I no longer want to be productive all the time

A few weeks ago, I’d just settled my little one for his midday nap. I was waiting for the kettle to boil while mentally running through all the things I needed to do while he was asleep. And then, I sensed a gentle voice from deep inside say,

Why would you force yourself to be productive when you could be relaxing and enjoying your life?

In the beginning, the opposite would happen. I would sit down to rest and a harsh inner voice would say,

Why are you relaxing when you could be doing something productive?

It would say that I needed to create a new cleaning schedule, that I should quickly reply to an email, that I had to declutter a draw, that we were out of mustard, that I absolutely must rearrange the kitchen cupboards.  

Whenever I finally found a few minutes to sit down, my mind would give me a dozen perfectly reasonable reasons to get going again.

But recently, I’ve noticed kinder thoughts are arising naturally.

I need to be really gentle with myself today.

I’m just going to lay down on the sofa for a little bit.

I would like to stop trying to be perfect and start allowing myself to be human.

I don't think we talk enough about how healing changes what feels natural. For a long time, rushing felt natural. Being productive felt natural. Ignoring my needs felt natural.

Relaxation felt like something I had to convince myself to do, something that required permission, something that was accompanied by guilt.

But somewhere along the way, little by little, that began to change. What feels natural is no longer always doing more. Sometimes it’s leaving the dishes unwashed until tomorrow and having an early night. Sometimes it’s staring out the window instead of down at an email on my phone. Sometimes it’s having cheese on toast for dinner so I can spend time building towers with my little one instead of cooking something from scratch.  

Our nervous systems are always moving us toward what feels natural, what feels familiar. And for many of us, urgency feels familiar. Self-criticism feels familiar. Constant striving feels familiar. We have practised them for decades.

But what if relaxing could become familiar too? What if self-kindness could become familiar? What if slowing down, asking for help, taking breaks and being gentle with yourself could become things your nervous system reaches for naturally?

This is one of the things we explore inside Becoming The Relaxed Woman – how to gently create new pathways, new patterns, new defaults, new, nourishing ways of relating to yourself and the world around you.

Until one day, amidst the unfinished to-do list, the unsent emails and the unwashed dishes, you hear a quiet voice ask:

Why would you force yourself to be productive when you could be relaxing and enjoying your life?

And for the first time, relaxing feels like the most natural thing in the world.

You can join us here.

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