When you feel there's 'too much to do'...
What if instead of ‘there’s too much to do’ (I get lost in overwhelm around ‘too much to do’ A LOT) - What if we see all the ‘muchness’ as an act of divine generosity?
Here’s what I mean:
I often feel there are not enough hours in the day, days in the year, and years to this life I will live, to do everything I’d love to do and need to learn, discover and work on to bring my ideas and dreams to life.
Often I wake up anxious about how much time I have in the day to spend in purposeful creative work.
I realised the other day it’s time to shift how I view the ‘too muchness’, and my daily and weekly and monthly ‘to do lists’ because I’ve been holding on to a lot of anxiety arising from my earnest desire to live a purposeful, beautiful, creative life.
I sometimes think to myself, ‘surely there can’t be more to change’… I meditate, I exercise, I write, I mother, I don’t eat gluten, I talk to my life coach every week…. but actually it’s not about there being more to change, but about stopping, and embracing the beauty of how much there is - and breathing into the greatness - and learning how to be surrounded by greatness instead of trying to dose it into measured, controlled sips. It’s too big to control! Damn it! I can’t control it! So I have to allow myself to open to the greatness.
I started teaching a new group of women movement medicine recently. We were doing work around anxiety and I realised I’m holding way too much of that prickly, itchy scratchy, flinchy, scared feeling.
Two things arose for me that feel like good practical doses of no nonsense roll your sleeves up wisdom in releasing anxiety and opening to something deep and resourcing.
A morning practice
I inadvertently start my day with a mental to do list and this makes me anxious. I don’t give myself time to drink from the wisdom of what’s arising in the stillness of the present. In this moment, if I choose to pause, there’s freshness bubbling up like spring water coming from a hidden source. As I start my day, to shift out of anxiety, there needs to be an arising from new source, a dropping into the ground of my own being and tending to what is authentically arising IN me and around me. One of the best ways for me to drop into the greatness of the present moment and be nourished in a way that sweeps less desirable feelings away is to do a meditative movement practice. I need at least 20 minutes. A few pages of writing in a journal works too. But intentional movement is my best medicine.
Secondly…. and importantly …. what I also realise and if and when I can hold this perspective as a reality is the following: We could view the ‘too muchness’ as generosity and that changes it entirely into something quite incredible, enriching and… well… that beautiful feeling you get from someone giving and providing generously.
What if you and I have been given ‘so much’ (to write, to create, to do, to see) as a divine act of generosity? What if all you feel you could do is so that you will never be lacking, never be parched? I see a table spread with beautiful fabric. The colours are rich. The textures soft and silky. There are yards and yards and I can feel myself wanting to reach and feel everything and drape all the colours over me and roll in the thick silky materials. They are quite substantial. I can trust them to cover me, to last. It’s a feast for my eyes and my body. Yards and yards of beauty. Inspiration. it doesn’t run out. There is no end to it. Is this why, maybe, we live again and again? Because there is so much to be inspired by? Once we awaken to inspiration it doesn’t run out. That’s my experience. It only runs out when we chase something that’s not really ours to be inspired by. That’s also been my experience. Or when we outgrow an idea and need to move on to the next. If we trust that there is muchness and generosity maybe we will be held as we reach out to touch, experience and see new colours, textures and designs.
I’d love to know how you wisely manage the feeling of ‘too much’ day to day? What ways have you discovered to lighten your load and allow the muchness of life to flow instead of getting bottled as fizzing anxiety bubbling in your being?