As of today (December 15, 2016), I’ve just moved to WiseLife Therapy and Coaching.

My new online home combines my writing with the rest of the work I do:

• Therapy and Counseling for women: self-esteem, anxiety, grief and life transition, depression
• Coaching for women: Life Coaching
• Women’s Groups and Retreats
• My current blog posts

This space, Living Deep Studio (Why Not Start Now? in its early days) has been near and dear to my heart for many years.

I’m smiling as I write this, remembering all of you who visited and shared your wisdom here. I learned a lot from connecting to a community of readers, writers and wise women, not the least of which was becoming a better reader, writer and wise woman myself!

Thank you for being here. And looking forward to seeing you over there!

Maybe you’ve noticed? I’ve been absent from this space for over a year. During that time I thought of dozens of things to say to you when I returned, but in the end ditched them all. I’ve decided to keep it simple and just fill you in on where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Where I’ve Been

WOMEN’S CREATIVE WISDOM TELECIRCLE. One of last year’s highlights was guiding a small group of women through six months of inner work and creative exploration. We shared stories, played with rocks and symbols, drew mandalas, painted, sewed prayer flags, wrote letters to ourselves, collaged and created small looms, all in service of our deep wisdom.

I don’t yet know when I’ll offer another circle, but most definitely the essence of this experience will show up in some format soon. Maybe a retreat in the fall? I’ll keep you posted.

TRANSITIONING OUT OF MY HOME OF 21 YEARS. The process of letting go and simplifying was both energizing and exhausting. Everything took longer than planned, and overwhelm set in at several points. I discovered that there’s something called decision fatigue and it’s very real, creating stress and anxiety for many of us. I plan to write more about that in the coming months.

The good news is that all the hard work paid off: In mid-September our house went on the market and sold in six days.

15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MY BUSINESS. I’d like to tell you that I celebrated this milestone last June, but the truth is I forgot all about it because so many other things were going on! I’m thinking maybe I’ll have a full-on celebration this summer when I reach 16 years.

Where I’m Going

GRIEF SUPPORT SPECIALIST CERTIFICATE. During the past year I lost two loved ones, both unexpected and very sad. Yet, these experiences moved me to look deeply at how grief, loss and life transition intersect with my counseling and coaching work. As a result I’ve decided to more fully claim this part of what I do by enrolling in a new program at the University of Wisconsin, called the “first of its kind in the nation.” I’m excited to be part of the inaugural online cohort, starting next month.

NEW OFFICE IN SANTA ROSA. Although I’m still seeing clients in Sacramento on Mondays and Tuesdays, I’m living in Santa Rosa during the rest of the week and beginning to build my practice here too. It almost feels like starting over, even though I’ve been in business for 15 years. For now, I’m seeing clients in Santa Rosa on Wednesdays and will probably start a women’s group in the fall.

DISTANCE COUNSELING & COACHING. I adore working with clients face-to-face and always want that to be a part of my work. But in the last few years more clients have wanted to try therapy, counseling or coaching by phone (and sometimes Skype or FaceTime). It’s a great alternative for some people, and research supports its effectiveness.

NEW WEBSITE AND BLOG. This year it’s really happening: a new website and blog, all in one place. I won’t be writing here much longer. I’ve decided to keep all the posts up, though, because this space is of its time and it seems like the right thing to do. When my new site goes live, you’ll be the first to know!

Whew! That brings everything up to date, I think.

So, enough about me. What about you? I’d love to hear from you. Comments are open if you want to touch base or ask me a question or simply say “Hi.”

Wishing you a very happy spring filled with the energy of renewal and awakening.

Painting self-compassion: From the Women’s Creative Wisdom TeleCircle 2015

It’s about an old woman, Mrs. Watts, who yearns to go home, back to the farm where generations of her family lived and worked.

Her ache to return is so deep, her longing so pure, that it continually occupies her thoughts and dreams.

Again and again, she plans and schemes and attempts it, only to be thwarted by her son and his wife.

But she persists and one day breaks away from them. Then, when she is oh so close, just miles away, her luck seems to run out. She’s near collapse, and her plea is heart-rending…

“Let me go those 12 miles, before it’s too late…I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.”

