The Tyranny of Busyness

Pride

For many years (sometimes more than I care to admit), I prided myself on how busy I was. I'd say things like “I can't sit down because I'll never get started again” and “oh if you want something done, ask a busy woman”. At the time I believed that meant I was doing so well getting all the things done.

It has been a massive relearning for me to understand how I was putting everyone else's needs before mine and I was trying to fit into some mould of how I “should” be without even understanding what that actually looked like, let alone whether it was achievable.

Knowing what I know about myself now, it comes as no surprise to me that I experienced burnout (again) in 2017 followed by an ugly, and very much needed, unravelling.

How did I get to that point?

I think, as for most of us, it's a messy mix of family expectations, childhood learned survival skills, societal conditioning and the ever pervasive drip of patriarchal bollocks. I must be feeling strongly about this as I'm swearing (I hope you don't mind the swearing and if you do, be warned I'll probably do it again).

I know that bollocks is not a “clever” word but I have literally been sitting here trying to find a more “clever” word and then realised that is part of the bollocks. I don't have to use clever words to be worthy. I am done trying to please everyone and that is very much my childhood survival pattern - keep everyone happy, keep the peace, and maybe people will be nice to me. Poor little Philippa. Poor little you if that is part of your story.

Early years

Keeping busy - or rather looking busy - was what I learned from my mother. She would always tell us how much she had to do, and how we made her life so hard. She never really seemed happy and I grew up thinking that being a woman and a mother meant hard work. Busyness. All the time. (Side note: there are lots of other complicated things wrapped up in this part of my story but now is not the time!)

I left home at 18 and went to university. I thought I was finally free, and I was to some extent, but I'd entered another realm. One full of women, my peers, who spent time on their appearance, looking cool and pretty and thin. I'd had female friends at school but at the end of the day I went home. I didn't live amongst them. At university they were everywhere. And I realised I didn't fit in. I wasn't cool, pretty or slim. The very opposite.

At school I had been at the top of the class which gave me something to hang my hat on. At university I was very mediocre. I wasn't a “girly” girl, I wasn't super bright, I wasn't sporty. I felt like nothing. And all the thoughts and feelings I had around that kept me very busy, as well as being busy trying to get through my degree course.

Work like a woman

Then I entered the world of work. Boy was that an eye opener. A male dominated industry where an early comment I received was “God, not only do we have women here now, but northern women”. Said with a sneer. It was the early 90s and that comment hit me hard. I set out to prove my place amongst all those men. I worked hard, I worked late, I smiled and was very willing.

Without anyone having to tell me in so many words, I knew as a woman I had to work so much harder than the men to get on. It was my people pleasing, my desire to prove to my family I could do it, my need to make enough money to look after myself because no-one else was going to and me buying in to the bollocks that I wasn't as good as my male counterparts. All that kept me very busy indeed.

For years that went on. Disastrous relationships, many of them. Jobs where I tried to find my place, many of those too. All the while not feeling like I fitted in, not feeling worthy. My lasting memory from all those years is of feeling broken. And being very busy keeping a mask on and trying to show the world that I'm worth something.

In my bones

Gosh, that was quite a rant. I didn't expect all that to tumble out as I started writing. It's still in me, in my bones, despite all the work I've done. Suffice to say I don't feel like that now. I am not busy all the time. In fact, I am probably the least busy I've ever been (mind you that wouldn't take much!). And I'm the happiest.

The whole point of me writing this, is to share this part of my story with you in case you recognise any of it in you, your loved ones, your colleagues, your friends.

Wearing busyness as a badge of honour often comes from a deep-rooted place. Show compassion if you can, rather than judgement. Show by your example, if you can, that your feeling of worth does not come from being busy.

Let that example shine a beacon of hope to those busy beings.

Busyness is rampant and I want it to stop. We deserve better, all of us.

To find more about being an HSP, you can listen to the HSP Connection podcast that I co-host with Robbie Leigh. If you want to connect with other HSPs, you can join the HSP Connection Community that I co-run with Robbie. As I say above, it’s important to connect with other HSPs who just get it. Find your people.

And if you want support with how being an HSP shows up for you, how to shape your life in a way that supports you better and what is your particular sensitive strength, I am an HSP coach and I'd love to have a chat so contact me using the contact button at the top of the home page.