhile, worthy or necessary, choose to be human.  If you decide to ‘do’ something, do it for the joy of being alive and experiencing it, rather than to get it done.  Enjoy the outdoors, chat to a friend, draw a picture, go for a walk, read a book, stretch, run, sleep.  Or do nothing.  Just Be.

Sit.

Breathe.