Add More to Your Life
Posted on November 07, 2012 by Dawn Camacho, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Think you've got too many plates in the air? Add a platter!
A few years back, I was chatting with a friend, who happened to be a Buddhist monk, and I was sharing with her how overwhelmed I was feeling. I was juggling an infant son, a marriage, friendships, and the launch of my business. In retrospect, it was all the usual stuff of modern western life, but it somehow still felt like it was Only Me who was barely keeping my head above water. Even as I was speaking, I was thinking I knew exactly what she was going to say. She’s a Buddhist monk, after all. I was sure she would tell me: Simplify, simplify, simplify. What can you give up to make your life easier? Why are you so consumed with materialism? Meditate! Breathe! Focus on connecting with your inner self—at least thirty minutes in the morning and thirty at night!
She said none of those things.
“Maybe you need to add something in,” she suggested.
Huh? “How about including something in your schedule that makes you feel appreciated, that energizes and fuels you?” she continued. The idea of adding more in—things that would further educate me, ease me and bring me joy, felt incredibly freeing. Liberating. I felt like a load had been lifted already.
I’m a big believer in rituals, which I see as just conscious activities, done at a specific time and place, that help us focus our attention concretely on something meaningful to us. I’ve done a lot of work with myself, and with my clients, around mindfully creating rituals—moments of each day or week—that are blocked off specifically for the activities that brings the most joy, enthusiasm, and light into our lives. In my opinion, the reason we often feel so overwhelmed, or that our schedules are so filled up, is because we struggle with how to consciously schedule our lives around what truly matters to us.
I’ve never forgotten what my friend shared with me and I come back to it again and again. And whenever I begin to feel overwhelmed I look for a way to add something in—coffee with an associate I’ve always wanted to get to know better, a workshop on something I haven’t yet had the nerve to explore, or just the space and time to write an article on an experience I’ve long wanted to share.
If you would like to work with me to create more time, space, and direction around what fuels you, please reach out.
Enjoy and in joy,
Dawn
