The Unimportant - or the Amazing

Hi!
Oh, you're going to ask where I've been aren't you? Well - since my last post in October I've had many changes in both my professional and personal life.
How does a house move a major career move, along with 3 trips sound in the past three months? Busy? Yup.

I'm back, and since many of you are firmly "encouraging" me to get back to writing - I will. Thank you for your love and support. I'm truly learning that the most important thing in life is relationships.

Houses, cars, jobs, stuff - it's all here in our lives and takes up a measure of our time. In fact, these things are necessary. But do they create real, true geneuine happiness? No. Not really. If you REALLY think about the times when you're smiling or even laughing out loud, those times have absolutely nothing to do with "stuff." Rather, they involve the people in your life. Those are the relationships you've chosen. They are the underpinning of everything else you do, and without them - you'd be incomplete.

During a time that has been nothing but "busy" lately (and you know what I mean, because I'm sure you're just now finally unwinding from the Holidays)I am gaining a deeper understanding of how busyness - or the excuse of busyness can often provide for us what we're really looking for. A distraction.

For those of us raising kids and running around trying to make their lives better by keeping them and ourselves "involved" in endless activity - perhaps part of it is really keeping us distracted so we don't have a moment to reflect more deeply on our lives and whether or not we're truly who we wanted to be when we grew up.

Friend and author Dee Bright wrote in her recent book a paragraph that I read and re-read several times. She says the following about "business":

Busyness is a sophisticated method of distraction and can even be a means of escape. If I don't slow down, I won't have to look my feelings in the eye. It's hard and uncomfortable sometimes. It's much easier to keep moving, to keep busy. If we stop, we might begin to feel. And if we feel, we might begin to hurt. And if we hurt, we might have to deal with it. And dealing with it is difficult. It's easier to just keep going, going, going and not feel the discomfort at all.
The problem is, discomfort and pain are the ways our bodies and minds communicate with us. If we're not listening, the problem will only grow bigger and deeper. More important, when we refuse to face our pain and grow through it, we're missing out. We'll continue to fill our lives with the unimportant insteand of the amazing.

You know the saying - "if you're not growing, you're dying." I hate that saying because it always challenges me to examine which one I'm doing at the present moment in various areas of my life. There's no standing still. You're either doing one or the other at all times. You're either learning, healing from past pain and making a conscious choice for more love, more joy, more giving in your life - or you're not.

Sometimes we try to fill the empty holes with things other than busyness. Somes times it's food, or alcohol, or sex or exercise or day dreaming (a form of escape).

Which ever way you slice it - existing in a place of avoidance and "busyness" whether it's mental, physical or both - isn't serving the greater purpose of our existence here on earth and all we have to offer each other.

My challenge to myself this year is to re-examine my life, heal from old hurts, move on into bigger and better things in every area of life and to focus on the things that bring true and lasting joy - people, relationships and what is uniquely mine that I have to offer the world to make it a better place.
I challenge you to do the same.

Love,
Steph