If you feel that you need to achieve, do, and “be” more in order to feel okay with yourself…⁠

⁠And if you feel itchy at the thought of spending time without being productive..⁠

⁠Or if you find it challenging to slow down, I invite you to explore why.⁠

⁠There are many layers to this.⁠

⁠First, I bet there was a moment in your childhood when you realized that when you got good grades, came home with a nice drawing, or won some sort of contest – you suddenly felt love and appreciation from your parents flowing to you.⁠

⁠So you learned that love comes when you earn it.⁠

⁠And that if you do not earn it, you do not deserve it.⁠

⁠How is that working for you today?⁠

⁠In relationships, you may be always looking at how much you’re doing, sacrificing, working and compromising for the other (or for the relationship).⁠

⁠So your love is measured in actions, and the love you receive, filtered and weighted – then compared.⁠

⁠So you’re more of an accountant than a lover ⁠

⁠Jokes aside, relationships will most likely feel transactional to you – because since your childhood you created the narrative that love is a reward.⁠

⁠Not a birthright.⁠

⁠So you feel that you constantly need to earn your partner’s love⁠

⁠And in the process you close down to the opportunity of being loved just because of who you are.⁠

⁠By others, but most importantly by you.⁠

⁠So you endlessly chase work and achievements to find reasons for you to feel worthy of love…⁠

⁠Yet this will not happen until you are able to sit by yourself, in a moment free from “productive action” and feel deeply appreciative of who you are.⁠

⁠Workaholism is a way of getting busy so you do not have time to pay attention to yourself. ⁠

⁠But who are you, when you are not your work or your achievements?⁠

⁠What is underneath that?⁠

⁠You must find out.⁠

⁠Or life will force you to do so.