Replenished

I’ve spent the past week in Replenish Mode. Life gave me a very light work week and I seized the opportunity to do as little as possible.

What? 😳

Yes, I actually typed the words “as LITTLE as possible” because I’m a complete heretic.

As a small business owner, there are very clear rules about how to respond to slow seasons. First, panic. Run a bunch of numbers and invest every morsel of mental/emotional energy in worries and analysis and eventually succumb to analysis paralysis. Then, hustle. Go out there and conjure up some business! Or, at the very least, try to look busy.

After attempting this strategy repeatedly, it’s become quite clear that the results are never desirable. Instead, I chose to go the less traveled route. I slowed down and rested. I filled up my tank.

All the way to the top.

Not just enough to scrape by. I’m talking full to maximum capacity.

Have you ever, as an adult, enjoyed being fully replenished? Plenished? Plenniful?

I’m not talking about a weekend retreat or day at the spa. Sure, those are nice, but they’re not very practical and often involve a lot of effort on the back side for unsustainable rewards.

I’m talking about soaking in life-force energy. Basking in it. Absorbing it till it oozes out your pores kind of full.

I’m talking about lazy mornings and home cooked meals, spontaneous walks and intuitive yoga sessions. Doing the chores, but at an easy pace and enjoying the process and maybe some good tunes and a cup of tea on the side.

There were thoughts about vacuuming, batch cooking/stocking up the freezer, and afternoons spent getting ahead on some blogs. All good stuff, but… nope, not this time. Even such simple efforts seemed too effort-full and I had the means and the motivation to keep turning inward instead.

So inwards I went. I spent time with myself, my resistance, my emotions, my thoughts. I noticed the extreme attempts to avoid doing this and the myriad calls of distraction.

Oh, it would have been so much easier to go the road well traveled! Doing the panic and hustle or the good-girl spiritual achiever routines would have felt familiar and therefore comfortable. I know how to operate on an empty tank- haven’t we all been trained for exactly this? Go-go-go-harder-faster-more-and don’t you dare forget to smile.

Choosing to sit on the couch and allow my thoughts to gather without crushing them into neat and tidy boxes and puttering about with my houseplants was much less exciting than the drama I could have been cooking up in my mind, but I chose the quiet route.

I found myself in spontaneous ritual, exchanging energy with the earth and sky, sharing blessings with the plants and people I passed along the way. As I managed to keep my own tank topped up, there was plenty sloshing over the rim to be dispersed generously.

(Photo from one of my mini-adventures, roaming about downtown, and enjoying one of Philly’s historical fountains, in its full glory.)

I was able to give from my overflow, something that I’d heard of but hadn’t yet experienced, as my tank had never been so full. I’m used to my tank running around 75% full. Compared to the average American, this is pretty radical. But the difference between 75% and 100% is immense, and so too was the bonus energy I had access to on my walkabouts and in meditation.

A ten day unexpected sort-of-staycation wasn’t much to look at from the outside. My closet is a bit more organized, and the winter bedding tucked away for the season, but no big projects were begun or even contemplated, no Pinterest boards created, and nobody on Instagram knows I went rogue for a bit.

This is what I mean by small, revolutionary acts that help change the world. Normalizing a quiet, simple life, with ordinary pleasures and claiming the luxury necessity of down time to fill up my tank all the way up to the tip-top.

Imagine for a moment what it would be like to live in a world where you’re encouraged and supported to replenish yourself completely. Not so you can be a better caregiver or artist, and get back out there in production mode, but so you can be more fully yourself and have access to your inner wisdom and power. Now that is a world I want to live in!

I might look like I’m napping on the couch in my pajamas at 3 in the afternoon, but really I’m subverting the overculture’s narrative that we need to be busy/stressed/productive/manic to be valued in this society and work incessantly to earn enough money to drown the emptiness that comes from self-abandonment in constant consumption.

This article could use another round of edits. I could easily spend another hour or two tweaking phrasing and punctuation. Instead, I’m going to go for a walk around the block, huff lilacs, and soak up some fresh air. Once I’m all topped up, we’ll see where the day takes me. Somehow I doubt it will lead me back here to look for typos.