Leaving things to the last minute is something that I have done quite often in my life, in many different ways. For me this has mostly played out in the form of procrastination, knowing that something had to be done, but not having the motivation to get to it and do it. Simple things like feeling that I needed to clean somewhere in the house, or knowing that something had to be completed for work but just holding off on doing so, or knowing that I had agreed to do something for another but not finding the time to do it.
I am becoming aware though, that ‘leaving things to the last minute’ can be played out in many different ways in our lives, for instance leaving home with just enough time to get somewhere and invariably running late, or being so busy with work or a project that one is made late for an appointment or meeting, even down to being so busy that going to the toilet is held off until the need is dire.
All of these things put my body under stress, creating a constant anxiety, as my body knows what is needed when, but I more than often ignore its subtle messages and push through to do what I think or want to do before I address the next thing that needs my attention.
The other thing that I have observed when I am holding back from doing the next thing is the excuse I use – “oh, sorry I am late, but I had to complete…” – because it sounds good and proves how ‘committed’ I am to my work or the project at hand.
We can often make the mistake of thinking that living this way only affects ourselves and that giving the impression we are a productive person in society is enough, where it seems this is quite the opposite as many are not productive at all although they may appear to be so.
Does this appearance of being productive then become an unconscious push in our body to be seen as being just that step ahead of another? Is there an energy at play, a judgment that is underlying in society where those who are not seen to be productive are regarded as a burden, even though they may really be accomplishing more without the big show of ‘being productive’? As we do not want to be seen as being ‘unproductive’ ourselves, do we live in the stress of constantly proving that we are productive, creating a tension between ourselves and all others? And does this only affect us? Or is there a ripple effect happening that we are very knowingly choosing to ignore in preference to feeling our own self-importance?
Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us? Are our families being impacted by our behaviour, and by how we feel when we are living under the stress of needing to prove our worth and value to society?
I have come to the understanding that there is a very real ripple effect to living with this need to prove my value. When I am late for an appointment the person expecting me is impacted. When I live under the constant drive of proving my worth in society my family is the front-line receiver of my behaviour and are impacted daily in a multitude of ways, feeling the disregard when the simple daily life processes are ‘done in a hurry’ or simply ‘left to another time.’
What I feel is so harming about this behaviour and way of living is that when I am caught up in this I am absolutely oblivious to the effect it has, not only on those around me, but on society as a whole. I now realise that this is living in a way that is in complete opposition to the impulse of my Soul and the messages my body is constantly sending me.
Innately we all know our worth, our value and what it is that we individually bring to society. We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.
Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it. Living this way brings a flow, an ease to life and a deep trust in ourselves: it also highlights true commitment as we are no longer committed to what we want or think needs to be done, but to society as a whole.
It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us. To not get caught up in the societal judgments that are present, but to see them and understand each person’s reason for choosing to be part of them. Living a steady solid knowing of the value of each of us and showing another the way to step out of the prison the judgements become.
By Leigh Strack, Goonellabah NSW
Related Reading:
No Longer Racing Against Time
Time and Our Perception of it
How was your Day? – “Intense”
I leave business trips to the last minute for several reasons, if you give notice of your plans to the Astral plane they can thwart what you want to achieve, this could be in the way of the person not being available or they could interfere with the travel arrangements. Even if you get to go on the trip they can cause delays with baggage going astray, traffic jams on the motorways, they are very cunning in their opposition. I find it quite fascinating what they will try to do to stop fire from spreading.
Keeping life simple is a wise choice, ‘It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us.’
“it also highlights true commitment as we are no longer committed to what we want or think needs to be done, but to society as a whole.“ Thanks Leigh for bringing procrastination and leaving things to the last minute out of something that we think we do alone, to something that affects the whole.
Judgement is a cell of our own creation, which becomes a thing of the past once we start to align to our Souls, Inner-most-hearts / Essences, this needs to be understood so we can heal the hurts leading to this way of thinking.
Leigh I am not the biggest fan of leaving things to the last minute, especially when it comes to being at appointments, work etc. However I used to do this in other areas, such as projects, assignments thinking I will get to it, and never did, then I am left feeling racy, a feeling I don’t really enjoy.
In my work environment, I work with a senior person who often goes into this behaviour of leaving things to the last minute and the ramifications is often upon us. Its this out of sight out of mind attitude, then I observe things being fudged, which does not resonate with me.
I absolutely love the feeling when we complete things in a timely way, it kind of creates this space and we can do more, without runnings around like a lunatic. The ripple effect leaves others with space too, and I absolutely love this feelings, I would love more of it and it is like a muscle that will become stronger, a level I will eventually get to more often then not. At least I know the difference between the two and I know which I would rather choose…
I also like to allow my self space, especially for appointments; there have been times where for whatever reason ‘something’ got left to the last minute and if I went into rush it felt horrible, I am learning to stay in space to the best of my ability.
I can really relate to this blog! The last few days I have had a stock take and stopped and changed my routine (day and night) in order to support me more allowing more space within my day reducing tension, stress and anxiety in my body, showing me that it is all but a choice of how much do I love and care for me ❤️ #workinprogress ✨
Vicky this anxiousness is what runs billions of people’s body, because they are running around and away with time, and with this cause, the effects is exhaustion. Much to ponder on…
Tension and anxiety in one area of life affects the way we move and every part of everything else.
What I have been more honest about recently is an anxiousness running in my body. I thought that this was through overwhelm and having a lot to do or what I needed to do but it came to light today through working with a young person I was able to reflect, take a step back and ask what was needed to support the project. It turns out I need to speak to more people first!!! Just goes to show we can never do it alone ✨and I guess that anxiousness is there to show us something – we just need to listen to what it is saying.
Thanks Vicky, I realised reading this that something I have felt blocked on and procrastinating as a result has needed me to reach out for support and talk it through. Despite what we are experiencing if we can let go of judgement and wanting it to be different we can then feel into what’s actually needed in the next step.
Reading this has reminded me of what happens when a friend is always struggling to be on time for anything and the knock-on effect of this within the relationship. I know from my own personal experience I don’t fully trust that person to follow through and the behaviour makes us reluctant to fully commit to the relationship or request anything from the person who is always stressed because we don’t want to stress them out even further. It’s fascinating what can be communicated through our behaviour.
Julie it is said that our movements give us away more than the spoken word. I agree with you it is a fascinating science to understand as what movement we are in has an impact on the thoughts we receive into our bodies.
This sharing makes me more aware about the moments in which I stubbornly make the choice to delay what my body is asking for. It’s true, it’s a choice that creates a tension, a pressure that affects not just myself but all. Thank you Leigh
“All of these things put my body under stress, creating a constant anxiety, as my body knows what is needed when, but I more than often ignore its subtle messages and push through to do what I think or want to do before I address the next thing that needs my attention.” We can all do with less stress in our lives and its our choice as to whether we leave early to arrive feeling calm and content or in a rush at the last minute. Long-lived patterns can take awhile to change, I’m understanding the implications of delay more and more these days.
Delay can come in many forms, I notice I can be fine in most areas, but then maybe have some procrastination in other areas, ‘For me this has mostly played out in the form of procrastination, knowing that something had to be done, but not having the motivation to get to it and do it.’
I have this habit, picked up from my days in hospitality that I should never have empty hands. So I’ll take my clothes off the dryer then into my room but then grab something from my room into the kitchen. Then from the kitchen, I’ll take another thing, forgetting about putting the clothes dryer away. Starting all these tasks but never finishing any of them. It appears productive but really it’s not as I get all muddled and distracted easily. When I clock this now I go back to the original task and complete that and focus on completing what I’ve started already.
Love completing tasks and the order it brings. We may leave things in a mess but how beautiful that there is always the space to come back, to clear it and start again.
The task I love to complete Inma Lorente is taking all the rubbish and unwanted items to the rubbish tip. When I get into my car after putting the rubbish into the big containers, I feel lighter and very satisfied. Clearing out the house and Garden feels as though I’m clearing out from my body too.
There is so much at play in human life, maybe observing what is going on will bring more understanding, ‘Does this appearance of being productive then become an unconscious push in our body to be seen as being just that step ahead of another?’
Being sooo busy that we cannot even go to the toilet. MMMm sounds familiar ‘even down to being so busy that going to the toilet is held off until the need is dire.’ However, here is an awesome reason never to do this again. #letsloveourbodies https://bit.ly/2QBNAhN
I am starting to feel that actually does it come down to feeling enough and that by feeling satiated in our bodies we have nothing to prove to anyone, no justifications or excuses we are enough just as we are. This feeling of being of being satiated is very freeing because then there is no expectation on others to fill the gap.
This is so true – every choice we make has ripple effects all around and we forget how far reaching each choice can be. I do so appreciate this reminder Leigh!
Reminding us of the responsibility we have for every single movement, knowing that will have an impact on another.
Leaving things to the last minute is an effective way to keep the nervous system on edge and hence stop ourselves from connecting more deeply to our essence or Soul. Once the nervous system takes over (on drive) then we are less equipped to feel what is happening around us, and hence less equipped to truly know how to handle things best. However, so often we don’t like what we register or feel and hence it is a quick fix to this to put the nervous system in overdrive to numb out the things we do not like feeling. Long term this does not work obviously, but it is a habit hard to break – at least this is the case in my experience!
Yes a brilliant way to self-sabotage – and so subtle!
I have been reflecting on this recently, why some things I leave to the last minute and what came to me was an anxiousness and lack of confidence in myself. It was good to note and call out as the more I am aware of this the less it can run me. I know being present with and in my body reduces this feeling.
When we honour the body and make life about presence with the body then what is asked of us is enough. It is about making life about the relationship with ourselves first.
Leigh, this is really interesting and helpful to read; ‘Living a steady solid knowing of the value of each of us and showing another the way to step out of the prison the judgements become.’
Reading this article I can feel that when we try and prove ourselves at work that this can impact on our family, we may spend less time with our loved ones because we put the extra effort in at work in attempt to show we are ‘committed’ and because we maybe looking for recognition and I can feel how the balance can tip and that our families can miss out on us because when we get home we maybe stressed or tired and so don’t have quality time with them.
Reading what you have so wisely shared Leigh, I could see so clearly the impact of ‘leaving things to the last minute’ and the ripples which flow on out from this decision. Yes, the person we are late to see will be impacted, and maybe our families as well, but I also got to see how I used to drive when I was running late, a little faster and probably with a lot less attention than usual; now that I can see was very irresponsible of me. I am slowly breaking down this very impact-full pattern, and when it does try to sneak back in again it’s the horrible feeling in my body that alerts me to the fact I am heading in this damaging direction once again.
‘Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us?’ I don’t think so. Not only does it impact us to the core, it also ripples out in its impact. Building a foundation of respecting ourselves enough to be early is a whole other ball game.
This is a great question; ‘Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us? Are our families being impacted by our behaviour’, I would say that everyone we come into contact with is affected by our behaviour. From my experience I am unsettled and unfocussed and I do not properly connect with people if I ever leave just enough time and am late, I can feel how this way of being is not supportive for myself or anyone else.
This is spot on Rebecca, and is a great and practical example of how we can get affected in our day to day. Not connecting with ourselves due to over stimulation of the nervous system is going to lead to a reduced connection with others and hence the quality of what we offer is far reduced from what it could be.
Leigh, I really enjoyed reading this article, for me rushing is something that I do not enjoy at all, I really enjoy allowing enough time and a little extra to get somewhere, staying steady and being organised – this brings me much joy.
These 2 sentences were great for me to read today. ‘It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us. ‘Living a steady solid knowing of the value of each of us and showing another the way to step out of the prison the judgements become.’
Thanks Leigh, this has provided much inspiration is a practical way to bring more self care to my life, to plan to allow more time and space to travel to my destination without feeling pressured because time is so tight. I am also a bit of a procrastinator but what I hadn’t observed in that is the effects on my body and wellbeing.
Melinda that is something that is a constant with me to leave enough time to travel to my destination often it is 2-3 hours away. I make sure I leave early because you never know what the roads will be like to travel on. I much prefer to get somewhere 30 minutes beforehand than arrive late. When we arrive late it is as though we are being set up to be anxious which we then take to the meetings, which can affect all those we meet.
I love your honesty here Leigh. While reading this (and from experience!) ‘When I am late for an appointment the person expecting me is impacted.’ what came to me was when we are late and rushing not only does this affect the people or person we are supposed to be meeting but also our whole environment along the way, it is like an energetic tsunami we create around us that feels really horrible.
Vicky it’s a really great point about the responsibility we have to everyone around us to not be rushing or stressing ourselves out.
Your words ‘an energetic tsunami’ Vicky, certainly sum up how I used to be when allowing myself to run late, very often. It was the most awful pattern, one I was aware of but one I struggled to break. I can see that we are so caught up in what is playing out, the self-inflicted stress of running late, the many excuses being made up along the way, that we are totally oblivious to how we are impacting those around us and ‘our whole environment’. Yes, this tsunami is one very damaging one, not just to us but to all.
True, the energy we go into affects not only us, but all those around us, like a ripple spreading outwards.
There is no way we can feel the power and the glory if we bow down to societal judgements and then get caught in them ourselves. They make up a sort of net that can have us enmeshed playing a game that is far from the magnificence of where we come from and who we truly are.
All judgements are capping, ‘To not get caught up in the societal judgments that are present, but to see them and understand each person’s reason for choosing to be part of them.’
I was at the doctor’s surgery yesterday and was a few minutes early before they opened. It was really interesting to observe staff race into work at the last minute… some were running and some walked as fast as possible with huge tension. This is something we all do, or have done and I know it well from past experience. When living this way, and making it normal I hadn’t realised how this affected the rest of the day, my energy levels and my overall health. Leaving a few minutes earlier changes everything.
It is so true, we have the choice to create space or rush through life jamming things in that lack the true quality of who we are.
A fantastic example of how we sabotage our life to stay in a state of disempowered stress, rather than embrace and accept our light.
Very true Joseph, every movement made in disregard of who we are is no coincidence; it is a movement purposely made to not shine our light and the grandness of who we are.
So true Joseph. Its a form of self-sabotage.
We sabotage ourselves in many ways, it is always great to become aware of them.
A wise woman once said that if you are on time you are already late and since I heard this `i have been aware how true this is, and so I try to arrive at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time, and this allows me to be fully present for what ever is next
Super honest consideration of the full impact our seemingly benign choice to put ourselves into stress has – it actually not only has deep ramifications on our own well-being, but will be felt by every person we interact with. A simple destructive pattern that diminishes everything in our lives and impacts on all.
In doing things when we first receive the feeling to do so we are deeply supported to do them. The moment we decide another time to do them we are trying to take control and make it about ourselves and when we actually come to do them, we are not supported in the same way, the longer we leave them and the more that build up on the list the worse they begin to feel.
Being late does put the body under stress. It is an unconsciously deliberate behaviour of mine to take myself out of stillness. I can then feel racy or anxious when I arrive somewhere, often in the nick of time but not feeling or bringing the stillness that is naturally within me.
Leaving things to the last minute puts us in time not space and compresses our very movements to be of reaction rather than expansion.
“Leaving Things to the Last Minute” – is leaving ourselves to the last minute because of how it affects us in the body when we are in any delay.
I never considered it until now, but me trying to prove myself and show myself as busy and worthy is competition for I’m often measuring myself in this against something or some other and making it about me, rather than honouring the flow of both my body and the wider world. I can feel when I live in this way life becomes so much simpler.
Coming to understand the concept of space instead of being controlled by time has finally supported me to dismantle the old and destructive pattern of ‘leaving things until the last minute’. And these days if I begin to run late, the tension building in my body is the loudest reminder that this pattern no longer has a place in my life.
I truly hate that feeling of leaving things to the last minute; anxious, tense and in stress my body gets tight my movements become hard/brittle and my breathing becomes more laboured. How much kinder it is to myself when I leave myself plenty of time to stay calm, open and relaxed.
I know the productive way of being and it really does sell ourselves short of who we are and what we are truly capable of. All for the acceptance and recognition from others.
“It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us.” So true. The natural and innate flow that is within us when we do this comes with such ease, it seems crazy that we dont choose to allow it all the time.
Being fully prepared for our day and any eventuality that may occur is only possible by not leaving things to the last minute. Living life on the back foot is exahusting and in truth ultimately supports no one.
Leaving things until the last minute is another way of holding back from getting on with things. I know this pattern all too well as I know what needs to be done and have the time to do it and then consciously do something else or I only half complete the task. The thoughts in my head always tell me that I’ve got plenty of time, so there’s no need to do it straight away. Then it drags on and on until I run out of time and have to rush to finish whatever it is and causing anxiety for not being prepared.
These seemingly small things as leaving too late because we don’t have order in our house or in our routine do have a huge effect both on ourselves and others.
“Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it.” This is so true and takes away the pressure of having to get something finished with ‘perfection’, which has so often been my want. Its very liberating to not have to have everything perfect.
So true – we typically delay dealing with the real issues in life till the point our comfort is disturbed. Yet along we have a register within that clearly tells us it’s not right.
Such a set up, and yet I have done it a million times. The difference between leaving it to the last minute, and getting ahead of the game and realising how much more space there is – it has a huge impact on how I feel.
When we introduce space in our livingness, time will not affect us anymore.
At times it looks like a setup when we are late and come to a problem with ourselves, having to stress our bodies to then make things happen. You would say that we are intelligent and therefore should learn from these situations, but apparently we don’t as in my experience we do it over and over again and that why, to me, it looks like a setup that is of our own creation.
There is certainly a difference between doing a lot and the quality of what we do. I was certainly a pro at fitting lots in but not having much to show for it. This really reflects the extent to which we hide behind being busy.
I have never felt that not going to the toilet in time would put my body under stress and creating a constant anxiety. It is only recently that I started to be honest about the consequences on my body when I don’t listen when I have to go for a pee. Of course this is causing stress and anxiety but all my life I just went along with what seemed more important than my own body.
Well said, it takes a moment of absolute honesty because honesty seems to be able to be manipulated to suit what we want to hear or are prepared to address – go figure!
A great example Annelies, to which many of us can relate Im sure. Such a simple thing, but one that can have untold effects on our bodies when ignored. Talking of which….. 🙂
Everyone around us is affected by our choices. The awareness of this ought to be enough to live more responsible lives. The only reason why it doesn’t is that we carry so many hurts.
If we need motivation to do something (and don’t have the motivation!) it is worth stopping and questioning as to why. From experience something is there that needs to be felt into that then more clarity can be gained and supports clearing the feeling of this.
I actually admire how you are able to honour the feeling of not feeling motivated – because I tend to just get on with things and sometimes I wished I had waited a bit before just jumping into it. I feel it’s all in the allowing ourselves to feel what’s going on with as much honesty as we can and discern because there’s no winning formula, and there’s nothing to be worked out. It actually never is about whether the box gets ticked, but about the way we have moved in its process, and that, I feel is where we recognise and feel unsettlement if we have been lying to ourselves.
I so need to read this again and again, I am forever leaving things to the last minute. Lately I am working on completing things as I find I can leave things unfinished which ultimately always means more effort at a later date.
Leaving things to the last minute is clearly an indication of so much more than just being late or rushed and I love how you have held our hand as we delve below the surface of the behaviour.
Leaving things to the last minute certainly increases stress levels. It creates a kind of shock for the body and if not dealt with will harm the body.
Sometimes completion is not what it seems and we can push for a desired outcome of what we think ‘complete’ is, but that may not have been the true point to change ones focus to something else.
It’s so true that our lateness has a ripple effect on other people; it may not be directly in terms of making them late, but in our mannerism and state of being our unsettlement can unsettle others too.
Yes Susie – it’s obvious when someone is moving at a pace that is way beyond who they are and the natural bodily rhythm they have available to them.
I would not have agreed with you before I felt this for myself because I was usually the one running at a different pace (the late pace!) but being present with people and just being at ease in the body wherever you are is a feeling that is worth committing a way a living towards maintaining. We all benefit.
You can really see how stress is a choice, if but a mere excuse to avoid being in the power of who we truly are.
A brilliant exposing of the truth of stress and our choices in it that we don’t want to be responsible for about how this makes all the difference. Very inspiring to make different choices lovingly.
You have exposed here a subtle trap that I reckon is quite huge in its underlying motivations, and that is the ‘I am so busy because I am so important’ approach to life. When already you are super important, with no need to prove it to anyone.
Yes, it really highlights the lack of self-worth that underlies the outward confidence and doing. It takes a willingness to let it all fall away and then only pick up what feels true, offering the body the space to do things as they present rather than play catch up.
I love to be organised and work ahead of time to get things done before a deadline. This feels really loving and supportive and I know then that there won’t be any rush or drive to get them done closer to the deadline.
‘Leaving Things to the Last Minute’. I experienced clearly this weekend how it feels in my body to leave things to the last minute. What I observed was a feeling of tension in my body, I noticed how I sped up and wasn’t present with what I was doing and that I knocked myself more. I also noticed how unenjoyable it is to leave things to the last minute and to then rush because of this.
I used to dislike being early for anything as I saw it as a waste of time, but because of this I was invariably late and therefore put myself under unnecessary stress and anxiousness and the feeling of being totally unprepared. Now I love being early because it gives me a moment to just enjoy being with me and preparing for what is next.
What a great expose on the fact that we are in full control of having stress in our lives or not, do we embrace stress and make it our religion or do we give ourselves the space to not leave things to the last minute? I’ve gone 180 from being stress obsessed to completing what needs as it comes up (and still a work in progress on perfecting this!).
I love allowing plenty of time to get places and not having the stress or rush, this changes everything and allows me to be steady and calm when I arrive somewhere, rather than unsettled and anxious.
I have lived this way in the past; ‘I have come to the understanding that there is a very real ripple effect to living with this need to prove my value.’ It is a very unnatural way to live and creates a lot of tension and stress in the body and means that we are not being ourselves; this affects not only us and our health and well being, but also those we work with and our family and friends.
I get what you mean about honouring that sense when it’s time to move onto something else and not overriding it with being attached to how we think things should be instead…
Leaving things to the last minute causes us to have unnecessary anxiousness but we must want it or we wouldn’t choose it. So what is it we get out of it?
I love what you say about trust and the depth of this we can access when we let go of control and surrender to life and what it offers.
I find if I don’t leave enough time to get somewhere it’s like I’ve set myself up to travel and arrive under an excess tension that makes it harder to be really steady in myself and loving in my expression.
And for what? What was so important at the start of that journey that was worth putting all the stress onto the situation you are coming in to?
Leigh, this feels really important; ‘I now realise that this is living in a way that is in complete opposition to the impulse of my Soul and the messages my body is constantly sending me.’ Reading this I can feel that we can get caught up in thinking that because we are busy and always doing that we are being successful and productive. Whereas in truth the energy we are doing all these things in is not our true way of being, it is driven and rushed, when we are naturally still, steady and gentle.
As soon as I am ‘still, steady and gentle’, I can feel the joy in life.
Yes, it is the quality we do things in not the quantity. If we can make this our practice, then the relationship with quality builds and the relationship with quantity changes.
I love not rushing and allowing time to get somewhere and also not rushing and being prepared, my body loves this. If I leave things to the last minute and rush out the door and drive quickly then this feels awful in my body and I feel that whoever I am going to meet gets me rushing and not the calm, steady and light-hearted me.
I had an interesting experience yesterday, I spent most of the day gardening and was close to finishing what was needed, but my body was giving me clear signals that I was getting tired and to stop and rest. In the past I would have pushed through in order to complete what needed to be done, but this time i honoured my body and rested, this felt amazing and I did not end up achy and exhausted as I would have previously. It was also very humbling to notice my body knew exactly when to stop.
I have been a great ‘last minuter’ for most of my life, however am learning how wonderful it feels to not live like this. It is so honouring of everyone to respond to things as they arise, and to give yourself enough time to get to where you are going – it takes so much stress out of life!
One thing I love in life is when a day is full and then space opens up, there is not rushing and no last minute. It’s a great reminder to me that I could choose to have every day like that and when I do I am so much more enjoying my days and life.
