How to create space within the 'busy-ness' of life

Fiona: 00:02

We often think of wellbeing as one-dimensional. What if we look at it from a different perspective?

Josephine: 00:08

The possibilities are endless. All we have to do is step outside the square.

Let's walk this walk together and hold on tight for the ride.

Fiona: 00:16

My name is Fiona. I'm a corporate wellness facilitator, body image and eating psychology coach and a lover of joyful experiences.

Josephine: 00:24

And I'm Josephine, a dietitian, somatic release therapist and a recovering people pleaser and perfectionist.

Fiona and Josephine: 00:30

Welcome to Outside the Square.

Fiona: 00:36

Before we get into the content of today's episode, we are so excited to share that the doors are now open for our group program, 12 Weeks to Confidence.

We've been talking about this over the last couple of episodes and we are so excited to invite you into this live space where you will get beautiful coaching, live coaching from Josephine and myself.

st of March in: 2024

We're going to be starting the program on the 29th of April in 2024 and we can't wait to see you there.

going to be talking more about this over the next few episodes and we're going to have all the information in the show notes.

If you are interested in joining us on the 12 Weeks to Confidence, feeling more glowing, energised and confident in life, come over to our Instagram @outsidethesquare and check out the show notes.

Can't wait to see you live in this space.

Josephine: 01:53

And in today's episode, we are going to talk about creating space in the busyness of life. Maybe you don't feel worthy of that.

That can be a block for some people. Maybe you don't feel that it's physically possible to slow down in your day, but this is where the pleasure is, this is where life and presence is.

And we'd really like to go deep on this topic. We will include this, of course, in our programme Confidence if you want to go deeper.

Because we know so many people say to us, I feel like there's just more to life. And if you feel like that, of course there is, your birthright is to feel incredible.

And we'd like to just sow the seed today that stepping out of the busyness into pleasure and presence is part of that.

Fiona 2:51

I think busyness is something that sometimes we don't even realise that we're getting caught up in as well. So, part of the conversation we're going to have today, I think, is helping you to understand and identify, are you getting stuck in busyness and you don't even realize it? And I think that happens often. I hear a lot when I ask people, how are you?

And they say, oh, busy, how things going? Busy. And I think it can be a bit of a default answer.

How are we? Life is busy. But I think what we want to explore today is what does that really mean?

And how can we create space? Because sometimes that busyness or that sense of busyness can be giving us some extra energy. It can be uplifting us and pushing us to somewhere new or somewhere that we want to go.

Or it could be a space where we're busy but we're overwhelmed and we're becoming depleted.

And so it's exploring what that might mean to us, as individuals, where we sit in that busyness scale and, yeah, being able to find some space to really step into where you want to be.

Josephine: 04:19

Yeah, I love the way you talk about that busyness can be something that gives you energy or can be something that depletes you of your energy.

And yeah, ask yourself that, what is it doing for you? Are you wearing the busy badge, the busyness badge, as an award, you know, often we do, like we parade around like, oh, I'm so busy, you know, as if that justifies our existence here in the world.

But I'd much prefer that we started using the word spacious, like I can deeply celebrate spaciousness. I no longer can celebrate busyness.

It seems like just a headless chicken to me. I don't know about you Fiona.

Fiona 5:02

You're so right. That I think sometimes we see that busyness as a badge of honour, that if we are seen to be busy in some ways that can be seen as success and if you were listening to last week's episode all about authentic success and understanding our authentic success, it's about redefining is busyness or is that sense of seeing having people see us or perceive us to be busy, is that successful? Where did that come from? Why do we perceive busyness or having a lot on as success? Where did that come from for you?

That's I think a really important question to think about because that's going to help you understand, am I being drawn into this busyness narrative for a reason that actually isn't authentic to me?

Or... is because I've learned something along the way about what I should be trying to achieve.

Josephine: 06:12

Yeah, absolutely. And if it's not your belief system, you don't want it, if it's someone else's, then now's the time to really acknowledge I'm not going to live this way anymore and start to make a change.

You don't need to continue to do it if it's not your belief system. That's the critical pivot point that is there for you, if you want to take it.

