Satya Robyn reflects on finally getting the free time she wanted, only to find herself anxious and resistant. She explores how workaholism ties to identity and self-worth, and suggests getting curious about the parts of yourself that might sabotage what you're asking for.
Welcome. It's currently 10:30 in the morning here, and I have an hour and a half before my next appointment and nothing to do. You might be able to see the fear in my eyes, and I was thinking just now about that phrase, "Careful what you wish for," which I heard for quite a long time before I understood. Why should you be careful for what you wish for? Why would you be worried about receiving the things that you want? I have for a long time in my life had a way of living that is a little bit too busy and a yearning for space, a yearning for gaps between appointments or days without appointments or space in my head, less projects, less running around, and I have begun to receive a little bit more of that. This kind of work, in my experience, when we're, we're sort of pushing against patterns in us that are very, very embedded, can take decades. And that's been my experience of this pattern, that I say to myself that I want to have a more spacious diary and then I find myself filling the blank spaces up again. Like there's two— there are two different parts of me that really want very different things. And so the wished-for free time that I am now receiving occasionally, I've longed for it for a long, long time, and it's here now, and it scares me. It isn't easy. Various things happen. I think I get a sort of a withdrawal from a sort of workaholic tendency, which means that I start to feel like I'm not worthy, or that I don't— yeah, kind of self-esteem stuff. I'm only worthy if I'm working hard. I kind of flounder around a bit not knowing how to spend that time. I'm quite good at doing the— I've talked about this before— I can do that kind of flopping relaxing where you just go under the duvet or where you watch trash on TV and eat popcorn, but I'm not so good at more wholesome leisure activities. And find it hard to not turn those things into work straight away. And yeah, feelings come up when I have space, so it's no accident that I haven't had space for all this time, because what's been waiting for me in the space is this, is this mix of difficulty, this mix of difficult things. And I think that For me anyway, it's usually, if not always, true that the things that I wish for, it's some part of me wishing for them because I have a hunger for them, because I think they'll solve something, and other parts of me that are keeping them away from me because they know that it will create questions or uncomfortableness or pain or whatever, challenges to my identity, which is always the biggest one. So yeah, careful what you wish for. And you might be curious about the things that you really want. You say you want them and you've wanted them for a long time and you haven't received them. You might want to be curious about what parts of you might have ambivalent feelings about receiving those things. What kind of fantasies, crazy fantasies, do you have about what life would be like if that thing happened? What problems might it create? And this, you know, this isn't true for everything. Sometimes if we have ill health, we wish to be well, of course, you know, there's things that are beyond our control, but often there's something that's keeping these things away because we're not quite ready for them. So I will finish this recording and face my free time, and parts of me will enjoy it and parts of me will be freaked out, and I hope that you have a good day, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening.