And home she goes. Finally.

Maybe the part I love most about the story is that when she makes it back, it isn’t anything like she remembered. The house is a wreck. The fields are fallow. The town is deserted. Her last friend died the day before.

You’d think she’d be crushed, but she’s not. Instead, she finds nourishment beyond the ruin of her old life:

“Pretty soon it’ll all be gone. Ten years…twenty…this house…me…you. But the river will be here. The fields. The woods. The smell of the Gulf. That’s what I always took my strength from…Not from houses, not from people…It’s so quiet. It’s so eternally quiet. I had forgotten the peace. The quiet. And it’s given me strength once more…To go on and do what I have to do. I’ve found my dignity and my strength.”

Underneath the decaying surface and structure of her old life, she rediscovers her essence, her quiet knowing. The part of her that was there all along. The part of her that can’t be taken away.

Of course, I don’t know if the author, Horton Foote, had this in mind when he wrote the play. It doesn’t much matter, though.

Whatever his intention, it’s a breathtaking metaphor for how we get lost and have to make our way back to ourselves. How the journey might be dark at times but we push through anyway. And how even if we find something radically different than we expected, we usually end up getting what we need.

I have a hunch Horton Foote knew something about all this. After all, he named his play The Trip to Bountiful. And truly, bountiful is in the eyes, and experience, of the beholder.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how I’ve kind of experienced my own version of the trip to bountiful right here at Living Deep Studio.

I don’t mean that I’ve struggled the way that Mrs. Watts did. But as I look back on six years of writing here (with a 16-month hiatus in the middle) and 200 posts published, I see clearly that all along I’ve been making my way through my own homecoming.

I’ve been learning to embrace it in all its different shapes and colors. And I’ve come to acknowledge that this homecoming process is a deep and vital part of my work with women.

So I guess it’s not too surprising that the theme–coming home to ourselves–has been winding its way through my writing since the early days. It’s become a rallying cry and even a tag line of sorts:

Come home to your deepest wisdom.

I look around these days and see how the mantra of coming home to ourselves has taken hold and I sometimes wonder if maybe it’s time to retire my use of it. But then I think no, it’s good that so many women are saying it.

We need to keep the longing alive, just like Mrs. Watts did.

We need to remember that so much of what we’re searching for is already within us.

We need to accept that we won’t fully grasp this until we leave our metaphorical (and sometimes real) homes and go away from ourselves.

It really is the perfect irony: you can’t come home to yourself unless you leave first.

There’s another delicious irony here for me. Just as I’m celebrating six years and 200 posts, I’ve decided to take another blogging hiatus. Why? Because I want to concentrate all my energy right now on packing up and selling the home I’ve lived in for 20 years so I can follow the call of my little home in Sonoma County, my true place in the world. (For my Sacramento clients: don’t worry, I’ll still be in Sac a few days each week.)

So here I am again, leaving home in order to come home. The serendipity of it all simply amazes me.

I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone yet. Certainly not 16 months like the last hiatus. For the interim I’ve gathered up some favorite posts about home, inner and outer. Enjoy at your leisure.

The House of Belonging

Going Home: Retracing My Steps

Coming Home: The Ritual of Return

Celebrating Myself Home With An Art Journal

Refrigerator Rights

Your Quiet Knowing

Why I Love Stories

The Ritual of Re-remembering

It Takes As Long As It Takes

If you’d like to stay connected while I’m away, by all means join my circle by subscribing to my e-letter. You’ll hear from me about once a month, and in the coming months I’m planning to write about relationships, untold stories, filling the well and perfection. There will also be some guided meditations just for subscribers.

So take care, and I’ll see you soon!

I’ve started making prayer flags inspired by symbols that are transformative for me. No surprises here…”Home” is the first one.

It went on hiatus while I was finishing my license, a tough but necessary decision I had to make.

But all during that time I kept thinking about it. It was like we were far-away lovers having a long distance relationship. Oh, I pined for it.

And because so many women have asked me whether I’ll ever offer it in a virtual format (rather than in-person in Northern California), I also obsessed a little about these questions:

Could it transfer to tele-circle format?

