#196: Befriending Boredom: What Happens When You Stop Filling Every Silence

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hey there, beautiful humans. Welcome back again to Your Favorite You. 

I am Melissa Parsons, your favorite podcast host and your favorite life coach. And I am so grateful that you carved out this time to be here with me today. I mean that more than usual, actually, because the fact that you're here listening to my podcast is a little bit related to what we're going to talk about today. 

I want to start with a scenario. So you're chugging along in your day and you have a rare, unexpected opening in your day. A meeting gets canceled. Your kids are taken care of. Your to-do list is, miraculous as it sounds, actually manageable. 

You have, let's say, an hour with nothing scheduled. What happens in your body when I say that? For some of you, there was an exhale and, oh, thank goodness. For a lot of you, and I know my people, there was something closer to a low-grade panic, a quick mental scramble to fill the space, to find something productive to do with it, to justify it, to earn it. 

If you managed to sit down and do nothing, within about four minutes, your phone was in your hand. Today, I want to talk about boredom, what it actually is, why so many of us are terrified of it, what we lose when we never let ourselves experience it, and how to start slowly and gently to make friends with it. 

So let's go. Let's start about being busy as a badge of honor or the cult of busy. Something that I constantly see in my clients and that I used to do myself because I think it's one of the sneakiest things we do and it masquerades so convincingly as a virtue. 

We wear busy like it is a badge of honor. How are you? Oh, I'm so busy, said with a little sigh, but also, let's be honest, a little pride, because being busy means important. Busy means needed. Busy means you're doing life right, quote unquote. 

You're contributing. You're not wasting a single second of your precious time on this earth. Like I said, I see this with so many of the women that I work with. Their calendars are packed from morning to night, like pre-dawn to way after midnight. 

Back-to-back meetings, commitments, obligations, activities, social engagements. I have a friend who has like one empty weekend this summer. That's it. And I mean, it's only June 2nd and she's like has no empty weekends. 

And when I asked them gently, lovingly, what would happen if you left that Tuesday afternoon open? The look on their face, you would think I had suggested they swim across the Atlantic all by themselves. 

Here's what I've come to understand about that reaction and about my own relationship with busy for most of my life. The schedule isn't just a schedule. It's armor. It can be protection. It's a very effective, very socially acceptable way to make sure you never have to stop and just be with yourself. 

Because as we've discussed on previous episodes, if you're always doing, you never have to feel. And for a lot of us, high achievers, perfectionists, recovering overachievers of all kinds, feeling is the thing we've been quietly and expertly avoiding for years. 

I want to introduce you to the fact that white space on your calendar isn't emptiness. It's possibility. Let me tell you about my calendar because I have intentionally, very deliberately, and at times uncomfortably built white space into it. 

Locks of time with nothing scheduled, no client calls, no meetings, no commitments, just open space. And I will tell you, this did not come the least bit naturally to me. I had to learn it. I had to practice it. 

I had to sit with the discomfort of an open afternoon and resist every urge to fill it with something useful and productive and justifiable. I had to get coaching on it because I started to feel guilty about the white space in my schedule and my coach had to remind me, wait, this is what we've been working toward. This is what you said that you wanted. So here's what I found on the other side of that discomfort. That white space is really not empty. It's just full of things that I couldn't hear when I was busy. 

Ideas that needed quiet to surface. Feelings that needed space to move through me. Creativity that had been waiting patiently for a gap in the noise. A sense of myself, who I actually am, what I actually want, that I simply couldn't access when I was always in motion. 

In graphic design and in music, I am told that white space or the negative space, the silence between the notes, is not the absence of something. It's what helps give everything else meaning. The pause is part of the composition. 

And I think our lives work exactly the same way. So let's talk about boredom. I want to rehabilitate this misunderstood feeling. I think we have a deeply unfair relationship with boredom. From the time when we were kids, boredom was treated as a problem to be solved. 

I'm bored. We'll go find something to do. Boredom was seen as laziness. Boredom was often equated with ingratitude. Boredom meant you weren't trying hard enough to engage with the abundant and wonderful world around you. 

And now we live in a world that has essentially eliminated the possibility of boredom entirely. Every waiting area has a screen. Every commute has a podcast, hopefully this one, if you're one of my people. Every spare moment has a phone to fill it. We've engineered boredom out of existence, and we've lost something enormous in the process. Here's what I want you to know about boredom. It is not a problem. 

It's a signal. It's your mind and your nervous system telling you that you're ready, that the input has stopped and something can now percolate. Boredom can be fertile ground from which creativity, insight, self-knowledge, and genuine rest can actually grow. 

Research on this is pretty fascinating. Journalist and podcaster Manoush Zomorodi explored this in depth in her book, Bored and Brilliant. And the thousands of people who took part in her experiment found exactly this. 

When they unplugged and allowed themselves to be bored, creativity increased because the brain, when it's not being fed input, goes into what's called the default mode network. Your mind starts to wander, to make unexpected connections, to process things that have been waiting in the queue. 

So this so brilliantly explains why I have my best ideas while I'm in the shower, or while I'm driving and listening to nothing, or right before you fall asleep. That's your default mode network doing its thing. 

And that is what boredom, real uninterrupted boredom gives you access to. But here's the deeper thing. And this is the part I want you to hear. For a lot of us, what we call boredom isn't really boredom at all. 

