Breaking up with being busy.

The Cosmic Conception Diaries: Part XV

Mornings with Motherwort

How many times have you asked a friend, “How are you?” only to receive the response, “I’ve been busy!”

🙃

No babe, I mean, HOW FUCKING ARE YOU?

I ran into this more and more after relocating to a new state and finding it difficult to meet other Women who just… weren’t “too busy” all the time. Or even women who weren’t “just trying to get through ___”.

This phenomenon is a cultural sickness in my opinion, but these recent challenges specifically are also mirroring for my own personal growth, and I thought it was about time I root into the medicine that waits for me in my own deconditioning.

As you know, this former New York City corporate gal has many layers to shed when it comes to centering into her feminine power. Indeed, the Boss Babe was one of the archetypes I opened for release at the start of the new calendar year in Part XI: December broke me.

You can take the gal out of NYC but it’s a long fucking journey to take NYC out of the gal. Still, I persist.

The energy surrounding this preconception is radically different from my experience with my first conception. Fauna came barreling in through my Saturn return at the height of my career. Her gestation was caffeinated and at times, emotionally dysregulated.

And while her story was perfect for us at the time, my next baby is calling me into something different: an energetically sovereign vessel and an open heart.

We’ll cover the Heart Chakra in a future post, but for now, let’s get yinful.

Below are the biggest tools I’ve been working with to down-regulate what I call disordered Yang energy (or the disordered masculine).

This archetype burns up a Woman’s Yin—leaving scorched Earth where a lush garden should be—and can be a massive block on her way to harmonious hormones, regular cycles, and a clear conception.

While The Diaries are normally a paywalled column, I’m leaving this list free in order to serve Women everywhere who desperately need a little more Yin in their life.

Design a peaceful morning routine.

You’ve probably heard it before—because it’s true!—the start of your day sets the tone for how it unfolds. Not only in a spiritual and emotional sense—which can be remedied quite quickly later in the day—but in a physiological sense, which is not as easily remedied. The reason for this is that your hormonal profile for the day is largely dependent on the instructions you give your body within the first couple hours of waking (more details on this in the audio recording). These factors ultimately alter your perception of time, sensations of stress, and emotional resiliency—making every day feel “busy” whether or not it’s actually true!

Helpful tip: The feeling of overwhelm is actually a position of victimhood, and is always a powerful indicator for me that I’m not taking responsibility for my behaviors and health.

Don’t overbook your calendar.

Blank boxes in your planner might look like opportunities to pencil something in—or may even make you feel uncomfortable!—but keeping a few open days can be a powerful tool for breakup up with being busy. Unplanned days provide the opportunity to be more spontaneous, do something fun, or *gasp* do nothing at all. You might even find that you needed these days to recover from the more scheduled days that came before them.

I frequently have to scale back what my plans are on an hour-to-hour basis as well, meaning, how many goals or tasks am I trying to complete in a single day? If you’re constantly falling short of completing your to-do list, it’s probably a sign that you’re trying to pack too much in.

Rest during your bleed.

You’re probably sick of hearing it, but it bears repeating as I truly think Women underestimate how powerful this practice is. If your womb is expressing symptoms of any kind, living in accordance with your cycles is required medicine (in my opinion), beginning with honoring the Inner Winter period. Not only will this assist in facilitating healing and laying the groundwork for healthy postpartums and menopause, it will give you a little window every month where you have full permission to not be busy. Start with just one day if you can!

Naps, not coffee.

If you’re the kind of Woman who “needs” her afternoon coffee, I have a lot of questions about why (if you really struggle with energy, check out my AMA: Managing mineral deficiencies and low energy (without supplements)) but for brevity’s sake, let’s assume you’re just trying to “push through” something. In which case, how about you don’t. I know, I know, you’re a very BUSY Woman with too many things to do! But relying on caffeine to get you through whatever it is you’ve convinced yourself is more important than your health means you’re borrowing from your jing, to use a word from TCM. In essence, you’re stealing energy from the reserves that are meant to carry you through life, from birth until death, not to mention the reserves you’ll be passing down to your children.

Instead of reaching for an artificial boost, try laying down for just 10 minutes—even if you don’t fall asleep!—or in that time complete a meditation, energy work, or a grounding session outside. If you’re robust enough, you might even find that movement can actually give you more energy (more details about my experience with this in the audio recording).

Stop saying “Yes” out of guilt or obligation.