Could the magic that happens during the in-person circles also happen on a conference call?

Could we process together, create together, bond together in real time even though we couldn’t actually see each other?

Whenever I start to obsess like this there’s only one way forward: Try it and find out.

So at the end of July the Women’s Creative Wisdom TeleCircle experiment began with a small group of women.

We wrapped things up in November and I’m thrilled to tell you that the answers to those questions I was obsessing about seem to be Yes, Yes and More Yes!

This makes perfect sense to me, now that I’ve come back into the circle.

I’ve learned (or perhaps always knew) that the magic of a Women’s Circle transcends boundaries of place and space.

Once you ease into the flow of the circle, no matter what form it takes, you can’t help but soften to it, relax, loosen.

Before you know it you’re there, present, and it feels like drinking from an icy river on a hot day. Nourishment for a woman’s parched soul.

You’re pulled along by currents of voice and connection and feeling and story. You unearth unexpected wisdom in color and line and shape and symbol.

You begin to discover parts of yourself you dropped along the way. You see answers you didn’t even know you were looking for.

Who knew all this could happen in a virtual environment?

I’m even going to go out on a limb and say that all this goodness may actually happen faster in a tele-circle.

The doors to the 2015 Women’s Circle are now open, and there’s just one spot still open the circle is full!

A year ago I got this message from my New Year’s Eve jam session of collaging, painting and writing: Offer something rare, endangered, wild.

Well, my friends, this is it. It’s incredibly rare to find something designed for such a small, intimate group of women at this price point. Not to mention how endangered real time, in-person connection and guidance is in the digital age.

And wild? Of course. I guide the circle with a gentle hand, allowing it (and the women in it) to discover their own wild edges through the power of relationship, the magic of story and the wisdom of imagination.

So if you’re a little bit thrilled by the idea of merging the deep knowing of women’s wisdom with the life affirming nature of creativity, then this just might be the perfect fit for you. Hop on over here to get all the details.

I’d love you to join us in the circle. I’m starting a waiting list for this and another similar offering I’m planning. So if you’re interested email and let me know: pattybechtold (at) gmail (dot) com

That is, I said yes because the wonderful Charlotte Rains Dixon of Wordstrumpet was doing the asking.

Charlotte’s an author, writing coach and teacher, among many other things. If you want to get to know her a little better, by all means listen to this interview I did with her right after her novel–Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior–was published.

So there I was, having said yes to participating in a virtual cookie exchange.

And feeling a little unsure what to write about beyond simply giving you a recipe.

Then I remembered my grandmother.

Or my grandmother’s hands to be more precise. The way they cupped the flour sifter. Balanced the measuring spoons just so. Deftly evened out the baking powder with a flick of the knife.

My grandmother’s hands: stirring, kneading, cutting, frosting, sprinkling.

Yes, my grandmother’s hands in the kitchen, baking cookies and cakes and pies and all sorts of other delicious treats. Her cooking was her art. Her kitchen her stage.

As a small child I spent a lot of time in that kitchen and never tired of the chance to be both audience and sometimes helper.

Okay, here’s the part where I tell you that when I got older, I sort of scoffed at all this.

Why bother, I wondered? Why take so much time? Why make such a big deal out of it?

I’ve written before about how it took me a long time to find my own groove and discover my own patience in the kitchen (and in life).

And how the memory of my grandmother’s hands awakened me to the possibility that my own hands held a kind of deep, creative wisdom that my brain couldn’t quite fathom.

Today we have actual research that shows handwork not only relieves stress but renews and replenishes you.

The repetitive motion releases serotonin, and when both hands are moving together it’s like soothing rivers of joy and calm are coursing through your nervous system.

My grandmother didn’t know about the research, of course. But she and zillions of other women knew this wisdom deep in their bones.

Which is why I no longer scoff at things like cooking and baking and virtual cookie exchanges.

Now, my ideal cookie exchange would be a small group of women gathering together to bake and talk and eat and laugh and create. Maybe that will happen sometime in the future. For now, though, I’m delighted to share this truly special brownie recipe with you.

I know, a brownie isn’t quite a cookie, but at least a close cousin, don’t you think?

