• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • 0Shopping Cart
Renee Trudeau
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Self Renewal Groups
  • Books & Audio
  • Contact
  • Menu Menu

Do less, experience more

Mindfulness, Self-Care

portsmouthbeach

Recently, our family was invited to visit friends for the weekend at their cabin on the river, an hour’s drive from our house. The night before we were going to leave, my husband and I were frantically creating lists of all the things we needed to buy, prepare, and pack — when we suddenly paused and looked at each other. “What do you most need this weekend?” I asked. He replied, “To stay home and do nothing.” I agreed. So we gave ourselves permission to back out of the commitment and just stay home; our friends understood. We stuck by our guns, too, and had one of the laziest — as well as one of the most connected, soulful, and satisfying— weekends we’d ever had as a family. The high point included lounging in the backyard hammock swing while our son played in the sprinkler with friends. When we allow ourselves to enjoy stretches of unscheduled time, we relax into the gifts that come from doing less and experiencing — and feeling — more.

Many of our clients share that the one thing they crave more than anything is expanses of unscheduled time and the delights that are born from the space of “doing nothing.” Many say that a high quality of life has more to do with what you remove from your life than what you add to it; this is counter to everything we’re taught in our modern culture. The idea that the quality of our lives, our well-being, our happiness, and our sense of joy and fulfillment are enhanced when we do less — not more — is a radical departure from the American way. Yet, conversely, we are all too familiar with the stress and exhaustion we create for ourselves when we’re overscheduled and overbusy because we’ve said yes one too many times.

Monday morning phone calls with friends often sound the same: they’re exhausted from too many weekend activities, errands, and obligations. What they really needed was rest, rejuvenation, and lots of downtime.

Overdoing keeps us from experiencing life in the moment. Our modern 24/7 digital world has expanded what we can accomplish. Things move faster than ever before, we have more options available at our fingertips, and our reach extends around the globe. Yet on a day-to-day level, this comes at a cost to our well-being. Often, we pay the following price:
• We are more distracted. Even when we’re together as a family, we aren’t present and focused on each other, and we don’t feel fed by our time together.
• We are overly focused on activities, goals, and outcomes, which sends the powerful, subconscious message to our kids — and ourselves— that we are only worthy if we’re “doing.”
• Since we live in constant motion and rarely rest, we are perpetually overextended, and so we become resentful and even angry, at both ourselves and others.
• Physically, we feel chronically tired and exhausted. Our poor bodies, overworked and overstimulated, rarely have time to truly rejuvenate.
• Over time, the ongoing stress from our relentless pace affects our body’s immune, endocrine, and hormone systems, which are frequently out of balance. Living in “fight or flight” around the clock has become the norm and this stress is the root cause of 95% of all disease. (Read more.)

We’re entering a time of the unknown — a whole new frontier — that I believe requires us to have more space to breathe, think, dream, and digest. We’re craving more time to just be — so we can actually integrate into our hearts and souls what’s happening moment to moment.

One of my favorite yoga teachers often asks her class, “Are we here to be productive or to give and receive love?” Kind of puts everything in perspective. (Like this theme? This is a partial excerpt from the chapter “Do Less, Experience More,” from my award-winning book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. Pick up a copy here  for strategies/tools to support your family this fall.

TAKE ACTION: Are you 40+, in transition and craving more time to just “be”?  I’d love to personally support you in September and introduce you to an amazing tribe of like-minded women! You’ll explore and receive resources/support/inspiration for the second half of life and learn how cultivate self-acceptance for exactly where you are right now.  Learn/more register for Embracing the Wild Unknown: Nurturing Yourself in Mid-Live & Beyond–a live telecourse (that means via phone). Early bird rate of $99 ends Aug. 15-reserve your spot today! 

embracing-the-wild-unknown-fall-2015-telecourse

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by life balance speaker/coach and Career Strategists president, Renée Peterson Trudeau. Offering custom self-renewal workshops/retreats, training, books/telecourses and individual career coaching her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Spirituality & Health and more. Thousands of women in ten countries are becoming RTA-Certified Facilitators and leading/joining Personal Renewal Groups based on her award-winning curriculum.  She is the author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal and Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 13 year-old son. More on her background here.

 

August 3, 2015/1 Comment/by Camille
Tags: embracing the wild unknown, mindfulness;, Nurturing the Soul of Your Family
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://reneetrudeau.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/portsmouthbeach-e1438641133313.jpg 255 340 Camille https://reneetrudeau.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/renee_trudeau_logo_tagline.png Camille2015-08-03 22:42:002019-05-13 11:23:30Do less, experience more
1 reply

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to my blog

 

 

Archives

Categories

Popular Blog Posts

Self-Care 101: Three Ways to Begin

This Is The Time to Take a Retreat (Here’s How)

6 Things to Do When The Going Gets Tough

Self-care is Not About Improving Yourself

Connection = Medicine. Are You Getting Your Daily Dose?

Pause. Are You Honoring Your Journey?

Feeling Out of Sorts? Start with Self-Compassion

Are You Nurturing Your Friendships (+Why You Should)?

Sign up and receive my meditation on How To Start Your Day Intentionally.

My inspiring Tuesday emails provide timely life balance tools to help you soar through your week, plus receive pre-invites to our sell-out events.

Sign up and receive my meditation on How To Start Your Day Intentionally.

My inspiring Tuesday emails provide timely life balance tools to help you soar through your week, plus receive pre-invites to our sell-out events.

Get In Touch

info@reneetrudeau.com

512-459-6700

Popular Blog Posts

Self-Care 101: Three Ways to Begin

This Is The Time to Take a Retreat (Here’s How)

6 Things to Do When The Going Gets Tough

Self-care is Not About Improving Yourself

Connection = Medicine. Are You Getting Your Daily Dose?

Pause. Are You Honoring Your Journey?

Feeling Out of Sorts? Start with Self-Compassion

Are You Nurturing Your Friendships (+Why You Should)?

Upcoming Events

March 1-31st ~ Wild Souls Nature Adventures (Blue Ridge Mountains, NC). New experiences are posted each week; keep checking back! Learn more.

April 14-16 ~ Awakening Your Wild Soul: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health (Berkshire Mountains, MA). Learn more/register.

May 2023 ~ FREE Self-Care Global Summit with Renee and other self-care authors, teachers, coaches, and experts in relationships, spirituality, health & wellness and more. Registration coming soon.

May – June ~ Spring 2023 Women’s Self-Renewal Group  Small group/in person. Brevard, NC. Email us at info at reneetrudeau dot com to receive an invitation.

October 13-15th ~ Awakening Your Wild Soul: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health (Berkshire Mountains, MA). Registration coming soon!

© 2023 Renée Trudeau. Privacy Policy + Terms of Use
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Self Renewal Groups
  • Books & Audio
  • Contact
  • Facilitator Login
  • My Account
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only