My personal relationship to Crazy Busy 

I confess: I do not live a ‘crazy busy ‘ life. I share this not to brag or to imply that this is preferable. When I was about eleven years old, I promised myself that I would never do anything in terms of work that disconnected me from my heart, from the place that feels like ‘me’. 

Because of my eleven-year old promise, I’ve explored the dynamic between Being and Doing my whole life; the dynamic between staying connected to Essence while also participating in the world of work. I’ve also explored the moments of disconnection; how that happens and the results it creates in life and work. 

Even though my lifestyle is not crazy-busy, I admire people who are busy, who produce results, who create consistently, who are ‘crazy busy’ and share their purpose in a big way. Some of these crazy busy folks make a huge difference in the world.

 

The Spiritual Impact of Crazy Busy 

However, there can be a cost to being crazy-busy. The cost is a disconnection from Being, from the being realm of consciousness, from your spiritual essence. 

In my work with women who have led crazy busy successful lives, one of the most common impacts they share with me is that their feminine nature seems shut down.

With the focus on producing results, which is the primary focus at high level of business, the slowness of Being gets eclipsed. 

“I need to feel my heart again”, one person told me. 

“I left behind my inner wisdom because it didn’t fit in to the job,” another woman shared. 

Living in a state of separation from our Essence, from the realm of Being out of which our consciousness arises, creates illness, stress, personal conflicts, an agitated nervous system, and always requires ‘time to recover’, like a long vacation or retreat. (Some people don’t recover.) 

Another thing: You don’t have to be working in the corporate world to experience Crazy Busy. Crazy Busy is a state of mind, always looking ahead to the next thing to do; never being fully aligned with the present moment. It’s a disease of our time. In fact, saying you are ‘crazy body’ is a sort of self-esteem builder, at least here in America.                            

The present moment is Love. 

How to Stay Connected to Love

At the ripe age of 63, I have a few things to say about how to stay connected to Love in our crazy-busy world where we are conditioned to prioritize Doing and producing over everything else.

 

All of these TIPS have one thing in common: SLOWING DOWN! 

1. Only take actions that are loving to yourself and others. What does this actually look like? First of all, in order to be in tune with what is loving, you must bring your awareness to the present moment. You must take time to ask, “Is this loving to myself? Is this loving to others? Is this loving to my business? Is this loving to my creative project?” You can ask about what is loving in relation to all aspects of our life. When you take time to ask this question, you automatically reconnect to your Essence. The crazy busy state of mind shifts into mindfulness. 
2. Don’t inhibit your genius. One of the most insidious impacts of ‘crazy busy’ is that it is a state of mind that blocks your innate creative genius, or what I call your Original Wisdom. When it is allowed to become a lifestyle pattern day in and day out, the busyness blocks your deepest self-expression. When you do not express our innate genius, the result, ultimately, is resentment, anger, depression, and even illness. It creates a sense of not knowing who you really are. To get in touch with your original wisdom, slow down. When you slow down, when you take time to be present with this moment, the small still voice within you rises up to meet you. What wants to be expressed from the center of your heart?

   This is the deepest longing in all of us: to express our heart.  When your work or job does not include your heart, it’s up to you to make room outside the parameters of your work. Keep a journal for your heart’s messages.

3. Do not fear. Is this actually possible? Well, no it’s not. However, through self-awareness and self-acceptance you can be aware of your fear and then bring compassion to it as well. Fear is always a result of old conditioning, and the blessing of fear when it is met with awareness is that it leads us to the fearful part that needs our love. More accurate than ‘do not fear’ is ‘do not fear your fear’. Many people are so busy they do not realize they have fear at all. This is the most dangerous kind of fear because when it remains unconscious, it rules, and the disconnect from love becomes larger and larger. 
4. Take time to grieve when necessary. Generally, we associate grief with big events, such as death, divorce, or transitions such as children leaving home or parents entering a nursing home. There is a more subtle grief that I want to point to here. It is a grief for having disconnected from our soul, our heart, our precious inner child who got left behind on the road to success, or on the road to ‘playing by someone else’s rule book’, whether that be the marriage rule book; the success rule book; the female rule book; or the beauty rule book. Feeling the grief within our heart for how we have abandoned some of the most precious parts of our self is a phenomenal process and goes very deep.

   The crazy busy lifestyle allows no time to experience this deeper aspect of your Self, where grief resides. Grief is the ultimate gift that opens our heart to greater compassion and love. Feeling your grief in more subtle ways simply means that you slow down, go within, and tune into your heart. Is there a little grief hiding inside? Feel it. It feels so good. The wisdom that rides upon the grief is your wisdom. Listen to it. Write it down. 

5. Celebrate. Do you celebrate your life? Do you acknowledge how much you contribute to the world every day? Do you have people in your life who celebrate you? You may be so conditioned to give, to contribute, to work hard, to think too much, and to always be focused on the next project or accomplishment that you make no time to celebrate you!   Celebrating your life brings you into the present moment. Celebrate what you learned today. Celebrate your Self, your Heart, your Body, your Choices, your Wisdom and your Genius. Take a celebration walk! It can be this simple!

I celebrate each of you! I know that if you are reading this, you are committed to your life, to your transformation and the transformation of the planet. I celebrate that and I invite you to go even deeper.