I hope so, because once you try this recipe regular brownies will seem, I don’t know, somewhat lacking. You see, these brownies go far beyond simple chocolatey goodness to the realm of swoon-worthy chocolatey-caramel nirvana.

Yes, there’s a delicious melted caramel embedded in each brownie!

Sunset magazine ran this recipe a few years ago and I immediately fell in love with it. These brownies have made the rounds to parties and get-togethers, and nary a one has ever returned home with me.

And while it’s not my grandmother’s recipe, there is definitely a lot of grandmother energy going on here. The recipe was created by Chris Schaefer, who, according to Sunset, “started with her grandmother’s handwritten brownie recipe, then added caramels.”

I mean, is that serendipity or what? When I decided to call on my grandmother’s inspiration for this post, I had no idea the brownies themselves originated with a grandmother.

The Grandmother Brownie Recipe

Since I’m fully embracing the virtual nature of this particular cookie exchange I’ve decided to give you a link: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/caramel-brownies.

Finally, I’ve got one more bit of information to share. This recipe is, well, time-consuming and a bit complicated. Not to mention full of gluten.

So I’ve got a pretty awesome shortcut: go to Trader Joe’s, buy a package of their Gluten-Free Brownie Mix and a container of their Fleur De Sel Caramels.

Voila, almost as good as the real deal with a lot less time and effort.

As the year winds down I’m closing up shop until January 8th. In the meantime I wish you many small moments of deep joy and meaning. (And maybe a little brownie making for good measure.)

If you’re longing to connect with women in a deeper way and you’d love to regularly nourish and replenish your creative well, then the Women’s Creative Wisdom Circle 2015 is the perfect fit for you. And if you enjoyed this post you’ll love my e-letter. Get inspiration, tools and insights that are only for subscribers by signing up here.

She noticed me out of the corner of her eye, turned, and said, “Looks like you could use more beets.”

It was one of those moments that took me by surprise, because as I made my way around the salad bar the only thing that registered about her was her focus on getting her job done, clearing out the trays and closing it up for the night.

You see, I’d arrived late to the salad bar. You know how that is. You don’t really expect special treatment.

I thanked her, and she went off to get the beets. Then I let the warm feeling sink in, receiving it and appreciating that another person had shown care and concern for me.

As human beings, one of our deepest needs is to know that we are cared about.

Sometimes that’s a challenge during the holidays. Seems like there are two extremes: we’re either full of action, going and doing for others, or we feel distanced from the celebrating and good cheer, alone and on the sidelines.

Wherever you are on the continuum this year, I invite you to nurture yourself by noticing the clues all around you that show you are truly cared about.

Some days the clues are easy to find: your partner fixes dinner for you, you’re invited to a gathering of beloved friends, you receive a particularly thoughtful gift.

Other days, it takes a little more effort to unearth the clues: a stranger holds the door for you, the woman at the salad bar offers to get you beets, your usually reserved neighbor waves as he drives by, a passerby smiles at you during your walk.

During these final weeks of the year, I want to notice and acknowledge every single interaction when another human being shows care for me.

I’ll be sinking into these moments, letting them flow through me and warm me.

I’ll be reminding myself that the basic goodness of human nature is on display all around me.

And in the days to come, I wish you many opportunities of feeling cared for and cared about.

And what I most want you to know is this: from the bottom of my heart, I care about you.

As a licensed psychotherapist and board certified life coach, I help women nurture themselves and find their way back to their own deep wisdom. If you could use that kind of support and you’re interested in booking a free consultation, click here. And if you enjoyed this post you’ll love my e-letter. Get inspiration, tools and insights that are only for subscribers by signing up here.

It’s been almost a year since we hit the deer.

We were headed home from an afternoon at the coast. It was one of those crazy-beautiful Northern California fall beach days, the kind you hardly ever get in summer. We’d lingered to watch the sunset and the dark that followed came very quickly.

We turned off Highway 1 and were making our way inland, just outside the tiny town of Bodega, when the deer simply appeared, maybe 10 feet away. Suddenly he was just there, in motion, poised to leap to the other side of the road.

But when a deer is that close there’s no stopping. There’s no slowing down. The best you can do is hope that his momentum will carry him past your car.

