Do you have an overwhelmed schedule…and an underwhelmed soul?

As I am sitting here at my kitchen table on this gloomy and cold Monday morning, I am thankful.  Thankful that I am not rushing through my house to get ready for work, that my mind is not heavy with my long to do list.  I am finally (almost) caught up and I have this whole week off work.  Much needed.

Do you ever get anxiety just by looking at your calendar?  Every single day filled.  Work (with its own overwhelming schedule), kids practices, lessons, school work, meetings, social events on the weekends (that you can’t say no to because you already said no to the last 5), family celebrations and events…it NEVER ENDS.  I often battle with the guilt of not wanting to go to all these things, because most of them are with people I love dearly, they are things I WANT to do.  But I am just so tired.  Tired of being ON all the time.  Tired of not being able to enjoy my cozy house, tired of not having time with my Husband or heck alone time with myself!

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Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why has such a schedule become so normal? Why do we BRAG about how busy we are? And when you DO have free time you think something must be wrong, “I must be forgetting something”. Or maybe you feel like its wrong because  your kids need to be signed up for everything under the sun if they are going get better at soccer, gymnastics, piano…whatever it is.  To keep up with everybody else, we jump in on the madness.  Shain and I don’t even have kids yet and already I feel like we have no time.  Between our work load alone, we are already spent.

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A life like this leaves us with an overwhelming schedule…and an underwhelmed soul.  Are the things we are doing truly important?  Do they line up with our values?  With our goals?  If the answer is no…STOP DOING THEM. We have to put an end to this.  I strongly believe this is not the way we are meant to live our lives.  This is not the way God wants us to live our lives.  He wants us to spend more time with family, with him, more time reflecting on ourselves, more time to feed our souls, to become better people, better parents, spouses etc.  Or to just lead a simple, but fulfilling life.  Simple is OKAY.

Have you ever had one of those moments where there have been weeks and weeks where you are go-go-go-go and then you have a minute, just a minute to yourself for the first time…and you break down?  And you have no idea why?  This one of many signs that you are neglecting your soul.  We don’t even give ourselves time to think anymore.  The downtime we have is spent staring at our phones, checking our email, or letting our mind move on to the next task…rarely do we just listen to our thoughts or take in the beautiful world and people around us.

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Lest’ put a STOP to this! Stop feeling guilty about all your “obligations”.  Stop thinking you have to go to every gathering you are invited to.  Saying “NO” and not filling you schedule is a commitment in itself. You have to constantly re-set yourself.  Don’t agree to things right away, always take 24 hours to think about it. I have always struggled with this, but I have come a long way.  And I know the reason I struggled is I used to hate being alone.  It terrified me to not have another human with me at all times, to be doing SOMETHING with somebody.  Because when I was alone, things I never dealt with came to life, and that was scary. Now that I have overcome some of those inner-demons over the years, I CRAVE that alone time to reflect, write, pray or just be.  It is a necessity for my soul.

I challenge you this holiday season to do the same.  Don’t just feed your schedule, feed your soul.

Stay BLESSED in the mess 🙂

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