Tag: too much to do

I have too much to do!

Have you ever had this thought, and felt extreme stress about it?

Like this urgent, inward implosion, fist-clenching.

For me…this thought popped up this morning as I noticed 76 emails in my Inbox (after being away for the weekend and only checking a few times) PLUS the ongoing urge to make my website more classy PLUS the major project underway to roll out the newest version of Eating Peace after receiving vital and fantastic feedback from people who took the 8 week class 8 months ago.

(How long does it have to take? What is the hold up here?! Jeezus!)

And there’s the book-writing project, organizing the Year of Inquiry retreat in only 12 days, signing up for yoga, figuring out what bookshelves to purchase for my cottage, getting my kid’s retainer replaced, and trying to make dates with friends even if its talking with them on the phone!

Sometimes, the list seems sooooo overwhelming!

Not enough time! I should be getting things done!

Yowser!

It’s true! It’s true! It’s true! It’s true!

Take a deep breath.

How do I react when I believe I have tons to do, not enough time, and I should be more productive?

Either an inner revving, like putting the gas pedal down all the way to the floor while the gears are in “park” (it’s very loud, and you go nowhere)….

….OR I start in on the list with a sense of emergency, like I have to keep my nose to the grindstone and get as much as possible done and hope for the best….

….OR I decide I need a break, dammit, and I crash. Maybe go to a movie or watch Breaking Bad on Netflix (which I can hardly let myself do, to be honest, even though I LOVE that the main character has terminal cancer and limited time to make $750,000K).

There has to be a balance somewhere.

But, where?

Oh. I almost forgot. That’s right.

It’s in imagining who I would be without the belief that I have to get stuff done ASAP, there’s not much time, I have a huge to-do list, I need to get that goal achieved come hell or high water.

If I were simply here, in this moment now, writing.

Yes, I would still know all that cool stuff I have that I want to do.

That excellent new class for me designing my own website, making handouts for the retreat and putting the exercises I have planned in the perfect order, arranging for renting a bike when I’m in Scottsdale next month.

I might also calmly make a list of all I’d like to accomplish, and map out the time I’m devoting to these things, so I can actually see what I’m doing throughout the day.

Suddenly, I remember the resistance I had thirty years ago to keeping an eating journal.

I’ve told you about that before. Oh the pain.

Every week I’d go into my therapist’s office and she’d say “Did you buy a journal to write down your thoughts about food in yet…the binge journal?”

At first, I hadn’t even remembered it all week. Not one single time. She’d have to mention it every week for awhile.

You couldn’t miss the point that there was something inside me against looking at what was going on.

Finally I went to a stationary store.

I found a gorgeous, leather bound, red journal with a blank cover. Smaller than a full-sized piece of paper, thin enough to slip into my backpack or purse.

I left it sitting by my bedside for a few more weeks, empty.

And then one day, I stuffed my face with food in a frenzy during an afternoon when I was supposed to be writing a paper for a college class. None of my housemates were home. I had been eating tiny amounts of their food, stealing a little enough so they hopefully wouldn’t notice. I had then gone to the store to succumb to buying a whole half gallon of ice cream, a loaf of bread and a box of butter, plus anything else I could find that sounded good.

After it was all over and I was incredibly sick to my stomach and almost crying with remorse, I saw that red journal sitting on my bedside.

I opened it and started writing.

What was I afraid of, before binge eating? What was REALLY bothering me? Where was my anxiety born? Was this all really my fault? Did the eating help?

Who would I be without those thoughts that I’m a failure if I don’t achieve this, if I don’t do “well”, if I don’t succeed, if the final bell goes off before I get the ball in the basket?

Without the belief that I have to go fast, or lose? Without the belief that I have to push myself as hard and as fast and as intensely as humanly possible, or else?

I’d notice, without those beliefs, the green leaves waving back and forth in the distance outside the french doors of my cottage. I’d hear the silent hum of the fridge over in the kitchen. I’d see the pretty blue clock telling time, without any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of what time it actually appears to be in this moment.

I’d feel a surge of joy.

Back in college and in therapy, so long ago, I might have noticed in that moment, writing a paper, the kitchen I sat in at that time, the sky outside the window, the air I was breathing in the room, the mind working, expressing.

I might have closed my eyes for a moment, gone outside for a walk, called a friend, read a poem, taken a bath.

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.” ~ Lin Yutang

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.”~ Stephen Covey

Turning the thoughts around:

I should not be getting anything done. I should be getting absolutely nothing done. Nothing is ever really done. There may not even be an “I” who is determined to “get” it done.

I feel excited, thrilled even.

Imagining all the people, no matter what the number, who I can help by finishing the Eating Peace course. The joy at having bookshelves in my bedroom instead of stacking piles of books on the floor. The fun of completing that book proposal.

“You can’t outsmart reality. Where you are right now might be the safest place in the world. We just don’t know.” ~ Byron Katie

Much Love, Grace