Leaving things to the last moment is a great way to remain in stress and the true learning in it all is to figure out why we enjoy being stressed so much. When we get to the root cause of something and renounce the behaviour it just falls away.
“Innately we all know our worth, our value and what it is that we individually bring to society. We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so. ” I so love this I want to print it out and put it somewhere I can read daily. – when we take responsibility we realise we always have more then enough time.
Leaving things to the last moment or leaving home just a little bit too late is part of my addiction to make it about time instead of being in the grace of space. And I would say I sabotage the quality I otherwise would bring from the word go. Thank you Leigh for the opportunity to be honest here and feel the ripple effect of my behaviour and how I can be aware of this choice and make a choice that supports everyone.
It’s so easy to justify being late, and as you’ve shared the most common justification is that we just ‘had’ to complete our previous activity. But what if every interaction, event, meeting or moment stood alone in it’s importance and opportunity for us to bring our all, and thus being late regardless of what we were doing before has a direct impact on what we are there to do even if we see it as less important.
Leigh this has been perfect for me to read right now. I have always been ‘a leave it to the last minute’ kind of girl and for a lot of my life it worked! – now I am learning how harmful this energy is and how this behaviour impacts my close family and all those I come into contact with.
“Does this appearance of being productive then become an unconscious push in our body to be seen as being just that step ahead of another?” I wonder if it is more about ensuring we not only do our work but everyone else’s as well thereby justifying that we are the only ones who actually know what needs to be done and how. Very arrogant really and not embracing the community we are from. A forever deepening of the depth of understanding around that one!
What I’m starting to see is that I love running late, I kid myself that I don’t but if I really didn’t then why would I always be at best on time and more often than not just a few minutes late.
I love this piece, it reminds me to honor myself deeper and flow will ensure.
When we hold off doing something we delay the next step, and rather than being committed and responsible for our part in it there is something that we are getting out of the delay, and that is where we need to be honest, is it the elation of finishing something just in time or the control of holding the top card in a project, either way if there is something to be done we should always aim to do it in our natural rhythm and not get caught up in the game of delay.
Bringing it back to value, how we value us, how we value others shines a new light on how we are in what we do and any drive, push or cramming that may come in. And the first step with that value, being honest about what is possible and what is not, and giving ourselves and others the time and space to hear that.
“Leaving Things to the Last Minute” – is a way to not feel and creates anxiety keeping the body heightened in stimulation. It’s an awful way to live, and yet it is one of the most common ways to live. We are living life to not feel not just ourselves, but also to not feel one another too.
It’s interesting, this addiction to stimulation..it is so prevalent in the world today. Just because the world is telling us this is the way to live does not mean that we have to follow suit. I know I can get caught up in the busyness, things that have to be done and done in a certain time but the pressure it puts on my body is horrible. However putting things off till another day isn’t necessarily helpful either. There is a direct call to do something and the clearer we are the easier it is to feel that call and to follow through. We create space then and everything gets done and we feel the rhythm of our actions.
Time and time again I leave things to the last minute, get stressed and feel my body harden in the process.
Leaving things to the last minute is a deliberate tactic employed by the human etheric spirit so it can ride the ‘out-breath of God’ (live in excess motion) just that little bit longer because the moment it does not, it naturally falls back into rhythm with the greater whole that it has departed from, which is the love and light of our Soul – the place where all spirits must eventually return to and dissolve back into. Therefore, choosing to live in excess motion by virtue of speeding things up and creating less space/time for us to get things done (e.g. leaving things to the last minute) is a deliberate sabotage of that which evolves us; learning how to move in sync with the Universal order we belong to and not moving against it.
Leaving things to the last minute is a long established spiritual pattern whereby you achieve something by means of nervous energy and then go into withdraw/relief. So, it is all about avoid advancing by setting standards that capitalise on what you have done.
This is a great question; ‘Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us?’ I know that if I am running late this affects my family because I am then rushing to leave home and it also affects everyone I meet on the way because I am in a drive to get somewhere and not connecting with people along the way and it affects the people who are where I am going because I may arrive flustered, rushed and not calm and steady. The ripple effects are huge.
I definitely know about the ‘less productive judgement’ and it actually doesn’t support anyone. It either bludgeons myself or the other I judge or puts us under a force and a drive to do more. Fueled by a lack of understanding and lack of appreciation for where we or another is at.
It is the judgement that just smothers all space to understand and enjoy our work. No more bludgeoning!
This habit of leaving things to the last minute is one that I fall back on intermittently. I can think I have it cracked, then it can slip back in again. I find I use it the most to take the shine off the way I arrive to work, a meeting, even a social event etc. When I notice this it is not so much that I like being late, as the momentum of hiding and not bringing the authority that comes from stillness in the body.
This big production show of productivity is brilliant to expose here. And I love how you also refer to the way of life where just being you is enough, and where productivity is about quality.
At work, looking ‘productive’, copious huffing and puffing and the occasional deep and meaningful, albeit in truth fabricated and enforced sigh, are the hallmarks of the deceit and cunningness at the bottom of competitiveness, the race to the top and the general ‘dog eats dog’ environment we have created.
The deep insidious-ness of this all to familiar behaviour is how imposing it is upon all others in the office, a reality we don’t feel until we acknowledge where and how we too play the very same game.
Anxiety does kick in big time when we leave things to the last minute, and if we are honest it doesn’t feel that great in the body and then when we arrive at our destination we feel ill equipt to deal with whatever the situation is we are there to deal with.
Because we are too busy running our thoughts with whatever self discrimatory record we use to stop ourselves from truly feeling, oh so simply, how uncomfortable our bodies feel when we don’t address what needs our attention. What we let our minds do to keep us from the simplicity of living present in our lives is actually deeply devastating and causes more harm to ourselves and society than we are willing to acknowledge.
It is always great to wonder why we are doing something because just knowing it is not right or we should be not doing it is not always helping if we don’t resolve why we do it in the first place. For me I can sense there is a lack of wanting life to flow and be easy because I then have to be in my power and beauty all the time and there are not ‘off’ moments to indulge in my woes… It is very clear how things like not acting on my feelings or procrastinating is actually a form of creating issues in the future so I have an excuse to be not feeling great…
I have been a lsst minute leaver for most of my life particualrly with things that I did not want to do. I can clearly see now how avoiding such things just caused stress and anxiety not only for me but for others as well. There is so much to honour when we do things as they arise as it supports everyone involved and it opens up space for more opportunities.
Leaving things to the last minuet is such a common thing, something i see a lot in both myself and other young people, an inability to get up and get on with life and all that needs to be done, until the very last moment when anxiety and tension kicks in and gets the job done.
True commitment feels like a movement inwards: consulting our inner compass on what is there for us to do, and exactly how to do it, and for how long. It doesn’t mean working all day and night to do something, whatever it takes and whatever the expense. True commitment is about deeply committing to living what we can feel, first, which then leads on to a wider commitment to humanity, because if we can feel the effects of how we’re living first then we can feel what everyone else is living in too, and there we find and feel the purpose of our commitment to ourselves as a part of the whole.
There is such a difference felt in my body when I leave things to the last minute as to when I complete things or arrive with plenty of time for an appointment etc. I create anxiety for myself when I leave things, but when I give myself enough time and don’t rush anything, space opens up where I complete things with greater ease and simplicity.
Keeping on top of things allows so much more space for what there is to do. We can fill our lives with things we have to do, and use these as a distraction to keep ourselves busy and not then being able to do what is being called for.
I can so relate to what you have expressed Leigh. I too have been very identified with being busy and get a sense of satisfaction from the busy-ness as it is proof that I am a good person who is contributing to society instead of lazying around all the time. Even though there is still some of that momentum in me and how I am throughout the day, the more i come back to nurturing myself and actually accepting myself for who I am without the need to identify with the tasks at hand, the more I have been able to drop the busyness and drive.
I also feel that being late for appointments etc is a form of control. It can be a way of subjugating others from the outset. I have heard some people talk about the way they use psychology to manipulate their workmates and thus steer the meeting, say, in the direction they want it to go for themselves.
I remember thinking I was being very nonchalant about getting to the airport to catch a plane, leaving it till the last minute until one day I nearly missed my flight and then realising how much of a game I was playing. Now days I love being at the airport all checked in with time to spare so there is absolutely no chance of causing myself unnecessary stress.
Judgment is actually a prison that condemns us and as long as our thoughts are locked into its mindset we will fail to read between the lines of what is actually going on or see the potential that there is another way of looking at it.
There are no benefits from “leaving things to the last minute”, there is only the tension that builds as the time to do something seems to disappear. And if we end up not doing what is waiting, and put it off some more, the tension builds and stays within us until the task is complete. This tension feels exhausting, which it is, as our body has to carry this ill-condition for however long we put off what is waiting to be done.
When I get myself out of the way eg.self-created issues and sense purpose there is no single moment to procrastinate… I just get on with it making it about the loving connection to self.
What is disregarding to the body will be revealed by the body without doubt and cleared. In our conventional business world, clients are always in an all-important role that disregards the service providers. As if money is the be all and end all in having the power to abuse. A reflection of that is we have first abused ourselves from leaving the connection within ourselves and hence the way we deal businesses will naturally also be abusive.
There is a natural flow that our body relates to, and when we honour that flow we naturally know when things need to be completed and there is no leaving things to the last minute unless we are out of sync with our body.
Busyness is closing ourselves off from other people and the message they get is ‘ leave me alone, I am too busy’.
I love arriving early to appointments/work etc as it gives me an opportunity to simply be with myself before entering into the next situation. It is a stock-take moment in many ways.
“Leaving Things to the Last Minute” – is a way to reduce space, and when space is reduced so too is sight.. of what needs to be done and thus procrastination is nothing more than the deliberate detour or circumvent around responsibility. We travel thousand miles an hour… yet go or get nowhere in this guise.
Yes we can know how destructive something like this can be and yet we find ourselves in a ritual pattern of disregard, until we really clock and make a choice not to do that again
Leaving things to the last minute has been a strategy I have used to get things done. Changing this is a work in progress.
All of the examples given in the blog, like putting off going to the toilet are ways to delay what you are feeling to do. It is a common way of putting our bodies into stress by not responding to what is there to be done in its natural timing.
All of the examples given in the blog, like putting off going to the toilet are ways to delay what you are feeling to do. It is a common way of putting our bodies into stress by not responding to what is there to be done in its natural timing.
It is when we understand and appreciate the grandness of space in the Universe, then we allow the true rhythm to serve.
Good timing for me to read this, I’ve just been examining leaving deadline based work tasks to the last minute and realising how much it compromises my wellbeing because of the push and stress. I realise that allowing myself enough time, including completing well before the deadline, is a very self caring approach. I have been working on self care with the support of Universal Medicine for some time and I can now see many new areas to bring self care to that I wouldn’t necessarily view as traditional self care areas. I am beginning to see how all of life can be held from a self caring approach.
It flys in the face of how we were brought up to not be ‘up ourselves’. As self care is the absolute precursor to true care for others. I would never have believed this fact until I felt the love I feel for others deepening the more I deepen my love and care for myself.
I have been really aware of a pattern I have, especially with paperwork, in wanting to avoid doing it. So much so that even when I make time for this … I find something else to do instead! Being with this a bit more what I am feeling is it is an underlying anxiety that needs to be addressed and me on some level avoiding making my life more simple! Crazy the ways we sabotage ourselves .. being busy being one of them.
What you have shared here is the constant trickery that our mind plays with us. It does take a very steady choice to ‘stay on track’ and ignore the subtle offerings of ‘other things to do’.
What would happen if we give life our absolute all? Would we be complaining about time in the same way when to the best of our ability everything is done with our fullness and completeness?
Great point. Just allowing ones self to even contemplate the actual claiming a living of this negates time. As what becomes important is knowing that our quality is very needed here in earth and then comes a very clear sense of what needs to be done when, and time is not even thought of.
I agree, it takes the pressure of time and brings focus on the quality, which is what is needed.
When you accept that everything is energy you come to understand that there is an energetic ripple effect for everything we do, including “leaving things to the last moment”. This is something that has been such an ingrained pattern in my life, one that I am working towards dismantling especially as I can now see so clearly the energetic consequences of doing so.
Something that is coming to my awareness is that the delay in doing something is very insidious as it keeps ones focus constantly in a holding pattern. Where as, if each thing is taken care of as needed, it is very easy to be open to whatever is coming next, and there is a readiness for whatever that may be however it is presented.
Leaving things to the last minute, or even rushing to get something completed has a huge effect on our body. It also put us into almost like a tunnel vision where what is is that we are doing becomes the only thing and we end up excluding or shutting off to everything that is around us. We can do things quickly but still complete tasks in a way that we remain connected and not disengage from the world around us, remaining aware and not shutting down. The result is that we end up with more than enough time to complete all we need to without rushing.
A very significant sharing.
Remaining open and aware is very needed, as things can change in a heartbeat and if we are stuck in single focus, we will always be behind the eight ball, so to speak. Missing cues as to where we might need to be which we then feel the tension of in our bodies. No wonder we have a society that is constantly in pain, illness, disease and injury. As rush, pressure and doing things at the very last minute is very much considered to be the normal way to live life.
I have used this or something similar many times ‘oh, sorry I am late, but I had to complete ..’ The thing is it is not being honest or taking responsibility for how we are living and it is kind of saying to the person I had something more important to do than you!
It sure is lack of responsibility for oneself and in that not respecting others.
Planning holds comfort whether we plan to run everything down to the last minute or we plan a very tight ship where everything is done with time to spare. The spirit has it all wrapped up in ‘Plan A, B or C’. This blog highlights the importance of flowing with what we know deep within is needed in the moment – all doused with a huge dollop of love.
Well said Christine, a structured plan does not allow for those ‘things’ that just appear to be accepted and dealt with as they need to be done.
We keep ourselves more busy with worrying about, questioning and resisting things than the actual tasks we have in life take.
True, the thoughts take way more time than actually dealing with what needs attention.
Waiting for life to shake us up and into the truth is a favourite habit of ours and very often we ignore it still then! But what would our world be like if we didn’t hang about but rather got on the front foot instead?
Thank you Joseph, this is a wake up call that we are not here to be in constant reaction to what is around us but that we can determine where we are going simply by following the truth we deep down know and feel.
Most of us have felt the ripple effects when someone leaves things to the last minute. This includes the resulting lack of care as everything is rushed and forced, as well as the emotional tornado both of which leave a disturbance in their wake, let alone we witness ourselves or others be pulled into the ensuing drama that can be caused.
But somehow when we are the one initiating such an experience we tend to forget about our impact on everyone else. Thanks for the clear reminder.
Very true Golnaz, we do tend to forget that this impacts on others. When we become focused on one goal and become tunnelled we can’t see anything around us at all, including the impact we can have on others. Sometimes its important just to stop to put the periscope up and have a look around and see that there is much more going on than our own view and focus on the world.
I very much feel this ripple effect at work. We often receive a task with a short timeframe to complete. This means the work is done in a rush, and most likely with frustration and a lack of care. It becomes just about getting it done. We noticed that this happens every year with certain requests so created a chart with a timeline so we didn’t have to rush at the last minute.
There definitely is a tension when we leave things to the last minute, and then it affects the rest of the day. I have to watch being on my computer before work because I get distracted and don’t leave myself enough time to leave the house in a calm manner, and inevitably I forget something, or I feel unsettled before the start of my shift.
Thank you Leigh – this shows so much how we often do this from a disconnection to true flow and order.. As if we are honest, these two are actually missing when we rush things and do things from a to do list or hand in things just in time or being too late. It totally takes away our joy of being part of the whole.
Leaving things to the last minute really does create tension in the body and the delay creates so many problems. I had to do something for a meeting and kept putting it off because I wasn’t sure what to do, but instead of asking for help, I have to apologize to others for the issues caused. It is such a good learning not to leave things to the last minute, it serves no-one, least of all ourselves.
How interesting that we choose not to work with others to deliver what is needed in our world. What a set up is the ‘go it alone’ paradigm.
There is an enormous amount of stimulation and excitement in leaving things to the last moment, so to heal why we do it we have to look at our lives and identify why we are needing stimulation and excitement.
Its asking the self, what is the reward, what are we seeking if we are living this way?
Time is the greatest lie in life, and deadlines are it’s chief weapon. When we subscribe to timelines we loose the flow and so our connection to love. If we feel what is needed and act on this we may find there is incredible spaciousness to what we do.
There is a pattern of abuse, with a chunky dose of lack of self-worth thrown in, that plays out when I leave things to the last minute. And there is a simplicity and transformative impact of not doing this; of making space in my day for whatever is scheduled… getting up a bit earlier when the day is very full is something very simple and practical that supports me.
When you procrastinate, even ever so slightly, it it is felt in the body. The body innately knows what needs to be done, when, where and how. When we resist this, for some of the reasons described in this blog, it creates tension that many of us live with on a daily basis. I dont think we fully realise this as a society, what havoc that wreaks on our bodies and to ourselves.
So true, as living on ‘the edge’ so to speak is classed as normal. With the pressures of daily life, work and family commitments. What we forget in living with these pressures is that we are the ones that feed them and make them what they are. Giving ourselves the grace to look at our life and reevaluate it is something many do not do until an illness is knocking on our door. What this shows though, is that if we can adjust and change in these dire circumstances, then we can also do so before we are faced with them, the choice really is ours to make.
I used to joke that I had a PhD in procrastination, but in all honesty it was actually no joke because claiming that kept me an ever increasing of cycle of stress and tension which of course was with me in every movement that I made. This tension was always running through my body but although unpleasant to feel it became my normal way of being. I have finally come to realise that it is not in the least normal so have begun to dismantle this ill-named PhD. And in doing so the tension that I lived with for so long is dissolving and that feels amazing.
How you describe this dissolving of tension Ingrid is something I recognise in myself too, and I agree, it does indeed feel amazing to find oneself in situations that before, would have been feeling pretty anxious or stressed about even if it was just a at a low level of discomfort, that now to find that there is no change in how the body feels. And this happens more and more across my day to day life, which is enabling me to be more open to and with people, and them with me.
Last minute is not even about time for me, but when I know something needs to be done in that moment and delay it.
To true, we really don’t connect with how quickly our delaying tactics cause us to be pressured by time. Could this be a choice we constantly make to keep us forever on the back foot, so to speak. Forever at the mercy of the clock, when in any moment we can choose the beauty of responding and doing what we feel is needed.
The question is to ask ourselves why are we delaying? what is it we don’t want to look at take responsibility for ?
Leaving things to the last minute is something that I am learning not to do any more as it puts a lot of pressure on the body.
Something I am exploring too, as the pressure on the body is unnecessary, still work in progress for me.
Leaving things to the last minute is like always playing catch up and this is something I am only just starting to realise. Staying on top of things and getting them done straight away does mean there is far less tension involved as well as leading to a better quality work. We can kid ourselves saying we work far better under pressure but how true is this really?
Leaving things to the last minute was such an old habit of mine and perhaps is very common too for many others, but now I can feel how dishonoring that is to myself as I am giving myself less time, less space and less love!
‘feeling the disregard when the simple daily life processes are ‘done in a hurry’ or simply ‘left to another time.’ I do feel the difference now when I go into rush mode in those daily life processes, for example just getting ready for work. If I have went into the old habit of rushing it is because I have not given myself enough time to get ready, as I have spent to long on the computer! I feel the disregard immediately.
Applying some understanding here of the intensity and fast pace of life (the speedo is forever going up it seems) gives me some space to be gentle with myself, set aside critic, and realise that in spite of all that is going on around me, I can make quality choices for myself about how I am going to move, take care of and manage myself in my days.
It is the grace of allowing ourselves to be gentle and show a tenderness, that makes the changes we all deep down want to make.
One game I play is making myself look busy. I like to know that people think I am hard working and that I am busy as a bee. This is silly and it is an image I am trying to break, but finding it challenging when I can feel myself getting judged for not looking busy. Funny how this can trigger people!? But then again, I know I too have done this to others, thinking about how ‘busy’ I am and why they cannot get off their bums and help out! I am just being honest here in saying how I have reacted – not saying that this is either good or bad. But it helps me understand others and myself. In choosing to be super busy and look busy, I miss out on that feeling of spaciousness that allows me to hone in on what is truly needed next – I fight this because then life would appear too easy….and we can’t do that, can we? 😉 well time to break these patterns!
Another thing I do other than leaving things to the last minute, is to make things more complex than what they need to be! Or lament about a job that needs to get done and technically in the process of lamenting I have just wasted precious time and energy which could have been used to get the job done in the first place! Crazy what we do to ourselves to make our lives more scattered and challenging!
“Leaving Things to the Last Minute” – the more space i live with and allow myself, the less I am gripped by the clutch of stress or tension. It can be as simple as getting up earlier in the morning, or going to sleep earlier in the evening to get a quality that supports in steadiness.
I am fining that if I eat the wrong food, my space becomes smaller as my body is recovering from the tiredness or what I have just ate.
This is a beautiful example how we (can) compromise ourselves constantly.
Leaving things to the last minute creates a story and as we tend to identify ourselves through our stories it suits us to whip one up. The price we pay however is the stress this drama causes to our body.
Whipping up a story is far more the reality of life than we know. We are innately powerful, steady, honouring, loving, graceful beings, so, how many stories do we allow to dull, deny, doubt and downright sabotage this truth?
Many stories I would say Leigh, but the main story is the story we tend to live in that includes our ideals, beliefs and undealt with hurts without checking in to who we truly are and this leads us on to see and accept others in their stories. Time to step back and move away from the stories and see what is really playing out!
Yes…So true! The story is a disguise of justification, excuses, and drama, all created to make you feel ‘better’ and hence, bury the truth behind the story…
Absolutely . . . and yet we never actually feel better! And this leads to the fabrication of even bigger and more dramatic and elaborate stories as the drama gives us a short burst of energy to do what needs to be done and then takes more than it gives completely depleting us in the process.
Leaving things to the last minute is such a drama and delay tactic…. and yet we look so busy!
Well said Jenny, this is one of the biggest tricks of the ages. It also poses the question, why do we need to look busy instead of being truly focused on the steadiness of addressing what is there to be addressed as it arises?
Spot on Leigh – in the end it is all big game of distraction!
Yes, what a tactic this is, all in the name of ‘busy’!
Yes this is true but how does it feel in our bodies? In my experience not so great.
There is a huge amount of grace in simplicity, as opposed to awkwardness and messiness in complexity and complication.
Grace coupled with the beauty of joy, simplicity is the key to unlocking the true beauty of our soul to be, again, the life we are living.
So true Leigh, procrastination is the mother of stress.
It’s quite simple, I no longer like the feeling of when I am leaving things until the last minute, I can feel I carry with me a low grade anxiety with all the things that I haven’t done that is in the back of my mind.
It is interesting you share the anxiety that is felt in our body when we leave something to hang when we initially had the space to address it. Apply this to our conversations, our daily interactions with others, how often do we not speak because our anxiousness overrides our awareness in the moment when it is the awareness that holds the seed for change. It is impossible to suppprt our world and ourselves if we don’t give full reign and respect to our awareness.
This is another moment to reflect on why we do the things we do and set up our lives in certain ways. Perhaps there is more to it than just ‘being busy and leaving things till the end’ – which is what I would have said in the past. As I explore more and more what is behind each movement and action, it has become clear, in my case, that staying busy is what keeps me from actually taking the space to appreciate where i am at. I am left not confirming or consolidating anything, and therefore, the busy momentum continues, pushing me to lose myself in the doing without actually considering the huge balance that is presented when we welcome repose into our lives. Any easy cover to not be all of who I am.
When we are in motion with no one at the helm and crash into the rocks, we use ‘But’ and transference as our excuse or anything that does not place the blame at our feet. When we step out of the chaos we have created there is space for everything to flow.
Great analogy. Just because the light house is not working it is no excuse to drop our awareness and crash into the rocks. Holding steady with what we feel and innately know is the only way we will begin to truly address the wiliness of our spirit.
Procrastinating creates a constant underlying anxiousness because those things we have put off are always running ‘at the back of our mind’ reminding us of what we haven’t done, all the while as we attempt to do what has to be done now… procrastination is a constant distraction from being present.
