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What would you do if you had more energy? In our world of non-stop, instant connectivity, many leaders are struggling to respond to workplace, family and societal demands. Everything is energy, there are no exceptions, and energy is everything. Our energy levels are the foundation of everything we do in our lives. No matter how talented we are, without energy, we simply cannot perform well.
Many of us have learned that keeping busy also keeps us at a distance from our feelings. We mistakenly believe that overachieving and workaholism somehow equals self-esteem. Our physical well-being is affected by the stress of overworking and we experience acute anxiety related to the fear of failure. Whenever our inner feelings do not match our outer surface, we are doing ourselves a huge disservice – we are lying to ourselves. When stopping to rest means being barraged with this discrepancy, it’s no wonder so many are reluctant to cease their obsessive activity.
“Many of us learned that keeping busy…kept us at a distance from our feelings…Some of us took the ways we busied ourselves -becoming overachievers & workaholics – as self esteem…But whenever our inner feeling did not match our outer surface, we were doing ourselves a disservice…If stopping to rest meant being barraged with this discrepancy, no wonder we were reluctant to cease our obsessive activity.”
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Workaholics tend to develop a rigid, stiff way of carrying their body. Their movements can appear almost robot-like, and back problems are common. Out-of-touch with their body because the disproportionate left brain ‘Thinking’ function is dominant and their right brain ‘Feeling’ function is repressed, workaholics remain unaware of the increases in the amount of adrenalin that is being pumped into their body. Like the proverbial frog slowly boiling in a pot, elevated adrenalin over a period of time causes an increase in the production of cholesterol; a narrowing of the capillaries and other blood vessels that can shut down the blood supply to the heart muscle; a decrease in the body’s ability to remove cholesterol; an increase in the blood’s tendency to clot; and an increase in the depositing of plaque on the walls of the arteries.
As their psychological and physical health deteriorates, compulsively driven workaholics tend to become so intensively determined that they eventually lose their sense of humour and ability to experience spontaneous joy, laughter, and carefree optimism. Instead, they tend to use sarcasm, ridicule, or caustic put-downs that really serve to defend themselves from an intimate emotional investment in their relationships.
You may spot a workaholic by their tightly-crossed arms and legs, taut facial muscles, and locked jaws, reflecting their defensive attitude. They walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, and drink copious amounts of coffee just to keep going. Excessive pumping of adrenalin produces a fatigue that was designed to act as a circuit breaker to warn of danger to the body’s functioning systems. Instead, workaholics simply drive themselves even harder until chronic fatigue shuts them down.
Drained of all energy by escalating personal and professional pressures, emotionally-crippled workaholics make faulty judgments and unwise pragmatic decisions that lack “big picture” vision. As too many things start to go wrong, overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks undermine the will and energy necessary to be capable of intimacy. Their focus is now on survival tactics.
“Own the amount of time you spend at work as a choice, not a consequence. Don’t play the victim of your job. Hard work is a high. It is! Don’t forget what you’re reaching for while getting high on work.”
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Somewhere along the way we have developed a belief that the more we struggle and the more we suffer, the more valuable we will become and the more successful we’ll eventually be. So we overwork ourselves, overschedule ourselves, and become “busier than thou” because we think there’s some sort of prize on the other side of the pain we cause ourselves. And you know what? There’s no prize. All you get from suffering is more suffering.
Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence. It takes wisdom to gain wealth without losing health.
“Work can sometimes be very tricky. It gives with one hand and takes away with the other. It gives you money and takes away your time. [If you’re not doing what you love with who you love] It offers you wealth and steals your happiness.”
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“Write the story of your life. Sharpen your pencil, freshen the ink & get to it. You are the author, the world your pages. The hero or the villain. You decide”
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The events of these past couple of years have certainly left many of us recovering from shock. We’ve been deconstructed and deformed as we try to navigate the ever-changing landscape on a daily basis. This “de-formation” is giving us the power to reform ourselves on every level. The question is HOW will we reform ourselves? What will we choose? Who will we become? We can’t become the people we want to be if we do not reform our inner landscape.
We have all been traumatised by life in some way. Trauma is any experience, event, or circumstance that causes us to lose connection with our sense of value and with the unique gifts that we have to bring to the world. When you question your value or you think that the things you want to bring to the world aren’t precious, valuable – or even possible to do – you are carrying some form of trauma. This doesn’t have to come from some kind of big, traumatic event. We can be traumatised by something as seemingly innocuous as being told repeatedly we cannot do what we dream of doing. Obviously, there are other forms of serious and significant trauma, such as being assaulted or abused as children. This is not downplaying these kinds of horrific trauma.
However, we meet people every day who act and feel traumatised by the “smaller” events in life and their experience of this world. Our natural instinct is to protect ourselves when we are traumatised. We hide away who we really are, put on masks and protective identities that keep our tender hearts safe and concealed. When we go out into the world, we are reacting from these protective identities instead of being authentic and creating from our heart’s desire. We cannot build a world of peace and reform what has come before if we are reacting to each other with our protective identities. These changes we are going through promise to unfold a world where we can live and lift each other up with the authentic expressions of our hearts.
But to do this we must uncover the truth about:
Until we discover these Truths, we will be trapped living from behind our masks.
The world is changing and we are here to help you.
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
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