The past few weeks caught up with me this weekend, and I slept in on Sunday, which was glorious. Later, my guy needed to stretch out because of his back, so I climbed back in bed, too. I caught myself, half-asleep, thinking, I should read more of that book on Kindle – and then I thought, why??? I’m exhausted, I can barely keep my eyes open, and yet I should be reading instead??

I’d just read in Quit Like A Woman by Holly Whitaker that our brain uses 20% of our energy, that our daily energy is finite, and that every decision, email, text, scroll, etc we fill our days with drains that energy. Which is why most of us are fried by 3 or 4.

As I contemplated all of this, it dawned on me that even when I’m ‘relaxing’, I’m not. I’m doing. Something. Anything. I’m reading a book, spending too much time on the internet, making list of things I need to do…and on and on. Even if I sit outside to enjoy the weather (it’s finally cool enough to do that again!!), it’s with a book. Or I’m sending light. It’s never just to sit and watch the clouds.

No wonder we’re all so exhausted all the time. We all have that ingrained “must be doing something, idle hands are the devil’s…something…and we never, ever stop and just BE. The trauma of the ongoing pandemic, unacknowledged grief, the collapse of the climate, having to make an income in the midst of all this so we don’t end up homeless…it’s too much. Simply too damned much. And some of all this ‘doing’ is to distract us from the simply too damned much.

I’m planning on stepping back from my public Twitter for the month of September, scheduling posts and checking notifications, but skipping the doomscrolling. The drain on my energy is palpable, and I need every bit of it back that I can get.

What do you think of Substack? It’s basically a newsletter service, and I don’t really understand the difference between it and writing a blog post, but what’s your opinion?

Anyway, happy Monday! Take breaks, eat a little bit of protein every now and then through the day, say no to anything that will overwhelm you, and breathe. Slowly and deeply.

With hope and love,

Pip ✨🌻