This thought came to me today as I was on the beach searching for shells….”a balance between busy and be…busy and bee…like the busy bee that I seem to be and how it is often a challenge to find the balance between being busy busy busy and just allowing myself to be.
I realized about six weeks ago that I had become busy in my life again…and I thought I was happily busy. I love doing all that I am doing – running my own tutoring and mindfulness business for youth and adults, writing, creating materials, spending time with my family and friends….but there was something amiss once again…and I couldn’t see it right away. I kept hearing my friends saying that I was busy…and a little bell chimed in the back of my mind….I heard it clearly..it was a faint ding, somewhere far off in a world I thought I’d left behind.
As a public school educator and short-term building administrator, I lived my life for my profession, saw it as my identity, my livelihood, my existence, and purpose in this lifetime. After thirty years in brick and mortar schools that had changed so much, I finally realized it was time to change my outlook on my purpose, and see how that might unfold. I was blessed to be able to take a year of leave from work to make some decisions about my future and realized that education is my purpose, but it was in need of a different container.
Now that it’s been two and half years of creating my own business and working part-time with younger students, I find myself busy, busy,busy again, and have lost the time to just be. I have lost the time to be with my friends for longer periods of time than between 12:30 and 2:30 or just hang out for an entire day with my husband. I have lost the time to just be with me…in the woods, on the beach, on a trail, exploring the unknown and creating with colors and objects, and doing all the other things I love to do.
I am grateful for the times I have been sitting in meditation again and have had the presence of mind to turn my mind off and let my body feel. Within those times of feeling, words come…and specific ones at that. I was able to hear that it was okay to cut back at my part time teaching job and eventually to pass it on to someone else. I only have a few more weeks of this busy bee time, but am reminding myself to find ways to “be” in each day as I wait for the extra time in my days as I move forward. I stop and sit, look around at the beauty I see outside. I walk in the grass in my bare feet, look longer into my husband’s eyes, stretch my body….
I am surprised at how much “I know” and how much I do that is unknown, seeing myself creep back into the behaviors of a workaholic that I used to be. I thought I’d “moved past that” but am reminded that the old adage “old habits die hard” is a force on its own. As I move forward, I strive to make my life a true balance between “busy and be.” My jodibees – a hive of learning will continue to be a success and I’m sure even more so as I allow myself the times to be. I look forward to this next chapter of my life and hope I can help others continue to find this balance as well.
