From “Doing” To “Being”

I resonated with something I heard Cheryl Richardson say on a call this week:

“Two of the main tasks of the ‘wisdom years’ are to shed identities that no longer serve you, that are no longer your authentic self, AND to consciously relax the ‘doing’ muscles and exercise the ‘being’ muscles.”

Can you also relate?

I have always been a “doer,” taking up the slack, getting things done. Now, I find myself weary and rebellious: I just “don’t wanna anymore.”

I don’t want to push myself, as I always have. I don’t want to try to meet other people’s expectations of me, whether real or perceived.

I felt like God was directing this, guiding me to slow down. You may recall, I’ve been working on “the ruthless elimination of hurry” for a while now.

(This is the image ChatGPT came up with (lol). I asked it to use English words. A ways to go, I’d say.)

So, this week I “relaxed my ‘doing’ muscles and consciously exercised my ‘being’ muscles”: I consciously and deliberately ignored as much as I could from my “to do” (i.e. “have to”)  list and focused on “want to” and being.

Being with my husband, for instance. On Valentine’s Day, he and I had a heart to heart, two-hour talk after lunch like we hadn’t had in a long time. I made a conscious effort to just listen and be with him and not look at the clock or think about the piles of paperwork on my desk that I’ve been trying to get to all week.

This week we also came across an old TV show from the 60s on YouTube. We watched two episodes and laughed a lot.

I made a nice dinner one night, ate leftovers another night.

I talked to several friends.

I took time to explore a whole new topic that was opened up to me as I drove to an appointment and listened to an interview on the radio.

And—I did not DO a lot of the things on my list. I still haven’t tackled that paperwork on my desk.

I did, however, find myself decluttering several drawers and a kitchen cabinet. (That’s another thing I’m finding: I have a tremendous urge to purge all that doesn’t serve me now.)

I did all the PT exercises every day that were prescribed.

I wrote this blog post, though I thought I wouldn’t have time or anything to say.

I’m finding that as I “relax my doing muscles” and consciously “exercise my being muscles,” I am actually getting done what is most important to me.

Interesting, isn’t it?

What about you? Are you in your “wisdom years”? What things do you feel are important for this season of your life?