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license to chill

i don’t know how to chill.

i have this permission, this complete support, from my partner and family and community, to actually just chill, and i can’t quite figure it out.

i used to know, i think. i have memories where i was actually doing nothing for days at a time. and i know i will again be able to reach that remarkable place. but right now?

i am on this sabbatical, sort of. i have a few more pieces of work to do, but mostly, i am trying to relax.

emphasis on the try. i have been starting my day with sun salutations. i am at the end of the 4th day of the master cleanse, which is giving me this clarity. i went to acupuncture today. i booked a massage for tomorrow. other than that, i am still doing a lot of work.

it’s making me realize why, in fact, i am so tired.

it’s laughable how not great i am at chilling, anymore. it has become my norm to work almost all the time. either i do my facilitation and organizing work while watching other things, or i do housework while people visit me. i am always doing doing doing, never still. even if i am not doing work i am doing things – gaming, reading, watching, cleaning, doing. i pop up with a mind full of tasks in the morning and i don’t sleep til i am so tired i can’t see straight.

i feel guilty when i look at my email and see the work i could be doing. just who do i think i am anyway? i’m abysmal at saying no – over the past three days, four people have merely implied that they needed support, and when i offered it, they had to remind me that i am on a sabbatical.

i know this isn’t the way i want to be feeling, i want my work to come from a place of joy, not guilt or addiction. i know better – how did i get here?

i am admitting it here as a baseline assessment. i long to be able to strike the balance between working and not working, working passionately, spending time just being without any doing involved – meditation, stillness, real sleep…and then just as passionately doing things that are very much not work, things that serve and restore and fulfill me.

i am making lists of more things i like to do that aren’t work, and i am starting to do them.

pray for me.