I’m not sure if it was turning 70, surviving cancer or
simply having lived enough life to understand that there is nothing worth
sacrificing your peace and well-being over.
Through the years, I have done what most people (especially
women) have done. I’ve taken care of
everyone else, until there was nothing left for me. Always at the bottom of my own priority list,
I was too spent and exhausted to do anything else. It’s no surprise that it
took this long for me to discover what was right for me.
Now, something has shifted and I feel a sense of ease that
I’ve never known. It doesn’t matter if it is cleaning the house or going out
with friends or family, if I don’t feel like doing it, I just let it go.
The big surprise for me was that I actually get more
done. The less I demand of myself the
more I am able to accomplish. It changes
from ‘Have To’ to ‘Want To’ and it gives me permission to enjoy whatever I
choose to do with my day.
Getting there hasn’t been easy. I still have the ghosts of
‘I Need To’ haunting my mind. How many
things were left undone during my cancer treatment and recovery were weighing
heavily on me. I felt overwhelmed by the
sheer volume of tasks that were put on hold.
I made lists and project plans to get it all accomplished. Doing all of that didn’t make me feel better,
it actually made it much worse. Now, I
had written proof of what I had not done.
Gradually, I started to reassess all of those self-imposed
requirements. Asking myself the really tough questions like “What exactly will
happen if I don’t change the closet light bulb?” When I started looking at it
through that lens, it all became very clear, these were wants not needs and it began
to soften the expectations I had set for myself.
How silly I felt, after all I had been through, that I was
letting something so minor steal my peace. So, I looked again at those dreaded
lists and realized that absolutely none of it was critical. Yes, they are things that I would like to
eventually do or better yet have someone else do, but not right now.
Today, I was thinking of cleaning and doing laundry but what
I wanted to do was to sit and write down how I was feeling about all of
this. Kind of like the buddy system with
exercising. If you do it with someone
you are more likely to continue. Sharing
this helps to reinforce the fact that I really can do exactly what I want to do
and nothing catastrophic is going to happen.
Days of multi-tasking and rushing to get things done are
mostly behind me now. If I’m in a hurry,
it’s because I’m doing something fun. I’ll
happily be quick to get ready for a fantastic outing with my daughter and not
give a second thought to that laundry basket.
I realize more than ever that my time and energy are
priceless and that all that matters is that I enjoy this incredible lightness
of being.
Has your perspective in life shifted as you’ve gotten
older? What changes have you seen in the
way that you move through your life?
Share your stories and join the conversation!
Share your stories and join the conversation!
