This week I asked this question on my Facebook:

I asked it because I am sick and tired of the word “process”

So I thought I needed to replace the word. Because I need to process things and without a word how do I define and describe it?

But do I need to process things?

Or do I THINK I need to because that has been forced into my mind for so long?

As I’m not at scared to mention I am a woman who lived a season of 4 years in therapy. So for about an hour a week or every other week I sat in a room and talked about myself and my stuff.

Then I went on this trip called the world race where “processing” is on a list of buzzwords that every racer needs to know.

 And then it became an excuse.

“I really need to process that so I’m going stay back today”

“I don’t know how I feel- I haven’t processed it”

 People stopped living their lives and they lived in “process”. 

When I was first in counseling we spent time talking about my childhood- my past- but only if it collided with the present.

He’d always reference a picture. It was a picture of a blimp(or a hot air balloon…let’s go with blimp) that had all of these ropes hanging off of it. Sometimes in life you have to pull a rope off and look at it. Sometimes you need to cut it without even looking. Most of the time? Just let them trail behind you.

It’s ok to let things drag.

The blimp keeps moving forward.

It never stops.

When I asked the question on Facebook I got these 14 or so responses. Here a handful:

A good grouping of words and phrases and ideas.

Three of the responses I got are from people who I would deem teachers (or people who smack me in the face with wisdom).

In each their own ways and languages they said the same thing:

Be and Live.

Just like my counselor would say so many times: pull up what needs to get pulled up but keep moving

Have words along the way but keep living.

And that reminded me why I hate the word process so much.

Because I have seen too many people halt their lives.

I halted my life for a while.

I was in a place of hell.

All I could do was think.

Think about the bad things in life, my failures, where I’d gone wrong, what I’d done wrong.

I was in my head all the time.

 And I tried to get out. I tried to climb out of this hole.

But I’d forgotten how to live.

When you live in process for so long; when you dig yourself in a hole away from the light you forget how to tend to your spirit in a healthy, lovely way.

Because sitting with your journal and pen or a canvas and a paintbrush for an hour each day is good for your soul.

But then you close the notebook, drape the canvas and you move.

 We need that time. It’s healthy, beautiful and bears fruit.

So here’s my challenge:

Let’s stop processing.

Let’s strike the word from our vocabulary.

Let’s start being.

Let’s make a habit to prune and tend to our lives  just like a vineyard owner would do to his vines daily.

He doesn’t spend ever minute of every day cutting tiny pieces away. He has a concentrated amount of time that he tends to & prunes his vineyard.

And then he lives.

So my friends?

Let’s live.