Are you lazy enough?
Seriously, do you have to work at rest?.
Quick note before the main post…..It’s nearly time!!! if you want to learn how to manage your life and feel a bit more in control, Be Brilliantly YOU - Living a Better, Bolder, Brighter life starts next Monday on the 10th February that will help you find balance, joy and direction… all the details are below.
This is my latest series on women defining what enough is.. starting here.)
Lazy has become a dirty word, synonymous with loungers and loiterers and selfish languishing. Especially for women.
We have gone from a time when women worked very hard but, built in to those hard, and often harsh lives, was a natural ebb and flow. This included potent periods of rest, recuperation and yes, perhaps even proactive, deliberate laziness.
Life used to have a healthy mix of hard work and lazy rest, when without the distraction of social media and TV we might merely sit and stare out the window, people and bird watch, and let our brain ease into a reflective roaming, or walk along a country lane and be part of the environment around us. Perhaps a long languishing stretch in the morning, to pull back the curtains and assess the day, not just the to-do list.
We didn’t always have a podcast or music or news or chatter in our ears. We could meander aimlessly, thinking and making sense of conversations and desires and needs.
Imagine that? Meandering aimlessly…. both bodily and mentally?
Why are women so averse to laziness? Maybe because it is another insult to keep us in our patriarchal place. I know growing up as a child in the 1970’s and 80’s, I watched my mum work a job, manage the home and all the housework, care for elderly parents and us so that by day’s end she could barely speak. I caught her once, doing the ironing, her face red from exertion and steam, with a solitary tear shaking down her cheek. When I asked her what was wrong, she barely had the energy to tell me “I’m just exhausted.”
When she did sit down to watch something on the telly, when she did take a moment to perhaps sit hopefully in a Belfast summer garden and raise her face to the sun, when she did take a moment to read a book in bed on a Saturday morning, she would always interrupt her reveries with an on-repeat “I must get up.” The moments where snatched by conscience before she could even relax into them.
The literal meaning of lazy is the “emotional disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or to exert oneself.”
Imagine that? Choosing not to be active. Being proactive in being inactive.
Today, we seem to judge our value by how wrecked and weary we are, the more run ragged the more prestigious.
“How are you?” used to be a greeting that might encourage a response along the lines of an actual answer, such as I’m fine. Great. Super! Even a “shit” keeps the answer in context to the question.
You are being asked how you are, yet most of us answer as if you’d been asked “WHAT are you?”
And you hurry a harried “busy” and rush off like a busy bee. You might even make it communal with a “You know yourself…” because it is now expected that women are brutally busy with not a moment to spare.
Women were often referred to as busybodies; curtain twitchers who were in everyone’s business. Now we are body and brain busy….feeling responsible for everyone’s business. Barely time to reflect and process one moment before hurtling into the next one. (That’s why journalling is so powerful because most of us don’t have the headspace to process and reflect on the marching minutes of our lives.)
We have now reached the ridiculous age of living where something that used to happen naturally - rest - has now become work.
We have to work at resting. We have to add “wellbeing” to our to-do list as another task to tick. It’s crazy. So enough is enough. If I have to choose between getting crazy and choosing lazy I know what I’m going for.
One of the issues women have is the cluster-fuck going on in our head as we juggle the physical and practical load of managing a home, family and career, plus the cognitive overload (known as the invisible work of being responsible for everything), as well as the emotional burden of feeling responsible for everyone’s happiness, and to top all of that swirling round your head like a hurricane, you have to remember to look good, be good, eat a protein-fuelled kale shake and build muscle mass with a kettle bell throw every three hours. And yes, I made that sentence long so it made you breathless because it is exhausting. It’s exhausting for our bodies and it is truly exhausting for our minds… the second guessing, the criticism, the demanding tone, the relentless pursuit of busyness, the endless pursuit of mind-fill.
I had a client recently who is exploring and embracing a whole new stage of life. I always start my coaching with a process of knowing yourself - knowing who and where and how you are now at this age and stage, whatever that is. But also really knowing your strengths and values and drivers and self-limiting beliefs. Only then, only armed with real self-knowledge can you really start the next process deciding how you want to live your life and what that looks and feels like.
As part of this process, we discussed the manner in which she treats herself. “Demanding” was the answer. Demanding. And in this new space which is allowing her to explore new ways to live - it starts with wondering if being constantly demanding with herself is the right way to bring her to the place she wants to be. She knows the answer is no.
How about instead of using a demanding tone, she used an encouraging one?
How about instead of demanding maximum output, she explored a better balance of output, input and maybe a smidgeon of no-put? (Gasp! Nothing?!)
How about being supportive and curious and letting go a little to see what might emerge from some meandering?
She got it, and she knew exactly that being demanding on herself was not what she wanted anymore. She has nothing to prove. Instead she knows herself better now to feel safe that she is never going to become a lazy person who drifts into nothingness, but in the space created by not demanding of herself every minute, she might just discover a better way to live. And that being lazy is an important part of non-crazy living.
I certainly had to learn that. I have had to learn to relax in the knowledge that I will always have a curious and constant drive to do, and learn and move and progress, but that in order to get the most out of that, I also need to let go. I need to be proactive about being lazy so my mind and body can meander, can winter and come back renewed.
So how about we languish in some lazy and relinquish the relentless to meander for a moment?
This last weekend, I got proactive about being inactive. I started to claim back the word lazy - a stick to beat a woman with - and I told several people that that was my plan. To have a lazy weekend. To be lazy on Saturday. (One of the results of this was not driving across town to see my pal, but instead we each drank bubbles in our pyjamas in the late afternoon while we watched the Ireland v England rugby match in our respective homes while on Facetime). It meant I went for a walk WITHOUT MY AIRPODS! I just meandered the paths of the park and my mind. I lay in bed and read my book and languished in the luxury of knowing the busyness is waiting for me (there is SO much to do) but for this day, lazy is my new crazy.
So enough is enough. Enough relentless busyness. Enough thinking lazy is wrong. Let’s embrace a new lexicon of lazy.
Let’s get more lazy with our opinions… free up some head space by not having to have an opinion about everything.
Let’s get more lazy with our expectations on others… let them miss the corners if they hoover and let them be.
Let’s get more lazy with our demands on ourselves. Life is too short and we miss so much when we forget to meander our minds occasionally.
Be proactive about being inactive and lazy.
Let’s own the lazy as a counter to being owned by the busy.
What do you think?
This work is life-changing. If you want to change the tone of how you treat yourself, join me from 10th February, and I will take you on a 12 week step-by-step review and reset to help you get, and stay, in charge of your life... however you need that to look and feel like.
With Be Brilliantly YOU! - Living a Better, Bolder, Brighter Life I’ll help you do what previous clients have done and go from saying
“I’m overwhelmed” to “I’ve got this!”
“I can’t get on top of things” to “I feel in charge”
“I’m in a blizzard of busyness” to “I have my sh*t together”
“I feel scared, lost and confused” to “I can breathe, I can manage and I can choose”
“I’m always exhausted” to “I know how to find the joy”
So, if you're ready to roll and get a life you can manage with balance, clarity and joy, enrol now! All the deets are here, and if you've any questions, just drop me a reply.. As always my paid subscribers get a 10% discount - just email me at alana@alanakirk.com.
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