Today I woke up feeling stressed and pressured. I have a lot to do and simply not describing myself as busy was not fooling even my sleeping mind. Tonight I have to give a talk which I have not yet prepared on a subject I have not spoken on before. I have been doing a lot of talking on a range of things this last week, and this one has yet to get to the top of the pile.
So it was a huge struggle to get myself into my ‘chair for doing nothing’ and set my timer. The first ten minutes were a squirming, wriggling, stress up. But slowly my mantra for the day, ‘time – there is always time’, repeated regularly with the breath, seemed to dig into the worry part of my brain, and calm it down.
I use my phone as a timer and no sooner had I settled down than a text message arrived. I usually have the sound ‘off’ but had forgotten to do that. Texts come with a distinctive sound which is almost irresistible, but I was by then calm enough to leave it until the time was up. But I noticed it and was bit disturbed so changed the mantra to, ‘God made time: God made plenty’. Soon I was back in the land of the unbusy
In due course the time-up bell sounded.
I looked to see what the text message was.
Stephen – do you mind if we postpone our meeting today… .
DO I MIND? What a relief!
I can live a ‘not busy’ day.
Why…. there was even time to blog.
Each reminder – in the form of blog entries – helps me to refocus again. I’ve noticed my language of busyness changing – and the practical reminder of keeping the smartphone out of the bedroom helped hugely…… Thanks!
What a blessing that blog is!