{"id":706,"date":"2013-10-28T18:20:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T18:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/www.soulmatesecret.com\/wabisabilove\/?p=706"},"modified":"2014-06-22T19:17:15","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T19:17:15","slug":"giving-up-my-to-do-list-and-finding-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/2013\/10\/28\/giving-up-my-to-do-list-and-finding-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Up My To-Do List and Finding My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last April, just after dinner, my beloved, Brian sat me down on the couch and said something that was the equivalent of the heart-stopping phrase, \u201cWe have to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, followed by the thought, \u201coh no, what have I done?\u201d<\/p>\n

With the passing of my sister, Debbie, in February, we had both been through several brutal months\u2026 trying our best to survive as she slipped away from us.\u00a0 Neither one of us were getting much sleep, both of us deep in our grief, and I was finally back at work trying to tackle not one, but three gigantic projects.<\/p>\n

In the sweetest, most gentle voice, Brian began to share with me his massive concern for my health and wellbeing.\u00a0 With tears in his eyes, he told me he really felt that if I didn\u2019t stop the long, intense hours and stressing out so much, he was afraid I would get very sick and possibly even \u201cwork myself to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

As someone who has always been able to accomplish major things, juggle lots of simultaneous projects and withstand huge amounts of pressure, I normally would have just assured him that I could \u201cpower\u201d through this period and deal with it all.<\/p>\n

But there was something in the way he was approaching the conversation that made me stop and listen. With his sincere, open-hearted vulnerability I really, really heard him.<\/p>\n

And, I got that he was right.<\/p>\n

I was no longer the person who could do it all. My nervous system was shredded.\u00a0 I was out of \u201creserves\u201d and running on fumes.<\/p>\n

As I sat there, trying to take it all in, trying to figure out what to \u201cdo\u201d about my situation, I remembered something Debbie whispered to me in the middle of the night:<\/p>\n

\u201cTake more vacations.\u201d<\/p>\n

I spent the next several days looking the calendar, trying to see when I could take a vacation and for how long.<\/p>\n

And then it dawned on me:\u00a0 I didn\u2019t just need a week or two on a tropical island. I need a big, long, extended break. I needed to rest, rejuvenate, re-boot and re-think the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

On August 1st I stopped working.\u00a0 Completely!<\/p>\n

I turned off my cell phone and put it in a drawer.<\/p>\n

I turned on the auto-responder to my email and the recorded a new voicemail on my phones to announce that for the next six weeks I would be completely, totally unavailable and I began my sabbatical.<\/p>\n

One of my ongoing thoughts was, what if I get bored?\u00a0 How would I fill my days? Could I really do this? Completely unplug?<\/p>\n

I am happy to report, yes!<\/p>\n

For the past 83 days I have been sleeping in, taking naps (for the first time ever), reading lots of books (some of my favorites have been The Dalai Lama\u2019s Cat and Elizabeth Gilbert\u2019s new novel, The Signature of All Things<\/em> plus several James Patterson mysteries!).\u00a0 Brian and I are playing tennis and taking tons of beach walks, we\u2019ve traveled to Bora Bora, Italy and Romania, I\u2019m cooking more and resting a lot.<\/p>\n

Every time I’d get an idea for a new project, I’d sit down and close my eyes, breathe deep and wait for it to pass.\u00a0 If the idea persisted, I wrote it down and then forgot about it (for now).\u00a0 I\u2019ve worked with my doctors to restore my energy levels had many visits with the acupuncturist, chiropractor and my amazing partners at Evolving Wisdom gave me a huge gift of many massages.<\/p>\n

During this healing time I decided to reinvent how I \u201cdo\u201d life.
\nOne of my biggest aha moments is that \u201cI am now experiencing a new kind of aliveness that is not fueled by adrenalin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without the tyranny of a \u201cTo-Do\u201d list eating up every minute of my day, I have made time to have some deep, meaningful conversations with several girlfriends who I\u2019ve discovered are also \u201chitting the wall\u201d and ready to make major changes.\u00a0 We have all admitted to being\u00a0 \u201cbusyness addicts\u201d and we may even start a support group!<\/p>\n

In the past I often defined myself by my work and I hate to admit this, but my ego took a lot of pride in \u201cjust how much I can accomplish\u201d in an hour or a day or a week.<\/p>\n

Years ago, when I worked as Deepak Chopra\u2019s publicist he used to call me \u201cspeedy\u201d and I thought that was a good thing!\u00a0 Too bad I wasn\u2019t listening more closely when Deepak was telling me how stressing out causes jittery platelets which is not good for your health.<\/p>\n

Today I am done working for a living.<\/p>\n

I am eliminating the word \u201cwork\u201d from my vocabulary and\u2026. I plan to spend half my time diving into projects that provide me creativity, fun, freedom and offer some level of contribution and prosperity.<\/p>\n

My biggest fear is that as I begin to return to the real world, and begin some projects, my old habits will emerge.\u00a0 I expect that there will be days when I slip.\u00a0 Days when I begin to spin out of control, or get caught up in the delusion that anything that I am doing is more important than taking care of myself.<\/p>\n

These will be the days when I need to remember my commitment to being a Wabi Sabi Love artisan, someone who finds beauty and perfection in her own imperfection.\u00a0 Just as I am now re-writing and shifting the story of how I \u201cdo life,\u201d so must I find compassion for the part of me who still thinks she can do it all.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last April, just after dinner, my beloved, Brian sat me down on the couch and said something that was the equivalent of the heart-stopping phrase, \u201cWe have to talk.\u201d I remember this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, followed by the thought, \u201coh no, what have I done?\u201d With the passing of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","category-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":767,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}