"Parents need to teach their kids to balance human doing with human being," Paula Bloom (Clinical Psychologist)
...but first parents need to learn how to be a being and not just be a doing being.
I struggle not doing stuff. I feel lazy and unproductive and guilty. However, the more I do, the less I know about myself. I excuse myself from asking myself difficult questions and making icky decisions by keeping in perpetual motion.
I am trying to try less. I am walking more places, making more decisions in the shower, sitting down and reading a book when I feel like it, especially when there are a lot of demands being made of me. Stopping what I'm doing and taking pictures of a stack of painted rocks.
In a recent Highlights magazine that my daughter got, there was a great story called "The Lazy Day". The parents (and the grandparents) and the kids did not do ANYTHING. They did not even read or watch a show or play a game or garden or do chores. They just sat around all day long and watched bugs and butterflies and ate cheese and bread (no cooking allowed). It was so inspiring.
Each weekend comes along with fresh demands to "make plans". "Making plans" in some ways makes things easier. There is a plan. It is discernible and check offable, accomplishable, but in the end we only feel more tired, less energised and we are all too often left with a tiny wedge of dread as we begin a new week.
We want to encourage our kids to look inside for solutions, all the while we are distracted and running outwards towards the next goal post.
I guess I've got some being to do. Preferably in a semi-reclined position, watching the sun come up or the sea go out.
I struggle not doing stuff. I feel lazy and unproductive and guilty. However, the more I do, the less I know about myself. I excuse myself from asking myself difficult questions and making icky decisions by keeping in perpetual motion.
I am trying to try less. I am walking more places, making more decisions in the shower, sitting down and reading a book when I feel like it, especially when there are a lot of demands being made of me. Stopping what I'm doing and taking pictures of a stack of painted rocks.
In a recent Highlights magazine that my daughter got, there was a great story called "The Lazy Day". The parents (and the grandparents) and the kids did not do ANYTHING. They did not even read or watch a show or play a game or garden or do chores. They just sat around all day long and watched bugs and butterflies and ate cheese and bread (no cooking allowed). It was so inspiring.
Each weekend comes along with fresh demands to "make plans". "Making plans" in some ways makes things easier. There is a plan. It is discernible and check offable, accomplishable, but in the end we only feel more tired, less energised and we are all too often left with a tiny wedge of dread as we begin a new week.
We want to encourage our kids to look inside for solutions, all the while we are distracted and running outwards towards the next goal post.
I guess I've got some being to do. Preferably in a semi-reclined position, watching the sun come up or the sea go out.
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