Making too many plans

Do you ever spend Monday dreaming of Friday? Or during 4th of July you start dreaming about Labor Day weekend? When one big event in our lives ends and we are already planning the next, we’re really looking to fill our basic need for security.

Not knowing is scary and knowing is “secure.” So we busy our lives with plans whenever we are not working or sleeping or going to the gym, and it can be exhausting! What if we didn’t plan our lives all of the time? What if we didn’t know what we were doing tomorrow? Could you handle it?

For me, the more I plan, the less I actually want to do the thing I planned when the time comes. So I stress about canceling the plan wondering what the “right” thing to do would be. When all along if I just lived my life from day to day instead of from plan to plan, I wouldn’t be in this position. Yet this takes time and practice.

Coming from a family and society of planners, it’s a hard nut for me to crack. My instinct is to make plans for the next several weeks, so I know what’s ahead, so I feel important and “like everyone else.” When someone asks me “what are you doing this weekend?” I want to have something to say! Saying “I don’t know” always sounded so small, so boring. However, what if I flipped the meaning of “I don’t know” to = “I’m free,” “I’m living in the moment” or “I’ll see what I feel like tomorrow.”

Once we start trusting in each moment, the more the unexpected and unplanned can be just what we need. You know the phrase “Life is happening when we are busy making other plans”? It’s so true!

Of course there are times in our lives to make plans- I’m not saying that. However the less we do, the more we are living in the present. So throw out the maps, the timetable, the planners- the soul has a plan of its own and the universe has a plan for you all on its own. Can you for just one week not make plans and see what happens? Or maybe just start with one day. What if you just walk out your door Saturday morning and see where your feet take you. Or maybe they don’t want to take you anywhere, so you have a stay-cation right in your home/apartment. Sometimes doing nothing is doing everything.

So listen to your body and see how it feels in this moment. The security we seek in making plans is actually within us. And you are not alone. We all seek security outside of ourselves, when it is actually within us just waiting for us to recognize. Everything we need is within if we just stopped making plans for one moment to see.

It’s hard to break patterns that have been ingrained in us for a lifetime. So start small and work from there. It’s a lifelong practice, so why not start now. Trust more, cling less. As my yoga teacher Ali always says, “We are so taken care of,” and the more we remember that the less we need to hold on.

**So I challenge you to one unplanned day...please feel free to share your experiences here...I know you can do it!