Fiona: 06:37

Yeah. And I think this is where our values come into play as well. And we talked a lot about values and that belief system back in season one, episode seven.

And we talked about removing the word “should”, because I think that's something that links in with vividness a lot because we have that sense of all the things we “should” be doing.

And that feeds that busyness and we're we can learn about what our values really are and what is priority for us that can help us decide what are the things that we can let go so that we aren't feeling as busy or aren't feeling as much that there's all these other things that I “should” be doing that I'm not.

Josephine: 07:27

Yes, the “should” word.

Fiona: 07:35

It's a big one, isn't it? And it feeds, it feeds that busyness, I think. One of the exercises that I do a lot is a and you may have heard of it before, you might have heard of it in your work.

It sits a lot in corporate space but I think it's a really interesting one to sort of apply to lots of things.

And it's a process is where we look at stop, start and continue. So what am I going to start doing?

What am I going continue doing? What am I going stop doing? And stop comes first. So we say, what do I stop doing so that I can have space to do what I want to start doing, right?

So it's all about this balance that if we want to have less busyness, something's got to give, right? If we want to add something else to our plate, we can't just keep adding, right?

There has to be a balance. And sometimes that can be really hard. And I say, what is it that you can stop doing?

Many of you might immediately have a response to say, nothing, everything is priority. There's nothing I can stop. And yet, if we can think about, okay, well, what do I want to add?

Is actually that going get me something that I'm already doing? And therefore, it's not a priority. And I can actually let it go.

That can be a really, really helpful strategy to write down. So yeah, three pieces of paper, stop, start, continue and see what comes up for you because that can help really clarify where the busyness is and what are the things that I actually could maybe look at.

Or I could stop doing completely. So does it all have to be on my plate? So yeah, really great framework.

Josephine: 09:35

Yeah, really great structure. I can see that working really effectively. Can I throw some examples in here Fiona of things I've stopped doing in the last wee while?

I made a choice. I can't remember how many months ago, to stop cleaning my house unless I answer two questions in the positive. One did I have the energy for it? and two what it gives me because I love spring cleaning. Because I love cleansing my house and when I'm in the zone time stops I'm in my flow I love it I geek out on it I love Feng Shui, you know. And then there's other times when I do it and it's almost like an anger release because I'm begrudging everyone who's made the mess in the first place and my past self for making such a mess and not cleaning up consistently.

So I decided to just learn to live with the mess until I wanted the energy and to have the pleasure and what was really fascinating in that process is that my house is no less tidy than it used to be, like actually it happens, the cleaning happens faster when I'm in the zone and it happens at opportune times and it works for me and my other people get involved, like it's just started to work because we have this fear that if we follow our pleasure and our energy and we don't push and get it done on time, that something terrible is going to happen.

So if you've got the list of things you want to stop doing and you think something terrible is going to happen, I want to encourage you to just try and see when you get that hit to do the things and it does serve you and and just see how life works like that.

So it's not just cleaning I've done it for, I've done it for work as well and a few other areas too and consistently the results are the same but you need to build the evidence for yourself that I can live without that busy badge.

Fiona: 11:45

And those two questions I think are really important to ask when there is something you want to stop or something you want to continue in a different way.

And so if you think about that, stop, start, continue. For some people, yes, stopping something can actually bring up a lot of resistance and a lot of, but there's so much, and what if I fail on something, it can feel too harsh.

So to bring those questions in, which says, I want to do things differently. So rather than pushing myself, I want to stop pushing myself.

So rather than stopping cleaning, you're stopping pushing yourself, right? So it's reframing what you're stopping and you're asking yourself those two questions.

Do I have the energy and is this going to bring me pleasure? Now cleaning is, for some people, they're going to say, I'm never going to get pleasure from cleaning.

That's okay. Maybe it's just the energy question. Do I have energy for it right now? But it's reframing it to when is this going to align with where I'm at?

Because when you have that energy and that pleasure from doing it, as you say. it happens faster than when you push yourself.

So overall, you're being more efficient. And for people who are stuck in busyness because we don't have time, what you've actually done is give yourself more time back because you've done the thing quicker.

So then what it would have taken you by pushing yourself through. So it's not always just about stopping doing something, but it might be around how do I stop my mindset or my attitude towards it?