It is true that we can be so busy being busy that we achieve very little.
Spot on Paula, I end up going around in circles chasing my tail, looking busy but nothing getting done.
Yes I do too, particularly when I have an issue to deal with, well that just keeps me really busy which is the perfect excuse to get nothing done.
I was running late the other day and then had the ‘irks’ with a car in front of me because they were going slower than I wanted them too. Then I realised that if I was not running late, would this car be ‘irking’ me so much and the answer was no. So I saw clearly that my actions effected my behaviour much more than this car going slower.
The feeling of space when you know you are well prepared, having done the report or the tasks or whatever is immeasurable, and in that space so much more can happen… creativity, connection, an attention to quality that I know is missing when I rush.
I am loving exploring the meaning of true commitment and what this feels like: there is no self, it’s inclusive of everyone, and feels expansive and simple.
There is no self, but the reason to care for self even more deeply than ever is truly presented. For we cannot serve in our roles, our jobs, with the purpose that is needed unless we have a body that is capable of living, in full that which is there for us to do.
When we leave things to the last moment we have a problem with completion.
The other side of this when we’re on the receiving end of people who leave things to the last minute or routinely turn up late. When this happens, it’s important to be honest and express the ripple effect of this behaviour on others.
It is important to say, I agree, as to leave it unsaid leaves an unsettlement in our body. So what some may say, but does this unsettlement contribute to our body working harder than it needs to, therefore contributing to illness and disease?
Giving ourselves plenty of time to get somewhere is an act of self love. We’re not rushing, we’ve not put our bodies under unnecessary strain, instead we enjoy the journey, and are settled when we get to our destination. Who wouldn’t choose this.
The best way I know to create stress is to leave things to the last minute.
Yes, this shows we are not a victim of stress but create it ourselves.
Isn’t it interesting though that we don’t connect the dots… that we don’t consider we create the stress by leaving things that need to be addressed until the last possible moment. But we do, therefore it is in our power to eliminate one of the major stressors of life.
‘It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold’, this line is simply gold, and has been my experience that when I have surrender to any event or situation in life, everything becomes much easier in the flow of simplicity.
It can be hard to comprehend, but the moment we let go of controlling a situation or even wanting a situation to be different than what it is. Everything becomes clear, there is an understanding and acceptance that comes with the surrender this brings to us the simplicity.
Yes.. when we live life from our body, from that knowing of who we are, how to be and just exactly what’s needed next, it starts to feel more expanded, easier and far less stressful: it becomes really clear that there’s nothing we need to do to prove ourselves- us being and bringing all of ourselves to the table, is enough, and more.
I was always fitting more in up until the last minute so that I ended up running late until I understood how I had set myself up in this pattern from when I first started school when I would arrive just as class was going in because I didn’t like the exposure of being on my own, not knowing anyone and feeling like I didn’t fit in with the other kids. Once I realised this and could see the effect this had on others and the tension and stress I felt in my body it was easy to change that past behaviour. Of course this is just one of the patterns I have broken as there are many other ways, that is, excuses I use to remain in delay but I am working on this.
How wonderful Deidre to be able to track down the root cause that established this behaviour of sailing close to the wind in terms of arrival at places. It clears the pathways for plain sailing for your magnificent unfoldment in walking with God through your life.
All our choices in how we handle things affect not just ourselves but all those around us, and to not think this is the case, is simply a choice to be blind to living in a world full of people.
Leaving things to the last minute is a classic scenario that I am sure most people are quite familiar with…As you procrastinate and then realise you only have a fraction of the time to complete the task, you get the surges of adrenalin and anxiety coursing through your body in order to complete things so called ‘in time’…and many people interpret this as the ‘feeling of being alive’ no different to the posters you see about not having any ‘fear’ in life and surfing huge waves or jumping out of helicopters – there is an arrogance in defying what we know to be a safe and respectful way to live with ourselves and in the arrogance and defiance we opt to live in a way that puts the body on edge claiming that this is ‘living life’. But what if this interpretation is completely the opposite – what if the adrenalin actually numbs us completely to feeling the natural harmony and stillness within our body and disconnects us from our essence and stunts our relationship with our Soul? Now there is something to ponder on and instead of being in awe of someone defying with arrogance the natural rythms in life we get to feel how unsupportive it is all around, and hopefully learn to surrender to our own innate rhythm of allowing space to complete tasks without feeling time pressured to do so. Ahhh…I can feel my whole body enjoying this approach, now, it is simply for me to keep practicing this as consistently as I possibly can! 🙂
Worrying about what others are thinking about us and how ‘productive’ they are perceiving us to be distracts from our awareness of the quality in what we’re doing, how we’re going about it and our sense of the true flow and order that is needed…
Thank you Leigh for this blog as it high lights for me that I am finding it quite hard to let go and surrender to the glory that is within me. I know it’s there because I can feel it to be true but there is a part of me that is hanging on to being an individual.
Lateness for me is just a symptom of the overwhelm I am in. Often I’ve made some choices that just don’t fit in. When I go down a route that is not true the flow of life gets wrecked. So the lateness I end up being is just me resisting what my soul has lined up for me today – it happened like this today. Thank you Leigh.
This is a blog that every time I come back to it it gives me a little wake up call. I can get myself in such a state when I start thinking of all the things I need to do and all the things I haven’t got to yet. I then feel anxious thinking I’m going to forget something
When we are late the person expecting us is impacted. But it ripples well beyond that. What if there are others waiting on them too? Our movements impacts others, that is the way it goes. When we move in stress, those around us receive those ripples in the sea of life we live in. The impact is felt both energetically and on a practical level.
Spot on Nikki – there is the practical and perhaps more obvious physical effect on others when we are running late (for example, to an appointment), but there is the energetic disharmony that we bring and spill around us with every step of the way to the given destination, and hence we leave a trail of disaster behind us (energetically speaking)….with much to clean up in the aftermath.
Can we really say that we’re ‘committed to work’, school or even a relationship if we are constantly in delay and running late to arrive? Even the movement of being rushed makes a huge impact on the quality of our day, regardless of whether or not we’re technically late.
So very wise. Energetically there is not the true commitment to life that we are not only capable of, but is our birth right, to be in service to humanity. Yet how many of us consider that we are here to serve, not to gain.
I have been a delayer too and still find I underestimate how much time I need to get ready in the morning for example. Last year I consciously chose to start acting on things when I first felt them. I had so much more energy and the ‘task’ felt light and easy. I was amazed by the difference I felt when things were dealt with in their correct timing.
I agree completely. Nothing seems to get in the way and there is no push, just the simplicity of working in the flow of life and not against it.
This is great Fiona, as it demonstrates just how much our Soul communicates to us via the body… and the result is a vitality that supports the body back.
I know what you mean Fiona, I tend to make replying to an email or getting some jobs done bigger than what they really are, so I put it to the side to get back to it later but then it piles up. However, when I’ve done something similar as you and just deal with it simply and as it comes up, there has been more space and no anxiety.
I have known this one extremely well and find it easy to catch myself procrastinating. Take at work when it seems quiet it can be easy to get caught up talking with other colleagues even though I have things that need doing. I then find myself getting behind and needing to get things done which I have neglected. Whereas when I simply do what is there to be done, then suddenly something else comes along as I have given myself the space which otherwise I would not have been able to do. It is like God rewards you for putting in the effort and doing your job and so you get rewarded with more, in my line of work more customers!
The more we can truly appreciate the innate wisdom of our whole body the more natural it becomes I find to honour the signals and sense we get of what to do next and when rather than to override it and push through because we have a picture in our mind of how things should be that we’re attached to instead.
Yes, agreed Leigh, leaving things to the last minute is a sure way of avoiding stillness, settlement in the body and living with a steady rhythm.
I have found that when I procrastinate in one area of my life (usually administrative things) this affects all other areas of my life as well. There simply is no way we can compartmentalise life even if we like to think we can get away with it.
I have placed myself under huge stress over the years but one of the most impactful ones has been “leaving things to the last minute”. In fact, this one is a double whammy as not only do I feel the tension building if there is a deadline looming but I also have a reason to beat myself up for putting the task off for so long. No wonder I was always exhausted. I am now committed to dismantle this draining pattern of procrastination and the difference it is making in my life is amazing as the tension I have lived with continually is lessening choice by loving choice.
This is something that we don’t tend to truly honour, just how truly draining it is to leave things undone, or to not do them when and as the moment presents.
When we put things off, it is exhausting, because it constantly replays in the mind.. don’t forget to do that something. But when we allow flow, things get done as and when they need to be.
What I find is it’s often very specific what I leave for the last minute, and part of learning from the process is to look at why I delayed that particular thing.
By acting on something when we feel the impulse to do it, rather than put it off until a time that ‘suits’ us, it really does feel that space opens up and there is more room to do other things. For myself, when I put off doing things that I know have to be done, I just end up feeling the overwhelm and weight of what is incomplete and end up carrying that energy with me in whatever I do. But the reverse is true though when I act on things straightaway and I am able to achieve so much more.
I find that when I move a little faster than is natural for me my whole body goes into a tension and the self-imposed pressure I’m putting myself under is very wearing of my body. In the end it is not worth achieving something if it means it comes at the expense of my body, this is what I am learning.
This learning can be applied everywhere in our lives, a very pertinent learning, as it makes us responsible for what we choose.
Beautiful, to leave judgements behind is the greatest thing we can do, as it limits our absolute view to see and feel the love in others including your very self.
I used to leave everything I found remotely challenging or non appealing to the very last end, unaware of the fact that everything has it’s own time and space to be completed. Not only did this bring stress and anxiety as a foundational factor into my life but the end result of the things done was never in the quality I started them in. I have come to deeply appreciate the flow of life and how, if I surrender to it, so much can be achieved without any effort.
Honouring ourselves and our bodies goes a long way to support us in leaving behind procrastination and delaying techniques.
The crazy thing about rushing is it is counterproductive, we don’t actually get anywhere ‘faster’ and it leaves the body in dis- ease. Even the energetic pace driven from the mind before we even move disturbs the natural harmony of the body.
Until recently I had to get to work very early in the morning, and i found getting up very early to be challenging – rather than giving myself the time to prepare for my day I would sleep in as long as possible, leaving getting up to the last possible minute and doing the barest minimum to get out of the door in time looking presentable, but not truly prepared. And conversely the same was true for going to sleep, leaving it to the last minute and then falling into bed. I have been working on my routine preparing myself for sleep and waking up, and I am finding such joy and space and warmth in giving myself that space, and finding I am much less tired.
When we live from a need to prove ourselves we end up polluting everything that we do with that need, that is everything that we do gets affected in one way or another by it and this has huge adverse affect on our body and our life.
When we are late for an appointment we are not only not valuing ourselves but we are not valuing and respecting another as well.
For some of us, what you are writing about, Leigh, is fundamental to our well-being. Rhythms and cycles, when honoured bring a foundation that helps us to align to everything about us indeed to the universe, and brings our particles, our very cells into alignment and connection with the all that is.
Yes, beautifully said Chris and what a harmonious way to live, in fact our natural way before we impose out ‘timing’ on it.
Yes exactly Victoria… It is what is actually natural to us… We just have to return to that rhythm so that we can feel what harmony actually feels like.
In rushing, I give myself another way and reason to dishonour myself.
Yep, I guess it comes down to quality and not quantity .. something I am continually learning.
Why do we constantly put our bodies under unnecessary stress when we should make it our life’s work to honour respect and cherish it and tend to its every need.
Very well said Kev it makes no sense what so ever yet is something we constantly do! Our bodies are vehicles for the Light of our Soul on Earth and so the more we honour, respect and cherish them the more we can truly bring all that we are here.
Life works on a simple equation we all intimately know. Yet we try to get ahead living a different way instead. We’ve become masters of short circuiting rather than true maths of flow. Thank you Leigh for summing this up 🙂
The body loves to be honoured and respected, when we listen it tells us exactly what it needs to support us. A wise master indeed.
Very wise, sometimes I don’t want to truly accept what it has to say, but if I do this, it is not long and I find myself in a situation that did not need to happen. The absoluteness of the body can not be doubted, something we come to only when we experience the pain of not honouring what it has to say.
so true Victoria and it knows innately the flow and rhythm of life, what lies ahead and what is needed in each moment. How easy life could be if only we get our own wants and needs out of the way!
Yes true, life can be that simple when we choose it.
Perhaps it is space we are avoiding, the grandness we are. When we choose to play with time, fill it in, and race against it there is continual distraction from the ease of being with the body in its natural rhythm and flow.
It seems to all be coming down to becoming a master of space and time in a world where the pace of life and the amount that seems to be needed to be done (do it yourself ‘everything’ online) is like never before. I can feel the level of anxiousness and resistance that I bring upon myself because my comfort zone has been ‘challenged’.
Leaving things until the last minute feels horrible in my body, I feel unprepared and on the back foot.
Today I left 20 minutes early for an appointment and if felt so lovely to feel the space that it created to connect and be with my daughter with no distractions.
It’s a bit of an individuality complex, leaving things to the last minute. Like we go, “I’m doing this and can do it in my own time when I feel like doing it” with no regard for universal order.
Well said Michael, we again make life about only ourselves, when this is never the truth, ever.
I have found that living with procrastination and delay gives me the perfect excuse to not commit more to life.. because there’s always x, y and z that I haven’t done. But what I’m also learning is that the more I just feel what to do next, and commit to doing it, it actually doesn’t take very long at all, and I have more energy and space at the end of it. Thinking about something and not doing it takes up far more energy and time than actually just doing it, even if sometimes we think we can’t because we’re tired, it’s late, etc.
You ask some great questions Leigh and ask us to go deeper with our self reflection which allows us to become more honest and clear out the remnants of unhealthy ways of being that get in the way of our living from our essence and meeting another in and from that place. Thank you.
Leaving things until the last minute, or just generally not completing things when they are there for us to do, feels like a big distraction that cuts us off from what we can feel in our bodies, and the ‘show me what’s next’ expansion that is naturally there for us to step into, whenever we say yes to it.
Finally coming to understand what plays out in my body when I leave something un-completed is a big wakeup call. I have realised that these uncompleted tasks, some for a long period of time, have built a tension in my body which simply means that my body is never completely still as there is always a disturbing energy flowing through every part of me. This is one pattern in my life that is being urgently addressed as it is the quality of my life that is being affected in every moment.
Leaving things to the last moment is a great way to stimulate our nervous system and avoid our natural stillness.
Leaving things to the last-minute leaves the body in such a stress that it can take a very concentrated effort to become calm. Often, I have found that being in a last-minute stress before leaving the house for work will affect my whole day as I am on permanent catch up. Whereas, leaving in good time allows me to arrive at work open, prepared and calm and creates more space in my day.
Bringing the spaciousness of our natural rhythm, the rhythm that our body knows and moves to, ensures that everything is done with quality… and perfect timing.
Feeling and honouring our quality and moving our body from there leaves nothing to the last minute – ever. Yet this way of living often slots extra things in, things we were aware of, but had not particularly planned to do, yet our body will tenderly offer for something to be done, if it needs to be addressed. When I choose to live my quality, I am forever humbled at how much “ahead” of us our body is. It knows the importance of completing something, as if we were to not do so, we would have found ourselves to be pressured and stressed at a later time.
Leaving things to the last minute ensures that the body will take a bashing.
When working in a way that is dis-connecting we get the “feeling the disregard when the simple daily life processes are ‘done in a hurry’ or simply ‘left to another time.’” Working with connection, gives us all the space the world and the work becomes a Joy!
Reacting to the way society is today and people’s choices within it does nothing to elevate us out of the ‘mud’. We have the potential to live in a way that lights up a path for others to follow, but judgement caps this at the starting line and cements us, stopping us from moving forward.
What I am realising now about leaving things to the last minute, is that when I do not deal with something straight away, the impact of that on my body is much more immediate and more intense than it ever used to be. Its like a damn opens up and the flood hits with a full impact. Its something I am still learning.
Put off one moment and it hangs unresolved in the next. Live this way over the following days and the weight of unresolved ‘things’ you will see is huge. Now imagine years of existing like this and you can see the traffic jams of our worst roads are nothing compared to what happens when we hold back the impulses of our Soul. Thank you Leigh for this beautiful blog.
I have been taught a lesson recently where I have had emails totally disappear into thin air, not in the trash or anywhere and after pondering on it I realised that it was because I was not dealing with them straight away and putting them off for later instead of just getting on and sorting them out. When I looked at things honestly I saw this same scenario playing out in other areas of my life so change is needed.
It is, to me, a moment of deep appreciation to be given such a clear sign. We are forever held in Gods love and forever being guided to return to the love we equally have inside.
That last minute rush, gets our adrenaline going and overworks our nervous system, we use it like a drug to get us moving, only to cause more delay.
I used to joke that I had a PhD in procrastination, but in truth it was no laughing matter as continually putting things off actually hurts the body in many ways. There is a tension that builds up day by day, a tension that will not ease until the task is complete. This tension is spread throughout the body causing an unnatural tightness which nothing, except completion will ease. And then of course there is the constant self-flagellation from putting off something that needs to be completed; the list goes on. So much has changed these days as a result of taking long honest look at why I was procrastinating. Not that easy to unravel but even making a start has begun to heal what I now know to be a very unhealthy way of living.
Leaving things to the last moment, we think we are coming away with it but our body does suffer the consequences. Justifying ourselves by making excuses when we are late tells us already we do know how it affects not only us but everyone involved.
I find it interesting that we have learnt to justify our actions from young, yet in doing so, it never leaves us with the space to consider our behaviours. It is a very insidious way that we have adapted to stop ourselves for taking responsibility.
I was too Doug, it was my biggest escape button. It kept me in a constant state of self criticism. How better than to halt any knowing of the absolute divine essence that I hold? As I write this there is still an aspect of my life where I have let this energy still play out. But now clocked, I can already feel it loosing its power.
For most my life I have arrived late for things, I would leave everything until the last minute and almost enjoy the fact that I had created so much tension, I would be stressed and react. I can still have very full days now where I am going from A to B but if I have honoured giving myself the time needed to be somewhere then it’s amazing how much space opens up and I don’t feel anything like as exhausted at the end of the day.
Whenever I leave something to the last minute, even if that particular thing doesn’t suffer, something in my life will. I can’t escape the fact that everything matters!
I am finding the more that I get onto things as they need to be dealt with, the procrastination and delaying the inevitable way is exhausting. From the minute I knew I could do something and ignored it or put it off, I am wasting energy avoiding it. Perhaps that’s why it feels so hard to come back to something you put off, because you have to trudge back through all this.
Everytime I arrive 10 minutes early for something I feel spaciousness in my body which feels freeing.
Leaving things to the last minute is a deliberate move we make to say “I cannot handle (am not ready to handle) the volume of what is on offer for me to express and deliver”. Of course, we are never given anything we cannot handle so this exposes the game we continually play making ourselves ‘less’ than the everything we are.
It’s quite a distraction to be worried about what others are thinking about you – to worry if they are thinking you are being productive enough or not and actually just makes us less truly productive!
Leaving things to the last minute inflames the nervous system with the ill- energy of rush, anxiousness and incompletion. It is totally exhausting going around on this repetitive cycle, rather like a demented hamster on a never-ending-wheel.
‘I am not enough’ has been the driving belief behind running late in my life, which has been the opposite movement to confirming who I truly am which is tender, delicate, super sweet and hugely powerful.
I have been one of those people who has left many things until the last minute, using the excuse that I’m just a laid back kind of person who doesnt let things stress me out. And up to a point this is true. But of course the inevitable eventually happens, as the pressure of not getting things done builds, and then the overwhelm kicks in as the amount of unfinshed jobs increases and the lack of time to get them done becomes apparent. This supports no one. By being prepared and always being on the front foot, we are always ready to take on the next thing that is there for us to do that supports the all, and this is where our responsibility lies.
This blog highlights how there are many more subtle ways that we put ourselves into nervous tension and stress by our approach to and quality in life. Many of us understand the external stressors in life but are not so aware of the more subtle ones at play such as leaving things to the last minute.
Running on adrenaline can be used as a fuel to keep going and give that extra bit of kick and energy to get over the line, yet again but it drains the body greatly and saps our vitality.
This is so very true, something we all know, but ignore and instead add to the fuel of adrenaline with sugar and caffeine. Deeply masking just how tired we are from the excess of motion we put our bodies into, needing more fuel to do our daily tasks than is truly needed.
Adrenaline can make us feel like we’re getting somewhere, achieving something, but if it’s all at the expense of the body, and we end up depleted, then what is the point?
Putting things off is exhausting. I get the image of a production line – if someone procrastinated at one of the assembly steps it would throw everything out of whack. Production would have to stop and the mess would take time to sort out. This is where I feel I’m at with procrastination at the moment. Rather than try and put on a show of productivity it’s time to get on with it while loving myself to the hilt.
It can be a challenge to not get caught up in the hurts that judgements create, after all, much of our society is based on the judgement of eachother, so the hurt from this must be so old and complicated, it must be something we all know so deeply and have perhaps become numb to its affects.
Since reading this blog for the first time I have noticed changes in my life eg. I took my son to the dentist yesterday and we were fifteen minutes early. I don’t recall ever being early for a dental appointment let alone with fifteen minutes to spare! It was lovely when we arrived but what I found interesting was even though I allowed plenty of time and we got there with plenty of time spare I found myself rushing. It made me realise how I had gone into a momentum without paying attention to my body because that is what I had done and lived in the past.
To keep on top of the things we need to do and even to be a step ahead so that we are prepared for anything unexpected that may come our way, keeps life simple and uncomplicated and there is a beautiful flow to everything that we do and all that occurs.
My sense is that to be prepared and a step ahead is another trick, as it again keeps us from the natural flow of life. In this there is little to no preparation, instead there is the simplicity of responding to what is there to be done, when it is there to be done.
Leaving things to the last moment leaves us stressed and in tension.
Shirley-Ann,
The efficiency in connection is profound, as things will come to our awareness to do, even though we may not have planned them. Yet all of a sudden it is there to do, and there is the space for it to be done.
And even if I started something well in advance and got most of it done, I’d put off completing it right till the very end… There is definitely something to look at here beyond the “I can’t be bothered” line.
Could it be that when we are in fact running late and or leaving things to the last minute that we are trying to control life and make it about ourselves. When we let go and allow the natural flow to be, it no longer becomes just about us. I have experienced this before with study or work. If there is a project needing to be done and I allow myself to just go in the flow of life, claiming the need to complete it of course but also not giving my power to it, my focus is not just on the project or on me but on the grander picture of everyone. When I focus just on the project and hence go into my own world, I am not in the flow and am oblivious to all
Thanks for the reminder I needed to read this ‘of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within’.
Do we allow ourselves to surrender? Or do we run with that lack of trust that gets us to keep on pushing… we are so much better off in every sense if we read and understand what is going on, and allow it to unfold and connect with the bigger picture.
To not give priority to the things that come easy to us as opposed to the things we see as a chore is something to truly be aware of. Completion before moving on to the next thing.
A beautiful understanding of the simplicity of listening to our body and not procrastinating and getting things done . The joy of living in connection and flow with the Universe is so different to the stress and pressure of leaving everything to the last minute and lack of presence and quality in what we know and do in stress and dissorder and function only.
It is our chosen blindness to the impact of our choices on others, ourselves and our relationship with life that reveals for me the madness and irresponsibility that is our normal and so not our natural, as you say.
There is no mistaking that waiting until the last minute is a stress on the body and giving ourselves ample time to be ready for something allows for more space and flow. It is important to realise that when we chose to procrastinate and cause that horrible tension in the body, that we are contributing to the dis-ease of humanity.
A beautiful understanding of the simplicity of listening to our body and not procrastinating and getting things done . The joy of living in connection and flow with the Universe is so different to the stress and pressure of leaving everything to the last minute and lack of presence and quality in what we know and do in stress and disorder and function only.
It feels that we can equally push to be ‘ahead of time’ in how we do things, driven by a nervousness and with an underlying anxiety of getting behind which is also not healthy.