If your reason for a Yes of any kind is fueled by the feeling of guilt or a sense of obligation, you’re tangled up in your own shadow. This is usually people-pleasing behavior that is rooted in complex unconscious narratives. This probably feels daunting to hear, so just start with the practice of awareness. Notice when you feel guilt and obligation. Notice when you want to say No, but you say Yes instead. Don’t feel pressured to change anything or cast your behavior in a negative light, just be willing to witness yourself until you’re ready to…

Practice saying, “No.”

There are all kinds of ways you can turn down invitations you don’t want to take on. This is not about being rude, it’s about respecting your needs and energetic capacity. By engaging in this practice, you not only make yourself healthier, but your family healthier, and therefore your community healthier. By reframing it in this way, I hope it becomes clear that saying No has nothing to do with being selfish, or whatever programming you’re holding onto about boundaries.

My favorite phrases for No are variations of, “That doesn’t work for me.” and, “I’m not available for that.” In my experience, it’s best to drop the habit of giving people reasons or excuses for your No. This only invites them into your business and leads to drawn own sessions of them trying to convince you out of your answer.

Bonus tip: Listen to the audio recording for an explanation of how your Human Design outlines exactly how to follow your unique intuitive process into Yes’s and No’s (seriously, this changed my life).

Stop trying to keep up with a sick society.

You’re programmed from birth (yes, from birth!) to relentlessly compare yourselves to others and the collective-at-large, but do you really want to align with a culture with such dismal standards? Earn this, buy that, achieve this, accomplish that, look like this, not like that, jump higher, fall faster, get sicker, die younger. Whoever it is you think you want to be like, the truth is you probably don’t. So stop trying to keep up with them.

Less screen time, more Earth time.

You probably think watching TV or scrolling is helping you relax, but we all know that’s a scam, right? It’s more like a time suck that activates your nervous system and makes you feel more “wired but tired” than anything else. (Life changing tips on the audio about this one—and they don’t involve habit changes, so you can experience results immediately!) Besides, if you’re so BUSY how do you have so much time for the tube? This is where you…

Learn to prioritize what’s important to you.

This is a very important distinction from “making time”, which you’ve probably been told to do before. I personally stopped using this phrase to boot camp myself into habit changes, because what I really hear from this is, “Add another thing to your list.” Sister, you already HAVE time. You don’t need to “make” more of it, and you don’t need to add more things to your list. You just need to rearrange your priorities. In any given moment, you can start by asking yourself, “What would I rather be doing? What is more important to me?” This instantly pulls me out of behaviors that I know I don’t actually want to invest my energy in.

Ask for help.

Of course, there are always going to be things in life that we “have to” do and sometimes, it’s just too much for any single Wonder Woman to do on her own. Don’t forget—it’s not even normal that most Mothers in our culture raise their children in single-family households without community. You owe it to yourself to ask for help and you deserve to receive it. Everything from asking a friend to witness you so you don’t have to process something difficult alone, to renegotiating housekeeping responsibilities with your partner, is going to support you in moving out of overwhelm and into greater joys in life.

Additionally: I go into some helpful musings in the audio recording about what it means when you don’t believe anyone will help you, or when you feel you can’t ask for help because “if you don’t do it, no one else will.”

Address the discomfort you feel in your own skin.

Ultimately, some of you are going to hit a wall that can only be remedied through inner work. There are SO many reasons why we keep ourselves busy, why we’re actually addicted to chaos, why we avoid being in stillness, or why we feel too uncomfortable just being in our own skin. Until you address the underlying beliefs and internal programs that are guiding your behaviors, making lasting change might feel like an uphill battle.

The tool in my life thus far that has made a greater impact than all the (ahem, many) therapists I’ve seen since 16 years of age is To Be Magnetic, which is a program that uses self-hypnotic meditations to rewire your neurology and subconscious limiting beliefs. There are many ways to do the inner work out there, but this is the one I know intimately and trust. You can use my affiliate link to get a 15% discount on The Pathway membership and gain access to my private Telegram group which is literally responsible for so many of my recent transformations! (Just shoot me a message so I can add you.)

Okay, last but not least…

Create a life you don’t need to take a vacation from.

I’m sort of convinced that the concept of a vacation was introduced to working plebs so the populace would accept two weeks off a year as some kind of reasonable reward for their dutiful slavery.

This mentality doesn’t sit right with me and I think we’re all aware of the potential that awaits in the New Earth paradigm as corporate structures begin to collapse.

My personal goal: create a life I don’t want to take a vacation from.

This is in itself an art from that I could write a book about. But for now, I’ll just plant the seed.

All my love,
Athena

AUDIO RECORDING ⇣