“I’ve been busy”: Everyone’s least favorite excuse. I guess I can’t speak for you but it’s definitely towards the top of my list.
The truth is – I’ve been burnt out. I’ve been spending a lot of hours doing something that I’m not deeply passionate about, which feels very stressful. That feeling wears me down and I want to check out when I have free time. When all the boxes have been ticked and all the noses have been wiped, I want to sleep. And then I wonder why I feel slightly disconnected, slightly offcentered, slightly flat.
It’s the cardinal sin of hobbies that bring us great joy, I believe, that we start them to light a fire when our lives feel perhaps a little darker. It excites something inside us and then we find the rest of our life getting a little bigger and a little brighter because that spark is contagious. The universe senses when you are your most creative, inspired, connected, and loving. For me personally, these things go hand in hand. It is my sincere belief that people cannot help but gravitate towards this vibration. This energy that our thing builds in us is absolutely contagious and consequently, our lives continue to get even bigger. Our calendars fill with work opportunities, academic pursuits, and social responsibilities (because of that godforsaken contagious vibe) and then, do you know what happens?
We stop doing the thing.
I’m in that place. My life got busy. I stopped doing the thing that gave me the passion to engage in this busy life of mine in the first place. I believe that this blank page was the beginning of my spark and then I continuously told myself that I was too busy, too tired, too mentally depleted to return to it. As the days crept on, the mean voice that is sometimes in my head told my insides that I do not have anything worthy of publishing and I listened far too often. I woke up this morning (on Earth day, no less) with a bigger voice – the love voice. The love voice reminded me gently but unequivocally that I have this full, exhausting life today because I pursued this thing that excites me first. I have forgotten that this blank page is not a chore or a heavy obligation; this blank page is church, freedom, and authenticity. The honesty and grace this thing has helped me to find in myself deserves to be remembered and to be honored with messy, imperfect practice.
Firefly Enlightenment 