OBSESSED WITH BUSYNESS

We fill our lives with activity only to find the anxiety increasing. We find relief in drugs, shopping, entertainment, TV, or sleep. We are obsessed with busyness to avoid the screaming we hear in our head if we stop. The loneliness of hearing our own interior screaming comes from desperately wanting to be seen, recognized, heard, understood, remembered and loved. We spend lots of time inventing our self, claiming we are individuals and important, believing we need to offer or involve our self with someone or something.

In 2015, my husband and I went to live on a small Greek island for ten months, after three months we noticed we had not one discussion about family, friends,or  politics. The general continual story telling which went on in our regular life regulated our time to be obsessed with busyness.

I think what might have shifted at least for a few months was we slowed way down to watch everything around us happening. The weather, the food, the sounds, the light, swimming, sleeping, walking and breathing all became the daily meditation and awareness. The regular boring simple life. It was magnificent. It made me think flowers and trees live this kind of simple existence.

There is nowhere to go to avoid being obsessed with busyness.

The great traditions, east and west in every religion teach how to establish an interior dialogue with the divine. The first step is get off the track or the tread mill. Getting out of the machine we create, maintain and sustain and are burdened by is really scary. We went to a small island in Greece, 24 miles long in a town of 300 people. We stayed there and learned to watch the journey by participating less. 

AWAKEN

We found that sitting quietly brakes the habit and tendency to feel the righteousness in triumphant “doing”. Imagine a rock tumbling down a stream anxious to get to clear water. The rock gets into the middle of the river which is full of activity. But one way or the other the rock will eventually come to rest. What we fail to realize we are no different than the rock.  Whether we are on rivers edge or in the middle of the river our rockiness is complete regardless of location.

Sit Still

The human conversation is multi dimensional interior listening. Everyone has one goin’ on. The track or tread mill makes us think we have to be in charge, to change the outside, to fix the neighbor, to get more , etc. and then eventually it will be done and we can “be”. The story, drama, micro managing, gossip, emotional breakdown, etc contain the wisdom if we sit still. The be is like the rock, it is a rock everywhere. Sit still and “be”. The problem is that it can feel upside down, backwards, unclear and uncomfortable, it simply shows us we do not know How to “be” even for the shortest of time.

Contemplation and Mediation

BUT, it is the only way to get intuitive insight and affirmation about how we live and move and have our being. Contemplation and mediation call us “to be” before “we do”. Silence is the voice of the divine, same one in you as in me. Listen and Wait, whats the rush, the river is full of more water and the rock is always wet. OBSESSED WITH BUSYNESS