Being vs. Doing

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]In my cocooning over the past couple months, I have had a fairly profound deepening of the concept Rumi shares in this poem regarding being vs. doing. It is a concept I have taught and understood at different levels throughout the past few years, but one that always brings me deeper when it spirals around again...

I often talk about getting still in order to hear our soul's latent yearnings.  But Rumi's words bring this further.

What would it be like to live from a place of patience and peace, not just for a moment, but day in and day out?

Relinquishing the frantic doing that is so often applauded in our culture, and simply settling into patience and faith - allowing life to provide what it will?

If you're anything like me, you hear a hundred 'buts' ringing in your head.  "But I have to do this... and this... and earn this... and these people need me... and... and... and... and..."

And all those thoughts might be true.  Or they might not.

Like many, if not most, people in our society, I've spent most of my life doing.  Whether as a student, business owner, wife, mother, teacher, or coach, I have focused immense energy on being productive and accomplishing tasks, both to satisfy others' requests and my own.

I never really questioned all the doing as I often felt like I wanted what I was working toward and any resulting praise made me feel like I was on the right track.

But recently, as my health once again took a turn for the worse, cold after cold has taken away my energy and my voice, and I have found myself blessed with another baby on the way, my ability to do has been stopped.

The instant I get a burst of energy and start up again - wham, another cold or more nausea or hypoglycemic symptoms arise and about the only thing I can handle besides basic care has been resting.

So instead of doing, I've been being.

And here's what I've recognized.

All those years of doing?

Deep down, a demon was driving the bus.

FEAR

Fear that if I stopped  - doing, accomplishing, achieving, or being productive most of my waking life - I wouldn't be loved.  Or respected.  Or deemed good enough.  By myself or by others.

Ironically, I often didn't feel those things anyway.

But instead of stopping, I would push myself harder.  Do. More. Strive. More. Achieve. More.  The ego's need to matter in the world through recognition and appreciation was often insatiable.

As I've stopped doing so much, though, I can embody exactly what Rumi so eloquently shares...

The more I strive to do, the worse I feel.  The more pressure I put on myself to achieve, the fewer results I see.  The more fear that drives the bus of doing, the more everything breaks down.

Yet, when I sit in patience, trusting that everything is as it needs to be, and simply turn my attention to being and heeding the needs of my body, miracles unfold.  My business grows effortlessly.  My relationships swell with love.  My husband decides to vacuum.  My health returns.  And somehow, the laundry still gets done, meals still get made, emails still get sent.

Because without all the frantic anxiety and fear demon driving the doing, a pile of laundry gets done because my body wants clean clothes.  I make a delicious dinner because my body wants to eat it.  Or I make eggs because it prefers to rest.  Emails get sent because I want to connect with those I'm writing.  Or they don't.

And I am blessed with the feeling I'd been seeking all along -  I am enough.

You, too, my dear, are ENOUGH.

As always, I'd love to connect in the comments below![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]