Sadly, he didn’t get past us. And I’ll never forget his eyes as he turned toward us at the last second.

In that instant I found out what Deer Caught In the Headlights truly means.

I don’t know exactly what happened to the deer. The impact was so great that our car was crushed on the driver’s side, out of alignment, and certainly not drivable. Eventually our insurance company totaled it out and sent us a check.

All I know for sure is car connected with deer on his left haunch and then somehow he managed to get across the road and down into the forest, where I imagine he collapsed.

Dave wanted to go look for the deer but I pulled him back. I knew we needed to check on the leaks coming from the car. Make sure we were safe. Call for help.

Hours later a tow truck deposited us on our driveway, stunned, empty, spent and very hungry.

Physically we were fine but emotionally we were wrecked, like the car.

The next morning I woke up and immediately started spinning an elaborate plan for how we’d get through the following week with just one car. Being Thanksgiving week, it was pretty complicated, with lots of comings and goings.

But I forged ahead, planning how we’d juggle getting back to Sacramento the next day and going to our separate offices for work and clients.

How we’d somehow find a way to be in Santa Rosa in order to pick up the rental car when it was ready.

How we’d transport our cats (who’d been fending for themselves in Sacramento that weekend) back to Santa Rosa in time for Thanksgiving.

And finally, how I’d turn around and go back to Sacramento the following Monday to take the National Clinical Mental Health Counselor Exam, by far the toughest test I had to take on my journey to become a psychotherapist.

And then, there was a moment, which thankfully came rather quickly, when I remembered that I didn’t have to be stoic through all this. That it didn’t need to be business as usual.

Even though I know better, my knee-jerk reaction is still sometimes stoicism, because I come from a long line of stoic women. It’s my birthright, passed down through the generations. A particular brand of warrior woman who just keeps marching on.

The thing is, I don’t think it’s just me. A lot of us seem to have inherited or been taught this. There’s an expectation that keeping on is what we do and how we get through. In good times and bad.

So with the holidays right around the corner, I wanted to tell this story.

I know the impact of holidays isn’t exactly like the impact of hitting a deer.

But the stress that shows up with the holidays? The belief that we must press on? The challenge we feel to get it all done?

Yep, all that’s similar to what happens when we’re stoic-ing our way through crisis.

Of course, I understand that sometimes in life we do have to just get through and soldier on. But if that’s your knee-jerk response to most things, then I’d like to gently ask you to consider that the response itself is an invitation to find another way through.

More often than not, when this comes up for my clients and they believe there is absolutely no other way, we discover there’s almost always some wiggle room to fall back, step out, regroup.

After all, the wisest warriors know this: retreat is often the best option when the going gets tough. And retreat is exactly what we ended up doing last Thanksgiving.

Dave decided to take the entire week off.

I told my clients what happened and rescheduled their appointments.

That afternoon we went to Sacramento, gathered up the cats and brought them back to Santa Rosa.

I postponed my test for a few weeks (and later passed it).

We spent Thanksgiving week huddled together, talking a lot about that poor deer and what happened. Holding on to each other. Recovering. Treating ourselves gently. Acknowledging that while we hadn’t experienced a huge trauma it was still a pretty unsettling experience.

Last week I decided to go back and revisit the spot where we hit the deer. 

It was another one of those gorgeous fall days, serene and peaceful.

As I stood near the spot where it happened, I felt tremendously thankful that I hadn’t just pushed the experience aside and stayed on the stoic path last year. Although it took me about an hour to choose instead to dial down the stoicism and fall apart a little, I’m so glad I did.

And that’s my wish for you, dear one. An un-stoic holiday season, full of peace and choice and even falling apart a little, if you need to.

* * * * *

As a licensed psychotherapist and board certified life coach, I help women dial down the stoicism and find more room for themselves. If you’re in need of that kind of support and you’re interested in booking a free consultation, click here. And if you enjoyed this post you’ll love my e-letter. Get inspiration, tools and insights that are only for subscribers by signing up here.

