It’s the morning after my 9 day online spiritual retreat with Caroline Myss. As with most morning afters, I’m feeling like Peggy Lee singing, Is That All There Is? My problem is I have this lazy bone. I like the learning . I wish it could go on forever. I love soaking up all the knowledge. Living it is another matter. I have this feeling of avoidance, dread, putting up roadblocks. I think I hate change and creating the domino effect. Make one wrong move and the whole thing comes undone. I hate uncertainty and taking chances. I love safety even though it’s stifling at times.

Learning, researching, gathering information, whatever I choose to call it, gives legitimacy to procrastination. It reduces my guilt of none doing. I wonder why I feel I have this guilt. Why must I be doing something ‘useful’ or ‘creative’ all the time? Why is enjoying idleness such a sin? That’s something to think about. But I’ve cleared out all my busyness during this 9 day period. I’m taking time resting in the in between notes, letting the information and ideas sit and percolate. More wisdom may arise. I’m more apt to hear it when it comes if I’m quiet within.

I am enjoying the idleness today. There is that feeling of ‘I should have’ in the back of my mind. I should have but I’m too tired. I should have but there’s a feeling that I don’t want to go there. I should have but I dread doing that. I’m learning to live with and accepting these feelings. Sometimes they are not real. They do no harm. I can sit with them. I can stand the rest as well as the guilt.