So many of us are living our lives busy, overwhelmed, and exhausted and believing that it’s normal.
Someday, we will slow down and enjoy life.
When we achieve financial stability or professional success or when the kids are grown, we tend to believe the stress will end.
I’m sorry to tell you that it’s an illusion.
We are expecting an external solution to solve an internal problem.
It doesn’t work. Internal problems must be solved internally.
The problem is not our circumstances.
The problem is a feeling of unworthiness.
I know this because,
I used to push myself to go go go from morning until night.
Those close to me were always telling me to stop, sit, rest.
After dinner, while everyone else was relaxing, I was cleaning up, making lunches for tomorrow, cleaning the litter box and the bunny cage, walking the dog and folding laundry until I dropped into bed exhausted.
I secretly felt resentful and prideful at the same time.
My husband tried to help.
But the more he helped, the more I would find to do.
I thought the problem was that there was too much to do.
But the real problem was that I was pushing myself because I connected my worthiness as a human being with what I did or didn’t do.
You see, if I wasn’t doing something productive at all times, I was afraid I wasn’t worthy of love.
I realized this several years ago.
It was a few days after I had major surgery on my neck.
I was in bed, pretty drugged up, and my teenage son came in to check on me.
I remember saying to him,
“Are you mad at me?” He responded, “Of course not; why would I be mad at you?” That’s when it hit me.
At that moment, I couldn’t do anything for myself or anyone else, and I felt incredibly vulnerable. Scared even.
If I couldn’t work my way to love, where would it come from?
I had developed a belief system that was making me emotionally and physically sick.
My recovery from surgery was not only painful physically but also emotionally.
Doing nothing was one of the most painful and eye-opening experiences I’ve ever had.
That moment of awareness changed the direction of my life and led to a more profound recovery that I didn’t even know I needed.
When would enough be enough?
The answer was never if I continued to think the way I was.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of my journey to work from love, not for love.
That was the beginning of changing my relationship with myself, others, and the world.
That was when I started learning how to experience peace, love, and abundance.
That is the power of awareness. It can put you on a new path instantly.
The old path was leading to depression, exhaustion, and burnout.
I had been there many times.
The new path has lead me to a life where I mostly do things that I enjoy, and I’m practicing enjoying what I do.
I find that my brain still wants to turn everything into “work” and think that it’s hard and slip into stress and overwhelm.
However, I’m mostly on to it and catch it before it does much damage.
And if I don’t, I’ve created a community of coaches, friends, and family who are faithful to point it out.
It’s a strong neuro pathway, but it’s shrinking every day as I strengthen the new pathway of, I have enough, I’ve done enough, and I am enough.
If you can relate to this and find it challenging to rest, relax and enjoy life,
The problem is not your life. The problem is your relationship with you.
You are looking for external validation because of all the internal self-judgment and self-condemnation.
And that, my friend, is the good news.
You cannot work your way into worthiness, but you can learn to think your way into it.
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