Very true, another pattern that takes away the space we have in which to get things done and again squeezes us into a time frame. There is so much to look at in how we live our lives and where and how we partake in activities that leave us feeling pushed or anxious. True indicators of wether we are choosing to be in the tender steady flow of life, or in another more erratic, charged and stressed movement.
Leaving home with ‘just’ enough time is a big one. Immediately we put our bodies into a rush because we give ourselves no leeway. That has been a big one for me to break through, and it’s still a work in progress – but what I find is that when I do honour the fact that space ‘in between’ is good to have, the moments expand, and instead of a rush and constriction there is space itself.
Yes this is a good one to look at. I love leaving home early with loads of time to get where I need to go. It then doesn’t matter how long the journey takes, or if there are delays along the way. I use the time to read or meditate or catch up with emails. I have come to value this time hugely, so much so that if I go somewhere with a shorter journey time I feel somehow robbed! It’s so lovely to allow space in the preparation for the day. It sets us up in a great way for the day ahead.
I can really feel how you are enjoying this and I find it quite inspirational Rebecca as it is something for me to work on (I will let the word ‘still’ out, no judgement needed) I always find something to do in the last minutes before leaving the house which makes it all about time and not about space. And all about me and not about the whole.
There is a constant pressure and tension on the body when things are left to the last minute and it affects the quality of us and whatever it is we are involved with. When I stay connected with my body it naturally knows true timing.
I agree Victoria, when I stay with my body there is natural flow and timing and an ease in my body.
There is a natural rhythm flow and and order to life and us in and with it, and when we work against or resist this movement timing goes out the window.
‘my body knows what is needed when, but I more than often ignore its subtle messages’ I know this well and in the end my body always proves to have been the wiser, easier, fuller and more harmonious choice.
Well said Carolien, the body is so very wise. It knows much more than our brain can ever begin to fathom. So much so that the constant pressures of life, that can make us live with little thought of the body, let alone give it say can be looked upon with fresh eyes. Just how much do we let go of the connection with our body to make our way in this world? When it is the choice to give the body say that sets us up to live our life with great steadiness, and a wealth of wisdom that can never be surpassed.
Dealing with things until the last moment is one of the many ways that we dishonour ourselves which is why it feels so awful in our body. Our body and our being deserve to be honoured and cherished.
To allow space, to do one thing at a time and not give things that come more easy to me priority, is what helps me to not leave things to the last minute.
It is interesting to notice patterns, I get up quite early and have a lovely rhythm I do every morning, but I am aware I can sabotage this really easily by not leaving enough time to get ready for work and then stress out about making myself think I have to rush. So leaving this until the last minute, when there isn’t a need at all to rush, is a game I have played which I am now going to stop, thank you for helping me to nail that one.
This is a BIG subject. There are so many reasons, excuses and levels we can approach this subject from. What you have shown us hear loud and clear is that we still need to look deeply at why we are in such delay in all areas of our lives and how are we going to set about clearing this heavy momentum of delay. It is great to get the discussion started and to start reassessing our own behaviors with regards to this epidemic.
So what is commitment truly, living for ourselves and looking good or considering what is needed for all? A great sharing here which reminds me that life is about all of us and not one of us looking good.
My motto for today – “It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us.” thank you for the reminder.
It can be such a trap to use nervous tension and stress to get things done. It feels totally different to prepare and create space versus rushing around at the last moment to get things done or prepared.
Leaving things to the last minute has to be one of the easiest ways to sabotage any sense of stillness you have in your body. It creates a squeeze, a time pressure, stress and raciness in the body. In this state we lose clarity and perspective and what needs doing becomes more important than the quality in which we do it.
I like how you say “what needs doing becomes more important than the quality in which we do it.” It brings our way of life to a point. It is a state of being, or rather doing, that we have accepted as normal, but it serves us not, and we all know and feel the beauty and harmony when something is done with love and care instead of just because it needs to be done. Quality before quantity or time.
Squeeze is a great word to describe that rush and frenzy we get into Fiona – it’s no wonder we lose the spaciousness of our clarity.
And we create this so that we don’t have ‘time’ to be the amazing, connected and powerful beings we truly are.
Rush, drive and delay is a ploy designed to take us out of our natural rhythm, power and flow.
I love this blog Leigh. It is exposing truths about patterns many of us are living. It is a great reminder for me that my behaviours affects other people and in fact everything. I have experienced many times that I went on working on a project or had a talk with someone longer than the time space I had available which made me late somewhere else. The rushing to an appointment that usually follows has an impact on other people and the rest of my (and their ! ) day making me less present and making it harder for me to keep up with everything. As apposed to when I follow my first impulse to stop when it is enough and to trust that there will be enough time to finish up later when I respect my natural flow. Beneficial for me and all people I meet.
When we naturally feel and plan backwards like a Gantt chart, life flows, and if any small problem arises, they are exposed.
Leaving things to the last minute is one of the most common ways I have brought struggle into my life, for running even just a little bit late at the beginning of the day affects my whole day by bringing an unnecessary strain and taking away my confidence just a bit. The day is then a little hard when it is actually naturally very easy.
Beautifully exposed Thomas, I am hearing you.
How true Thomas – we make it hard when we leave things to the last minute.
What I’m exploring more lately is how infinitely wise our bodies are.. mine knows what time I need to wake up, when to sleep, how much work to do on this or that project. When I actually feel into what needs to be done next and not what I’d quite like to do or feel like I ‘should’ do, the result is so different – what needs to be done gets done, with enough space, and often I’m asking what else I could do, feeling more space.
“Innately we all know our worth, our value and what it is that we individually bring to society. We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.” This is very confirming to hear, to stop the constant doubt and struggle, and to simply allow ourselves to live that what we innately know to be true and not deny ourselves nor anybody else our innate true qualities or play them down or up in any way.
As our choices impact on others more often than not and we would do well to acknowledge this as it will support us in the choices we make and it will allow for us to consider and understand the needs of others.
This, in practice by all would change our world in a week.
I have found from personal experience that to commit to what I feel needs to be done is very revitalising and energising for the body, and there is a lethargy or raciness if I hold off, even if I attend to something in place of what I feel impulsed to do. Commitment is definitely a very supportive part of life to explore, so long as it’s not an ideal but something felt as true for oneself.
Does running ever Truly serve our body or does it simply supply us with adrenaline because we go into fight or flight mode? So running late definitely does not cut the mustard and only drops us in the muck.
So glad I read this today, I said to my husband you could be writing this blog for me, I often have a tendency to leave things to the last minute and end up rushing. It so true what you say Leigh this impacts everyone not just ourselves.
It is like there is a buzz we get from just making it on time and that this is the normal way of being. So when we introduce giving ourselves space to not push, go in to tension or stress but to simply enjoy the journey life is transformational.
Or maybe it’s not so much the buzz but the anxiety it causes and the motion, being in the next moment, always feeling like we are running behind all suits the same purpose, to not have this space for in space we get to meet ourselves.
Leaving things to the last minute puts us into a drive and a push that takes us out of the universal rhythm that governs all life, and into a self-created one that pulls against this symphony.
The big show of ‘being productive’ often comes in to play when we do not think that we are enough just as we are, that it is not what we ‘do’ that gives us our sense of worth.
I have found that I can do this in the morning – sleeping in till the last minute, leaving just enough time to get ready because I feel tired but then when I’m up I feel the pressure of not having any time and wanting space to be able to get ready – it then impacts my whole day and the extra 20 minutes don’t provide me any truer sleep.
‘The other thing that I have observed when I am holding back from doing the next thing is the excuse I use – “oh, sorry I am late, but I had to complete…” – because it sounds good and proves how ‘committed’ I am to my work or the project at hand.’ Yes Leigh, it is amazing how many respectable-sounding excuses the human spirit can invent – my spirit is a master of that one i.e. the sounding-good excuse to cover myself for being late. There is something so beautiful about being on time without rush – and so honouring for all parties involved in the meeting.
It is the merry-go-round of delay, delay…. and then action.. that keeps the constant unsettlement and overwhelm of nervous energy in our body.
And this unsettlement is the avoidance of the Stillness within that speaks the truth of who we truly are, so that we have an excuse to live less than this and thus indulge in all that this way of living offers to keep us from such truth.
A beautiful reminder of the constriction we place on everything when we fight ourselves and time itself, and the spaciousness we allow to come into our lives when we let go of the holding on, the constriction, and accept the flow within life – which we are in regardless of whether we accept it and allow it, or not.
‘do we live in the stress of constantly proving that we are productive, creating a tension between ourselves and all others?’ – More or less everything in our society is set up to be productive, it is often about deadlines and goals and the pressure of living up to these, which can easily create the tension of comparison as well as not feeling we are able to fullfil the expectations from our surroundings as well as ourselves.
There is a clarity that comes from just getting on with things and not getting bogged down in over thinking anything. For me it is the overthinking that takes up space and time and this I find is, quite frankly, exhausting.Simply by getting on with it not only does a lot more time and space open up but also I work out the way the task needs to be approached just by feel.
I’ve always disliked leaving things to the last minute but of course sometimes I run late with things and my body shows me loud and clear how this is affecting me, tense muscles and push to get things done in time or live in time, and if this is how I am being this is how I am walking and what I take to the day. Thanks to my body with this awareness I can change the energy I’m in, re imprint how I’ve been and come back to me and the flow of life.
Or staying up just a little later to finish x, y or z… thinking that is important but really just pushing a little bit which has a ripple effect on the next day and all our interactions in that.
Leaving things to the last minute is usually alerting me that I’m choosing to make situations complex rather than simply doing what is true.
We create a constant backdrop of tension and pressure when we leave things to the last minute and we get so used to living with this dis-ease that we think and convince ourselves that it is normal.
We put a pressure and try and fit our life or our being into time. I mean this needs to be done by this time or you fail is pretty generally the message. Who runs time though and does it care about you or your being? Time is our creation, man made and we have different parts of the world on different times and yet we are all suppose to adhere to time, be on time, have it done by this time, run out of time etc etc. What if our direct relationship with time had nothing to do with time but with the space we have around us. I mean we have possibly all had the experience of time standing still almost or the clock running super fast and yet it doesn’t change how the hand ticks but what changes is how we are ‘in time’. I just feel the pressure and intensity that we aim at ourselves through time has directly the reverse of what we want, almost sets us up. I am slowly letting go how I have used time and the clock on myself and I have a lot more space to do what is there to be done and you can never be late from here.
“it also highlights true commitment as we are no longer committed to what we want or think needs to be done, but to society as a whole.” true commitment has to do with service to humanity, when we live this way life has a flow to it, instead of service to self which creates anxiety and tension.
There is really something that doesn’t sit right in leaving things to the last minute, why put ourselves and others under unnecessary stress, sure some might say they need the pressure to perform but is this truthful especially when it effects others.
And we can all feel that ‘does not sit right’ tangibly in the body… a slight rush, or tension, or distraction (or all three). So why do we do it, or rather why do we repeat it?
When we leave things to the last minute, it affects our rhythm from flow to floundering so sometimes it needs a force to push it through. The other quite serious effect too realise is that it not only affects us, it affects others in contact with us.
Procrastination and delay really build a sense of sluggishness in the body and then to compensate we go into anxiousness and drive to complete a task… all of which does not support the body to remain vital and in good health.
I agree and we hold time as a marker of good and bad almost. On time, good and over time or out of time bad. It creates the very pressure that pushes you almost out of sync with everything that is going on around you. We need to take care with ourselves in how we use time and how we see others use time. We need not delay I agree but also open up to seeing more then just the hands on the clock as a point to judge or make a call on how something is.
When we relinquish our desire to control everything and start to go with the flow of what is truly needed for all and not just for ourselves, I have found a sense of joy in being a part of something truly grand.
Leaving the house with just enough time to get there is an old pattern of mine and actually it creates so much stress in my body especially when there is a delay in traffic which I did not take into account which means I get annoyed with myself and my old pattern. The difference it makes when I leave in plenty of time is simply amazing, space seems to open up, there is no tension in my body and I am relaxed and with myself when I arrive at my destination.
I agree and so it’s our relationship with how we are and not the clock that allows us space in time. Whether we see ‘on time’, ‘out of time’ or ‘plenty of time’, how we are with time is the key.
Leigh, I am really aware of how my family are affected when I’m trying to prove my worth. I can feel that if I am not in these moments present with them but in my head thinking about everything and mulling things over, and that my movements are not gentle and loving, the ripple effects on others is huge.
I love the point you make about being productive, it shows how much we fall for the outer appearance and how we deny ourselves to appreciate what we truly bring.
Your blog is relevant for so many people Leigh, I have earlier been notorious at being late for appointments and I used to make up lies to have an excuse for not taking responsibility for being late.
When we dont rush those in between moments we can’t get to feel that it is important to bring ourselves to every moment in life fully.
Yes, and that they are actually what life is about, or more so, being present in every moment allows us to truly experience and enjoy life consistently, instead of the usual ups and downs and highs and lows.
At those times when I have cut my time/space short put my body into a rush, it always happens that I then haven’t factored in something and I need more time so now I am learning to just stay with me to complete it and not drive myself more to get it done and I always end up getting to where I am going just on time without a rush.
There is leaving things to the last minute and then there is leaving things unattended. This has a huge impact on our wellbeing and on our body. We are meant to deal with things as they come up and complete whatever it is. What I find interesting is that somethings I attend quickly and other things I leave and leave and its often the things that I am not keen to do. This produces an overwhelm for at some point we end up have so much left that is not complete (or even started) that it can be difficult just to get started, thereby building up more.
I know that ‘leaving home at the last minute’ trick very well. I have noticed the task where I get ‘lost in time’ is when dealing with the morning’s emails on the computer. This is the one where stretches of time seem to disappear out the window without me noticing and then I have to run out the door for work or wherever. I certainly can never go on the computer when I am cooking or else I will end up burning the food. It is not a very honouring way to conduct life and it keeps us out of rhythm of the day.
Online auction sites are like horseraces. The winner is determined in the final sprint to the finish line, and the winner is only known with the photo finish. Most things in life can be a gamble when left to the last moment. Life becomes a pachinko ball randomly falling through space. What happens when we feel into the results of our choices before, rather than to continually have our hands on the flippers in reaction to our choices
There is a stress felt within the whole body when there is a pressure to complete something last minute, an urgency that pushes and drives us, so even when I know I am running a little late, I work on allowing it to flow, knowing it will be completed in the time required and it always works.
Great point Gill – when the ‘running late feeling’ comes in, to stay super present in the moment and not to start rushing. Yes I find this response to ‘thinking’ I’m running let always allows for things to come together.
I like what is being said here as this relationship is the key. It is all the focus on and with time that hits at us and knocks us out. Time is important for many things but it isn’t the marker we give over to as we all have a different perception of what time is. I mean for some 10 minutes early is actually late and for others 5 minutes late is actually early. None of it makes sense and yet we toss it around like it’s the be all and end all. Our relationship with how we are, our quality is the marker no matter what the heading that is coming to us.
There are so many things that I have left to the last minute that often it didn´t even make sense anymore to do them at all hence all these last minute things have accumulated to a huge pile of undone, incomplete moments that are a heavy weight on my way onwards. What may be shrugged off as laziness or lack of care (and that may play a role as well) is actually a strategy to sabotage oneself from being successful, successful in the sense of activating and expressing one´s full potential.
It’s much harder to be really present with what we’re doing and aware of the quality in which we’re doing it and relating with everyone if we’re rushing ourselves! It’s not that we have to do things slowly to take care or be energetically aware and responsive but if there is that rush factor it makes it much harder!
“When I live under the constant drive of proving my worth in society my family is the front-line receiver of my behaviour and are impacted daily in a multitude of ways, feeling the disregard when the simple daily life processes are ‘done in a hurry’ or simply ‘left to another time.’” Ouch….goodness Liegh, this is so exposing. It really highlights the responsibility we have to treat everthing we do, and all that we are asked to do with the same level of importance and commitment so that nothing suffers as a result of our delay in not addressing things as they occur. This has featured alot in my life, and although it has changed, is something I am still working with.
Leaving things to the last minute leaves us without enough space to feel the grandness of who we are so perhaps procrastinating is a deliberate tool we use to avoid going to the next level within ourselves?
I agree Elizabeth.There is absolutely no reason to procrastinate, even though we may make excuses such as I am too busy. But if we began to be more honest with ourselves, this in itself would make a huge difference as to whether we procrastinate.
I can so relate to this Elizabeth, and what you have expressed really hits home and could it be that we are uncomfortable with space and our grandness having always chosen the opposite; contraction and everything that is not love… But we all have the power in any moment to choose differently, and it begins with accepting who we are, we are love, we come from love , love is our very essence.
If I had a record of all the time I have wasted or spent procrastinating about something I feel it would be quite shocking. I fine on normal everyday work matters but anything outside of that tends to have me going around in circles a lot of the time often leaving it to the last minute. This never feels good and the energy of it definitely does effect others.
Yes and look at how we play around with time or more so how time plays with us. I mean what is a lot of time or no time? For us this can have a wide range of definitions, for some 5 minutes is a lot of time for others that’s no time and for more still that’s to insignificant to even bother with. Where we are with time, our relationship to it is the key no matter if it’s on, about or in, time isn’t the true marker for where things are at but more a distraction.
This blog reminds me of how supportive it is to not leave things to the last minute. Last year I went traveling with my children to Europe to visit family and friends. We travelled a fair bit on trains. I had felt how easy it was for me to go into stress and make our travels unpleasant when I leave things to the last minute. After a few times of stress, I decided to leave plenty of time to arrive at train stations to catch our trains on time to eliminate going into stress. On one occasion after arriving early, I realised we had gone to the wrong station but because I had allowed plenty of time we were able to walk to the correct station and catch our train without stress.
It really is simple. And being willing to live with the ease of addressing something as is shared here is key to the way our lives are lived.
Sometimes we can set ourselves up into a rhythm that causes us to perform only because of the anxiety and pressure of a last minute rush – sometimes we have to take extra care to support ourselves to have space and prepare so we don’t fall into this pattern, even just leaving the house a little earlier than normal, going to bed a bit earlier etc
Yes, if we begin to consider what putting ourselves into that anxiety and push has a direct affect in our body, using energy, activating stress hormones and ultimately, over time creating a body that suffers from exhaustion and hormonal imbalances, would we be so keen to continue a behavior that exacerbated such bodily changes? The choice to care for our body is very much needed.
I agree, but for many this way of living has become so normal and confirmed everywhere they look, that they don’t consider that its wrong or could be different. We are accepting a far lower level of vitality and joy simply because we have not experienced that it can be another way.
Judgements are most certainly a prison Leigh – well put. Our truth and love is our freedom and flow and anything less than that immediately causes a bar of the prison-house to go up. No wonder that detective series and crime series are so popular on the screen for people – at some level we all know that we are committing the crime of building our own prison.
That’s a very astute observation Lundy. Could it be that we all know the prison we build around us, yet don’t want the responsibility we actually each have to make the lifestyle choices needed to allow the bars to dissolve.
Absolutely Leigh. The last thing the spirit wants is to be responsible about its life-style choices. Its only desire is to sabotage the body because otherwise we will be in connection to the divine particles which clearly communicate to us that we are not ‘individuals’ we are part of a grander whole. The spirit will do anything to retain its individuality and it wants to keep the prison bars well in place.
I would say that, yes, our families are affected by the need to be seen as busy for a sense of self-worth. And I would say that not only have I lived this way but so have many people that I know, so much so that it actually seems normal to rush and push because in the rushing and the pushing there is a sense of purpose or belonging that was not there before but was so dearly missed.
A powerful blog showing us that we know exactly to come on time or not.. There is a grander reason to why.. From my own experience I can tell that I have often come too late or just too late so that I would be less aware of the instances and energy coming towards me and or the responsibility I had to take following on from that. An easy game that can be played, like you shared with an accepted excuse, no one truly notices what I was wanting to escape dealing with. A profound lesson that I take along, to keep feeling whenever I am late and also how actually truly beautiful it feels when I am in the honoring of time.
‘Are our families being impacted by our behaviour, and by how we feel when we are living under the stress of needing to prove our worth and value to society?’ I can feel that in trying to prove ourselves we may work harder and for longer hours, spending less time with our families. We maybe thinking about work and how we do things better – trying to prove our worth and so we may not truly be with our partners, husbands or children.
I have been finding this with work in that there has been so much do to things have got put to one side and paperwork left that needs to be done for ages. Even going in a lot earlier hasn’t truly supported clearing this so tomorrow I am going in on a day off to clear some more but ultimately when this done (both at work and at home) it is to look at my rhythm and momentum and to change this so this never happens again. My body feels soo very much better when I am organised and everything is clear and not left to the last minute.
I agree Vicky – when there is a sense of things being disorganised it has a detrimental to the body and it feels horrible!
Leaving things to the last minute may serve some to build enough pressure to finally take some sort of action but actually it doesn´t serve the matter at hand as it is not the cause as such that we then take care of but we are only relieving ourselves from the build up pressure to then fall back in the same behaviour like before waiting for the next build up of delayed energy to repeat itself all over again.
When we feel something, then it is time to act and put it into place, as we are actually given the energy to do something the instant that we feel the project/the activity etc. Delaying or procrastinating only makes things harder to get going and to complete…This is something I often battle with as I feel the need and get excited but then I begin to question it or doubt that I have the time or the capacity to do what is needed, thinking that it will be hard work or take a lot of time…but it does not have to be this way if we work with the flow.
Leaving things to the last minute is a classic way to undermine us and all that we can bring.
Well described Henrietta, Yes, it does undermine the potential of all that a person brings, under the guise of an adrenaline-pumped victorious feeling of completion
I agree Henrietta, leaving things to the last minute is a sure way to get myself into stress and overwhelm which means I move and express in an energy that is harmful to me, to everyone around me and beyond. I now see that stress and overwhelm is all self-created and not serving or supportive in any way.
Reading this again I suddenly got how if we are running late and have a low level of stress means we are not going to arrive in our fullness but of a number we are engaging in huh!
We are constantly reflected how our movements reflects back to another and beyond. Hence our movements come with responsibility and we must be living in a way that does not disturb the love that we are. So there is work to be done, love to make. To walk in power and love all the way.
You raise an important point Leigh of how we value ourselves and others and bringing our full presence to each moment and situation can reflect an acceptance and equal-ness amongst us.
What I am learning more is to get things done in the moment it presents, I connect to my body and feel if it is needed in that moment. I find working this way I get what needs to be done, done and this also supports me in not being late in things that need to be done.
I can attest that leaving things to the last minute is simply stressful! And it’s way more supportive at work, in the home, when leaving places etc when things aren’t left to the last minute which I wanted to do. Saying that sometimes I have surprised my self with doing things at a time that I thought was too late but turned out to be early! All with a sense of un-attachment I say.
‘leaving things to the last minute” a stressful way to live and this is a great exposing of this to look at when the reality is we do have all the time needed to complete things if we simply get on with it in our rhythm and flow and stop procrastinating allowing the space to open up for us and this is very beautiful to feel.
True Leigh , We leave a great impact and imprint behind when we are rushing or in delay.
“Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it. Living this way brings a flow, an ease to life and a deep trust in ourselves:” I used to believe that I ‘should’ complete everything I was working on and giving myself a hard time for not doing so. However on learning to go with the flow I now know when it is time to allow some fallow time for something, only to return to it with renewed energy.
I am observing how leaving things to the last minute is an unconscious but deliberate sabotage that stops our essence from being able to flourish. For instance, a person may have been doing really well, feeling very steady and lovely. When they are going out they leave too many things to do to the last minute and end up arriving rushed and apologetic, instead of shining (and attracting attention)!
I like what you share here Fiona,
We keep ourselves in a motion, any motion, in preference of showing our steadiness and authority.
The things I leave until the last minute are often brilliant as I seem to find the most efficient and effective way to do them as I have to leave my head out of the equation to get things done as there is no time to question myself or doubt myself. On the other hand, I don’t like rushing out the door or being late for appointments so have learnt that getting ready for departure from the home does need timing and precision, and a certain amount of getting out of one’s own way.
