Why You Should Be Doing Nothing

My title sounds really very non-productive, doesn’t!  But it isn’t my friends for several reasons.  Hear me out on this if you can. All you have to do is just read!

Doing nothing might be the best thing you can do for yourself in a long time. 

Actually doing nothing allows for a pathway to open up to new possibilities and ideas! 

But for some of you out there, it might be a difficult “task” if not seeming like an impossibility.

I once had a patient who said she could only come in on Saturday mornings.  I did occasionally see some patients on Saturday afternoons because of their conflicting work schedules.

Not only did it have to be Saturday mornings but as early as she could convince me to see her.  I initially complied; empathy outweighing my own usual routine of basically doing nothing on a Saturday morning.

She would arrive for each session breathless, showing me her list that generally had up to 15 things to accomplish that day.  She would start at 7:30 am and sandwich in her sessions with me before she set out in a rush for the next chore.

Her whole self-worth was tied up into accomplishing this and that.  She didn’t get that way by herself, driven incessantly by a tiger mother of sorts, who made sure her childhood was a time card to be ticked off, rather than “lived”.

She was a real glutton of doing, the more the merrier in her line of thinking, much to the dismay of her long-suffering husband who was bashed about because he could not share her appetite of getting things “done” on her time and on her schedule.

Besides her obsession with time management and lists, her whole life was compartmentalised.  This including friends that she would announce had been demoted from her A list to her B list for various infractions to her set in concrete rules.

Her whole sense of self and self-esteem was determined by how many  RPMs of activities she could do in a day.  She was a slave and enslaved others until they rebelled.

Ok, this is an extreme case and yes there was more pathology under the surface than this, but basically, she treated herself and others like a machine to grind out accomplishments.

Obviously, this woman had no capacity of intimacy with her husband, nor for that matter herself.   On the outside, people like her might look like a winner until you try to have a relationship with them.

What if I were to tell you that doing nothing would allow you to open up to another world?   Yes, a world where you have never been before because it remains unknown to you.

A world where you would be free of being a slave to your shoulds and ought to’s.  Does this seem scary to you?   It may very well be if you are overly controlled not only with yourself but others.

You see, when we are so consumed with doing and accomplishing, we have no room for just dreaming.  We have no room for just “allowing”.

Allowing what you might ask?  Well, being creative!  Your creative juices can’t flow to your consciousness if you are always focused on completing a task or doing.

Our consciousness needs some time off to fully function.  That is why we need to sleep! Even if we are not in Alpha sleep, and we are awake enough to be lucid, we can have a flow of dream-like ideas or visions come to us.

Ever heard of lucid dreaming?   It is a semi-state of consciousness and dreaming that one can remember and even to some extent program loosely.

Despite what may seem to you as doing “nothing”, your brain is doing quite a lot.  Frankly, if you allow your brain this “freedom”, it can take your creativity to higher levels.

Why? Because you are not in control! I am aware that some of you who value always being in control would be frightened of this.

If you look at nature, you will find many analogies to the need of doing nothing.   For some plants and trees, it is essential to their survival.

For some mammals, it is likewise essential to their survival.  Bears and some other animals need to go into hibernation.  Many trees and flowering plants have to go into dormancy!

My Brugmansia or angel trumpets have to or else they will not produce their perfumed huge flowers.  They lose all their leaves and look almost like dead stalks, yet their cells are storing up energy for the spring and summer demands.

Take the maple trees who must even be frozen for a period of time to produce the sweet sap,  that will rise as thawing proceeds.

Some of the most fabulous and mind-blowing inventions came to these inventors in a dream.  I am only listing a few as the known list is long.

Elias Howe invented the sewing machine after having a dream of being stabbed.

Thomas Edison had several inventions, derived from dreams that he received during his afternoon nappings.

Albert Einstein came to the theory of relativity by a dream.

Dmitri Mendeleev fell asleep listening to chamber music and awoke with the idea of the periodic table of elements.

Mary Godwin came up with her storyline of Frankenstein in a dream while on Lac Leman at Byron’s lakeside chateau.

More recently there is Larry Page who as a 22-year-old student had a lucid vision during the night and then wrote down the algorithm that became Google!

Paul McCartney had a dream in 1965 where he came up with the lyrics to his magnificent song “Yesterday”.

I am often surprised by ideas of what to write about during the night when I am not asleep but in that in-between stage of lucid meanderings here and there.

For those of us who believe in a greater divine being, that most call God, also believe that God can communicate to us in dreams and times of centering prayer.

Centering prayer is much like meditation but revolves around spiritual and religious readings.   A part of Lectio Divina involves a meditative clearing to allow God to reveal to you.

During meditation, which does involve sitting quietly doing nothing, allowing whatever thoughts to come and go; revelations often come to us that can be healing or enlightening.

The bottom line is that even when you are not asleep and when you allow yourself the freedom to not be directed by your own shoulds, need to’s or efforts to control your train of thoughts, your brain will allow your consciousness to travel on its own path of creativity and ideas.

Mindfulness may help some become more aware of the present moment, but to me, it requires too much active thought.  I prefer mindlessness.

Mindlessness is actually a state of conscious passivity of just being.  There are no set goals, no efforts to do anything.  I can call it tuning out.

I can do it while waiting in line at the market.  I can do it in between reading spiritual works, where times and space shifts, however briefly.

I can even do it while walking in nature, trusting the rhythm of my legs to trot along as if they have a mind of their own, so that I can stare off into space.

In order to establish intimacy with another human being, making time and space to experience just “being” with someone you love is essential.

Loving mothers do it gazing in the eyes of their babies or upon their children nestled in their arms.   Lovers can do it enveloped in moments of silent touching, listening to each other’s heartbeats or gazing into each other’s eyes.

Unfortunately, for some, the capacity to establish intimacy with others is never valued until it is too late.  I have seen this sadly happen to some patients when they only allowed themselves “to be” available only when they had no other choice.

Several of them were completely sidelined by life-changing accidents or serious life-threatening illness.  Their helplessness allowed their vulnerability to finally engage intimately with their wives and loved ones long alienated from them.   For some, it was too late.

I hope that you have found some provoking thought in reading my little treatise on doing nothing.  It might just help save your life, your sanity or even your relationships.  Hugs to all.

 

P.S. Tomorrow, by the way, is a national holiday of May Day or Lily of the Valley day, in France officially called labour day.  The vast majority of shops will be closed.  Hopefully a day of doing nothing but being with whom you love.