I'm Joanne Cary. Welcome back to Embodied Soul podcast, a multi-dimensional space intended to support you in mastering living, being, and thriving as the embodied soul you are. In this week's episode I've been called to talk about productivity, and in particular our desire to need to be productive, and why actually allowing ourselves not to be productive and giving ourselves permission not to be productive, is actually really, really important right now. So if you are ready to join me, pull up a comfy chair, invite in your Soul, and be open to receive exactly what you need to live, be, and thrive as the embodied soul you are.
So I really felt called to talk about productivity, and it seems like maybe a bit of a weird topic, for when you're talking about the embodied soul. But if you are like me, I have this program that has been running, and it is, it’s been derived through my whole life, and it's partly a social construct. It's partly what I have taken on to believe as true—that
how I spend my time and how it's deemed to be productive is based on the number of things I can check off a list, and that in order to have spent a day being productive, or having a day worth living, it’s supposed to be that way. I'm supposed to be productive. I'm supposed to be doing the things that I'm supposed to be doing. And I have spent a long time unweaving this pattern, and when I left the corporate world, where it was very much marked by what you got done, when I got to California, I basically took my work life and superimposed that onto my new life, to say, well, I need to keep myself busy. I need to have all of these things to do in order to feel like I am being productive, that I am somehow gauging my worth on how productive I am. And it took me about a year to unwind that expectation, allowing myself and giving myself permission to meditate, to sit still, to read a book, to spend an hour or two out walking in the hills around our house, because whenever I did those things, it's like, well, I'm not starting a business. I'm not figuring out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. There was always that chatter from that part of myself that had learned that you need to be a certain way, you need to have very productive goals, and you need to be very, do very tangible things that society feels is moving you forward.
And what is so important to understand, especially right now, where we're in this acceleration, this evolution in consciousness, where we're expanding on the inside, we're going deeper into our inside so that our world changes on the outside. That part of being productive, actually becomes, listening to yourself, and understanding that being in stillness and connecting through intention to the Source of yourself, to begin listening to the small whispers, giving yourself time away from the busyness of your day, and actually, perhaps, allocating time for a walk, to read a book, to paint a picture, to do whatever it is that brings you joy. And we've talked about getting clear on what you want, what you want to experience and what brings you joy, happiness, peace, whatever you value.
But we have to be aware of the programs that we're playing. Right? So we're going back a number of years now that I was unprogramming this productivity aspect. And this is what became sort of a reminder, a good reminder to me, and I'm going to remind you as well.
Remember that we are always evolving in a spiral, and so I could get really upset with myself and say, “Oh, my gosh! How many times do I have to deal with this spiral programming like, am I not? I'm not moving forward. I'm not doing good”, and I can get really hard on myself. You can get really hard on yourself, and that's not helpful. It's not helpful, and it's a beautiful reminder to go, “Oh, yes, I'm just hitting that mark on the spiral again.”
So we hit this point about productivity as an example, and then, as I release a layer of it, I realize I now give myself time to explore what brings me joy. I'm now doing the things that are bringing me some more peace and still doing what needs to get done but actually reflecting on even what does, in fact need to get done, when. But then, as you go around the spiral, once you hit back at this spot you're above it. So you're not at the same spot. So the next time I hit a productivity where I'm trying to be productive, and I'm not feeling productive. And that little voice, says, Joanne, “you've kind of wasted your day today. You've done nothing worthwhile”, because I didn't check off things that could have got done, and instead, I played, I explored, I wrote some stuff. I did what brought me joy, but the little aspect of me was, “you weren't productive today. You wasted your time. You wasted this day” because you didn't do these things. You didn't check off these boxes.
