During the last few months, I took a break from writing to you, so that I could experiment with living life without pressure. Believe me, it's harder than you think!
Many of us have a lot of things to do, errands to run, bills to pay, jobs to go to, kids to care for and on and on and on. We guzzle coffee or energy drinks, snack on sugary foods and push to get through the day, day after day. Then we want to carve out some play time in our already filled schedule. It's been called life in the fast lane or the rat race.
To complicate this, some of us are not designed to have sustainable energy so that we can work every day, day in and day out. Some people are designed from birth to feel pressure. We have an ever-expanding to-do list, a drive to find the answers, feel the pressure to please others or prove our worthiness. It's an invisible pressure that translates into stress and stress affects the body.
Our exhausted and stressed bodies take charge eventually by getting a cold or an illness and with pain. Then we are forced to take a time out.
I found that the imprinting that led to overachievement is deeply ingrained in my psyche. And there are hidden reasons behind the behaviors. Uncovering the invisible triggers to pressure, in my birth charts, really helped me become watchful and mindful to its presence. When the urges surfaced, I had to stop and ask if this was really necessary to do right now. I learned to listen to the wisdom of my body, which is far wiser than my mind. I communicated my new way of living to my partner and employees, which didn't go over really well with the employees. And my partner had a hard time understanding it, too.
In a nutshell, pressure equals stress and stress impacts the body. Our minds continually run a marathon of all the things we need to do and we often ignore our bodies. Our body's only recourse is to rebel if we don't pay attention to its warnings.
The pressure experiment is ongoing. Undoing old patterns of life under pressure is not something that you can change overnight. But you can become aware of how it is affecting you and take steps to mitigate it's effects.
I'm curious. Do you feel pressured?
Elaine
P.S. The pressure experiment has taught me that I can still get a lot of things done if I delegate. So I hired a web designer to recreate my website and fine-tune my offerings. You're invited to explore my site.