There is a huge difference between leaving something to the last minute and doing something that it is felt to do moments before it is needed. Each way of being brings its own source of energy. One is full of complication and delay, the other is simple and expresses the grace of living in and with the flow of life.
I find this one shows me up constantly. The me being what is shown up! The constant cutting things fine is not being in space!
Whilst we keep trying to perform and look a certain way to the outside world, in this case busy and productive, we are colluding in the lies, falsehood and deception of keeping up some kind of appearance… this is really destructive, as the barrier to honesty in all our relationships.
It is a barrier to our relationships as it is the insidiousness of competition under the guise of being busy.
‘Leaving Things to the Last Minute’ is a lack of commitment to life and thus people, quality, soul – everything that life is actually about.
I am late sometimes and I do feel the impact it has on everyone but I do not bash myself about it and ask myself why to understand deeper. Usually when I am late I have not finished something for myself because I have been doing too much or doing something for others, so that makes me not want to rush doing things for myself but the space is not enough. So there is the recognition of doing things for others.
“We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.” as I read this I felt a real settlement in my body, an at easement and I felt more connected.
I can see a pattern of leaving things to the last minute comes from me making life about me and what I need – and not considering that there is a far bigger dimension to life – one that embraces and encompasses everyone.
Yes, agreed Susan. We realise that there is a far grander movement going on that flows not to our perception of time and clock when we rush when leaving things to the last moment. The human body is like the ‘meat in the sandwich’ and thus can feel the difference between both movements… the flow of the Soul and the man-made pace of time.
The ‘meat in the sandwich’ is a great analogy as effectively the body comes along regardless yet shows us in more ways than one which movement and energy we are aligned to and thus moving in and with. There is so much more than purely us but as soon as we make it about us suddenly our focus becomes so narrow we forget about everyone and everything else.
This is so true, it feels a ‘real catch 22’ that when I am late, everything gets in the way to make me later, compared to when I am in plenty of time, there is a lot more space in the day. I understand how this is governed by the type of energy I am in, affecting me and my movements, so it is a great learning to look at this because it influences everyone .
What I am appreciating more and more is that by leaving things until the last minute, or in other words delaying doing something that you feel an impulse to do, but not doing it, you actually miss an opportunity that could quite possibly support you with your next step in life. Because of the very nature of the ripple effect of energy, that same thought will come to someone else and they will act on it, leaving you with that missed opportunity, and often feelings of disappointment or regret. And of course, this supports no one.
‘There is a very real ripple effect to living with this need to prove my value’, Leigh, reading this I can feel that if I am feeling confident in myself and not trying to prove myself then I bring a joy and a lightness to my work and my family and all those I meet, if I get stuck in lack of self worth, I notice that I am not truly connected with me and that there is also a lack of connection with others.
We can only leave things to the last minute because we are so busy with only ourselves and do not give an eye to the grander order we live in. Otherwise we would be in the flow and rhythm of life and anything will be completed in its own time that is needed to be able to move on the the next that is already given.
Running late and then rushing is a killer – there is no way we can really be fully with ourselves or even gentle with what we are doing, when we are rushing, and then we feel frazzled for quite a while afterwards, as this has hammered our nervous system hugely. I still catch myself rushing when the head takes over, but what I have also realised is that if I can catch myself early enough and hold myself in a flow, then even if I am running a little late, it is like things work around me to support me. For example I might be late to a meeting, but I have not rushed to get there, and when I get there everyone else has been delayed too! And the worst is when I have rushed to get somewhere only to find that I then have to stand there and wait for whatever reason, and this is when it is clearly reflected to me that the rushing was totally unnecessary! You live and learn every day!
Yes the learning you share here Henrietta Chang is that we are always hurrying yet we all get there in the end – so why not add more quality and presence to the moment.
Yes thats another thing I am working on is the quality in what I am getting done, taking this to a deeper level of responsibility, working with bringing more presence and connection.
Hurry up, come on, quick quick…those are things we hear often and I recall hearing this as a child when I was found ‘dawdling’ and my parents had to go somewhere quickly. When you are a child time ceases to exist, and there is only space, then as adults, we forget about the space and live only by the dictates of time. And it takes time to break this habit – how ironic! When we allow enough space, it is like time expands for us, and even though we have to live in a world that is governed by schedules and dictated by times, we all still have the choice to develop a relationship with space so that we do not feel constrained by time itself. This is something I am learning and putting into practice too!
Me too… and I am blown away by the impact of affording myself the space to breathe without the constraints of rushing and anxiousness.
I have to observe myself when I allow the space in my life especially when I am with my children but not indulge in it therefore changing my movements from creating space to procrastination and avoiding what is being asked of me… a relationship with space I am learning and developing too!
Awesome sharing Leigh – I love allowing enough time to get somewhere and hate it when I end up rushing as it affects me for a while afterwards!
I hate rushing too, I love to have time around me to feel the space and connect to myself. If I leave things to the last minute my body feels so tensed and others feel it too.
Looking below the covers of our behaviours offers great insights into the real reason we do things, and from there evolution is on offer.
This applies to literally everything in life yes, we always have a choice to move with the awareness we have come to through our life’s experience. With this approach we need no react to what we meet rather change our response.
Great observation Leigh. How we are with ourselves is how we are with others – unavoidable.
‘Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us?’ – It affects the quality of of our being and everything we do and hence will affect everyone we come in contact with and beyond.
Sure Eva, coming late does effect everyone and ourselves. It all comes from the arrogance of the thought that we are individuals, not being part of a grander whole and that anything we do will not affect anybody. So in that light coming late is very disrespectful to the grandness we are are part of and of course to all people that are affected by this act.
I agree there is alot of arrogance in this and making it about the self, rather than being responsible planning and knowing that our moves and choices will effect others.
Leaving things till the last minute is a very clever way to pretend we are a slave to time. But if we stop and stand back it is obvious that it we were the ones leaving it to the last minute, we are the master and creator of our own experience.
Leaving things to the last minute is always a recipe disaster. Having a flow of future planning precludes the creation of ripples.
It always depends on what is needed. Some things are best left to the last minute – for freshness, for timing’s sake, for many reasons. What is not great is the energy of procrastination.
Great distinction here Lyndy! Steve is spot on with saying that leaving things to the last minute is a recipe for disaster, but I love the play on words you have done here by suggesting that some things are best to be left to the last minute as some recipes do not hold if made too early on before eating! 😉 And of course, yes the energy of procrastination is certainly a great way to sabotage us!
Making gravy for a roasted lamb dinner, is an important last minute task! Procrastination doesn’t postpone, it retards.
Very true Lyndy it is definitely about what is the true timing, procrastination is an awful feeling.
ThIs is a beautiful reminder how very worth it is to get to know ourselves by getting a feel of and to feel our bodies.
I find that I try and do too much in one day, not allowing myself to stop when I have done enough which leaves me setting off on the wrong foot the next day as I carry that momentum of drive and busyness with me.
Leaving things to the last minute and being regularly late are actually quite different phenomena. The first one heightens the nervous system and adrenaline kicks in and it gets very stressful to arrive after a 2 hour .drive with 30 seconds to spare but one isn’t late. Being late seems to be a different way to diminish ourselves.
It’s funny to observe yourself when you do choose to do something at the last minute, and seeing that your actually choosing to put yourself into nervous tension to get it done or to get where you need to be in a shorter amount of time. And then blame time for not giving you enough of it, when we were in time but chose to step out of rhythm to tick a box that would give us something.
Leaving things to the last minute sucks, as it then sends me into a spin and I end up not doing it correctly or forgetting things etc. Creating space to complete things is far more supportive and the responsible thing to do if I want to give my all to what ever task is at hand..
Struggle allows us to push our power away. How ironic in a world were so many seem to grapple to dominate and control that we fight delay and avoid our true strength. Thank you Leigh.
There is more space available when we do not leave things to the last minute…which offers me the reason why I have been one of this people who races at the last minute. Space and stillness, are we willing to be more with ourselves or do we use the race to be distracted from that relationship with ourselves, space and stillness?
As much as being late can have to do with a self-worth issue in that we wanted to prove we were busy with something else which would prove our worth, I also feel that not doing anything avoiding the flow and ease that comes when we do just do the things we feel to do can be because we don’t feel we are worth the amazing flow and ease in life.
‘I am becoming aware though, that ‘leaving things to the last minute’ can be played out in many different ways in our lives,’ Absolutely Leigh…. delay is everywhere, great to observe where it slips in.
Leaving something to the last minute is actually something i am going through at the moment on a project and it feels awful. Reading this blog highlights the stuck-ness I am feeling when I think of the project and therefore my movements and how I am approaching it are all not me – they come with a heaviness and me wanting to just ignore it all. It shows that we can really set ourselves up to not be who we truly are.
“The revenge of the energy that wasn’t expressed in time.” 🙂
The stress our bodies feel when working in the last minute to get something completed is very hard on the body, I know once I get down to something I have been putting off, it always felt so easy to complete and I wonder why I had allowed so much delay. Learning to work within our rhythm has so much more flow to it, delay does not serve us.
I understand that Gill, it is like once we commit to completing something it really is easy to do so. This, to me, reveals the importance of being willing to go with the flow of what is there for us to complete. For without us committing to ‘getting something done’, the time it takes to complete will be constantly fraught with complication.
When planning journeys, I build in the ‘what if’s’ especially related to travel delays and disruptions.
Moments of magic and amazing conversations don’t cease to exist when we’re rushing and leaving things to the last minute, they just get none of our attention and we do not clock when there is something incredible to appreciate. Thus the joy of life and relationships are missed out on.
I am practicing changing one aspect of the way I work and that is simply to arrive at meetings 10 minutes early. I did this yesterday and I found the space invaluable to respond to emails / messages with clients and what I hadn’t appreciated until writing this is that at the end of the day I didn’t feel tired because I had not been using stress to drive me.
That is so key Fiona, living a life of constant stress uses more energy than living a steady, focused and willingness to respect the moment to moment life.
The difference in feeling when you are 1 minute late as opposed to 1 minute early is palpable, and like you Leigh, I’ve invariably left things to 1 minute late in order that I can squeeze one last thing in. That feeling in which I arrive very much defines the quality of the next thing – is there space for me to express everything that is there to do or to say? Or is it compacted in a breathless urgency that means I don’t feel what is going on?
Leaving things to the last minute is but one of many techniques we use to dull our awareness which works somewhat but then we get smashed by life because only awareness truly protects us from being affected by what is happening around us.
Leaving things to the last moment is also a way to continuously tell ourselves that we are busy which can be a great way to avoid things that we need to address in our life.
To true. Yet whilst we do this, what needs to be addressed sits there and can often become bigger and harder the longer we leave it. What we don’t tend to feel though is how leaving things of importance affects others.
What is presented in this blog really brings up a potential debate of what we feel is more important in life: super productivity that comes from someone disconnected from themselves and with anxiousness or other emotions or quality of work that is done with full connection to not only oneself but in consideration of everyone and the whole of the systems we live in. The former model usually takes a self-centred individualistic approach that is in constant need for recognition and acceptance from others, whereas the latter knows whom they are and lives the same love they have for themselves in everything they do. Seems like an easy choice for me, because I know the self-centred approach only leads to exhaustion and many emotional issues, in my experience.
What I have noticed is when we leave things to the last minute, is that ‘urgency’ is felt in the body as a rush, push or anxiety, and consequently a stress or ‘fight or flight’ response starts. We can get used to this pace and rapid way of doing things that gradually this rush of doing things becomes a habit in the way we move and go about our everyday normal activities. We can see then how easily stress becomes threaded, enmeshed and embedded in our physiology and way of living if we don’t bring ‘stop moments’ to reconnect with our body and ourselves into our day.
For me it feels that I cause a delay in order to sabotage and not have to respond instantly to the next thing which requires it but instead allows some degree of control despite the effects on how I feel.
Of late my days have become very full, and I am finding there is no time to have a checkout moment, and I like it. I actually feel more alive and productive, but not rushed or pushed. Its interesting how we rush so we can check out. Or delay so we don’t have to move on.
This is so relatable Leigh, the word that is ringing in my mind is completion. A process that allows for the next moment to be offered. Are we surrendering enough to allow completion to allow evolution.
Leaving things to the last minute, guarantees that I can fill my day up with stuff so I do not have to feel what is going on in my body, that I do not want to feel.
The steady knowing of our innate essence and purpose to live in connection to that, bringing this as an equal knowing with everyone you interact with would change our world in no time at all.
Sometimes I rush and leave the little things to the last minute to stop me from thinking about all the big things that I need to get done. It is almost a protection, the rush is a comfort, the anxiety, a protection.
I get what you mean Sarah. I know now that when I fall back into a habit of rushing, it’s that old familiar feeling of staying in a level of overwhelm or anxiety and using that as an excuse for why I can’t deal with the little things that crop up in a day that inevitably turn into something bigger as I let everything slide. That’s the protection, being able to hide behind all the busyness.
Busyness has been a big one for me, I love the idea of a still room, no noise, no people. When I was young, I couldn’t think of anything worse than being on my own and now I relish every moment. What I see now, is, I am really craving an internal stillness and this, I can have, every day if I choose to take.
It feels so good to come out of procrastination and actually do what needs to be done. There is then no indulgence or delay, and therefore more energy available. At the end of the day we are not helping ourselves when we resist doing things until the last minute.
I would say that one of the keys to living a joy full life is the willingness and ease to follow those natural impulses and inbuilt knowings. the fact that there is no time is often an excuse I have found as honouring those impulses shows and allows more space to be.
“I am becoming aware though, that ‘leaving things to the last minute’ can be played out in many different ways in our lives..” So true. When we start to pick apart our lives it becomes clear that there are many more ways of delaying doing things than just the obvious ones. But by virtue of a willingness to be aware of these, it becomes much easier to address them and ultimatley as a result, to look at the reason why we put things off.
So true, the awareness, and willingness to respond to what we feel is key.
‘Or is there a ripple effect happening that we are very knowingly choosing to ignore in preference to feeling our own self-importance?’ I can feel how I play this ‘very busy card’ to look important and not have time for things that I deem to be less important but what if everything was equally important and it was the quality that I took to each and every task that mattered. This would feel very different and no doubt space would open up and I would discover that I wasn’t all that busy after all, I was just making it look that way.
Yes, when we do things in a hurry we are denying ourselves and everyone the space to bring the true qualities of our soulful being into our movements and interactions.
This is a great description of how doing things as and when they need to be done, rather than on our own terms, changes our commitment from self-orientated to about humanity; “we are no longer committed to what we want or think needs to be done, but to society as a whole” – Simple changes to how we approach ‘time’ and ‘space’ can make enormous ripples.
Spot on with a laser like clarity Susie – this comment flushes out the underlying reason for our tardiness. Is it all about ourselves, or do we commit to a wider agenda that includes all those around us?
Being busy to achieve an end does not guarantee the quality of energy in which we are conducting ourselves and moving.
Observing life without judgement is key to understanding each other and living our truth.
Image all the times we ‘Delay’ for absolutely no good reason and added them all up! How many life times have we not discerned what is True and created the space to honour our True-self? Or as Leigh has so eloquently shared. “We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.”
When I make it about time there is an instant tension in my body which makes any spaciousness that was there disappear.
I know this pattern of waiting till the last minute to do thing, in my case leaving the house i.e.to go to a client. Almost on purpose it seems I delay myself by starting something = distract myself from leaving, even if I am ready to leave. I became very much aware of the ripple effect of this pattern – on my body, the way I travelled in stress and how it effected my clients. I have ‘dismantled’ this pattern now step by step and I am starting to get the hang of it without perfection. The effects are huge: spacious feeling of moving, very much in time to sit in the train and be super in time for my appointment being at ease and present with my client.
All we need to do is to prepare ourselves to choose the quality of impulse we receive and respond to them – anything else is us getting in the way and trying to take control.
And the moment we choose not to stay in that flow and respond – we are instantly delaying.
I love how we can so accurately leave things to the last minute, for example arrive to work 1 minute before start time – it shows how aware we are about what is truly needed but just manipulate it!
I am a person that does things at the last minute, what I have realised is that I was not as committed to life as I could be I was reluctant to be there do something, be responsible. I am less likely to be late or push through to get something done. It feels good to be more prepared and ready without pushing. Caring for myself has meant I am more committed to life they correspond greatly.
Delay is certainly one to keep an eye on, and what i’m learning is to look at why i’m delaying that particular thing.
Gosh, Leigh, if everyone in the world had even one moment of realisation that what they choose has a constant ripple effect out into the world, we would be living in a very different global society.
I would always prepare things beforehand and never leave things until the last minute. I remember my mother being amazed at how I would settle down to study for my final exam at High School a couple of weeks before the date and make sure that all was prepared for that particular subject. Lately I sometimes find myself leaving something I was going to prepare for a student’s tutorial only to find that they ring up to say they have to be at a special football practice. My body seems to know when I need to prepare.
Do we put things off till the last minute to keep the pot boiling on the stove? Does stress become part of our rhythm? Or, can we be aware of what is needed and when, that eliminates the clock.
There is a natural flow in life in which we can live at a pace that supports our body and or whole being in our way back to soul. It is only the interference of our mind that tries to get us off this ‘easy’ track and instead will make us not complete at all or not in the moment that was available to us, in the end making us delay this way back to Soul and extending our life in creation.
Leaving things till the last minute – it’s a form of sabotage that we are fully responsible for.
Love the pithiness of your comments Nikki!
I had to google what “pithiness” meant – love the word 🙂
I love it Nikki!
I can feel how much stress I create in my day to day by simply leaving everything to the last minute, I seem to like the drama and identification of the excitement, so changing this pattern is taking perseverance and practice.
We can be doing a lot but not getting done a lot. It is not the activity of the doing as such that we are actually productive and contributing to the greater whole, it is in the quality of the activity and the commitment to people and purpose that we do what needs to be done and get it done the way it needs to be done.
All this mayhem we create in our lives is a very good way to resist the light of our soul to be part of our lives. It’s as simple as that. We simply resist stillness.
Yes we do. As the stillness brings to us everything we have felt and known, but have chosen to avoid. We cannot however avoid forever, for if we don’t choose to develop being still within, our body will bring us to a stop by such things as a flu or in some cases a more intense illness or disease.
Whenever I slip into this or catch myself in it I can now see how much of this is a set up on my behalf so that I cannot connect to who I am. The more I am committed and loving giving myself the space to be all of who I am with influences trying the debase this then life is magical.
Yes Ariana, I thought is was very brave to consider letting go of my attachment to time and its supposed hold over me. When I considered what I did with the space in my day instead, my whole world started opening up.
I remember a saying “if you want something done, give it to a busy person”. I lived that life so much that I was very proud and pleased with myself for it. Ho hum. Everyone lost out, including me because I was always in the past or the future but rarely in the present.
Me too Alison. Nothing like a bit of waiting around to have to be with yourself! Isn’t that what we’re all avoiding when we rush about with not a moment to spare. I love to allow half as much time again as I think the journey will be and it’s absolutely delicious to feel the space it support within my body.
I love giving myself space to get places and do things. It feels so self- nurturing to be able to set off or start something know there is more than enough time given to getting there/completing it. Rushing becomes a thing of the past.
It comes down to being committed to people first and second to what needs to be done, then what needs to be done is always about people and not any form of self-created justification to make it about self alone.
Leigh, this is a powerful expose of common behaviour – I can very much relate to much of what you share here. Throughout my life I have often been procrastinating and in delay and to make up for it I became very clever at finding ‘reasons’ to explain why.
When anything is left to the last minute, there is a panic and a drive that it is completed in. This energy changes everything, it affects us in the body by the way we work, for example, our movements are jerky and frantic, so the work itself results in carrying this same energy.
It feels very supportive when I trust myself to know when is the right moment to move on to another task or situation. It feels gorgeous because when this happens I am in response to the flow of life that I can see and feel and have an innate awareness of, just like everyone else, we are all in a flow of energy that can be read and understood and responded to.
Could it be that we don’t complete the current task before us, for I doing so, we will naturally be pulled to take another step and another… perhaps procrastination keeps us spinning on the spot, seemingly and delays our next learning and growth.
I used to run from pillar to post throughout the day, but thanks to Universal Medicine I have learned that there is so much space available to us when we stay connected to our body and the quality of our soulful essence, as the soul never needs to rush.
A brilliant sharing of the implications of leaving things to the last minute and the stress this causes everyone i can so relate to. But from this I also find the quality and flow with the simplest things in our lives makes all the difference to the bigger picture of the day and changes everything and is quite magical to feel.
Letting go and doing what is required in the moment is where I have begun to feel that we can work with space rather than time – when time becomes an issue I realise I have made it personal rather than responding to what I feel.
What I am sensing in my life currently that a focus on doing something is great, but the moment it gets focused on ‘me, for me achieving something’ the actual focus changes now to not only being focused but now escaping through individualism. I see this within my own behaviors, things seem to actually fall apart when I now, after having had this awareness, do it again — a beautiful but revealing revelation of what the effect is when we go ‘on our own’ and go into this individual movement (even by thought, emotion or movement).
The question of how to measure being ‘productive’ comes up for me quite a lot. For example I now see taking the time to do a few simple exercises that connect me to my body as ‘being productive’ because although there is no ‘physical evidence’ of my production, the exercises change the quality that I am in, which in turn changes the quality of whatever I do next. So what could be more ‘productive’ than raising my energetic quality?
‘Giving the impression’ of anything is always harmful as every-thing that is an impression is not the real thing and it is only by actually being the real thing that we are able to support another in any way.
Being ‘too busy to do something’ is a man made illusion to keep us from feeling the space that is our natural birthright.
I used to have a water filter on top of my fridge and every time I climbed up my step stool to get water, I would see the dirt on top of my fridge and yet never do anything about it. So each day I was being reflected the fact that I was choosing to not clean something that needed cleaning, until I purposefully made the effort to clean it. A simple act that took 2 minutes then altered what was being reflected back to me each time I filled up my water filter. And as we are receiving reflections all of the time, it is up to us to choose what that reflection will be. Reflections are simply that, reflections, they have no say in what they reflect.
A great blog Leigh. I usually have enough time to be early or on time for appointments, but I seem to let the time slip through my fingers, by answering the phone and allowing the caller to talk instead of excusing myself or phoning back. Another thought is I don’t want to be too early! I have then put that pressure on myself by rushing when there was no need in the first instance.
Today I was appreciating how we are reflecting to each other all the time and how each of my clients reflects something different to me, in particular one client who is incredibly decisive which seems to take away all complication.
As others have shared for many of us in society we feel we need to rush, to leave things to the last minute to get the stress of needing to do them. What if we did things when space was there to do them, then things, life, and family may just flow in ways we had not considered possible.
Reading this and asking myself why it is that I leave things to the last minute I could sense the ‘excitement’ it creates, and the ‘Chicken’ game came to mind where as kids you run across the road as close to a car as possible – not that I used to do that, but the ‘leaving it til the last minute’ does get the adrenalin going – which keeps your body in the peaks and troughs, instead of the steadiness you feel when connecting to the body’s graceful movement. ‘Leaving it to the last minute’ is about avoiding that stillness.
So true Elizabeth, and it is not a very loving way to live. It leads to stress and disconnection, I have found the quickest way to disconnect from myself and therefore others is to go into raciness and stress. This is not supportive for anyone.
When I see or feel something needs to be done but I choose to walk past it and think, ‘Oh, I can leave it for another time’, I can feel the immediate tension in my body as soon as I choose to ignore my initial impulse. I have found this tension can very quickly build up throughout my day, which can lead to overwhelm and stress.
When you watch people get off a train or an aeroplane, you can see the rush and push energy at play, and it’s easy to join in even when there is no rush for us. It sometimes feels weird walking gently when all around are walking hard and fast. We don’t need to walk slowly, but there can be a tenderness in our bodies rather than a hardness.
This is very true Carmel, it is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle when people are driving fast to work on a Monday morning or jostling though the underground at 8am. I was aware the other day of the sheer volume of traffic as I joined a motorway but realised I didn’t have to join that pushing energy to get to my destination, we don’t get there any faster driving in that way.
This is such a great point Carmel – to live with the awareness that we don’t need to enjoin the rush, even when we are in the middle of it.
