Are You a Human BEing?

“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”  Henry David Thoreau

Think for a minute about your daily routine.  How often during the day do you feel rushed or overwhelmed?  Is there a long ‘to do’ list that never seems to end?  A typical day for most people is filled from morning to night with activities and commitments.  When we compare our lives to those of our early ancestors, we have many modern conveniences that were intended to make life easier.  Instead of giving us more quiet time to reflect though, we seem to fill it up with more stressors.  We are bombarded with news and busyness without having time to simply relax and be still.  In his Conversations With God books, Neale Donald Walsch discusses how we call ourselves ‘human beings,’ but many of us rarely take time to ‘be’ with ourselves.  Instead, he says, we should be calling ourselves ‘human doings.’
It is difficult for many people to take time to just be.  We tend to equate how productive our day was with how much we got accomplished.  This is not to say that taking action and doing things is not important, but equally important is time to take care of ourselves.  Many of my clients struggle to give themselves quiet time to just be still.  For some, there is a sense of guilt that comes when they ‘waste’ time in meditation or quiet reflection.  For others, there is a fear of being alone with themselves.  The busyness is a distraction from having to face the demons they have avoided.
To become a ‘human being’ we need to find time to be still.  That ‘being’ time may be meditation or quiet reflection.  It may be walking in nature or painting a picture.  It is time to unplug from our busy lives and to reconnect with our essence.  Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  When we detach from doingness, we connect to beingness.  If it is difficult to take time to be, this is an area to be explored.  Is it a priority?  If it is something that is being avoided, where does the guilt or fear come from?  Seek support to explore this if necessary.  Instead of avoiding that shadow, face it and go into it.   How would your life change if you took time to truly be a human BEing?