And the first response was like, I didn't catch it at first, and it was like, "ugh, what a waste of my day! I didn't do anything! What a waste!" And then and then the other part came in and said like, “No, you did. You did do a lot. You explored. You went back through your journals, you're writing chapters. You're doing different things.”And is it some of the stuff that was on a list? Yeah. But did anything on that list actually have to get done? No. And then and same thing. So every time you hit it, it's not that you are not releasing programming, it’s not that you're not changing your beliefs, it’s that you're getting to deeper layers, deeper, wounding, deeper resonances that are coming up to be cleared. And so this was just a really good reminder for me to go. Oh, there's still a bit of that resonating in my field, this idea that I have to be a certain way, do certain things in order to to meet some expectation, it goes back to our expectations conversation! What is the underlying expectation there? That I need to do certain things in order to be productive? And what does that even mean? What does being productive mean? Well, it means that I'm meeting some measuring standard of someone else looking in on me to say, is she doing a good job?
And you know something? It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. It matters what you think. And so where am I judging myself on whether I'm doing a good job, on whether I am meeting others expectations? And do I need to? And is their judgment of me, not just a judgment of myself? Is your judgment not just a judgment of yourself or someone else's reflection of that?
And so that is where I would invite you this week to begin just reflecting on: Do you have that program running that you think in order to be a good mom in order to be a good grandmother, in order to be a good employee, in order to be a good entrepreneur, in order to be a good spiritual person, you have to do certain things and will you give yourself permission to love on that part of yourself, and then realize you don't actually have to do anything?
You are valuable and worthy exactly as you are. You are valuable and worthy enough, more than enough, just by being you, and you wouldn't have to do a bloody thing to make yourself any of those things because you already are. Do you understand that? You are already the most amazing, beautiful, magnificent being of light. And that just by being here, just by existing, just by living your day, you're enough. You're worthy. You're deserving of all the best things in life and that's sometimes hard for us to hear.
And even as I said that to you, even as I looked directly into your eyes and said it, what did you feel? Did you even feel like you needed to turn away? Was there a part of you contracting? Were you able to receive it? That's a big one. That's a big one for a lot of lightworkers, a lot of wayshowers is that it's easy for us to give the love. It's easy for us to give the praise, and it's not easy to receive it back. And if we can't receive it, that’s where that's our next space that we get to work on because how do you expect to receive the abundance, the love, the source connection, if you're pushing it away?
You don't have to do anything in order to be worthy, deserving, and more than enough. And we can have things to do, but we have to watch that little voice that might creep in playing old programs that we need to check off a whole bunch of things on our box in order to say that we're enough, because that's just not true and we get to catch it. And when it comes up we remember that everything is coming up in this exact moment that we're in, in order for us to see it, recognize it, and allow it to go away, allow it to float away, allow it to transmute. It wouldn't be showing itself to you right now if it wasn't ready to go, if it wasn't standing at the door waiting for you to open it and let it out, and as soon as you open that door and let that out, more gifts have been sitting there waiting. Amazon has dropped stuff off at your door, but because you haven't been open to receive it, it hasn't let it in. And so, as soon as you open what the door to, what wants to leave the things that are coming up in your present experience, your moment to moment experience, you’re opening yourself up to receive what is ready to come to you, that you've been magnetizing to you.
So it's not about being more productive. It's about listening. It's about going with the ebb and flow. It's about recognizing your worth, even if you simply sit and do nothing, because it's your energy that's radiating out around the world. It's your energy, that is, that is communicating with everything around you. And so, if you can align your energy systems to the highest frequency you can, if you can, allow yourself to move with the ebb and flow, listening to the voices and what's coming up and responding to that we can allow the requirements, the old programming, the old expectations of society, parents schooling, otherwise that tell us that we need to be productive in order to be successful and worthy and deserving, and we can let all that go. Because I'm going to say it again. You are worthy and deserving exactly as you are. You are more than enough, exactly as you are, without doing a single thing. and with that I send you so much love.
And if you like this episode of Embodied Soul, please follow, share, and leave me a 5 star review. It really does help get the energies and messages out to those who need it, and I look forward to seeing you on next week's episode of Embodied Soul.
