Life doesn't have to be a fire drill.
Start by asking yourself a few questions. Now, be honest with yourself.
On a scale from 1-10, with 1 being never and 10 being very often, over the past 6-12 months, how often have you found yourself:
Take a minute to tally up your answers:
If your total is between 4-20 points, you most likely experience a balanced life of being and doing.
If your total is between 21-40 points, you tend to spend more time running around with your hair on fire to no avail.
Ok, let’s table this for now and take a few minutes to dive into what is doing versus being.
Doing
(Effort, Active, Masculine, Future)
Doing is the act of completing tasks to achieve an end goal in the future.
Doing is a necessary course of action for each and every one of us. Without it, we would never create, succeed, or attain our dreams. However, just like with everything, doing exists on a spectrum. Oftentimes we find ourselves teeter-tottering back and forth from one extreme to the next. Or staying in one side of the spectrum for far too long. Too much of one extreme for too long is not healthy. Our ultimate goal is to strike a balance between being overly active and being a couch potato.
If we find ourselves always doing, we’ll end up feeling exhausted, getting sick or injured. And depending on how we view our doing, we might find ourselves sick or injured repeatedly.
Why do we allow this to happen to us? For many of us, we’re not aware of what we’re doing or we’ve never experienced the being mode of operation so we have no idea that it exists. Or the being side makes us uncomfortable (If that’s the case for you, why might that be?!?). Plus, our society places a high value on overexerting ourselves. It helps bolster our perception of self — our importance and value. This overextending is an endless cycle of trying to prove our worth by staying active beyond what is sustainable.
For others, we become stagnant or stuck. Our energy levels are low and we’re unmotivated to do pretty much anything. When this happens for an extended period of time, we may become depressed, complacent, lonely/isolated, or unhappy.
As a result, we might find that it’s hard to get unstuck or to stay motivated. We might have goals but we’ve put them on the back burner because they feel so far out of reach now. Or we’ve given up completely on our dreams, or worse on ourselves — our light has dimmed. We find ourselves barely surviving each day. This is not a fun place to be for very long (I’ve been there before — for years — and it’s not enjoyable [thanks to infertility]).
“Our ultimate goal is to strike a balance between being overly active and being a couch potato.”
Mind you what is reasonable for one person to achieve in a day might be different from what you’re able to achieve today. And that’s perfectly ok. We each have a variety of demands, personal experiences, and energy levels that influence what’s possible for us to achieve in an hour, day, week, month, year. As a result, there’s no point in comparing ourselves against someone else. In addition, it ebbs and flows each day. The best we can do is strike that balance I mentioned earlier and work towards it every day. We can do this by exploring the being mode of operation.
Being
(Ease, Rest (Passive), Feminine, Present)
Being is the act of embracing the present moment and not getting attached to a final outcome or expectation.
Being is an important part of our healing and overall well-being. Without it, we would (as I mentioned earlier) overexert ourselves to the point of exhaustion, sickness, or injury. Creating moments to just be, allows us to reflect on what’s working or not in our lives. Being allows us to practice gratitude for the people in our lives, the experiences we’ve had that shaped us, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. Being in the present moment creates opportunities for us to embrace who we are today (not who we thought we ‘should’ be today). Being creates opportunities for moving forward with conscious awareness.
If we find ourselves always doing and we never allow for being, we’re missing out on the passive side of the equation — the restful, peaceful, and effortless side. When this happens, the balance between being and doing is off-kilter. Again, we find ourselves feeling exhausted, stressed out, anxious, depressed, injured, or overwhelmed.
We skip the being by constantly checking our email, doing something just to stay busy, distracting ourselves with chores, or binge-watching a TV series. We skip out on taking care of ourselves. We place a higher value on checking another thing off of our to-do list over staying true to what serves us — a little tender loving self-care.
Again, being for each of us might resemble something different. We might enjoy meditation, a walk in nature, five minutes of journaling, or chilling on the beach. How you practice being is up to you. All that I ask is that you make a point to squeeze it in frequently. You get to choose the frequency (I recommend daily or weekly).
The Doing and Being Quadrant
At the end of the day, what you’re aiming for is a steady balance between being and doing.
Now, look back at your total score:
For those in the first camp (4-20 pts), I’m extremely proud of you. You’ve struck a balance between effort and ease, between doing and being. Keep up the hard work of focusing on your needs and not allowing society to prescribe more doing than what is necessary.
For those in the second camp (21-40 pts), you have some work to do and that’s perfectly ok.
Questions to ask yourself:
What is getting in the way of me practicing being more often?
What might I shift or change to create space for self-reflection (being)?
What is a reasonable amount of time to dedicate each day or week to being (start with 5-10 minutes and build from there)?
What day am I going to consistently practice being?
Who will I tell about this practice to help keep me accountable?
Awesome. Now that you have a plan, take action.
If you made it this far, thank you for spending your time with me and considering how doing and being play a role in your life. May we all find a balance between crafting what it is we desire and taking the time necessary to reflect on where we are on our path right now.
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Photos by Christian Erfurt, Jackson Simmer, and Motoki Tonn on Unsplash