I’m a recovering addict of being too busy.

I get a lot of my sense of accomplishment and feelings of worth by how much I get done every day.

I freaking LOVE to check things off my list and can get stuck in an endless cycle of moving from one thing to the next without stopping.

I feel like I thrive on having TOO much to do.

My first awakening to this was in the midst of a nervous breakdown of sorts back in 2013.

I was driving to a class I was taking and hit a moment of capacity that I felt like I could no longer handle.

In my car on the freeway, alone, I burst into tears and panic, feeling like I couldn’t breath and could no longer hold onto the wheel (of my car in that moment, or my life).

I pulled over to catch my breath and called the coach I was working with at the time, but it was no surprise to him that I was hitting this wall.

I was a wife and a mother to 5, keeping together a home, trying to hold onto a marriage, staying on top of our health, working part time, going to school part time, and participating in an intensive leadership program on top of it all.

It didn’t matter how much I was doing or accomplishing, nothing was ever going to be good enough.

*I* was never going to be good enough.

A lot of things in my life fell apart during that time and it’s clear to me now that being too busy was tied to my avoidance of looking at the reality of certain things in my life.

I’m so thankful for all of that now.

Because it was the falling apart that created the way to putting things back together in a more sustainable way.

What I know now is that the quality and the purpose behind what I’m doing is more important than the simple and pointless act of just being busy.

My worth isn’t found in a list or a calendar, even though I still am closely tied to those things.

When I make the time to slow down and be present, to stay intentional with the things that I say yes to, and be grateful for everything exactly as it is each day, then my capacity to hold all of the things that I’m doing is so much greater.

This doesn’t mean that I still don’t have a lot to do and that I don’t get stuck in that cycle sometimes.

But if I catch myself in a moment when slowing down is too uncomfortable, then that’s probably exactly when I need to slow down.

When it comes to your health and well being, you must take the practice of slowing down to be a conscious participant in your life and your choices.

If you’re running from place to place, meal to meal, diet to diet, in survival mode, trying to fix and change yourself without stopping to get to the source and the moment, then you’re probably missing the real solutions and sustainable answers.

This is the perfect time of the year to pull back on the to-do’s and practice more presence in your life.

So tell me, how can you give yourself grace and choose to slow down this week?

xoxo

Mimi

#exposeyourtruth