Saturday – a day to love yourself

It’s Saturday.  For most women, the weekend is a time to focus on housework, the kids, pets, cleaning – you know the drill.  I was in the grocery store and noticed how even at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday we are driven to finish our task.  It made me think of Karen Heck’s post When I love Myself.  Yesterday, I while working with a client she mentioned she used to be playful and fun at the work. I asked her what happened to make her change”.

She said “If you work at Goldman Sachs and are playful, relaxed or fun you’ll be eaten alive.  I guess I learned to be to a b**ch there”.  “Now it’s a habit” she finished.

WOW! How many of us have the habit of being driven all the time?  Do we have to be driven to succeed? Are we stuck in driven mode?  And what does being driven all day, every day do to us? For her, it is a major reason for her anxiety, sleeplessness and drive to be right and controlling all the time.

As we continued, I asked her to take Saturday and Sunday and when she thinks about it just notice when she is driven mode, pause and slow down.  “What notice!?!” “What the h*ll does that mean?”, she remarked in a joking manner.  Knowing she needed to continue this train of thought I simply waited on her to think through my request.

After about 15 seconds of silence, she went on by asking, “Notice, does that you want me to do nothing for two days?”

“No”, I said. “It means be active in a different way. Simply noticing means hitting the pause button on what you’re doing and reflect on how your body is feeling, where is the tension in your body and what are you thinking. See if you can notice the level of intensity or how driven you are to finishing”. “You may notice that you are so intent on finishing that you don’t see what’s going on around you.

“ You can be so intent on multi-tasking that you get annoyed when something interrupts your attention”.

So this morning while I was in the grocery store, I began to reflect on all three of these occurrences.  A simple way to love yourself is to press the pause button and enjoy the moment. But to do that maybe we have to be reminded to do that because everywhere else in our lives the performance standard is to be driven.

So today, slow down and enjoy the beauty all around you.  Notice the flowers and the manicured lawns. Notice the lines of the buildings we walk past every day and if you live in an old city you’ll see the craftsmanship it took to make the building beautiful.  Be surprised at how the water at the pool splashes as the kids jump in.  I guess I’m asking all of us to simply enjoy the day.  Know that in doing just this one simple task you are loving yourself.

N Joy