So true Carmel, last Saturday I went up to London. On my way home I noticed many people getting off a bus to walk to the tube station. It was like a stampede! I was walking at a steady even pace and was nearly trampled over, it seems they were not aware of me. There seemed to be no reason for the rush but habit and a group dynamic, almost like they were trying to beat each other to the station.
The need to appear productive does feel like a competition. Each of us struggling to find our place in the world and know our worth, yet looking outside so we never feel complete or at ease. The busyness or productivity gives us a short-term fix of feeling we have some worth but it never lasts or feels complete. There is always more to do on this hamster wheel!
So true, Ariana, being hooked on time reduces us to function, rather than being able to bring through the fullness of our divine selves in each and every moment.
I have been packing for an overseas trip and allowed the space to start getting things together well in advance of leaving in a few hours, so I didn’t feel rushed, rather, I was able to feel the care for myself in selecting things I wouldn’t normally take, but it felt very supportive to do so this time. It was beautiful to feel how the depth of care for myself is forever deepening.
There is a depth of care that is lost when we leave things to the last minute. When we allow the space to do things in our natural rhythm, we bring the fullness of ourselves and with that the depth of care that we live with. When we are rushed to get something done, we can become very functional, doing what is necessary to get the job done, however, there is something missing …. the exquisite quality of us.
Even breathing can sometimes be left to the last ‘second’, where we are holding tension and therefore holding our breath. A consistent awareness of where are breath is at is so supportive and to feel it’s steady gentle rhythmic flow supports natural preparedness for what ever is next. If we don’t delay our true connection to our breath perhaps there is no tendency to delay what is before us?
I can so relate to what you share here Leigh, however I have also found when I don’t procrastinate, when I am in the flow of what is needed, life has a natural grace and harmony that is exquisite.
True – there is no trying and everything is one continual flow when we are in purpose and responsive to life.
The alternative is hard work as we go against the natural flow.
Putting things off only delays the inevitable… we have to deal with them at some point!
“It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us.” A line straight from heaven. Thank you for this reminder as I often find myself in resistance and not in the quality of surrender.
I’ve noticed I can do that too, and funnily enough I get a bit annoyed when someone else does it! Perhaps something to look at there.
The lag of delay and the rush of ‘catching up’ are ways of distracting ourselves from living in the steadiness of our natural spacious rhythm.
Today, I drove to London from the South West which is approximately 2 hours 30min. I made sure I left in plenty of time and was able to take two rest breaks on the way. I arrived in good time to rest at my friend’s place before going into work for the afternoon. Not a single bit of stress or tension was encountered before going into school to work with a new class of kids…. basically, they got a calm, relaxed me… not a pent up stressed me. A win, win all round.
Yes, going with the flow and trusting in myself is something I am still learning in life, as I have been so accustomed to trying to control situations and get the job done no matter what. Creating space to make sure I stay connected to myself and the grand design I am a part of, has made a huge difference in this regard.
Leaving things to the last minute guarantees that your nervous system will be on full alert and driving your every move. Not to mention how drained the kidneys will be. So much more loving and honouring on the body and respectful of whoever/whatever is going to be the recipient of such rushed events, when we feel our next move and move in that flow.
When we are connected whatever needs to be attended to comes with the energy, simplicity and ease to complete, respond or do what is required. If we delay then that Grace is not there and it starts to feel harder, stodgy and complexity creeps in and a very un-merry-go-round starts.
So true Nicola, “delay” must come from the meaning of de -from-, and ‘lay’ being -asleep-! Then could it be possible to delay is because we come ‘from-sleep’ or a-sleep from the Truth of who we are?
Maybe it is far worse than that and we actively delay and knowingly sabotage at times. Perhaps we know exactly who we are but are not ready to live that for many reasons… but that is another story!
So true Nicola, we are the saboteur of so many of our ills. Yes it is easier to play the lost sheep who actually knows the way home but is so up in the journey that the path gets blurred.
Isnt it interesting how by leaving things to the last minute causes so much stress to all involved, and often leads to lots of emotion and drama which gives us a great reason for why things are delayed, whereas the reality is that we create these situations ourselves for that very reason so that we can avoid the responsiblity of what we are really here to do. So instead of blaming what is going on around us, perhpas we should be looking inwards at ourselves.
The choice to take responsibility supports the removal of drama and emotion. What a great lesson is such a very simple way of living.
‘Do we live in the stress of constantly proving that we are productive’ – yes, from how I used to live and how I have seen other women living, I would say it is common for women to live constantly proving their worth and value.
I have prided myself on being on time! Rather than seeing this as leaving things really rather too close and not allowing space for my travel etc. It also creates a tension in me as it will only take a delayed train etc and I will no longer be on time. It’s a very strongly engrained habit and something I have been aware of for over a year now yet have not shifted my livingness to support to have more space.
“oh, sorry I am late, but I had to complete…” Oooh, that one is used quite often! But the real sentence would go something like “oh, sorry I’m late, I decided to carry on too long and ignore the fact that I was supposed to be getting ready to come here.” Note to self!
Indeed Rowena – if we end up being late, let’s at least be honest about why… lying keeps us small and contracted whereas speaking truth opens up space and the ripple effect of more space would be laying the foundation for not being late next time.
Leigh, I can so relate to putting things off like this; ‘Simple things like feeling that I needed to clean somewhere in the house’, if I get busy with something I can tend to focus only on this project/work and let everything else fall apart – like cleaning and tidying the house until a particular project or piece of work is done, this I have found is not a loving way to live and that everything needs to be given equal importance and that cleaning the house is just as important and offers very necessary support.
I can feel just how much I have had a pattern of making things look more challenging than they need be – not wanting to standout in the ease in which life can be lived and work can be done.
Great point Michael how we become identified with the struggle and make life intense.
It is interesting to experiment with simply letting go of investments in a day and allowing it to unfold naturally, mindful still of what is important to be done. On the days where I create space by being present in my body there is much more of a natural flow and I can get to the end of it without being exhausted. However, if I push, stress and worry then by the end of the day I can be a wreck and in nervous tension, finding it very hard to surrender to sleep at night, which then has a knock on effect for the following day.
I can also relate to being a former procrastinator, as I used to sit there and think I must get up and tidy that basket of clothes (as an example), and then hours would go by and sometimes days. In my head, I had finished the task many times but continued to hold back on actually physically doing it. By the time I actually did the task I would feel exhausted and did not enjoy the task as by then it felt like a burden. These days not holding back and procrastinating with my tasks feels so much more efficient and self-loving to not be draining myself doing nothing.
Thank you for verbalising a behaviour that I have been observing in myself for some time. There are so many great points! I have noticed that the more I let go of the obvious last-minute stuff, there are still subtle ways this plays out. I also have noticed the focus on being productive, proving my worth through this. I see I can use it as an excuse to not be on time, but more so to not deeply connect with people. I also see how I use last minuteness to create nervous energy. Then I don’t arrive or move in the stillness that I naturally have within me.
I can relate to leaving things to the last minute as I am constantly living in a raciness and observing this more and more. I notice that this is a way of avoiding my quality and really living in a full acceptance and appreciation of myself.
I on the other hand leave nothing to the last minute but for many years felt the raciness by not choosing to stay with the purpose that I knew I naturally worked from and allowing myself to surrender to the body and all that is needed – no more or no less.
I can so relate to the procrastination you present here Leigh… it is like we think we have a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card – an excuse for delaying living from our innate love, truth and wisdom we deeply know… when in fact we are avoiding bringing the power of this for all.
When we’re impulsed to do something it comes with the energy to carry it out. If we procrastinate and choose not to do it, we then loose that energy and when we try to do it later, it feels harder, there is a heaviness, almost like a burden as we let the energy that we were given go and in doing so we stopped the flow and rhythm that we were in, hence later, it is much more of a struggle for us to complete.
Yes, this is so true. It’s the heaviness of so many undealt with tasks that compounds the delay until you have so many tasks which are left until we are forced to deal with them by which time it is an exhausting and arduous task. It feels completely different when we work in the flow of life and deal with things when we are impulsed to do so.
Leaving things to the last minute allows a build up of anxiousness that we then use in the final sprint to get things done. However, the whole time we are delaying and the anxiousness is gradually building, it’s affecting all of our movements and interactions with others. We may think that everything is fine and that we will get things done as we always do, but there is an element of denial here and what we’re not considering is the ongoing impact on us, our body, our movements and how all this affects the whole that we are all a part of.
It feels super supportive to have the space to be where ever you are going knowing you have heaps of time and to enjoy the journey than being in tension and anxiousness because your running late or just on time.
Yes Natalie, I feel the same. Leaving time to spare is self gifting and makes journeys more pleasurable.
You are settled within yourself, rather than tense and anxious.
I find that if I don’t act or honour an impulse I have had to do something when my body says it is time to do it, then the more I delay the more I feel the rubber band’ like tension building so that when I do eventually act on it, it can be a bit of a rush. So important to really feel the flow and timing of things to be done.
Wow Jane, I have not heard of this before, being fined for going 1 minute over time. I love the way you are choosing to learn from this, instead of going into frustration or blame, you are appreciating the symbolism of life and being open to learning. Very awesome Jane.
I find leaving things to the last minute feels like a setup for self-judgement and an excuse to disconnect from my essence and from life.
I really love your honesty here ‘The other thing that I have observed when I am holding back from doing the next thing is the excuse I use – “oh, sorry I am late, but I had to complete…” – because it sounds good and proves how ‘committed’ I am to my work or the project at hand.’ and can really relate to this … eww yuk feels so horrible. What I have also come to notice is that when we put off things because we are ‘busy’ it then becomes a build up of a multiple things that need doing which then creates overwhelm and ‘where do I start’ feeling or stress/anxiety which is then way off the original impulse. Over the last few days I have managed to clear and do so many things I have wanted to get done and it feels good I feel more space both at home and within me but ultimately to do things we are impulsed to do then and there is far better and to give ourselves space so we are not rushing or late.
We are naturally impulsed to do things in space rather than time and so we introduce the concept of time in a way which interferes with the impulses we naturally receive from our Soul – this is where anxiety develops.
I love the conclusion of this blog – inspiration.
There is the most delicious almost luxurious feeling when things are completed well in advance of the due date. This feeling I’m understanding is connected to responding to what is called for in the moment and expands into spaciousness rather than the linear time pressure and intensity. Mmmm – delicious and luxurious or pressure and intensity? A wonderful question to ask if I’m considering delay as an option.
I was just thinking that I am good at not leaving things to the last minute but realised the one thing I do leave longer than I should is taking the time to go to the bathroom. I seem to not put that as important as other things and that is not good for my body.
In a world where we have made our worth about what we do the beauty that lives within has been forgotten as being what our true worth is.
I used to be addicted to the nervous energy I would feel in my body when I left things to the last moment. I used that racy nervous energy to fuel me to complete or ‘produce the goods’. This never worked out well as I eventually exhausted myself being on full alert all the time and whilst completing some things I would feel as though nothing was completing, there was always more waiting. I would end in a burnt out torpor for a while unable to do anything much and then climb back on the band wagon and do it all again. A massive oscillation and assault on the body. Through developing a more loving way of being with myself I understand now how harming this behaviour has been and is, not only to myself but definitely having an equally harming impact or domino effect on everyone and everything all around me.
Your excellent blog definitely hit the mark for me and asked me to look again at where I still do this.
I have always tried to be organised with what I do and not leave things until the last minute as I didn’t like the anxiousness it created in my body, however this can just be another form of control and meant going into my head and creating pictures rather than surrendering and being impulsed by what feels True for me at that time.
Great reminder that being connected and honouring our essence is the only real job we have in life.
What happens to when we are caught up in the energy of expectation, that someone will do this, or be on time etc? We feel let down disappointed. Already we are caught up in the reaction of someone leaving things to the last moment. This perpetuates this cycle and everyone feels tense from taking on the energy.
When I get anxious about something and have a drive to get it done while ignoring everything else, my mind thinks I am making it important. But in reality I am choosing an expression that guarantees I do not bring my all and the outcome is devoid of my true values and qualities.
I love how you also brought up the ripple effect procrastinating has on the bigger picture. Others, the ground we walk on and everything around us gets effected if me move out of sync with the flow of the universe.
When I leave things for the last minute, it takes a massive toll on the quality of output.
I also really appreciate the light you shine on how our choices affect those around us. I noticed an example of this two days ago. I was driving somewhere and was a wee bit late. I came to a roundabout and instead of joining the cue to turn right, I went up the empty left-hand lane and then slipped in at the roundabout. It wasn’t dangerous or illegal and nor did it slow anyone else down because I filled a gap that no-one else was going to take. But, I instantly felt the ripples on other people; the arrogance that my day was more important, or that my lateness was more pressing that someone else’s. It felt very separative and un-harmonious.
Super wisdom and very cool to be reading this at the top of the year. The ripple effect of changing this cycle of movements and choices are very profound. Typically, we make these big, grand promises at the beginning of a New Year as to what we are going to change in our lives and so often, we fall short and give up. Yet, these seemingly smaller changes are actually the ones that build a true foundation.
Leaving things to the last minute causes an anxiety, rush and stress. When we make space for all that needs to be done we can remain open and relaxed without depleting our batteries.
The more I value who I am in essence, just for being me, the more of a steadiness and simplicity it brings to the way I approach things. It’s certainly still a work in progress but I have for sure seen the difference it makes.
Thank you Leigh, a great reminder that when we step out of our natural rhythm, we step into time.
Yes we can choose to step out of the prison by choosing love. A great reminder that in love there is no room for judgements.
When we deeply consider the impact of running ourselves faster than is natural has on other people, every part of us naturally wants to come back into our natural rhythm. We are deeply caring by nature and are naturally motivated to support others when we choose to connect to this.
“Living a steady solid knowing of the value of each of us and showing another the way to step out of the prison the judgements become.” – Isn’t it interesting that when things go downhill the first thing that happens is that we start doubting ourselves and our value. It makes sense, however, if solidly KNOWING our worth can build up the most incredible foundation and inspire others, and so it is our greatest tool that gets attacked first to try and sink the ship.
This is really interesting and shines a bright light on our responsibility. I actually find that looking at it like this is very supportive, in that I am the kind of person that can easily sabotage myself, but if I maintain a constant awareness of the others “on the ship”, then that really focuses me.
When we are moving with stress and anxiety we are polluting, energetically, which affects us and everyone else and we are harming our body on a cellular level. However ‘clever’ we think we are, we can’t change the truth of our choices. Everything is recorded, energetically, and everything is felt, by us, and everyone else.
As you say here Leigh, when we are anxious, this has an impact on others energetically that I had not previously understood or allowed myself to feel. Realising how we affect others with a knowing of energy, we can actually feel this effect and it exposes our own lack of responsibility.. how we behave does not affect only ourselves.
When I feel a true impulse to do something and follow through with it it feels completely awesome. My learning is in the discernment of whether it is a true impulse or whether it is a creative thought from my mind. Following an idea from my mind which is not in line with the All can be catastrophic. I find myself in a momentum which takes me so far away from my soul and the truth. I’m learning to recognise the difference.
I used to be really bad at never leaving enough time to get from A to B, I would check the time and then decide to squeeze in one more thing before leaving, inevitably leaving insufficient time to arrive comfortably on time and if the traffic was bad, I would be late. Feeling into this and what was behind this pattern of behaviour, it was a way of avoiding spending quality time with myself. By choosing not to allow enough time for my journey I always put myself into a state of anxiety, preventing me from truly enjoying the time, with me, I was avoiding feeling my lack of love for myself. This has now changed enormously, not only do I now treasure spending time with me, but I have also become very punctual.
As others have shared it is so easy to get caught up in fitting in lots of things or leaving this to last minute when the real question is what quality am I doing that thing in and am I, therefore, having the space to do what is needed, no more and no less. I’ve found the need to fit more and more into my day something that has side tracked me from appreciating what is truly needed.
Since I read this blog I realise how many times we make ourselves look more important by emphasising how hard we work, how productive we are. Just by small remarks, comparisons, etc. , if I think of it, a lot of our conversations actually are around how ‘productive’.we are.
Yes Annelies, it is very interesting to observe just how dedicated we have become to self importance, that what you share has become ‘how we do life’. I wonder how our conversations, work environment, home life will reflect when we place the same dedication to living our all, for the all. As we surrender to living our natural flow, with in time as we know it, and as we are coming to appreciate that it is not time, but space that opens up for us to live with out any ideal about how we need to be/what we need to do in the time we have.
Yes, thanks to Universal Medicine, I too value true commitment and responsibility as living with the expanded awareness of how my choices have a ripple effect out into the world, and that holding equal regard for those around me is part of moving within a greater living whole rather than in isolation.
This pressure to perform, to prove our worth through what we can do and achieve, is running us into the ground more and more each day, If we were to take away the daily crutches of coffee, caffeine, sugar and alcohol that so often prop us up and keep us going, how long would our pace continue?
Great question? Let’s add to it though for those who don’t use any of the above, could there be a dependence on emotional energy, anxiety, nervous tension? All ways that place our body into racey elevated state.
Well said, there are many way of moving and living that require no outside influence to keep us away from feeling the true exhaustion and disregard we are living in
What this blog also exposes is the delay followed by high-stress rush.. why are we putting off what we know is there to be done, and favouring one thing over another? For me it’s often a tendency towards perfectionism: wanting things to be done completely perfectly, because with that sense of order, I feel a sense of control. But it’s a fake sense of control because it’s dependent upon my environment, and not coming from within. When I keep things simple, and stay connected to my body and feeling what needs to be done when and how, then there is no need to try to control anything.
A lot rests on preparing ourselves to not be late or arriving just in time. In my work as course facilitator, preparation starts the night before, making sure I have everything I need. On the day, the course may start at 09.30, but I’m always there an hour early, to prepare the room and myself. When participants arrive, I’m there to meet them. To do any less would be disrespectful to clients and myself.
There are so many areas I can make adjustments in my life to give myself the space that is needed to get things done. I have always had an underlying feeling that I’m not quite good enough and that plays out in different areas, so I do things quickly to show that I’m hardworking, committed and busy. It’s a game that I have been fully caught up in and now I’m re-learning strategies to support me to stay steady and not create stress so that life flows more easily and low and behold becomes far more enjoyable.
There was a song about busy doing nothing, and it is true. Have you ever had a day that you were in constant motion and at the end of the day… you completed nothing?
Thank you Leigh, you remind us all that there is a big difference between being busy and living each moment with purpose. Being busy spins us out, puts our thoughts and attention ahead of our bodies and then we are playing catch up, a state I find quite exhausting. Bringing awareness to the quality of how I move through the day restores purpose to the simplest of tasks and while still having a lot to do, I find that I can accomplish the day without needing that big pat on the back at the end of it.
“Leaving Things to the Last Minute” – it’s only when you allow yourself space to feel the expanse and lightness of spaciousness that you realise the dire consequence (on the body) of this way of being.
Leigh, I can very much relate to the stress that this causes; ‘ Simple things like feeling that I needed to clean somewhere in the house, or knowing that something had to be completed for work but just holding off on doing so’, I can feel how every year I have my tax return to complete and I always leave this to the last minute – this creates a lot of stress that is unnecessary, I can feel how dealing with things straight away or when we have some space to do them rather than leaving things to the last minute is a very loving thing to do for ourselves.
Leaving things to the last minute causes a huge stress on the body and can only be described as abusive. I used to do this a lot but have improved immensely as I now give myself enough time to be at places, have things organised in advance, research where I am going, get addresses ready to put into my TomTom, research the parking situation, get change ready if I need it. Living with the ‘Last minute.com’ behaviour can never enhance our lives, only cause more stress.
Well shared Leigh. Something I really don’t like about being late is the anxiousness its causes and runs our life in, although there is no perfection – when doing things at the instance of their impulse – time starts to work in our favour. And things are always going to come up that we don’t expect or plan for.
I am giving myself more time in the morning so that I leave in plenty of time for my appointment, and what a huge yet simple difference this makes to my day, it feels much more spacious and I feel much more in the flow.
Putting things off until ‘later’ is bascially just delaying the inevitable and will eventually lead to overwhelm as everything that is incomplete starts to pile up until it becomes almost too much to deal with. The irony is that its all self created to avoid taking true responsibility for ones life and therefore becomes a great excuse to not do so.
Brilliant sharing Leigh, you have nailed so many areas of where we can leave things to the last minute and why we do this. I was just this morning considering this in the shower, how it is a huge impact on a whole workplace when colleagues run around in an overwhelming state all day and how most the time it is for the benefit of the person only. I’ve been looking at when and where I do this and what I am wanting to prove to myself or others or how I want to be seen in a particular way. So much of it goes back to how we are praised and approved when we are young for what we do and not so much for who we are.
Being late is something that so many people choose and yet feels dreadful in our bodies. You would think that if we were as smart as we like to think we are, that we would only let ourselves feel how awful something was once and then never choose to feel it again but no, not only do we all choose to put ourselves through painful situations repeatedly but we actually choose to layer these painful situations, one on top of the other and call them ‘life’.
Space not only allows us an expansion in our bodies but it also gives us room to feel how we choose to move, get up in the morning, what to eat and how to work without compromise and brings a deep clarity and simplicity to life that supports us to be all that we are.
Great sharing Jane, this is an awesome example of the ripple effects of our choices.
– I used to leave things to the last minute because I didn’t value myself, it was a set up to sabotage the connection with myself and therefore with others as well. It puts me under stress to create issues and drama, resulting in feeling resentful and exhausted. It became a bit of a pattern or to be more honest, it was an addiction especially during my years of study at university. Now, that I have let go of this addiction, it has become so clear why I chose it.
When the energy is there to do things that is the time to do them otherwise the delay in our bodies affect our kidney energy.. I love this line in your blog Leigh, ” It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us. “
I’ve found myself measuring productivity not even on how much I can get done in one day, but how tiny the gaps can be between activities, e.g. how little time it can take me to get from home to school, or school to work and get changed and go. But then we try to finish the day as quickly as possible to have ‘time off’, go on social media or watch TV, and all of those so called ‘saved minutes’ are made up for in these distractions. Is this true productivity?
There are so many games we will play to defend and justify our behaviours, when in truth all the games are about avoiding taking responsibility for some aspect of our lives.
I have been working with completion and looking at where I don’t complete tasks. It is quite fascinating. I am working with bringing completion to my everyday daily tasks to build my completion ability and appreciating it when I do.
For example, I may cook dinner and then find myself doing something else in between finishing eating and washing up. I am working on completing that cycle of cooking/eating/cleaning in one go before I go on to do anything else, and when I complete it, I appreciate that I took the time to complete that and there feels more space in my body. Another example is when I open cupboards to get something out, I am working on closing the doors to complete that cycle (as often I return to a kitchen/bathroom and realise cupboard doors are left ajar/open).
So what ever mundane, daily task I am doing, I am finishing it before I move onto the next. I am liking where it is heading 🙂
When we leave things to the last minute, the rush, push and undercurrent anxiety it puts the body into can trick you into feeling that you are on top of it all and therefore initiate this momentum or approach to everything one does.
I have been coming back to stillness from the opposite end from you Leigh! There is a very fine line between leaving some task and then it being rushed, and leaving this task and not doing it when it is something that is truly what is needed. I have always been a person who does not leave tasks and gets them done almost immediately . . . but this has has its own ill-energy. I have been learning to hang loose get a sense of when exactly the task needs doing, if at all! An example of the latter has just happened recently when my daughter who is on holiday up here at the moment said she would be coming to my place on a certain day with my granddaughter who is a toddler. Since I have just moved into a house with stairs I immediately thought I must get a gate of some sort of gate to keep the stairs safe, and also maybe some Leggo for my granddaughter to play with.
I couldn’t feel it in my body to rush off and get these things, and left it all for the next three days. After these three days my daughter contacted me and said she was now leaving my granddaughter with her father while she (my daughter) visited me alone as she wanted to sit down and have a really intimate chat!
So it may have looked like I was leaving this until the last moment but in fact it was never going to be needed at all, at this point in time. It is beautiful to let oneself feel what is needed and not push to something done which is simply an ‘idea’.
