Running on empty?

Are you running on empty but telling yourself you have no time to fill up?

THIS is madness. . .and I don’t use the term, “madness,” accidentally or carelessly. 

Do you ever get caught up in a cycle of work, work, work, do, do, do and you feel like the pile of work to do -- things to be done -- only gets bigger while you are slipping further and further behind? 

While all of these things on the pile may be VERY worthwhile, the doing of them can STILL be very exhausting and physically, emotionally, and psychologically draining. 

And many of these tasks - these things to be done -- may not be meaningfully rewarding. 

Yet while we are being depleted, we often tell ourselves to keep going, work harder, work faster, do more, even to the point that we cut from the list all of those small acts that are nourishing, that fill us up, inspire us, refresh us, and restore our energy and our vital resources like creativity,  our problem-solving capacity, humor, and even simple caring and compassion for self and others. We stop exercising, we rationalize fast food meals, we skip yoga, we scoff at meditation; we tell ourselves if I cut out this or that -- the good stuff -- we’ll make more headway, we’ll get further down the road.

This is like telling yourself, “the gas tank in my car is empty, but I don’t have time to stop and get gas!” 

THIS is madness.