The Illusion of falling behind
The strange thing about finally starting to feel a little better is that your to-do list perks up, too.
Mine certainly has.
As fate would have it, I live with an autoimmune condition as well as chronic pain. After spending the last couple of weeks feeling especially run-down from a massive flare (thanks, Canadian wildfire smoke!), I've been looking around my house and seeing everything that hasn’t been done. I had spent those two weeks resting and taking care of myself, yet somehow it still felt like I'd been neglecting everything else. The clutter that accumulated. The weeds that kept growing in my garden. The articles I didn't write. The open tabs on my computer waiting for my attention.
My first instinct?
Catch up.
As quickly as possible. As thoroughly as possible.
I heard myself saying things like, “I really have to…” and “I’m so behind on…”
It’s a little ironic.
I actually write pretty often about just this kind of moment, when we catch ourselves applying standards and expectations that belonged to a different chapter of our lives. The times when we view ourselves through that old lens that simply doesn’t fit our current reality. When we’re being a little hard on ourselves for not performing in ways we think we ought to.
The truth is, I really hate that feeling of falling behind. It was never how I functioned before, when I pre-planned and pre-prepared for almost everything in my life.
Yet when I look at my life now, I see how ridiculous that impulse is in my current circumstances. If I ask myself honestly if I’m truly behind on things that matter most, the answer is no. My bills were still paid on time, the mail was still sent, and my cats were fed and loved on each day. By contrast, I don’t remember signing a contract about how often I get my articles published or how quickly I get the final edits of my book done. And recording those last three meditation guides doesn’t actually have to happen today.
Those latter things are a big part of what I’m building and creating. They matter to me. But the core message behind each of them is exactly what I’m reminding myself of now: that I’m continuing to cultivate the very same mindful awareness, the same attention to the body’s signals, and the same self-compassion that I now teach to others. I, too, need reminders to let go of old standards and expectations. And I’m still developing a new relationship to productivity and untangling that from self-worth. I make no secret of the fact that I occasionally struggle with that pesky inner critic.
Writing about these topics has an unexpected benefit for me -- it gives me an ongoing opportunity to reinforce them within myself. I don’t know if one ever truly masters them, and perhaps that’s not the goal we should strive for. Maybe the primary aim is finding a way to apply them to whatever life has in store for us, one day after the next. Some days, they feel closer at hand and easier to bear in mind. On other days, we might need to face the echoes of a distracting internal narrative. I think what matters is that we ultimately arrive at the place of compassion rather than judgment or pressure.
Once I realized that old echo was rising and causing a mild sense of anxiety and panic, I decided to stop. Stop cramming my to-do list with ever more tasks. Stop constricting my body and my breath while multi-tasking in my mind. Stop the impulse to catch up with everything all at once.
I realized that those two weeks were spent doing exactly what needed to be done. I had tended to what my body demanded of me, whether I liked it or not. I rested, drank more water, saw the doctor, and canceled all plans and activities for a time. I gave myself something I’d never given myself in the past – the time to truly recover and recuperate.
In that same moment, I decided the first thing to focus on wasn’t moving faster. It was slowing down.
So I turned on some soothing music, and then I picked one thing. Just one simple task. Not the article, not the recording. I looked around my home and saw what might create a little more peace in my environment, something that could make room in my spinning thoughts for being creative later on, and began there. I wiped down the kitchen counter and cleaned out the sink. I gently tidied one tiny area, then another. I didn’t clean my whole house. I didn’t push past my limits. I just started, from a place of calm and ease. And over the next few days, things slowly began to feel a bit more normal, a bit more familiar. I noticed it was the sense of normalcy I was craving most, not some unrealistic ideal of a perfectly kept home and a completed set of tasks. It was the feeling of being productive I needed, regardless of how much actually got done. Oh, how that trap of “must-do” and “should” can fool us.
Now, I can finally sit down with the energy and presence of mind to write this. And when I’m finished, I’ll start those recordings. Or maybe I’ll do those tomorrow, and that will be just fine.
What I caught myself doing the first moment I started feeling like myself again isn’t uncommon. Most of us tend to fall into those traps that are, more often than not, built on habit rather than reality. When we’re stuck in that illusion, everything feels like it’s pulling at us at the same time, with equal pressure applied to it all.
In truth, not all obligations hold the same weight, and they don’t carry the same urgency. As much as we’d like to have everything on our to-do list crossed off and out of the way, there will always be a new set of tasks calling for our time and energy.
That urge to catch up to make up for lost time is perfectly human. It can carry us away if we let it, or we can approach it with a little more gentleness. That’s where we have more freedom of choice than we might realize. That’s where we can see these moments as invitations to practice the very things we teach, or the things we’d say to a friend. And if we live with conditions or circumstances that sometimes disrupt our normal lives and require us to shift our priorities, we might also ask ourselves later, "Was that time really lost?" We may just realize that we've actually spent that time taking care of exactly what we needed to. Sometimes that's the most important thing on the list.
If these reflections resonated with you, I've created a few resources that explore these ideas in greater depth:
A short YouTube reflection on the fine art of slowing down
My guided meditations on topics such as slowing down and practicing self-compassion.
My book of affirmations for people living alongside chronic pain—or anyone who could use a gentler voice to guide them.
My Self-Care and Self-Compassion Journal, available exclusively in my online shop.
A free printable self-care and self-compassion checklist for paid subscribers (available under the “Perks” tab on my Substack page)
With you on the journey,
Julie 🦋