Written by Audrey
Maybe I’m not procrastinating?
Maybe I’m learning to enjoy stillness and peace in my mind.
For so long I believed that if I was not constantly busy and doing something, I was simply lazy. I would compare myself to friends, family and random strangers who I perceived as better than me because they were always busy. All this comparing did, was to make me feel worse about myself. This in turn led to more ‘laziness’, and thus more feeling that I was in fact a pretty shitty person. Everyone else had it all together, work life balance, family, housework done, home spotless and looking like something out of an Ideal Home magazine. Everything in my life on the other hand…. total crap (I know there are a lot of other words that I could have used than crap, but sometimes, crap just fits the bill 🤷).
The thing is, there is no such thing as perfect. Whether that is about someone else’s social media image, someone else’s life, someone else’s body, anything really. No one’s life is perfect. We all have light and shade, we just have different ways of coping and dealing with it.
After so long stuck in that loop of believing that I needed to be like these other perfect people, I now know I do not need to be like them, nor do I want to be like anyone who spends their time ‘busy’ to the extent that they will tell you they cannot spare 5 minutes to take a few breaths, or sit and have a coffee to do nothing, to just sit and watch the world go by (one of my favourite things to do by the way).
I also know that after being stuck in that loop and the darkness of ED, that allowing myself to have quiet time, stillness, doing nothing, is so important. I also know that once I became recovered, and just stopped, I felt so tired. Dealing with all the emotions that I had been numbing for years and finally feeling them was a lot! So now I do not think in terms of procrastination, I appreciate that I am quite often, simply tired and so I allow myself to rest and be quiet, to watch a movie when there’s ironing to be done, to leave the dishwasher till later, answer messages and emails later.
It is not always easy, it does not always happen without in inner dialogue. I work on reminding myself that I know that it will all get done and everything will be ok.
Audrey
