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I’ve been working with energy conservation recently by shifting my focus from doing to being. This is a magical way of life (at least it has been for me) once you surrender and enter it deeply.
This morning, making soup to take to my office for dinner, I negated the urge to listen to a podcast/do something else while cooking. Instead, I chopped the carrots, smelled the spices, felt the slippery insides of the onions. I stayed inside the process rather than distracting myself or tugging at my attention.
Rather than doing the cooking, I brought my whole body and my intention into the being-ness of cooking. While we’ve all been trained to multi-task, our brains aren’t actually able to hold two tasks simultaneously; instead, your brain is switching between back and forth back and forth. It’s exhausting (and inefficient) over time.
In acupuncture and Daoist philosophy there’s a concept called Wu-Wei. Wu-Wei might translate as something like “non-doing” or “non-action.” It doesn’t mean doing nothing; it does mean allowing actions to organically unfold.
I often think of Wu-Wei like “not pushing the river.” Instead of trying to steer, manage, micro-manage or control, I allow life to flow like a river as it is. I take the time to pull back and observe before moving forward. Fighting life as it shows up for you makes the undertow much stronger.
I also think of Wu-Wei as a sacred pause. If I pull back and pause, an answer often emerges. We often know what we need if we allow ourselves the space to receive our own wisdom.
Wu-Wei is connected to being. To presence. To allowing life to emerge.
I assure you that if you find times in your day where you allow more space for presence, and for whole-hearted absorption to happen, you will be less burned-out and more at ease as we move through this season.
Test it out. Feel into it, and drop me a line to let me know what you find.
Want more support resting into being? Check out my Winter Rest and Restore Workshop at Studio 34 Yoga.