Just Listen.

to the wind blowing

to rain falling

to laughter

to stories yearning to be told

Just Listen.

to the tone of her voice

to the catch in her breath

to the words she’s saying

to all that she holds between those words

Just Listen.

to her crayons scraping paper

to her hands ripping images

to her fingers tracing spirals

to her deep quiet knowing

Just Listen.

* * * * *

I write this with deep gratitude to the women who’ve participated in the Women’s Creative Wisdom Tele-Circle Pilot.

I’ve discovered that when we carve out time to connect, to come together to tell our stories and create together in a circle of wise women, even on the phone, even when we can’t see each other, we still feel truly seen and heard. Maybe more than ever before.

And we do find our way back to our quiet knowing, just like in the local women’s circles.

I’ll soon be bringing this first phase of the tele-circle to a close, with more to come in the New Year. If you want to be the first to know when space opens up in the circle, make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter right here.

Shadow Collage

I’d been trolling websites looking for inspiration, because even though I’ve been threatening it for ages, in the next year I truly am going to revitalize both my websites. Really!

But it got to the point where I couldn’t even look at another website. My head was spinning. I was on overload, saturated with beautiful images. Perfectly posed people (in that oh-so-insouciant way). Soft focus. Light flares. Air brushed?

At one point I even got confused, thinking I’d landed on a model’s or actor’s home page.

I mean, it was all so damn pretty!

Clearly, things have changed a lot since I put up my first counseling and coaching website seven years ago.

So I was grumbling a bit…(it’s just a f***ing website). And yeah, maybe there was some comparison envy going on too. Not to mention worry about these apparently new website rules (because I can be good, too good, at following the rules).

As I let these thoughts and feelings move through me, I noticed something else was there too.

Something much deeper.

I found myself looking down at the parquet floor I was standing on: Old. Imperfect. Scratched.

I opened the slider and stepped out onto the deck: Loose boards. Splintered. Faded.

I walked out beneath the oak trees: Spongy leaves, sticks, acorns, layered over time. All of it decaying. Finding its way back into the earth.

The very ground we walk on, far from pretty. Dirt, in fact. But very real.

Right then I knew that it was important to explore this story in the women’s creative wisdom tele-circle that was happening that evening.

Everyone in the circle could relate, whether or not they’d looked at a website lately or looked down at the ground they walked on. Because this is an old, old story that goes way back, long before the digital age began.

And as we told it again (because we women need to keep finding our way through this story) a question or two bubbled up: What’s underneath the veneer? What are we afraid to look at? What does all this pretty perfection keep contained?

What, in a nutshell, is unacceptable for us to do or be?

Oh my, did that ever open up some deep conversation and acknowledgement of all that’s down there, held in this particularly pretty and particularly hypnotic shade of shadow.

So we grabbed our crayons, four or five in each hand, scraping and slashing them onto newspaper and tissue paper. Shredding, tearing, taping and releasing it all into a shadow collage.

That was the moment when I said: Now, go ahead and deliberately draw something ugly…an ugly self-portrait.

We all got to it, creating together in real-time. Since this is a tele-circle we can’t actually see what our circle sisters are doing. But there certainly is a vibe coming through. And we certainly can hear each other.

At first, there was mostly silence. Then I noticed something more: quiet giggles. Here and there an outright chuckle.

It’s safe to say that some hilarity ensued when we went around the circle describing what we’d drawn.

Even now I can’t help laughing when I write about my self-portrait: Devil eyes. Another eye in the back of my head. Fangs dripping blood. A witchy, warty, hairy nose.

I’m so bummed that I can’t find my self-portrait and share a visual with you. I guess it got swept up with the newspaper recycling, because it was, after all, newspaper!

With or without that image though, here’s the truth:

There is freedom in deliberately making ugly art.

It releases us from our masks.

It opens us up to shadow and makes it not so scary.

It puts things in perspective.

It heals and nourishes.

And when it’s done in a circle of wise, creative women, we can experience it as deep, life-affirming play.

* * * * *

So now I’m wondering. What would your ugly self-portrait look like?

Want in on the deep play of the Women’s Creative Wisdom Tele-Circles? Space in the circle will open up in early 2015. You can subscribe to my e-letter right here to be the first to get all the details.