Watching the out play of my choices to distract with tasks to avoid doing the one that is the priority is quite fascinating. There has been a long-standing joke that when an assignment is due the bathroom has never been cleaner and things like that.
Sometimes, we work so hard to be busy, productive, and to make ourselves a needed and vital part of a team, that we actually miss the opportunity to be simple and at ease
Yes or we miss the quality and what is delivered is only a fraction of the potential it could have been.
I agree, and sometimes the end result looks amazing, something that cannot be faulted on one level, but it was done with a drive or a need to gain recognition and so as you say, it is missing its true full potential of being delivered with quality
I have felt the self-created anxiety that delaying and leaving things to the last-minute causes and so when this old pattern becomes evident I can feel how much I now do not want to let it get to this point but then I have to ask – am i just getting better at controlling the amount of delay i am living with? and what does it feel like to truly let off the brakes fully?
It is true, we can over do things and get caught up with it when it is not needed.
I have some friends who are always late and to me it is really disrespectful to everyone else who has been responsible and is ready on time. It is as if they think that the world revolves around them and no one else matters. I have told one friend in particular that I will leave without them and they were shocked but since then they have always just seemed to make it.
Yes Rosie, we have a responsibility to be respectful to ourselves and each other. I know the situation you describe where lateness becomes habitual for some people and frustrating for the person waiting, especially when there’s no communication to say what’s happened. Being honest with friends about this, as you were, helps them understand the knock on effect of their lateness on others.
That is the way to go, to be straight up and tell them how you feel about it. I have always been a person that is on time and many is the time I have stood around waiting for people which to me is a total waste of my time.
I have always been very punctual and have times when I have been waiting and waiting for someone, I agree I find it disrespectful to, and also disrespectful to themselves as they are not honouring themselves in doing this.
I have recently exposed in myself the movement of needing to be somewhere other than where I already am. You could say this is quite a clever way to avoid the Stillness within – a Stillness that when connected to, opens us up to a far wider scope of intelligence then that which we use to simply trundle ourselves from A to B. To stop and feel this dizzying momentum is unpleasant but necessary in order for us to make the necessary adjustments to the way we move through life. Even my dreams at the moment are revealing the ‘push’ that I am in – a push that simply means I have based my life, and I am sure many lives, on running from my true self.
There is a real sense of satisfaction when a task is completed… an uplift and a rejuvenation.
One of the things that I have learned is that leaving things to the last minute is a great way to avoid how powerful we are.
Wow Elizabeth your comment has made me pause and feel the truth of what you have shared.
This can be said for any moment where we choose to push ourselves or even begin to think we need to improve something.
As you suggest, Leigh, true integrity starts with connecting with and listening to the body, appreciating its innate wisdom and allowing this to guide us rather than overriding its signals with the mind.
‘We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.’ I agree, so why would we postpone things and do things based on nervous energy? There must be some steps before that and a responsibility we not want to take.
Well said Monika,
Looking at why we choose to leave things hanging is the key to no longer doing so. If we don’t address what lies beneath we may adopt another behavior that creates the same tension in which there is no true healing.
Absolutely, a solution is not the answer here, it requires us to feel into the ‘why’ so we can learn about our patterns and re-imprint them with a evolving way of working and living.
” I have come to the understanding that there is a very real ripple effect to living with this need to prove my value ” yes this is true of the ripple effect , for living with a need to prove one’s value calls on other to full fill that needy approval , thereby creating an emptiness in them.
I know this way of functioning in life so well, having pushed everything to ensure I am running on a state of anxiety and nervous tension. In fact I have been convinced most of my life that I work best under such situations!
Yet thanks to Serge Benhayon’s presentations and his personal example, I have started to realise that the greatest impact I have on others is through the quality of energy I choose to reflect, the most precious contribution I can ever make is ensuring that is the quality of my Soul. Leaving things to the last minute and running on anxiety is a long way from that.
It can be exhausting and very self-depleting to be focusing on a project or task to the point where it absorbs you and it becomes your only focus. Where are you in this?
What strikes me is there are times when things feel they are to be done, when I follow that impulse life becomes simple. When I resist it and delay then I become more and more anxious. Yet I would often either drive to do things fast or end up completing them at the end, its great to start to bring a quality to the way I do things knowing that following that impulse – even if part of me finds what I am about to do a challenge and one I would rather put off – pays dividends from the way I sleep, to my relationships.
‘Living a steady solid knowing of the value of each of us and showing another the way to step out of the prison the judgements become.’ That’s the word when we live a life from outside in, all the judgements put on another and put on ourselves become a prison as if we cannot step out and start living from our inside out.
When I am running late I usually tend to drive faster, so I end up with an adrenaline fix and this has also developed into more awareness of other times when being in the fast lane has nothing to do with driving. As I have become increasingly aware of this to the point where I have recently acquired a new car. Now when I drive my car supports my body and my day tends to flow, which has brought a different approach to my whole day, which means no more rushing so life has become in the (gentle) slow lane.
When we leave things to the last minute we are carrying the delay in our body and we wonder why we feel tired. Not rocket science is it?
HA! no, when you put it as simply as that, it’s not rocket science at all!!
Much like carrying a sack of bricks and then wondering why our back is sore and our body fatigued…
In fact this can be exhausting on the body as the mind works overtime on the justification.
‘Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it.’ this takes away any feeling of pressure and disregard from leaving something to do something else.. honouring it is time to move on, trusting there will be space later to complete what you were doing.
There is definitely a culture that is rife in the workplace that is all about telling others how busy you are, how much you have to do and rushing arriving late to meeting with the excuse of having to just finish this or that. I have found that if I align to this culture, I go through life feeling anxious, racy, like I am always behind and having to catch up and prove myself. However if I don’t align and simply go from one task to the next as and when I feel to, everything gets done without the drama and with a spaciousness that supports me to stay in connection to my body, and therefore at ease within myself. Whatever we express, we become. So if I am huffing and sighing about how busy I am and how much I have to do, and how intense it all is, then this will be my experience.
Having battled unsuccessfully with procrastination for years it is so freeing to surrender to being in the flow of life and feeling what is my next true action rather than imposing movements on my body from my head which inevitably leads to unnecessary stress for me and others. The more I am willing to do this the more is revealed to me and I can trust that I will always be supported in this.
People can also arrive much earlier to appointments because of anxiety, it’s something that can be present in all sorts of situations. As someone who was often late I remember when I first had the realisation I could leave earlier, travel to my appointments in a different quality and enjoy some time when I arrived. I actually had believed I had to squeeze everything in. Even 10 minutes extra can make a difference for me to drive more connected to myself and let go of the pressure I can unnecessarily place on myself. Refining all these things can make a huge difference to our health and wellbeing, and to our quality of life.
I had to chuckle reading the title of this blog because I don’t leave things to the last minute but at times have a tendency to be far ahead of where I need to be – this is another way of not being in a harmonious flow.
Leigh, you have really exposed the illusion of ‘being busy’ when it is literally a result of how we have delayed doing what needs to be done at the time it happens. If we attend to things as they happen, then we do not create a drag, whereby we are constantly pulling on our energy to catch up with what has not been completed. I know this very well, and is something I continue to work on.
You describe how my life used to be Leigh, when I was constantly running late and behind the drag curve in a permanent state of stress. I can still go back to that occasional tendency sometimes, when I have lots to do but I know now there is no need for any anxiety, what isn’t done will get sorted later. It is quite simple.
This productivty concoiusness is very insdious in our societies – judging each other’s worth by how much we are producing or creating rather than really examining the energetic quality of how it was produced or created. We obviously do need to produce and create things in this world, however we need to start conversations like this one Leigh has done about the how we are creating and how we are affecting each other by the energy we choose to do something in. Is it possible we can choose to create in line with the universal order and flow and therefore what we create will have a very different quality – one that supports all of us?
I suppose if we are true in what we do and stay as present as possible and not get ahead of ourselves things pretty much work themselves out. What this blog has done for me is make me look at the way I work; my work usually speaks for itself and that is all that should matter but I always like to be seen as a good, keen hard worker as well which shouldn’t really matter if I know I am and my work does speak for itself.
Wow, the timing of reading this couldn’t have been more perfect. It was a big yes from me when the question of judgement over under-productivity exists. That judgement doesn’t allow me or anyone the space to have any loving quality in all that I/We do as theres a pressure to rush and do more.
Leigh, I can feel how dishonouring of ourselves and our families this way of being is; ‘proving my worth in society my family is the front-line receiver of my behaviour and are impacted daily in a multitude of ways, feeling the disregard when the simple daily life processes are ‘done in a hurry’ or simply ‘left to another time.’ I can feel in my own life that if I am in lack of self worth then i can try and work harder and so spend less time with my family and less time tidying and keeping the house in order, the ripple effects of trying to prove my worth are huge.
Space expands giving us more than ample time to complete everything we need to, once we cut out all meaningless distractions.
These ‘meaningless distractions’ can take out and waste so much time. I used to spend ages thinking about shall I do this or that, and still catch myself at times doing it, and found that I have spent more time thinking about it than it would have taken to actually do it! There is always a time to do something and when we listen to this impulse I do not feel any resistance yet when I ignore it and leave it till later it always feels like a slog and hard work.
A smile broke out when I read your comment James, I’m sure many will relate to what you share. Sometimes what to do next comes from pausing, feeling and waiting for an inner impulse and when it comes, all is answered and we don’t have to think it. And if the impulse isn’t there, it can wait.
I love that Kehinde, thank you :). I also find it can be so easy to try to get ahead of ourselves and think whats next rather than actually appreciating the moment and thus allowing for that to complete so the next can be even grander. Otherwise, what platform are we seeding forth from if we are always ahead of ourselves and not fully completing the task at hand.
Beautiful Kehinde. I have been deeply inspired by once hearing your sharing about how you were completing some work after work, by adhering to what needed done and as you mentioned at the occasion ‘time than opens up to complete each task’.
To not get caught up in another’s ideals and beliefs of what it means to live a productive life has been a big one for me. I have felt the judgement, criticism and imposition and fallen in what has felt like a battle not with others but with myself. I am learning to stay with myself, not compete with another, accept others when I sense their judgements, come back to myself when I feel a pull and honour what I feel is true for me and boy do I feel open and expansive in confirmation of who I am.
The amount of pressure we place on ourselves when we leave “things to the last minute” is huge and very harming to our bodies as a result of the stress and tension that comes with this pressure. I know this too well as this is I how lived for so long, and still do sometimes as it has been a very deeply ingrained pattern to break. I often get the sense that by doing so I am also giving myself a reason to give myself a hard time, so there is not just one issue to heal but two; a definite and very welcome work in progress.
There is much to appreciate in this blog and this ‘jumped out’ with joy from the page this morning –
“It’s time to remember the simplicity of surrendering to our body and allowing our life to unfold with the power and glory that is naturally within each and every one of us”.
I used to always leave things to the last minute as thought then I had the extra energy and impetus to get things done. However, I now see if I do things when I feel to do them everything flows much better and I find myself far less anxious than I was before. I also feel far more supported when everything around me is in its place in an orderly way, I find my body can let go a lot more without the constant thoughts of I need to do this or that as I have already done it.
I have started to look at all the places where I create stress on my body by not giving myself the space needed to get things done. It has made a huge difference to the way I work already and I could feel the process of working was even more enjoyable.
A Life that flows is a lot like successful fishing. It’s a knowing when and where is the right time to achieve the desired results and having in place everything that is required to make it happen.
I agree with you Steve Matson, there are lots of things I leave to the last minute, because I know that there is a certain rhythm to what I do. So it is not uncommon for me to pack my suitcase just before I leave for the Airport because I know exactly what I need to put in it. Packing it too early just doesn’t feel right.
Yes totally agree Steve and Mary, about the timing! I have just written a long comment on this without having come across your comment until now! Many things must be left to the last minute, and done in the beauty of spaciousness.
That’s such a great insight Mary – that packing just before going to the airport is supportive for you. No rules, just what feels right for you in each moment. Inspiring.
I notice these days that if I do not respond when my body feels to do something, it creates a lot of anxiousness. A lesson that my body never minds repeating and one that I am learning to honour!
I was definitely someone who valued myself on how busy and productive I was. Completing many things well was my goal. How lovely and freeing it feels when I firstly appreciate being me and the quality in which I do things and not focus predominantly on the outcomes, which then bring more joy and a sense of satisfaction as well. It really is that simple! Yet old patterns of rushing and being driven and overriding what I feel to do, still emerge occasionally, if I go into overwhelm or wanting to control things and not trusting that the time to complete things will come later. Being more aware of what I am feeling in my body supports me to make more loving choices.
Beautiful Janice – the quality in which anything is done is paramount and I agree with you that this is what makes us feel completed, even if the task is not completely complete!
Completely agree. Although this is not quite what we have been grown up with. For me it truly took a while for me to allow myself to stop and drop into my body and feel the beauty and completion with being with myself in a moment and with this each moment then feels complete in itself because of the quality brought to it.
There are many great points in this blog and this morning’s reading the one that that stands out for me is, “Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it. Living this way brings a flow, an ease to life and a deep trust in ourselves: it also highlights true commitment as we are no longer committed to what we want or think needs to be done, but to society as a whole.” Such a great reminder to always stay connected to the bigger picture.
A very wise man has been known to say, when we rush the body, it checks out, it is made to move in moments, and I can definitely relate to rushing the body and then I’m straight into anxiousness and rushing to try to make up time. Which is impossible, as how can I make up time, as I’m moving with time so how can I beat time? Dah!
Life is a sequence of moments so it makes sense for us to be with those moments and our body in those moments if we want to experience life in full with all of our presence.
Rarely do we consider the impact our actions are having on those around us and the knock-on effects of living in a state of procrastination to our work colleagues etc, and what are we teaching our children when we are late or stressed due to leaving everything to the last minute?
Great blog Leigh. I know this ‘need to look productive’ thing so well!! It comes in many different guises. I experienced it big time in tutoring education centre I worked in where you were criticised for spending ‘too much time’ with a student, instead of bouncing from one student to another looking productive. This became a real pressure and I had to use my discernment about what was truly needed and this caused a bit of angst with my boss when I followed this impulse. I am now experiencing this ‘issue’ in my new home where my house-mate is very productive in terms of buying things for the garden and planting all sorts of wonderful things, and rushing out shopping, while I am sitting at home working on the computer – it looks like I am not producing anything for the house, yet this is not true, and I am very aware not to make it look as if I am being productive – I am just doing what needs to be done – and that can mean ordering a print for the lounge-room wall, getting the Internet connected, ordering furniture and cushions online . . . and sometimes for me it is very productive to sit on the deck and gaze at the beautiful rolling hills and take a stop moment. I look like I could be the lazy member of the household, but in fact I’m not.
I do not like it to leave things until the last minute as it is too much pressure for me to do so. But what I found out is that I set myself under pressure simply by ignoring what my body wants to do because I can override it. In the end it is the same pressure but I can say to myself I do not leave things until the last minutes . . . there are many ways to stop the flow our soul send to us.
“We can often make the mistake of thinking that living this way only affects ourselves and that giving the impression we are a productive person in society is enough, where it seems this is quite the opposite as many are not productive at all although they may appear to be so.”- This used to be the way I went about business at work, literally running around from one airplane to another, back and forth from the tool/parts room, etc. These ‘busy as a bee’ movements used to give me a lot of attention and recognition as ‘A go-getter’ and someone ‘that made things happen’ at work, but in reality I was running with such a high level of nervous energy always trying to look good and please others that by the end of the day many times I barely got anything really accomplished, except for absolutely exhausting my body! Now, when I simply take my time and attempt to stay in my own rhythm and plan my movements ahead a bit while staying with my body as I work, this ‘steady as she goes’ approach is really productive, even if to others it may seem like I am not going fast enough. I can also see in others the same pattern I used to be in and how it simply does not work for them or the team in the end as it is based on a sense of competition and empty appearances.
Thank you Leigh. I often feel a lot of tension when I am running late and I know it is because I’m feeling the impacts on both myself and everyone else. We cannot escape the outplay of our choices.
Our greatest industry is the creation of complexity – star product? Delay. Imagine if we turned all this intricate ingenuity to accepting true purpose and saying yes. Thank you Leigh.
Leaving just in time for an appointment may seem right, but is based on ‘not wasting time’ so we fill the remaining space by squeezing in another activity that takes longer than we think and so we end up being late. When we arrive early we can use the extra time to relax and be prepared for whatever is to follow.
I always leave everything until the last minute, it is the way that I have rolled my whole life. There are many negatives to this style of living, it effects my self-esteem, my work and my family life. I would love to feel the space of being early to work or not being last to rush out the door while my family waits in the car. This might sound like a real downer but it feels impossible to change, as I have been trying for years and I have had no consistent results. The question might be, “What do I get out of being late?” As there has to be something in it in order for me to refuse to heal this issue.
Thought provoking Leigh! Quite often I have plenty of time to arrive early or on time and yet I end up just making the deadline! I recognise myself in a few of your examples.
This blows a lot of the ideas we have about being productive out the window and asks a great question are we committed to the task in hand or society and life as a whole? For everything affects everything.
Sometimes I have felt the ‘need’ to justify myself in terms of how I have beens spending my time, often when people have been sharing about their amazing trip somewhere. Feeling into this more deeply I can feel a level of jealousy lurking – that I haven’t been on a trip as I’ve been working. It’s as though I’m justifying to myself that I’m not missing out as I’ve been busy at work and it’s all going really well etc. But that doesn’t feel true, it doesn’t feel honouring of me, or the other person, it’s playing the ‘keeping up appearances game’. Life isn’t a competition, we all have the freedom to appreciate our true value and worth and the more I allow and nurture this for myself, the more I am able to appreciate this in others.
I could feel my body let out a huge sigh of relief as I read through your insightful blog, Leigh, thank you. I have been the master of leaving things to the last minute and yes, it’s very stressful, un-necessarily so. I can feel how I am bringing a level of anxiety to my body which affects the quality of everything I am doing, when it doesn’t need to be this way ….. ‘Innately we all know our worth, our value and what it is that we individually bring to society. We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.’ Yes, we absolutely do.
I find that I can prepare to leave the house and the 15 minutes spare that I thought I had disappears because it actually takes longer to get out of the house than I tell myself, I have a tendency to try and squeeze things in which just doesn’t work.
Yes Fiona, that’s what I do too, I wonder what that is, having the idea that there is time enough but not in reality having that time because things do cost more time than I guess, I have in my mind. When I let my body speak I know it is and will be completely different. Time to experiment and make space for me, not from discipline alone but a loving discipline.
I recognise this pattern you write about here Leigh – not honouring the flow in my day that my body knows so well and the perfect and precise timing of when things are to be done. This is in contrast to my mind which often gets caught up in its own agenda and plans. When I listen to my body my whole days flows and there is an ease in the day. When I rely only on my mind for the timing of the day there is a tension and anxiety and stress which does not feel great, leads to exhaustion and a lack of focus which in the end results in poorer quality of work and also less productivity overall!
Yep, I know this one too. Delaying or procastinating until time is limited and then being driven by stress and nervous drive to get things done – a painful pattern of behaviour which services no one.Space feels like the antidote, to work with space rather than time.
Yes, there is a flow that can be felt when we are with ourselves. The energy of rush and drive does not sit well in the body, it is not natural for us and it does impact those around us.
In a rush to get things done, nothing actually gets done any quicker or in a quality that is harmonious and it exhausts the body. I love leaving ample space and being in a rhythm that doesn’t stress the body.
I can very much relate to what you’ve shared Leigh. Leaving things to the last minute or incomplete feels horrible in my body. It feels like I am carrying a heavy weight around. It is so worth giving myself plenty of time to arrive to appointments early, do things as they arise and honour how my body feels. I find this eliminates any possibilities of allowing stress and overwhelm to creep into life.
All of this is so familiar to me Leigh, but what I am realising now is how quickly when I put something off, someone else will just pip me at the post and there is yet another missed opportunity. As you say, it supports no one, least of all ourselves. But by staying fully focussed and addressing things as and when they occur we can build a rhythm into our daily life that actually creates the space for all that needs to be done.
Thank you Leigh, it is a great and beautiful thing to see that how you are living affects everyone around you, and so the responsibility comes not out of judgement or need, but rather from a deep sense of love for all people…
This insightful sharing showed me that everything effects everything, which means everyone effects everyone. We think we work/play in these little silos but we don’t. When we delay, it has a ripple effect far reaching than I think we can understand.
Whenever I surrender completely to my body and the flow that is in there, the same flow as is in the universe, things just flow without complication.
It is fascinating the games we all play to delay returning to our innate essence and knowing. When we catch ourselves out it is an ah-ha moment, one of joy and understanding… and then lovingly moving on.
I love feeling the spaciousness to work with whatever is before me when chosen from the connection to the task on no the mental construct of what I think should be done. So every time (well very often) when they’re a few things before me I get a sense from my body not my mind, which is the one to approach. If it’s not going so great I might down tools and move forward with what ever is next.
Putting things off can trigger quite a chain reaction, a bit like dominoes tumbling one after the other. Procrastination drains us even when we think we have pushed what needs to be done to the far recesses of the mind; that energy lingers and reconfigures us in a way that is not conducive to our health and vitality, no matter how subtle it might appear to be.
It is always good to consider the impact all our actions have on each other and the all. I am finding time will always be our friend if we don’t rush things and leave them till the last minute.
I have the strangest habit of when I am about to leave the house, I start to futter, to tidy up, or to do some last minute cleaning which always leaves me late every single time. That said, recently I have changed my morning routine, which gives me more space so I do not go into rush mode at the last minute, with amazing results that the rest of my day is spacious. It is clear to me that the intention I start my day with is what the day brings!
I have noticed this as well, in myself but also generally in people – a busy day is made so much more busy and intense because we approach it in a way that is totally out of flow, putting things off, rushing and making more out of a task than is needed, when it could be simple
Choosing indecisiveness is another way to put pressure on the body and also a form of procrastination as it takes so much time to think and to think over and over again.
Well said Annelies, indecision is very time and energy consuming.
I know I have used the stress of running late to an interview or something I am not looking forward to attending as a distraction from feeling something I don’t want to feel. Now I hate being late, or in the stress of ‘will I or won’t I make it on time?’, as I don’t like feeling the impact it has on myself and those around me. Though I’m choosing to trust I have the connection to the wisdom that’ll bring me what’s needed in any given moment, I am still getting my wants and wishes in the way – any thoughts of I would rather be doing something else negates the magic there for me to commit to. Appreciating how there is a way more responsibility to be brought into my life around this is great – no resting on any wilting laurels that are no where near the majesty we can bring.
I have never enjoyed being late or leaving things to the last minute and yet I do. I squeeze so many things at work, that I am often late seeing a client. What I find with that though is that most things are not urgent and can wait, not a long time, but they can. But what you are offering is much more than the practicalities of filling over or under filling our day. What you are offering is how are we in all that we do? and with that we do have a choice in the quality that we move through our day in. For when we are connected we know exactly what needs to be attended and sometimes other things are able to work themselves out with minimum input. Having no attachments is key here also. Not being attached to any particular outcome and supporting others and ourselves in that process.
I’m not one to procrastinate or leave thing to the last minute – I don’t like the feeling in my body. But reading this I realised that I have other ways of creating the same effect in my body. The being “productive” thing I achieve by being ahead of myself and thinking of what to do next. The result – stress and anxiety in my body.
I have totally been here – leaving things to the last minute and not making enough time to get somewhere, And you are spot on that the effect of this is stress and not feeling the body and what is truly being communicated. It is like a way to numb out and not be present.
Procrastination is one of the greatest ways that we can hold back and delay living our potential.
I found that the following worked – after a fashion: I was too tired to do something so waited until I had the nervous energy from the building time pressure to do it. These days I do things as soon as I possibly can with much less regard to the deadline and life is much simpler but a key requirement is that I have more energy.
It is lovely to notice the space that is there the less detours/distractions I take during the day. As you describe Leigh we can keep ourselves busy, but busy with what and it makes a lot of sense that the way we go through life has a lot to do with how much we value ourselves or more so, how much we are aware of our own inner value.
