{"id":1657,"date":"2014-11-24T15:23:39","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T15:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2015-01-03T23:43:19","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T23:43:19","slug":"do-you-have-an-overwhelmed-schedule-and-an-underwhelmed-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/do-you-have-an-overwhelmed-schedule-and-an-underwhelmed-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you have an overwhelmed schedule…and an underwhelmed soul?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I am sitting here at my kitchen table on this gloomy and cold Monday morning, I am thankful.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I am finally (almost) caught up and I have this whole week off work.\u00a0 Much needed.<\/p>\n

Do you ever get anxiety just by looking at your calendar?\u00a0 Every single day filled.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But I am just so tired.\u00a0 Tired of being ON all the time.\u00a0 Tired of not being able to enjoy my cozy house, tired of not having time with my Husband or heck alone time with myself!<\/p>\n

\"sunrise\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Why do we do this to ourselves?\u00a0 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\u00a0 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.\u00a0 To keep up with everybody else, we jump in on the madness.\u00a0 Shain and I don’t even have kids yet and already I feel like we have no time.\u00a0 Between our work load alone, we are already spent.<\/p>\n

\"overwhelmed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A life like this leaves us with an overwhelming schedule…and an underwhelmed soul.\u00a0 Are the things we are doing truly important?\u00a0 Do they line up with our values?\u00a0 With our goals?\u00a0<\/strong> If the answer is no…STOP DOING THEM. We have to put an end to this.\u00a0 I strongly believe this is not the way we are meant to live our lives.\u00a0 This is not the way God wants us to live our lives.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Or to just lead a simple, but fulfilling life.\u00a0 Simple is OKAY.<\/p>\n

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?\u00a0 And you have no idea why?\u00a0 This one of many signs that you are neglecting your soul.\u00a0 We don’t even give ourselves time to think anymore.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"36725-When-My-Heart-Is-Overwhelmed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lest’ put a STOP to this! Stop feeling guilty about all your “obligations”.\u00a0 Stop thinking you have to go to every gathering you are invited to.\u00a0 Saying “NO” and not filling you schedule is a commitment in itself. You have to constantly re-set yourself.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And I know the reason I struggled is I used to hate being alone.\u00a0 It terrified me to not have another human with me at all times, to be doing SOMETHING with somebody.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It is a necessity for my soul.<\/p>\n

I challenge you this holiday season to do the same.\u00a0 Don’t just feed your schedule, feed your soul.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay BLESSED in the mess \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I am sitting here at my kitchen table on this gloomy and cold Monday morning, I am thankful.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I am finally (almost) caught up and I have this whole week off work.\u00a0 Much needed. Do you ever get anxiety just by looking at your calendar?\u00a0 Every single day filled.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But I am just so tired.\u00a0 Tired of being ON all the time.\u00a0 Tired of not being able to enjoy my cozy house, tired of not having time with my Husband or heck alone time with myself! Why do we do this to ourselves?\u00a0 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\u00a0 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.\u00a0 To keep up with everybody else, we jump in on the madness.\u00a0 Shain and I don’t even have kids yet and already I feel like we have no time.\u00a0 Between our work load alone, we are already spent. A life like this leaves us with an overwhelming schedule…and an underwhelmed soul.\u00a0 Are the things we are doing truly important?\u00a0 Do they line up with our values?\u00a0 With our goals?\u00a0 If the answer is no…STOP DOING THEM. We have to put an end to this.\u00a0 I strongly believe this is not the way we are meant to live our lives.\u00a0 This is not the way God wants us to live our lives.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Or to just lead a simple, but fulfilling life.\u00a0 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?\u00a0 And you have no idea why?\u00a0 This one of many signs that you are neglecting your soul.\u00a0 We don’t even give ourselves time to think anymore.\u00a0 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. Lest’ put a STOP to this! Stop feeling guilty about all your “obligations”.\u00a0 Stop thinking you have to go to every gathering you are invited to.\u00a0 Saying “NO” and not filling you schedule is a commitment in itself. You have to constantly re-set yourself.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And I know the reason I struggled is I used to hate being alone.\u00a0 It terrified me to not have another human with me at all times, to be doing SOMETHING with somebody.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It is a necessity for my soul. I challenge you this holiday season to do the same.\u00a0 Don’t just feed your schedule, feed your soul. Stay BLESSED in the mess \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23,28],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","tag-inspiration","tag-time-management"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1664,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/1664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}