What is your busyness doing to you?

What is your busyness doing to you?

Let me ask you a question... When was the last time you felt at ease? Free as a bird? Light and liberated?

For most of us, those feelings are foreign and far-fetched, and the possibility of ever experiencing them is a long way from our radar. And it's been that way for a long time.

Busyness and stress causes a state of disease, a state that's so far removed from being calm, content and healthy, yet it's become normalised. It's become normal to rush from one task to another, from one duty to another. It's become normal to experience regular sickness and disease of varying intensities. It's become normal to be frazzled, frustrated, and fiendishly fatigued. But while I say these have all become 'normal', normal is not what they are. They might be common, but they are not normal. And our biology knows it.

Our busyness has become an addiction - one that we seem proud of. An addiction to success, to seeking more, to pushing the boundaries, and to trying to find where the greener grass lays. Our busyness has become so much of an addiction that our bodies are under constant and chronic stress - but our biological and biochemical make-up wasn't designed for this.

Did you know that 95% of all disease is caused by stress (National Institute of Health 2010)?

It's certainly an epidemic, one we must acknowledge and tackle if we are to improve the state of our health and vitality. Fatigue, irritability, sleep disruptions, anxiety, brain fog, heartburn, digestive problems, headaches and migraines, back pain, menstrual dysfunctions, and weight gain are some of the many common symptoms associated with this overwhelming and overbearing condition we have succumbed to. There aren't diagnostic medical tests to assess this condition, yet it's easy to recognise. It's the disease of busyness, the disease of chronic stress. But it's a disease we must obliterate, because it's doing no one any favours, least of all ourselves.

How did we end up living like this? Why do we do this to ourselves? When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings? It's time we took life for real, for what it is - short. Freaking short. And we only get one slim chance at making it what we want it to be. When we're on our death bed, we won't be measuring our success of life by how many things we ticked off our never-ending to-do list. Nope, we'll be telling our loved ones and those wanting to hear our wisdom that life instead should be measured by the fulfilment and joy we experience, by the moments that take our breath away, and by an overflowing storage of magical memories we wish not to ever forget.

By being busy we miss the peace and beauty of the world. Since coming through this process myself I feel I have some critical tidbits to share - and that's simply that the world is a wonder. And when we're caught up in a whirlwind of worries and a manufactured manic state, we miss the absolute splendour of the world around us. Today I see and hear far more than I did a year ago - and boy, what a treasure that is.

It's time we let our busyness rest in peace. So my call to action today is this - that we stop defining ourselves by our doing, and start defining ourselves with our being. That we stop clock watching and do more world watching. That we cease measuring ticks on a to-do list and instead measure the experiences we have that steal our breath. But mostly, that we stop doing more of the things we feel we must do, and instead do more of the things we should do. Because life can be as beautiful as we make it.