About guilt (Patreon)

Happy weekend! 

I hope you're having a lovely week. I'm currently practicing to rest and relax more. But as an ambitious perfectionist and workaholic in love with her work I have to say it's a bit hard. Theoretically I can see how the big end goal is balance, but my mind is set on: "as soon as I'm better I'll catch up on everything and do even more to make up for lost time!". Not very smort I have to admit.

I'm saying this because I believe I'm not the only one struggling with finding balance. Whether that is too much or too little. Take food for instance, a lot of us tend to either over-eat or under-eat. It's of course more complex than this, but I believe the issue is often our overall balance. (Everything is connected after all. Mind, body - and spirit if you believe in that too.) We feel guilty for getting stuck in habits we know are bad for us but we just can't get out of them because the guilt of doing them makes us take to whatever we can to add some ease and relief. And a lot of the times, those things are what started the guilt. 

I personally have a very complicated relationship with food, but this is something I rarely speak about because of the guilt and shame I feel around it. On paper it's so easy to just stop behaviors that we know are bad for us. But when they give us some sort of false sense of comfort, god it makes it difficult. 

Same goes for being productive. I know rest is essential to be able to create, I know I need to take a step back. But two things come in here. 1. Guilt over the fact that I could be doing more. 2. Fear that everything will crumble. (The fact though is that most of the time we'll see that our world keeps spinning even if we stand still.) Those two things prevents me from being able to rest even if I'm not doing anything at all. 

I believe that most of us could do with letting go of some guilt. Guilt over not doing that, or doing this, mistakes, dreams, obligations, family. Whatever it might be. It's okay. Whatever you did or didn't do, it's okay. You know this already, but deciding where to go from here is what actually matters, and maybe the load on your shoulders could be a little easier if you allowed yourself to let go of some of that which isn't serving you anymore. Maybe letting go of that weight will be just what you need to be able to take that step you want to take.

ALL THE LOVE! 

(Oh and let me introduce you to the cute camel I met last year, he's from now on my - without fail - guiding spirit animal in life. I will call him Blob!)