Leigh you ask some really pertinent questions about what energy are we in when we do things. I feel there is an underlying need within us all to prove our worth and value to society that somehow we are not enough just as we are. I also feel this drive to prove our worth is encouraged at a very early age and so by the time we go out into life it is hard wired in our bodies and therefore feels part of who we are, which is not true at all.
“Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it.” I’ve also realised that when that feeling arises to put down what is being worked on and move to the next thing, that it is at that point, completed. We don’t need to finish something for it to feel complete in the moment ie, we can allow those extra 15 minutes before leaving the house, rather than the minus10 minutes late!
It certainly does seem to be the case that those who – for one reason or another – always appear to be busy, receive more plaudits and recognition than those work in a harmonious flow and complete things ‘on time’. I used to be like this but have learned – for the sake of my wellbeing and the way it feels in my body – to flow with the innate impulses that reveal that there is indeed time for everything. Interestingly, when I am if this flow, I am far less concerned about the recognition of others too.
True commitment has no ounce of investment in an outcome because it comes from you bringing all of you to all you do.
“We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so.” What has worked for me to create more space, is to basically, get the daily or weekly commitments completed as soon as is possible while still maintaining a care and nurturing living way while I complete them – to stay absolutely focused; enjoy my movements as I maintain the quality; and being open and aware to how more simple I can make my routines. Its a way to stay focused and see just how much space I can create.
We each have the potential to contribute valuably to society and create a world in which we can all equally thrive and grow.
I can so relate to ‘leaving things to the last minute’ and procrastination in getting something done. Absolutely, the pressure on my body can be felt and yes, my choice to leave something undone affects others. Hummm… I need to go and tidy my study today…!
Ha! I am the opposite. I love to just complete things and have space for more. I love arriving early and having time. I even have a nickname, Rosie Completion!
I just realised that my comment may come across like I am up myself, but really I am just celebrating that this is something I am good at. I love how I am able to not leave things to last minute and how good it feels to have things completed. If I do find myself in a rush, it puts so much pressure on my body and I always feel stressed from it.
Haha. I am with you Rosie, it feels very uncomfortable in my body to be ahead of myself in any way and I also feel the tension of things undone. Completion in every moment doesn’t expend any unnecessary energy.
That is a great point, that if uncomplete we are still wasting energy on it, until it is done. Easier just to get it done, dusted and complete.
There is such a steadiness that can be developed when we do not rush and are fully present in what we do. Allowing for more space to open up and engage with life and people more fully.
Yes, we stop losing the energy that is needed when working in a rush, under stress.
Leaving things to the last minute, procrastination i find are all things to keep up the tension to not feel the greater tension in not being prepared for what needs to be prepared. It’s really just an avoidance of responsibility.
Being super productive was a way of feeling good about myself because I could pat myself on the back and tell myself what a great job I had done. Things have changed and now I deeply appreciate myself when I am simply being me.
Me too! There is a big difference between simply ticking the boxes or crossing off the ‘to do list’ and actually noticing the quality we are doing these things in and whether we are forcing things through and the impact our movements or actions are actually having on our bodies.
Agree Andrew one is for self , the other is for the all.
This is a great way of looking at how we can be living life and the impact that it has. Even when we allow just enough time it is putting strain and anxiousness into the equation. This question that you pose on how much we value ourselves on what we produce is definitely one I am going to bring in and observe how much of this is really at play, it can be so subtle as well.
I like to get to appointments with time to be able to sit and wait before going in. If I am rushing and do not allow myself this time I come out of my rhythm and get slightly anxious and this then has an impact on my body and would be felt by others.
Don’t we put life in compartments in this way? I understand what is being said about having ‘time’ to sit before “appointments” etc but do we use the ‘just arrive before an appointment’ or ‘5 minutes early’ or ‘late’ as a picture? I mean are we still pushing life into parts to say this is me going to the appointment, this is me at the appointment and this is me leaving? When in fact it’s all the same person or being in all things and so no matter where in time you arrive the whole thing has space for you to prepare for the next part or moment. So the drive there etc can be the “wait before going in” or the day before could be seen the same way. It’s only when we start dividing life up into parts that we dismiss the complete feeling of what is sitting with us already.
A real understanding on the way of living and valuing ourselves and others that is very supportive to us all and gets away from the stress and reactions of leaving things to the last minute and feeling we have to prove ourselves and our worth to others . The simplicity of honouring ourselves and commitment is very beautiful to value as a way of being and can change everything with a solid knowing from within.
This is so true. We make everything we are doing more important than the affect we are having on ourselves and others. There is so much self-importance in this and a lack of being aware of the bigger picture. Great to call this.
Also interesting how this leaving things until the last minute pattern is related to a lack of self-worth: could it be that we don’t give ourselves the time or space to complete things properly because we’re so busy trying to prove ourselves, our worth and our value, by what we do? By doing things more perfectly than they need to be done, are we then spending more time on something, to the detriment of our health, relationships, and the quality of the next thing that is there for us to do? Perfection and striving involves pushing against time – squeezing as much time as we can out of the space, but as this blog shows, perhaps it’s time to question if this seeming maximisation of time is really worth it.
A great reminder that we always have a choice: to get caught up in wanting and needing to do things a certain way (including with perfection, or needing it all to be done right now), or to let go and allow the space to feel what’s really needed in each moment, on each project, and to do one thing at a time with quality.
And when we allow the space to do what is needed in each moment a natural unfolding occurs with no push or drive to get things done.
Thank you Leigh for exposing the impact of procrastination not just on ourselves but on those around us. I can feel how I have felt superior to others who appear to flow through life more smoothly than me and judged them for being less productive but what has come up for me reading your blog is how controlling my procrastination has often been. For example feeling that I am the only one who is capable of doing x, y or z and then delaying on the completion of this impacts everyone involved and if on a rare occasion I am the only person who is able to complete a particular task what does that reveal about my lack of willingness to share my skills and knowledge for the wider benefit?
“it also highlights true commitment as we are no longer committed to what we want or think needs to be done, but to society as a whole.” Getting ourselves out of the way – regardless of what we ‘do’ – brings more time – and space – to a project.
I tend not to leave things til the last minute – but then have used the time left to get somewhere to ‘do just one more thing’. As I became aware of this issue I am now content to arrive early and sit and connect with myself beforehand. It’s surprising how different I feel. Completion of projects however is another kettle of fish! Something to work with this new year.
I know this leaving things to the last minute very well and feel that it is connected to a desire to be living on the edge, bringing an adrenaline rush, however small, that makes us feel alive and that what we are doing is important. It can bring a sense of drama into our lives that we feel we need when the truth is living without this brings a depth and connection that leaves us wanting nothing but feeling empowered in the purpose of our actions.
Leaving things to the last minute is one of these things we do in life to try to control life, to control what we want our milieu to be till we have no choice. What we hold on gives us identification, reference and the final bit gives us adrenaline that does not allow us to connect with what we are letting go and what comes next in a harmonious way. It is a pattern of movement that generates a lot of friction as it unravels.
Procrastination comes with a choice of not being present, even in the activity by which someone procrastinates. This is just an excuse, a kind of distraction to delay and not assuming the responsibilities of life and responding timely to them. It feels like an alignment to anything but service, and this is the reason of the impact it has in others, because we all are part of a greater whole. We are united and everyone have something to contribute in the whole we are part of, so when we don’t claim ourselves in full and don’t respond to life when we are required, everything gets affected.
Thank you Leigh. I realise now that many of my reasons for procrastinating arise from wanting that external pat on the back for all I am doing and in reading this blog, appreciate that my body very clearly tells me when it is time to move on. Feeling what my body wants to do and reciprocating means getting my own agenda out of the way, something that I am gradually learning brings a huge space to the day, if I am willing to surrender to a plan that is much bigger than my own.
Some very good questions are being posed here Leigh and answering them may require a level of honesty that would renounce this kind of non-committal type of behaviour.
I used to leave things to the last moment as I used to say I was completing something else. However, I found that the less I leave things to the last moment the more I am accomplishing and am finding I have even more space (time) than I realised.
This is a great topic to raise and open up Leigh. When we do make ourselves late for an appointment, work or even scheduled time/dinner with the family because we’re completing something that could be finished another time, or we didn’t use our day as effectively as possible, then how that appointment for example might run over at the end absolutely affects both us, the person we’re going to see and the space that was available for that particular thing. A great example is in GP practices where there could be 20 people booked in after yours, and one person’s lateness affects the GP and everyone that day.
I can really feel the stress in my body when I think there isn’t enough time to complete everything I need to do so i know this well Leigh. But I also know when I let go of the images I have of how much needs doing, everything can get done in a beautiful flow and there is no need at all for any anxiety.
My commitment especially to work has changed enormously. As I reflect I am working far more hours today than I have ever done and I know there is more that can be done. I am certainly not knocking myself committing to life in a way I have not done before but what is the quality, where is it coming from when I say I am committing to my work. If there is any ‘me’ in the commitment then it is not true commitment which for me this blog highlights and exposes. Thank you Leigh for sharing.
My body always knows what is needed. I’ve recently become aware when I’ve an appointment or need to be somewhere at a certain time, I get the cue to get ready to leave but often override it and make what I’m doing more important than what I’m being shown is next. This is a great reminder that listening to my body has so much more value and makes it about everyone when the ideal and picture or belief to finish up only makes it about me, on from which I can get stressed or a bit racy and those around me get affected so it’s clear it doesn’t work. I love the reminder too to trust the time to complete will come later because it does! Getting distracted just as I leave the house can play out as well. Looking at this gives me the opportunity to see why things are not in order as I go about my day and therefore need attending to as I walk out the door to the pictures I’m holding of how things should look, all a way to keep me away from the responsibility of what’s next. Thank you for bringing this to the fore I can clearly see how these behaviours curb the flow in my day.
It is interesting the subtle ways we try to prove and justify our worth and convince ourselves hoping to convince another, and what is more interesting is that no one questions this, either by the person we are trying to convince or from within ourselves and so we accept behaviours such as being late so long as they are backed up with justification.
Leigh this part of your blog stood out to me, although I loved all of it, “Honouring that, if it is time to move onto something else and what we are working on is not finished, then the space will be there later to complete it.” Its something that I am going to reflect on today as I start back at work and am often caught up in meeting after meeting and the importance of not being late for the next one and seeing that by brining purpose and focus to one thing, no matter if we complete everything we wanted in that meeting, the importance of moving on.
Leigh this line really got me: “Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us?” I often think when I leave things to the last minute it effects only me, but what if the delay and the disregard I’m in effects everyone else too… then it becomes not just something that needs to be done at some point but something that has a an immediacy to it. It makes me wonder what else I do that effects not only me but everyone else around me.
Can we truly “leave things to the last minute”? I mean time changes with peoples perception as we are seeing and we bend it and push it to be what ever we want it to be. Whether we are late, early, on time or out of time it’s not running to the clock that’s important but more how we see ourselves in relationship to time. The clock didn’t create time nor does it own it, we created time and so already know how to master this part of life. Time as it’s been said is merely a perception of what we want it to be and so in that it is us that create the space for all to be done. The thing that effects us all isn’t the time factor but more the quality of our relationship with everything.
The expansion you are offering to us all with your comments Ray is there for any who wish to look deeper into our lives and the perceptions we have and to honestly and lovingly see how we use time. Until we do we are governed by time, even though we think we are not.
That’s the great thing about this quality of conversation about topics like these, our awareness grows or expands and almost by osmosis you seem to know more. It’s like each comment is a living step for us all and it matters not if you say it or you read it the awareness is there for us all equally.
Not making it just about ourselves is a sure way of letting go of procrastination and delay because when we feel it is not about us but that we are doing it for the bigger picture and our quality is seen and felt by all, life gets a totally different purpose.
So much demand is placed on our body when we are in the habit of moving in a rushing way. We only seem to notice the effect of this if we either become exhausted, fatigues, sick or when we have the opportunity to stop, be still and then we feel just how much of a push we have been putting ourselves under. Then we see we have a choice.
Procrastination is exhausting as the tension of being aware of all that is not completed is a constant pressure.
True Mary it is a constant strain on the body we carry with us until we have completed what needed completion as the next thing is already there waiting for us to begin with.
Leigh, great article, I can really feel how this does affect others as well as ourselves: ‘Does leaving just enough time to get to an appointment and finding that we are late, affect just us? Are our families being impacted by our behaviour’, if I am running late and then my family gets me rushing out the house, not connected with myself or them, when I arrive at my appointment just in time or late I need to calm down and this takes a while. It is hard to focus if I have been rushing and this makes for an unproductive meeting. If I am rushing driving I am only thinking of myself on the road and am not driving as carefully as I otherwise would be, so yes I can see how everyone I meet gets affected.
Postponing completion to the last minute is to me holding back on the natural flow that is on offer as in that natural flow there is no last minute but only a completion that will be in time for the purpose of the subject to be completed.
Yes and we hold a perception of how and when things complete and what they will look like when completed. When we do this we try and shove everything into this perception or picture. If we trust there is a ‘natural flow’ then in this flow the completion is felt first and all we need do is trust and appreciate this feeling and not step into the perception which then may run it over time.
And too Ray, with this perceptions we think we know what completion is, we then can go in a tendency of wanting it to be perfect, dot the i’s and sometimes even a complete redo. But where is then the connection with what is truly needed and what completing things is bringing us. As completion offers space to be more and for something new to commence with. Could it be that we all know that it works like this, that we are asked to be more after any completion and that there is a reluctance in us to go this way?
What you share here is absolutely spot on Leigh, Innately we all know our worth, our value and what it is that we individually bring to society. We have more than enough time to complete all of our commitments along with honouring our bodies and moving on to the next thing as it is needed, with plenty of space (time) to do so. This I am truly experiencing at the moment, by choosing to be more aware of where my presence is at and take responsibility for being with me as much as I can, and really enjoying moving with myself in a much truer and graceful way, I am more obedient to my body and this allows the space as you say.
This is brilliant Leigh, and so relatable. For me what I can do is allow enough space to do what I need to do, but then bring in other things/distractions and then have to rush at the end because I’m running out of time when I started off with enough time in the first place. All so I wouldn’t connect to me and go deeper with my relationship with myself in that way. So good now to be moving through that irresponsible and unloving choice and into enjoying doing so much more with me, in a space that is open and much more respectful of my body and also a responsible choice in bringing the quality of joy-filled love to what I do.
This is a great subject for me to ponder on. I recognise and appreciate the value in getting things done and bringing it to a completion, but the question for me is how, and why I am doing what I am doing. When I come back to the body, there feels to be a completely different way of doing things, based on what I know is there, and it feels like I am not allowing that to come to the foreground in its fullness, feeling the insecurity in leaving the way I have known and lived in for so long.
This is something that I find myself pondering often, why do I feel so insecure when I allow my body to lead the way in my life? Because it feels so very true and extremely steady and solid. The insecurity I then feel, that I have come to understand hits the moment I begin to wonder how this steady solid being-ness will look in coming situations, instead of staying fully present and allowing each and every moment to come to me, with the feeling of absolute knowing that I am and have been fully prepared for the next moment.
An inspiring blog Leigh, exposing the disharmony and exhaustion that occurs when we are not living in the flow of the moment and letting procrastination rule.
“I now realise that this is living in a way that is in complete opposition to the impulse of my Soul and the messages my body is constantly sending me”.
What a great blog! The excuses we keep making and masking about leaving things to the last minute rather than having the true conversations that lead a flow and ease so that all that needs to be completed is done so in the natural flow.
It is amazing how many things we can do, such as leaving things to the minute, to hamper us being with ourselves, I know as soon as I feel the pressure of time my body almost instantly starts to feel racy and anxious. I then easily find myself bumping into things, droppings things and missing bits – like leaving something out or forgetting something I needed, So I get the signs but do I listen to them that is the question! The more I honour and value myself the more I do because I can feel when my quality is less than the loveI know I am and so if it is less than as you say not only do I effect myself but also everyone around me.
When there is something that we know needs to be done and we choose not to do it, then there is an energetic starting point for that procrastination and the procrastination is, in itself energy, a rather stagnant energy that we carry around with us until such time as we are able to complete whatever it is that needs to be done. Knowing this, it’s easy to understand why so many of us feel fatigued, because we are all hauling so much stagnant energy around with us that it drains our bodies. And we all know the lightness that comes when we do eventually get round to doing whatever it is that needs to be done.
‘Being productive’ is something that humanity has become totally hooked into. So often our level of self worth is derived by our level of productivity and we have such issues with those who are not seen to be productive, we see them as lazy and automatically devalue them. We struggle with kids who are just ‘lying around’, we criticise fellow staff members who work too slowly. We seem to have universally adopted the notion that the best way to live, is to put a maximum amount of effort into both our work day and our time out of work. To cram as much in as possible and to do everything at break neck speed. Consequently we are frying our nervous systems and ending up with bodies that are totally bankrupt. The quality of how we are being, whilst we do what we do has the power to address everything, literally every-single-thing. In every instance, if we examine why it is that we are not able to do something lovingly, then this will then show us what it is that stands in between us and love, because basically we are all headed back to being love in everything that we do.
In the criticism and judgement of others that we can allow to be our way around those we deem as lazy or not pulling their weight in society we deprive ourselves of understanding what is going on for another and why the choices they make are to literally check out from society. It is this understanding and subsequently the underlying cause of such choices that actually needs to be addressed, not judgement or criticism of the end result.
Leigh as a person who has judged others almost continually throughout my life, for pretty much everything but definitely for being ‘lazy and not pulling their weight’, I couldn’t agree with you more. It is only relatively recently that I have been able to feel how my judgement has only served to kind of ‘freeze’ the other person in time and space, whilst also pinning myself down into the exact same state of immobilisation.
Leigh I have only just finished reading your blog but know that I shall read it and read it again, as whilst even just reading it once, I could feel that there were so many different teachings threaded through the one article; too many in fact for me to be consciously aware of them all. Another powerful sharing Leigh, that supports us all to evolve, keep them coming.
It’s all about being deeply honest with myself and developing my relationship with honesty in my body
An awesome reminder Leigh of our bodies natural rhythms and how when connected to, we bring purpose, responsibility and love to the world and all that encompass it. Thank you.
When we value ourselves by how busy we are, or the number of projects we are on, then humanity loses out because the quality of our being is not fully present. I have recently gone through a change letting go of projects I am involved with because I am unable to offer the solid commitment of time they require – we can pull a whole team down by not being fully committed, and I realise more than anything it is the quality of my presence just walking down the street that matters, and by focusing on the quality of my connection, space opens up for work I can easily commit to.
Thank you Leigh. I love your point about how our lack of self worth affects others as well as ourselves. We therefore have a responsibility to heal our lack of self worth by deeply appreciating the being that we are.
I used to be Procrastinator-in-Chief. I’ve made big steps to work on this – I mean there’s always work to be done, but I’m happy with the way I’ve worked through it. One of the things that came up for me in the process was placing importance on my word – meaning that I would honour the person with the task, time, etc I had agreed. So if I was late, I felt I was not honouring my word, which is something that I have come to hold true.
I know that procrastination well – and then on the other end of the scale, the false sense of urgency that means I am always the slave of time and of my own self-created pressure.
What we are ignoring when we fall into this, is the harmonious body clock we all have – which knows what is needed when to keep itself – the body – in the natural and harmonious rhythm it belongs to. We let our minds run away ahead, in ignorance of the body which gently communicates the next impulse to us all of the time. We let ourselves get caught in the ideals and beliefs of we ‘should’ do this and we ‘should’ do that – draining us and taking us out of the harmonious rhythm that settles us into the realisation that time is never our enemy, but a constant reminder to listen to the one true clock we all do have, which is our physical body.
What we forget as humans is that we are never given anything that is too much for us to handle, yet we mess with this and take on more then we can handle so as to get lost in the overwhelm and in this reaction, create the delay we crave so as not to follow through with our true and magnificent glory that naturally unfolds into all that we do when we give ourselves the space in which to do/be it.
This is fascinating Leigh. I love the way you point out that many people fake productivity. This charade is something we use as a protection. It’s like we say to ourselves “if I look busy then people will think I’m doing a great job” this shows how we are not bringing a true quality to what we do. Everyone gets short changed when we make it about ourselves and our own security. I can see how exhausting and pointless this game is.
Everyone not only gets short changed, but great harm is felt by everyone who is around one who is living to prove self and their supposed production. It brings a push, a pressure and a constant comparison with it. A great harm, yet growing up, performing in sports and even simply being in a classroom this way of being in life is lived, encouraged and even championed. We have a lot of work to do to shine a different way, to live knowing our worth and performing to our absolute maximum output every day, with nothing but living in the flow of our body and the natural cycles of our universe.
I can so relate to your sharings here Leigh… procrastination has been a big part of my life up until now, and in truth it exposes our irresponsibility. I have often put off doing what needed to be done, especially around my home, thinking it won’t affect others, however it affects the energy of my home which impacts the neighbourhood. In reality there is nothing that does not affect us all, as we all live in the same universe where everything is energy.
Brilliantly shared Leigh – there are billions of us on this planet, so many of whom would probably describe themselves as ‘busy’ – but busy doing what? If we let thoughts in that aren’t true or enter into escapades we know are a distraction this comes at the expense of what is divinely designed for us to do. We can counterfeit a life that is full but not one that is complete and settled.
I agree and there are so many terms or words we use that possibly have “billions” of meanings as well. Let’s look at busy as for some that could mean 7 days a week busy, others 5 and some could busy themselves doing what others think is nothing or normal and yet just using the term busy brings a blanket or a ‘don’t look here’ attitude. A few have commented the same in the fact that if someone says busy we don’t have a constant terminal for how this is, it’s more a perception of how it looks for us all. I’d write more but I’m ‘busy’ at the moment and so haven’t got ‘time’…….as you can see you can play around and still look busy.
Whenever I/we have lost the presence with ourselves and are no longer in our natural rhythm, there is an unnecessary stress on the body and our surrounds.
Firstly, great article and as I read the first part it made me consider “last minute”. I realised there a many different version of “last minute” as they are not all the same. I mean there is a general definition of what this term means but for some last minute is just a few minutes before a set time, others it’s just on that time, others are just after, others are never getting there etc etc. It’s funny to think we live in a world that has many version of the same thing and yet we accept this and in fact live with as what we call normal. I guess all this shows us the reality of time and how we use it to dictate to ourselves or pressure ourselves to be something other then what is needed and true at any point. Time isn’t the dictator of how things need to be and as the article is saying there is a flow to life that is timeless and while it’s marker is cycles that give the space for things to complete within them rather then pushing everything into a time frame.
What a great point Ray. I remember some years ago reacting to someone who was ALWAYS a few minutes late and always made a disruptive entrance. The person I shared this with said well if she is always the same few minutes late, then she is not late but perfectly on time according to her rhythm and need to create that tension and stimulation.
Haha and I love that, maybe tough to understand for some of us but time is changeable depending on how you perceive it as we are saying. We hold it out to be this thing of great power and yet we can bend it and shape it anyway we want it. Time doesn’t dictate time back to us we run to it.
Reading your comment Ray brings a complete stop to the fabrication we have made time to be. Could time simply be a marker, reference point and how we live in that is through the flow of the natural cycles that our body is a part of. How this then becomes practical to living each day is where the true beauty of what we are offered is revealed. We are human, we have work, family, friends, projects, hobbies, the list here is vast, but our body knows where we need to be when, knows what it needs to be doing when to get us to where we need to be, when we need to be there. Is this not magical for every one of us have different lives, with different jobs, different timelines (so to speak) etc, yet our body knows innately what it is that is needed in our personal life. Even more magical is that it also knows what is happening for another and sometimes it will sense that we need to be doing something much sooner than we thought, because another’s plans may have changed, or that there is something coming for us to address that was not at all in our plans, but needs immediate attention. Living in the natural cycles of life is total proof that we are all connected, all of the time.
There is a great simplicity in honouring what we know from our whole body is needed, rather than complicating things or getting in a drive or rush to do what we think we ought to be doing or want to do to be recognised…