What This Recovering Busy-Addict Needs You To Know About Her Journey
Picture this: twenty-year-old Kirsten, up to her ears in homework. She’s stressed trying to juggle it all in between her three jobs and the magazine she’s an editor for, and the newspaper she writes for, and the club she’s a part of, and the. . . She won’t take a break even to eat the dinner her boyfriend cooked for them. He turns to her and says, “Kirsten. You’ve always figured it out. I don’t know how, but you always finish it and make it work. You will this time, too.”
It was like something clicked in my head: a way to cope. Pack it all in because I know I can, and others might be impressed. For many years even long after that man was no longer in my life, when I had days where I didn’t know how I was going to fit everything in, his words gave me fuel. I’ve done it before, I can do it again.
But now I look at that version of myself and just want to give her a hug. Instead of telling her she can do it all, I want to tell her she doesn’t have to do it all.
I’m beginning to realize that for so long, I’ve been addicted to being busy. I’m not sure when or why, but at some point in American culture, being busy became a status symbol. It makes us feel important, successful. Up until recently in my life, when I would tell people all the things I was involved in and doing with my time (I’ll save you from listing it here), they would say they were tired just listening to me.
In Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance, she writes, “Staying occupied is a socially sanctioned way of remaining distant from our pain.” She goes on to use the example of how we say things such as “She’s doing a good job at keeping busy” after the death of a loved one. In a moment of stillness, we reach for our phones, the television remote, a snack—anything to keep us distanced from the emotions in front of us.
We don’t leave space to feel our own suffering, to work through our shadow work, or to sit with what is. By numbing it out, we are feeding into a cycle of addiction. Whether or not we identify as an addict, we all choose habits to help relief us from the stressors and pain points of the world. We all have coping mechanisms that block out the world, that allow us to ignore what is really going on. Sure, for some it’s alcohol or drugs. For some of us, it’s food. It’s vegging out in front of the television after work every night. It’s being consumed in social media, the endless scroll. Or for people like me, it’s cramming responsibilities into every minute of our day so that we don’t have time to be silent with ourselves and examine what’s really going on.
Now don’t get me wrong, these coping mechanisms are not all bad. We all need relief, because this world is a big scary place. The point at which it becomes harmful is when we confuse relief with resolve. When it clicked in my head that I could impress people by doing it all, I hid what was really going on: the fear that if I didn’t do it all, I’d be unworthy. Ignoring that fed into a cycle of life choices based on my unworthiness no matter how hard I tried to hide it or ignore it. My wake-up call to finally confront this (and many other things I had been trying to hide) was difficult, for lack of a better word. But honestly, it’s what I needed to grow.
A lot of people don’t understand what I’m doing on my travels. They don’t understand why I don’t have a plan, or an end date, or the desire to settle down and start over. Life has thrown me some curveballs lately, but what I need you to know is that I’m not running away from my troubles, my grief. I’m running toward it with open arms. Studying it, trying to understand it.
What I need you to know is that this isn’t a joy ride (though it is very joy FULL). I’m not on an extended vacation or taking a break. After a lifetime of busy, I’m trying to step away from all these barriers I put up for myself to really experience life in front of me. I’m on a journey to discover what and where fills me to the brim with life. I’m discovering how life unattached to belongings and outcomes can feel. I’m giving myself the beautiful gift of time to heal from trauma. I’m remaining open and ready to what the universe offers next instead of trying to control it all (which trust me, doesn’t work). I’m holding space for myself to shine a light on those deep corners of my psyche that I closed my eyes to before.
For the first time in my life, I’m practicing not doing it all. I’m soothing that younger Kirsten, telling her that she can find peace if she just begins to let go.