It's the discomfort of being alone with ourselves, of having nothing external to focus on, which means our own thoughts and our own feelings rush in to fill the space. And for many of us, especially those of us who've spent a lifetime being productive and achieving and checking things off the list and taking care of everyone else, those thoughts and feelings can be a bit overwhelming or uncomfortable or just deeply unfamiliar. 

So we reach for the phone. We add something to the calendar. We find a task. We call someone, not because we're genuinely engaged, but because the alternative, just being with ourselves in the quiet, feels like it might be too much. 

And I want to ask you something, of course, gently. What are you afraid you're going to find in the quiet? What thoughts are you keeping at bay with your busyness? What feelings have you put into the wings waiting, patient as anything, for a moment of stillness to finally be heard? 

Here's what I've noticed from my own experience and from working with the women that I love to work with. Those things don't go away just because you stay busy. They wait and they tend to find their way out anyway, just usually at the worst possible moment in ways you didn't choose. 

And here's where befriending boredom in part is about learning that you can be with yourself in the quiet and survive it, really more than survive it, actually meet yourself there and begin to thrive. 

Okay, so how do we actually do this? I want to suggest that you start small. Please don't finish this podcast episode and quit your job and stare at a wall. Okay, so how do we actually start befriending boredom when everything in you is wired to avoid it? 

I want to give you something practical here because I don't believe in advice that sounds flowery and beautiful and is completely impossible to implement on a random afternoon. Start small, teeny tiny. 

I mean it, five minutes. That's it. Five minutes, no input, no phone, no podcast, no TV, no task, just you and whatever arises. You can sit outside. You can lie down on your couch. You can sit at your kitchen table. 

The point is that your mind is not being fed. It's being allowed to wander. Notice what happens. Notice with love and compassion and understanding that urge to reach for something. And see if you can observe the urge without acting on it. 

Notice what thoughts come up when you do that. Notice what your body feels like when it isn't in motion or in productive mode. You're probably going to feel restless. Great. That is information. You might feel tired. 

You might be exhausted and immediately need to fall asleep because it turns out that you've been exhausted for a long time and your busyness was the only thing keeping you from noticing that exhaustion. 

You might feel sad or anxious or you might feel surprisingly peaceful. Whatever shows up, let it be there. It's yours and it's been waiting for you. The second practice I want to offer you is this. Start looking at any blank space on your calendar, not as something to fill, but as something to protect. 

When something opens up, a meeting cancels, or an afternoon clears, resist the immediate impulse to schedule something else into it. Sit with that open space for a beat or two before you do anything with it. 

Ask yourself kindly, gently, does something genuinely need to go here? Or am I filling this up because empty feels uncomfortable? If you want to go further, you can block time on your calendar intentionally with nothing attached to it. 

Call it whatever you want to call it to protect it. Thinking time, creative space, buffer time, protected time, whatever you want to call it. Whatever doesn't make your brain immediately try to schedule over it. 

The label really doesn't matter. What matters is that you're giving yourself permission to exist without producing something. You could even put in like meeting with self, meeting with Melissa. People don't have to know that you don't know another Melissa or that you're not actually meeting with another Melissa. 

You're meeting with yourself. It's fine. Please hear this. And I know I've said this recently on the podcast, but I want to say it again. Rest is not a reward you earn after you've been productive enough. 

It's not something you get to have once the to-do list is finished. Because hopefully, as you and I both know, the to-do list will never be finished. Rest is a need. It's a requirement for being a functioning, creative, emotionally available human. 

It belongs on your calendar by right, not by accident. The third thing that I want to offer is a mindset shift more than a practice. So it's trying to approach unstructured time with curiosity rather than with a productivity agenda. 

Instead of, what should I do with this time? Instead, try, I wonder what will come up if I just let this be. Instead of, I'm wasting time, try, I'm giving my brain a chance to do something I can't do when it's constantly being directed. 

You might even call your protected time default mode network activation time or something like that. That might be fun. Okay, instead of I should be doing something, try being is something. Being with myself is the work right now. 

This reframe will not happen overnight. But every time you catch yourself in the I should be doing something spiral and gently redirect yourself toward curiosity instead, you are building a new relationship with stillness and boredom. 

You are slowly and surely becoming someone who can be with themselves. And that, as we have discussed, my friends, is one of the most foundational things you can do on the path to becoming your favorite you. 

So this is what I want to leave you with today. The most interesting, creative, self-aware, emotionally available version of you, also known as your favorite you, cannot fully exist in a life with no stillness. 

She needs space. She needs quiet. She needs the chance to surface. Boredom is not the enemy. Boredom is a doorway. And the discomfort you feel at the threshold, that's just the part of you that learned a long time ago that being still wasn't safe or wasn't allowed or wasn't enough. 

You can thank her for keeping you moving all these years and gently know that part of you know that it's okay to rest now. So again, your invitation this week is simple. Find five minutes, just five, and fill them with absolutely nothing. 

Just you and whatever shows up. See what's been waiting for you in the quiet. And if something surprising comes up, if you feel something you didn't expect or an idea surfaces that you've been too busy to notice, I would genuinely love to hear about it. 

Come and find me and tell me. As always, I am over here rooting for you to become your favorite you. See you next time, beautiful humans.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

When we work together, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You learn effective communication strategies, boundary-setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

You're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, so head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com, go to the work with me page, and book a consultation call. We can chat about all the support I can provide you with as we work together.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and, of course, I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching soon. 

Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!