So I'm going to stop pushing myself rather than I'm going to stop doing the cleaning. And to do that, I'm going to ask myself the questions instead of pushing through.

Josephine: 13:38

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It feels effortless the way you talk about it, Fiona. And this is what we are doing.

We're trying to drop the effort in the essence of removing the busyness from your life because busy sounds like effort to me.

You could be busy having fun and busy having pleasure, but that's why that question is there. What would give me pleasure right now?

And those questions equally work for what you want to start doing, because if you start your day by asking what would give me pleasure right now? and what would give me energy right now? then you're going to start your day in a really different way, start having new things in unless you feel you have the perfect morning start already, because of those questions, because if you're going to stop busyness, I want you to add pleasure in, start adding pleasure.

And it's particularly important when we are people who are doing the shadow work and we're healing ourselves, they can start to feel like work.

And so I'm going to quote Charmaine Mitchell, my Feng Shui coach here, who always says, add pleasure. Whatever you are doing add pleasure. If you are cleaning or de-cluttering, add pleasure. Put the music on or get other people involved, whatever you need to make it more pleasurable.

Fiona: 15:01

I love that because that shifts the mindset doesn't it so rather than I have to do this and it's taking up time that I don't have it's actually how can I find pleasure here and and where there are some of those things you know in life that I must have and must do's it is about how can we be efficient how can we bring that that joy how can we make it easeful how can we bring that pleasure and sometimes that alone is enough to change our perception of whether we're busy because when we are in those pleasure states you know when I'm when I'm really enjoying I quite often love I love dancing around the living room. Let's put the music on, I do it when I'm in the kitchen when I'm cooking, when I'm batch cooking, I'm cooking, you know, music is... I love it. But when I really enter that, I have no idea how long it's been. I can sometimes look at the clock, oh my gosh, it's been a few hours.

Now that can be really scary when you feel like you're really busy and you're missing out on time to do other things.

But when we bring that pleasure in, it allows us to let go of that sense of busyness because we feel like we've got all the time in the world.

And I think that's the space we want to be at, rather than feeling the push of busyness, is feeling like we're doing these things and we have time to do it all.

Josephine: 16:34

So reality is we do have all the time. Like time is bendable, you know, as you said getting in that flow state, like time disappears, but equally you get so much done.

So I think it's, yeah, such a magical world to live in. Start adding this pleasure in and making that your value, pleasure over busyness.

Because often when a client tells me they're busy, the next thing they say is, oh and I'm so tired.

It's like, well yes, it does suck your energy. This belief that you need to be busy is creating an energy deficit and pleasure is a really quick way to a) give some energy back, but also b) honour where you are.

So this week, for example, I spoke to a client who is tired and is busy and I asked her like, what would be pleasurable for you in your day?

What would actually be worth stopping your work for because she works nonstop on her computer. And instantly, she knew it was, again, it was music, it was dancing.

And that's it, putting the music on before you start work for the day or at the end of your work day to just change the pace of what you're doing and then watching what downhill effects come of that as you start to just tap out of the busyness in those moments.

And all the energy that can come back from that too because she knew as soon as she started doing some dancing her day, the whole day would be different that she's been in that place before of a pleasurable day where she had the flowers on her desk. She stopped for a longer chat with one of their suppliers.

You know, the rest of the day started to be infused with pleasure as well.

Fiona: 18:31

I want to talk a little bit about the flip side as well where we might have things that are unchangeable.

So we might actually not have time to have a longer chat and be in that flow because of the deliverables or the things that might be due, right, you know, it might be everything happens to be due on the same day.

And you can't change that. And I think that for me, sometimes where I get caught up in busyness, actually taps into my need for perfectionism.

And so I want to talk about a little bit of where they interlink, because when that happens, and I have lots of deadlines that are all unchangeable, because I know that there will be some people who are listening going, the flow is not always easy to be in. Sometimes I don't have control at what's in my sphere of control in terms of everything that's due, and everything that's busy is all collided at the same time.

And for me, my desire to do everything to a very perfect level and in a perfect way can be something that makes me spiral into the busy.

I've got all of these things I'm never going to be able to do it. There's, you know, in the way that I want. And so for me, one of the ways to get around that or to think about that is to be able to put a little bit of structure in.

