I apologise for being late posting this week. I put a lot of energy into posting twice for May the 12th last week, and connecting with other bloggers on the social media. I think quite a few of us overdid things! Since then I’ve found my creative motivation has waned a little. I just haven’t felt like doing the things that I usually find so rewarding.
This doesn’t concern me though; we all have waves of motivation and creativity. I’ve now had enough experience to know that if I accept where my body and spirit are at, in the moment and allow them to be, the wave will soon rise back up to a peak again. This isn’t just to do with how well I might be feeling. It can be more subtle than that. Earlier on in the week I wasn’t feeling great so I rested and looked after myself and didn’t have any expectations of productivity. But as I physically started to recover, my mind was telling me I should be getting on with things. However I was feeling lazy, or that’s how my mind wanted to put it, perhaps it would be better to describe that I felt the need to continue to be restful even though I knew my energy was rising. In the past I would have given myself a hard time for that feeling and pushed myself to use my increasing energy, and this energy almost certainly wouldn’t have lasted long. Instead I chose to go with the flow and indulge my need for restfulness. I let go of my self-imposed timetable for posting my blog and as a result my energy has continued to improve and my creativity has started to flow again with ease.
Our thoughts and values are the main obstacles to an easy flowing life. Ideas about what we think we should be doing or how much we think we should achieve, get in the way of us listening to our natural rhythms, or cause us to misinterpret these messages. The term ‘feeling lazy’ attaches a meaning to our bodily sensations. We only feel lazy when we judge our impulse towards restfulness as something negative. When we can accept our need to be restful as it arises, we are far more likely to move smoothly on to a natural impulse of creativity.
However, creativity flows only when it is a natural expression of our true nature. When we think that we should do something or be good at something because it’s what’s expected of us by outside influences we will waste our energy by metaphorically forcing a square peg through a round hole. When life is set up to meet the expectations of others our whole experience teaches us that if we don’t push we don’t achieve. We just don’t get the opportunity to learn to trust that a natural expression of what we feel like doing can be very productive. When we get the opportunity to experiment with trusting our feelings and impulses we soon learn that it’s good to go with the flow!
Great post! I really appreciate your understanding of the way pushing works against us, in a much broader sense than the physical. I also think that laziness is a term that is used far too often. I believe there is usually a reason why people don’t feel like doing things, and that it is actually quite rare for people to be “lazy”.
Thanks for writing this! I needed a reminder that I’m not lazy.
Still struggling with the mental aspects of listening to my body. After years of just pushing through the exhaustion and pain and whatnot, it’s difficult to flick that switch and say “no, not right now”.
I placed a link to this article on my tumblr blog. Lots of young people with ME there that without a doubt are being accused of being lazy by people who don’t know any better. Hopefully it will help them as much as it helped me.