Back in January, as I created my ‘more of and less of list for 2020’ (aka my ‘New Year’s resolutions’), I reflected on the year that had been, I pondered over a concept I had read about; the idea that we have become ‘Human Doings rather than Human Beings’. At the time this deeply resonated with me. This described how I had been feeling for some time, but hadn’t quite been able to find the words to articulate. Not only had I not found a way to describe how I had been feeling but I almost felt a sense of guilt and regret for feeling this way. I had always considered myself as someone who ‘experienced life’ to the fullest. A weekend ‘just being’ and ‘doing nothing’ was a weekend wasted in my eyes. So this feeling of overwhelm seemed counter intuitive to my desire of living a full life.
My life had become so full to the brim, with a million things to do, places to be and people to see. I had become addicted to being busy. Weekends and months filled up 4-6 months in advance, I was always staring down the barrel of no ‘free’ weekends for months on end. Instead of this resulting in me feeling like I was experiencing life to its fullest this left me feeling exhausted and with a sense of despair. Rather than sit with my feelings to get in tune with what they were telling me I continued to suppress and ignore them; ‘This is just life, it’s busy!’.
I’d reminisce over my childhood, when a year seemed to be an eternity. I be-rated my childhood self for ever having ‘counted down days’ til Christmas or my birthday. I was secretly craving space to be more present to the life I was living, instead of being so busy all of the time and feeling like the days, months and years were escaping me in the blink of an eye.
Little did know, back in January when I had an this epiphany that I had become a Human Doing instead of a Human Being, and deciding that I needed to make some severe changes in my life, that in less than 2 months on we would experience a global pandemic. Covid 19, the virus that would force the whole world into a period of extended lock-down, complete self isolation and social distancing from each other. Such terms and concepts felt extreme and I would never have thought they’d be entering mine or anyone’s realm of existence. If this was not the Universe giving me and the rest of the world a nudge (actually I’d say a full on boot up the arse) to consider slowing down and getting present then I don’t know what else is!?
The severe changes I’d started to contemplate aka procrastinate over for my life got forced upon me. I didnt even need to think about how I felt about any of these new concepts, I simply welcomed them with open arms.
Lock-down and isolation gave me the space I had been so desperately craving. The space to learn some truly valuable lessons that I otherwise would likely not have taken the time to fully appreciate.
These are the top 4 lessons from what I learned.
Finally I had the time and permission to just be. I was finding joy in the every day life and experiencing what makes this life so good and full. This is what being a ‘Human Being’ is all about.
I recalled a John Lennon quote that I had always loved as teenager, he sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”. I guess in some ways I should have paid it more attention versus constantly filling my calendar with doing things.
John Lennon
The beauty of realisations in life, such as my experience with this, is that they allow us the opportunity to make changes. After all as the saying goes; “if nothing changes, then, nothing changes”. I committed to a couple of things for my ‘new’ normal life – one being – to ensure that every single month there is a weekend of just being and zero, that is absolutely no doing!
However I do often wonder, had this pandemic not occurred would I have learned this lesson as easily? I wonder about what lessons others have inadvertently learned from the situation the world has found itself in this year? And I wonder if there will be more lessons to come?
I guess I will just have to be and listen out.
Big love, Nikki x
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