It all started two summers ago.

That was the afternoon I was scanning Tim Krieder’s article, The Busy Trap, when suddenly I noticed I was no longer scanning. I’d slowed down. I was actually reading, which is rare when I’m in front of a screen.

I was squirming in my seat a little too, because his take on busyness was hitting uncomfortably close to home.

Busyness is often self imposed: Check.

Busyness is often about fear of the yawning existential emptiness that lurks around the corner: Check.

Busyness is often an ego trip: Check.

Busyness is often about compulsion: Check.

I read the article a few more times. I pondered it, but not for too long. And pretty much right then and there I decided to stop using the word busy. To stop answering, “I’m really busy” when someone asks how I’m doing.

Like some people pick a word for the year, I decided to make this my unword for the year. I started using it like a verb: I’m unwording my vocabulary.

Surprisingly, it stuck. Each time I’d start to say or think busy I pulled myself back. Now here I am two years later and there’s no end in sight to my unwording experiment.

Here’s what I’ve discovered along the way: deleting busy from my vocabulary has made a difference in my life.

It’s made a difference in ways that I couldn’t have imagined two years ago.

I discovered that busy is often a comfortable shield, a way to hide out. Since I can no longer hide behind the word, I have to be honest with myself, acknowledging that how I fill my time and expend my energy is mostly within my control. Although this may seem simplistic, seeing clearly that these are my choices is both sobering and freeing.

Does this mean I always make good choices? No! But no matter what I choose, it’s an exercise in consciousness now, even when I step into the vortex of overload: doing/going/bustling/striving.

It’s also forced me to face (again) what I’ve known all along: the internet is a huge contributor to my own personal Busy Trap.

It increases my dopamine-induced seeking behavior like nothing else, resulting in a deeply unsatisfying kind of faux busyness. And there are certain things that I simply can’t allow in my life, like a bunch of apps and constant alerts and internet on my phone and being online after about 8pm.

My solution? I had my husband put parental restrictions on Safari. I deleted all apps that push information out to me. I turned off all the noise.

Ah, bliss! I’ve never missed any of it. And I found myself smiling yesterday when I read that others are doing this too. It’s nice to know that I have companions on the journey. Jake Knapp calls it making his smart phone into a sensible phone. I just call it getting out of the Busy Trap.

The other major difference in my life is that I’m now very attuned to hearing and noticing the busy word. It shows up everywhere. For almost everyone.

It’s so ubiquitous that it seems like we conjugate it in our sleep each night and wake up in the morning ready to recite it: I’m busy, you’re busy, she’s busy, he’s busy, we’re busy, they’re busy.

I see how often it’s a knee-jerk. How it keeps us disengaged from real play. How it feeds fatigue and resentment. How it pushes down our deep creative wisdom. How it builds walls between us.

This growing awareness has moved me to look at some of my relationships, to try to hear what’s behind the “I’m busy” response when I get it from others. I’m better now at discerning what’s real and what’s a wall. And I can see which walls are worth scaling and which walls I just need to walk away from.

About a year into my unwording experiment I started noticing bees. You know, busy bees.

There are these beautiful big black bees in my garden. They float from the rosemary to the salvia to the butterfly bushes. They make love to the passion vines. They stop to rest and nourish on the long stalks of lavender, staying so long that they pull the stalks down, almost to the ground.

When I come out to tend the garden they seem unperturbed, even though I sometimes wonder if they miss the stuff I prune away: Where did the lavender go? What have you done with the passion flowers?

I think about those bees. They seem happy in their busyness.

They take their time. Their pace is leisurely. They don’t rush from plant to plant.

It’s a different kind of busy.

I doubt they tell each other: Sorry, can’t meet you tonight. Too busy!

Or: How am I? Busy! Got so many of these damned plants to tend to.

Or: I’m beat from chauffeuring the kids back and forth to Bee school and Bee sports and Bee extracurricular activities.

Yes, Bee-Busy is far different from Human Being-Busy.

And maybe that’s what it’ll take for me to go back to using the busy word.

When we all become more like bees.

Human Bee-ings. 

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How about you? Is there a word or phrase you’d like to unword from your vocabulary?

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