by Rebekah Muntelwit, Sales Consultant / Interior Designer, Mackay, Australia
I have always been a woman of many to-do lists, checklists and tracking events etc. I have a goals list on my wall, a white board with things to be done, email notifications from myself, endless sticky note reminders and last but not least, two to-do lists on my phone – that I have with me constantly. As well as this I have things continually going through my head of what to do next (shopping list, count downs ‘till events and certain dates etc.).
And well, up until yesterday at the first Esoteric Women’s Group talk in Mackay, I didn’t really think that this could be contributing to the exhaustion and tiredness I frequently, if not always, feel!
The discussion began with the basics of what the women’s group is about and how it started – a call from women feeling that there is more to being a woman than what we have been taught or see outside of ourselves. The topic that really hit home for me, is how as women we are really, really good at DO-ing things! Lately, I have been feeling how tired I AM and how tired in fact I have been for a long time. There’s always so much to do, and I feel as though I can never get everything crossed off all of my lists. What’s worse is that I worry about not getting to cross something out at all each day, and so I try not to think about it. Every spare moment I have, if I am not getting closer to crossing something off, I feel I am failing, and so I feel like I can never rest. I can sit down and pretend to rest, meanwhile my brain is going one hundred miles an hour, organising and planning how I will go about attacking the list tomorrow.
The question was raised by Mary-Louise Myers (our women’s talk presenter); what would it feel like to stop mid list for a minute and really FEEL your body? Are you tired? Do you need to truly rest? Are you hardening your body to get through the day?
I realised that every time I feel the slightest bit tired, I reach for sugar. I do it so often that when I get tired, auto pilot takes over my body, I eat sugar which stops me from feeling how tired I am, and so then I go back and continue doing the exact same thing that got me tired in the first place! I no longer give myself the choice to feel the tiredness.
The question that really got me to stop in the chair and feel my body was; are you hardening to get through?
I have felt what it feels like to be myself fully and I have felt how delicate and precious I AM, so why would I choose anything different from what I know truly within? I am so loving and nurturing naturally, yet I have been abusing my body with sugar to get through the day. I use the sugar as a lift and it accelerates my body – I can feel how racy my body becomes, and I start to feel anxious and easily stressed as a result. Headaches often follow and the cycle then repeats.
Presence
I have not been present in my body. I have realised that the only thing stopping me from feeling the delicateness in my body again, is not allowing myself to be present – to be solid within my body. With presence, I have permission to feel the tiredness, and so can look to change what it is that I am doing that made me so tired. With presence, I don’t need to constantly have things running through my head of what needs to be done. Allowing presence in my body allows things to flow naturally, and I am easily able to feel what needs to be done next, with no deadline or feeling as though I’ve failed if something is left incomplete for tomorrow. I look forward to re-connecting to this presence within myself over the coming month, allowing myself to make my own choices and sharing this awareness with others.
I FEEL my body, I AM present, I AM delicate.