Do you ever feel like you don’t have enough time to live?

Ha! I know that sounds funny, but I was just having a conversation with myself about living at the speed of life, meaning, getting my mind to slow down so that I can take a minute to look through a cookbook or to write a note to a friend or to read a chapter in my book club book, or work on the little hand made Christmas gifts for my grandchildren- without feeling pushed to get on to the next thing!

And I am having this conversation because sometimes if feels that if I’m not running and doing “out there” then I’m not “getting things done!” Can you relate to this feeling?

When really, cooking takes time and shopping takes time and writing in a journal takes time and reading your religious text (books) takes time and pondering and meditating takes time and growing a garden takes time and cutting flowers takes time and going for a walk takes time and reading stories takes time and cleaning off the table takes time and sorting the mail takes time…..

Whatever tasks you may be doing today, I hope you can breathe and take the time to be present. Even if you’re doing the simple, living things that make a rich life for you and your family. {Which I might note, are not the things we see blasted at us through the media of our culture!}

Sometimes we have to consciously remind ourselves that building families and relationships takes even more than our time and energy; it requires our presence.

So when that hurry, hurry, hurry feeling grabs you, maybe you can smile, pat it on the head and tell it that you’re living at the speed of life and no faster.

Love you!

Jacque

P.S. And may I say that when I am not present while I’m working on the tasks of living, when I am doing something to cross if off a list, it turns out that I’m not really living at all! Where we are in our minds is where we are living. Can you read a book to a child and be a million miles away? Yes! But when you come to yourself, and think about and enjoy what you are doing and the person who is with you, everything is so much more full and rich and alive! We must be very cautious about keeping ourselves here and now, not allowing our minds to be one place and our bodies in another, thus separated from the present moment.

I challenge you to take a little data sampling of where you really are at different points in your day. If you’re spending a lot of time away from yourself, something needs to change!