You never know where life is going to lead you. The past two years my life has gone in quite a different direction. I sold my nutrition store the end of 2014 with the intention of taking a few months off and launching an online nutrition based business. But that isn’t what happened.
Instead life intervened and went in a direction I never could have imagined and eventually led to taking a year-long sabbatical (aka, ‘My Year of No’). As I let go of all that was cluttering up my life, both emotionally and physically, what was working and what wasn’t working began to reveal itself.
About 7 months into my sabbatical an idea bubbled to the surface. I began to wonder if other women struggled with over-doing, overwhelm and busyness? Surely, I couldn’t be the only one. The more I talked with friends and acquaintances the more I learned that feeling overwhelmed was more common than not.
My idea began to take form. I used my sabbatical year to go deep with my own issues around over-doing. I learned to stop. I learned to not measure my day based on how much I had accomplished. I learned how often I was driven by my ‘shoulds’ instead of my ‘wants’.
I then spent months interviewing women from Australia, to England and all over the United States and discovered that feeling stressed, anxious and overwhelmed was very common amongst women.
I looked hard at my own life and mapped the course I used to overcome my busyness addiction. What I learned from my own experience, along with umpteen conversations and the interviews has led to creating a course and coaching program for women who are tired and wanting a better way to ‘do’ life.
The truth is, over-doing is culturally accepted. Being busy is applauded. Making self-care a priority is looked down on. It is time for a paradigm shift. Being over-busy, tired and depleted serves no one, least of all yourself.
One final note. I was asked why I am focusing on women. Seriously, I don’t completely understand men ;), but I do understand women. It is our nature to be pleasers, caregivers, nurturers – all beautiful qualities, but…it’s these very qualities that lead us down a path of depletion. There is a better way!
Namaste (The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you),
suzy@suzycarroll.com