Recently, my social calendar has been more packed than it ever has been. I’ll have work events every night of the week and then the weekend is packed to brim with errands and hanging out with the friends I didn’t get to see during the week. And while I’ve loved going to these places and catching up with my friends, I am exhausted.
I recently signed up for Amanda Carpenter’s 30 day devotional that she did during the month of September entitled, Space. Her devotional centered around making space for you and most importantly for God in your life. It was an amazing devotional and I highly recommend you follow her so you can be the first one to find out if she’s doing another one!
When I first signed up, I’m going to be honest, I thought to myself “This doesn’t pertain to me right now, but I’ll sign up anyways. I might be able to use something.’
As the month of September went on, I had a great month! I spent a week in the Mediterranean with my family, had ample time to catch up on things and take a breather, I didn’t have much on my plate at work, and my weekends were calm.
When October rolled around, I’m not sure what happened, but everything went into hyper speed. I’m talking an event every single night of the week, including weekends for 3 weeks straight. I can’t even tell you the last time I watched any of my TV shows on the night they actually aired or read a book. After a few days had passed and I caught my breath, somehow it happened again for the next two weeks!
So, that brings me to today, where I am making a declaration to spend my November meaningfully. My calendar is already filling up rapidly and I want to make sure that I’m intentional with every event that I am doing. This is my favorite time of year and I want to make sure I enjoy it and for me, that’s spending time resting.
In Amanda’s devotional, she shared some incredibly insightful thoughts and one of those was this:
Its ironic how we as a society shame those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, but somehow we normalize and rationalize -even applaud- those who are addicted to busy.
If this were harmless, I wouldn’t be so passionate about it, but I believe staying busy is a drug so many of us are addicted to so that we don’t have to face something much deeper. And its holding us back from living the life God has for us.
Amanda Carpenter
Why have you made yourself so insanely busy? Why are you really avoiding space?
I could not agree more. We pack our calendars and squeeze in meetings and say yes to everything and we wonder why we’re exhausted all the time, grumpy every single day, and never really feeling like we’ve accomplished anything! We’ve got to learn to say no.
Let me tell you how I’m going to say ‘No’ in November.
Intentionally block off days for myself and not allow them to be changed.
I think this is going to be the biggest game changer for me. I’m a huge planner, and if I proactively schedule out a day/time to dedicate to myself, it will make it easier to make sure I have time for me. The trick to this working is when someone wants to do something or tries to schedule an event that day, just say “You already have plans.” Rather than admitting that your plans are to have no plans, because for some odd reason, that isn’t usually well-received.
2. Stop automatically saying “Yes” to events.
My default is to RSVP yes to an event and unless something else comes up, I’ll go! So changing my mindset to when an event comes up, I think about if I actually want to go before determining my answer should help clear up my schedule right off the bat.
3. Think about what I’m saying “No” to, when I say “Yes” to something else.
For me, my thought process on attending events was I’m not doing anything else, of course I’ll go. But what I wasn’t mindful of was that I would have been doing something else. And that something else was making sure that my soul was rested. I know it sounds cheesy, but it has honestly effected me so much in my day to day these past few weeks and I want to get back to my normal, calm, patient self.
I think the moment I realized this was really taking an effect on me was last week, at a housewarming party for one of my friends. I had just met this guy and we were talking about where we lived and the typical, get-to-know-you talk. I told him I lived in a studio by myself and loved it and he asked if I ever miss coming home and just talking about your day with someone and I just go “No way!” You could tell he did not expect that answer to come out of my mouth. Apparently its not normal for someone to not want human interaction after a day jam packed with spending time with people.
I think as I’ve tried to get a handle on my social anxiety, I’ve overcompensated by packing my schedule to the brim with events and hangouts and just all the things so that I’m so busy I don’t even have time to get nervous about things. While this tactic has worked, its also drained me. I don’t have time to reach for a book or work on any of my other passions, i.e. this blog and weddings and my vacation film! All things that I love doing, but I’ve been putting on the back burner because I felt that they weren’t important enough to set aside time for, but they are, because they fill me up.
So here is my declaration for November:
I vow to make space in November. I want to soak in and refuel everything this season has to offer, even if that means saying no to people, events, and opportunities. I know in the long run, I’ll be grateful for this time of space in my life. Won’t you join me?
