This little thing called life: Work or laziness?
I have noticed that when I overwork my body it rearranges itself in such a way that I will be forced to take a break. That just happened to me. I was burning the candle at both ends and got hit with pneumonia. Because I did not take sufficient rest and just kept working and dragging myself through the days it came back with a vengeance and I was forced to lay down and work whilst laying down. It made me think about being nicer to myself and not treat my body as a slave. I seem to have adopted the saying “I can rest as much as I want when I am dead” from my parents.
REST
Rest was seen as something unnecessary and a form of laziness. Both coming from small business owners (bakeries) they worked from early morning till late at night and found that quite normal. To change that belief is not easy. The limiting belief “Me as a person and my life only have value when I work very hard” is deeply rooted in me. Another one was: “the sun gets up for free; if you want something more then you will have to work your arse of.” Mind you, we had not much sun either were I grew up. So now I live at the Sunshine Coast in the Sunshine State and I get lots of free sun. I still work very hard because I believe that is the only way to have value in my life. I can’t see how sitting around doing nothing can bring value for me. I will not be paid to do that. I will have a low self esteem and consider myself as a lazy person.
Creativity
On the other hand to be creative periods of contemplation (doing nothing and just staring into the waves or so or watching a plant grow) are necessary. I need to get into that empty head space before I can tap into the muse and connect as her instrument. Sometimes this is done through meditation which I am sure my parents would have looked at as just sitting on the floor doing nothing but wasting precious time.
I am with one foot in each world. No wonder I often am confused and disorientated as they are not really compatible. My next task is to realign these two factors in my life. Allowing myself to just sit there without doing something. Not feeling guilty that I am taking the time to meditate for 15 minutes while there is working, cleaning, writing, talking and what not to do. No justification needed just down time and “me” time to recharge my batteries. I really hope I can follow up on my own good advice…
