THE HUMAN DIS-EASE
Another day draws to a close
You sigh in relief as your mind lies – ‘it’s over’
Flickering thoughts of exhaustion, covered by hunger
Your body craves food
Physical, mental, emotional, soul food
Your cupboards are full yet you are starving
Zombie-like habits numb your senses
Social media notifications fuel a sense of identity
The more the better
The strong glue that secures your social mask
A collective addiction to superficiality
Plastering over the voice of fear
The voice that tells us we are living in a lie
Buying into an illusion of competition
A charade of choice
We fill every moment with the noise of social story systems
Techno-human mythologies of distraction
The dis-ease of busyness
The malcontent of consumption
The lie of social success
Distractions from a life lived well and simply
Leading us away from our real purpose
From the sweet spot of contentment in being a real, living, breathing, dancing human
Really
Truly
Beyond the edges of all our old stories
Beware the distractions of your life
They are holding you back from everything you want
Holding you within the comfort zone of your busyness
Anesthetizing you to life
Pause
Listen
Breathe
Rebel
Put your phone down
Reconnect to life
For the last week I have been exploring the art of ‘pausing’, taking brief moments in my family-fuelled Christmas days to stop and appreciate the simple beauty of life unfolding around me. And by simple, I mean basic! Appreciating the inhalation of a deep breath. The sip of a newly made cup of coffee. Ice crystals in the grass. The rebellious act of doing absolutely nothing for a few brief moments. Just contemplating the pause itself.
My most rebellious act these last few days has been a ‘habit hack’. I have been resisting the urge to take my smartphone out at any opportunity to check emails / messages or social media accounts. I noticed that when I failed, giving into my tech-temptation, that my levels of anxiety increased by a factor of 10. Worse, often it would be a minimum of an hour until my system returned to any sense of peace or relaxation following the dive into my online world.
So many people in the world are dealing with dis-ease of some kind. Many have physical ailments, even more carry mental disorders and almost everyone (myself included) is carrying emotional dis-content of some kind. If you ask those around you what they think the most common human dis-ease is it’s an interesting exercise. Some form of ‘stress’ will come out top in most cases. However all the words we might use for it – stress, anxiety, nervousness, depression or despair, they all stem from a lack of connection to life in some way. They are all fuelled by a perceived poverty of time to properly take care of ourselves, an inability to bring back balance and ease to the areas of our life / stories that have become ‘out of whack’.
The dis-ease of busyness.
It is the poison that is slowly killing us all, removing vibrancy and joy from our lives. When we are ‘too busy’ (watch how many times a day you say that particular phrase), we forget who we are, why we are here and often what is really important to us. We become overwhelmed, under nourished and unable to find clarity amongst the noise of distractions. We numb ourselves to the growing pain we experience from our refusal to listen to our instinctive need for simplicity. We ignore the deep needs of our family and our community.
The remedy?
It’s so simple.
So simple, we ignore it over and over again.
Sometimes forever.
The art of the pause
The art of listening
The art of breathing
The art of being human together
The act of creating moments of space to pause and breathe in your life may well be the most rebellious thing you can do.