So it might be saying I've got these four deadlines and I've got this much time to do that. So there's how much time can I allocate to each of those things? How can I bring a little bit of flow? How can I maybe do a little bit of dancing before? How can I make sure that I'm in a really good space when I start that time? And how do I help myself to say I'm going to do what I can within that time? And that's okay. Wherever I get to at the end of that is complete and maybe it's not as perfect as I would like if I had all the time in the world but adjusting my expectations around how I'm going to manage those things when there isn't that space to move because there are times where there's a lot of things that are in fact unchangeable in terms of deadlines or things like that.

So challenging yourself and your own sense of perfectionism because I think that's a big thing that comes out in terms of making us spiral into that sense of busyness.

Josephine: 21:29

Mm, Done is good enough. Yeah, absolutely, and not even if there's no deadlines. We can still perfectionism can still suck up all that time.

So, I did that this morning. I have a very facial essential now I have curated my life that way and really lucky. However this morning I found myself doing laps, like re-tidying little things around it already tidying lounge and kitchen and it's like hang on a minute this is like yeah it's gone past the pleasure point unnecessary. So yeah really really good point Fiona and while you were talking I was also thinking ah there's another pattern that plays in here for me and that is my people pleasing pattern I get busy when I'm not prioritizing myself so taking on things when people ask of me to like my husband my child whatever friends or thinking I need to be there for certain people again fills my day up with busyness and one of the conversations I’m having most with clients in particular being much clients, but sometimes male clients too, is do you actually want to prioritise yourself? How could you prioritise yourself a little bit more each day?

The mum that makes three different meals, but none of them is to her taste. Hang on minute, what could you have for you in the house that would give you that pleasure and what more accountability could else take to look after themselves too? Yeah, it's really interesting. Are you prioritising you as another good thing to ask yourself?

Fiona: 23:20

And I think when we have that people pleasing, or we are wanting to serve others, to be there for others.

When you prioritise yourself, you can actually show up better for them. So by prioritising you and bringing yourself joy and reducing that busyness for you will allow you to be able to show up and serve in a more effective way for them.

And that can be really hard to believe. I see a lot of resistance about that. No, I have to keep pushing through because they need me or that has to happen.

And actually what I've seen is when you are able to do that for yourself, so take that time, find that thing for you.

You're also teaching others how to do that for themselves and your energy comes across as less busyness, less push, and you're not going to bring them into that and it allows you to serve in a much more authentic way.

Josephine: 24:42

Yes. And this is exactly how you want to create the container 12 weeks to confidence because we want to lift your energy into being someone who does prioritize yourself and therefore shows up as the energized, as the glowing version of yourself.

And then yeah, it's sort of not challenging, but showing as you say, people in your life, there's another way and there's another way to do this and seeing what ripple affect that has.

And enter those two questions again. Does doing this for my friend? Does it give me pleasure? And does it give me energy?

And if it honestly doesn't, then you're in people cleaving and you are not wholly serving yourself at that moment and you had a choice to make.

Fiona: 25:32

And if you feel like you don't have a choice to make, if you feel like it has to happen, as you said, bring in the joy, bring in some pleasure.

Add pleasure to it. If there isn't a space where you can let it go.

Josephine: 25:47

If in doubt, add pleasure. Absolutely.

Fiona: 25:55

And on that note, I think we encourage you to add some pleasure. Think about your stop, start continue. Think about those two questions.

Think about how you can shift your own perception of busyness. And even if that perception shift, if you're doing all the same actions, you might find feels completely different to you when you can think about busyness in a different way.

Josephine: 26:28

Bye for now.

Josephine: 26:30

Before we finish up for today, we would like to acknowledge the original custodians of the lands on which our podcast is created, the Ngāi Tahu people of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Fiona: 26:40

and the Cammeraygal people of the Eora Nation Australia. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and to all our listeners who identify as Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander, or Maori.

Josephine: 26:53

We love connecting with you, our listeners and talking about the topics that mean the most to you. Reach out to us on Instagram at Outside the Square Podcast and let us know what you want to hear more of.

Fiona: 27:04

Until next week, keep stepping outside your square.