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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Private Coaching
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired

Should You Be Downshifting?

8/13/2021

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I discovered a new phrase this week: downshifting. The Schumacher Institute defines downshifting as "a phenomenon whereby individuals voluntarily pursue a
simpler lifestyle of reduced material consumption, sometimes involving a change in work-life balance, in order to allow more time and energy for the non-materialistic aspects of life". 

Apparently the idea has been around for quite some time, but with the pandemic having turned pretty much everyone's life upside down, we've all had the unexpected opportunity to examine what we're willing to trade off as the months and years of our lives tick by.

Downshifting doesn't necessarily means we have to cut back on our material comforts or our income level. But giving more attention to cultivating our hearts, our minds, our spirits and our bodies can only enhance the quality of our lives.

As it happened, I noticed how I was pouring way too much energy into a project I had very mixed feelings and overly fraught expectations about. At the end of several days, after spending way too much time in front of the computer screen, I felt so drained of energy that I couldn't appreciate much of anything around me. I had fallen down the rabbit hole of doing, doing, doing and my being was suffering.  

This wasn't the way I wanted to be spending my life! I had to step back and ask myself some pointed questions about the quality of the effort I was putting into this project. Although I did actually wanted to turn this idea into a reality, I could feel how my thinking about the way I should go about it made me pinched and tight.

And my sense of creativity and play had disappeared.

So, I took a stop. I walked away from it. I needed to revive, first of all, and then start wondering how else could I get this project off the ground with less stress, less efforting.  

So I downshifted. And I put my focus on those non material aspects.

I desperately needed to use more of my faculties besides my intellect. I needed to snuggle with my cat, watch the clouds go by, eat a good meal, have a meaningful conversation. Look at art. Read a poem. Not think. Let myself feel. Sense. Express. My soul needed caring for, and that's what I did. 

When I felt like my soul was restored, I went back to my efforts with a different perspective. My project wasn't any less important but I made sure I was approaching it not to the exclusion of everything else but as part of a larger whole. As a result, it was no longer demanding but inviting.

The way I began to give this project life no longer became the draining effort it had been. Instead, I made sure there was plenty of room for what really mattered to me to infuse how I went about the task of letting this dream come to fruition.

What I was doing was not about money or recognition or how I imagined I would feel about the results. Instead, it was about being present to all of life as it was showing up through this project.

Do you have areas in your life that are sapping you of energy without your having the opportunity to put things in perspective and see the bigger picture of your life?

It all begins with noticing when things feel off.

And instead of pushing yourself through til you can't think straight you take a stop and ask yourself,

What do I need right now? What will help me remember what's really important above all else?

And then let yourself follow that inner wisdom. 

Because when you take the time to ask, the answer is already built into the question.
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