Our western world stresses and values doing. Not being. This probably isn’t news to you. We grow up conditioned to do, to achieve, to make things happen.

The trouble is that sometimes we get lost in trying to keep doing and we only realise this when our body starts to tell us that we’ve gone too far: we get sick or burn out. We struggle to keep going as we have done before.

At times in my life I’ve struggled to get past that “brainwashed” zone to keep doing myself. I’ve got caught up continually striving, trying to make things happen.

Along the way I haven’t even stopped to take the time to even question what I was doing. I’ve just hurtled along, doing again and again.

It comes as no surprise, perhaps, that over the years well-meaning friends have give me books like Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much.

But here’s a confession – I didn’t read any of them.

I was so busy doing that I didn’t have time to read them and they wound up in a box in the attic, gathering dust.

Finding Time to Be

In this week’s show, I try to get you thinking about taking the time for self reflection. I want to help you give yourself strategies and ways to cope with living in a world that values traits, characteristics or parts of us that are driven to achieve.

In many ways, I’m encouraging you to go against the grain and embrace “being” as opposed to doing.

Take this podcast very seriously

If we keep piling on the pressure, doing more and more, we might find ourselves reaching for things that aren’t so good for us to support us and keep us going. Or we might collapse, burn out or get sick.

I am sure you can recognize that if we push ourselves to the extreme, continually doing, our bodies cease to cope.

I want to help you to change course.

I’ve been lucky enough to find a calmer, “being place” in my life. Perhaps it’s a direct result of working in a profession where I’ve seen so many people hit the wall or “burn out”.

So this podcast is very much me trying to help you help yourself. I’m asking you to focus on the moment and be good to yourself.

When you listen to this show, I’ll teach you how to do a personal inventory. I’ll help you evaluate if you feel out of sync with your Self. If you are off-balance ?

I’ll get you to look at how your internal parts express themselves through your health, behaviour, roles and relationships.

And I want you to take an honest look at yourself and see if you’re way caught up in simply doing, rather than being.

Moving towards healing, towards being

Sometimes when your life is not making sense or you don’t feel well, the road to recovery can start with simply noticing that you are not including yourself as one of the many people you take care of.

This episode of Therapy Spot is, I sincerely hope, a step along that path.

Wise words from the Dalai Lama

“Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.

Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

-Dalai Lama

Image credit: CC from Gratisography