The Lizard Who Cried Wolf

Lizard: “What is up with you and this whole ‘rest’ thing? Resting is for sissies. You should get up and get to work. You’ll never make it if you don’t DO something. You might as well give up. No one will like what you have to offer anyway, so why even try.”

Kristin: “Lizard, you’ve told me that 432,957 times before and things have turned out okay. What if I just don’t listen to you this time?”

Lizard: “No, seriously, this time it’s the TRUTH. I mean it. You’ll never accomplish anything if you don’t get off your ass. And then whatever you do won’t work anyway. Failing is serious business. You’ll be embarrassed. You’ll be rejected. You won’t have any friends. You’ll look stupid and incompetent.”

Kristin: “Take a hike, Lizard.”

Lizard: “I’m doing my best to protect you and you don’t even appreciate it. How can I help if you don’t even listen? I know what’s best. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, and I know what I’m talking about.”

Kristin: “Oh, I recognize your wiley reptilian ways. You’re just trying to scare me into staying small and busy, even though inspiration and relaxation (without guilt!) is just what I need right now. I’m not listening to you. See? I can tune you out. [Kristin plugs her ears and screams] LA LA LA LA! You don’t scare me, Mr. Fire-Breathing, Loud-Talking, Mean… Dragon Man. From now on, I’m going to call you Puff! Ha! Take that!”

Lizard: “For real. This time I’m telling you, you do NOT want to put yourself out there. People will not pay attention. They have better things to do. Besides, you have too much competition. What makes you so special, huh? Well, you’re not. You’re just one in six billion. You don’t have anything unique to say anyway. So stay in your house where it’s comfortable. But stay busy because if you don’t, you’re just being lazy and selfish. I am an expert in these matters and I promise, life will be much better this way. I know better than you.”

Kristin: “Maybe you’re right. It probably won’t turn out well. You do seem to know a lot. I believe you. Maybe I’ll just clean my office. Or go out to lunch. Or do whatever I can to stay busy WITHOUT actually accomplishing anything (or relaxing or taking care of myself).”


Kristin: Okay, okay, Lizard. I hear you loud and clear, and I know you’re trying your best to help. Thanks for your input, but I promise I’ve got this one. Now I’m going to work on an inspiring writing project. And then I’ll take a nap. See you on the flip side.”

Cast:

The role of Lizard is played by Kristin’s reptilian brain, which refers to the part of the brain that first evolved in early vertebrates to broadcast survival alarms and catalyze the fight or flight response. These days, we coaches like to call it the “inner lizard” (thank you Martha Beck) because it is still sounds alarms in the form of a constant stream of fear-based thoughts, even though we might be sitting on the couch and eating bon bons.

The role of Kristin is played by herself.

Moral of the story: your mind will use every trick in the book to convince you that you’re not enough and you’re doomed. These thoughts are not the truth, and you do NOT have to believe them.


Photo by esculturas inflables xl

UN-Winding Old Habits

In this culture, if you’re not capable, competent and able to take care of yourself, what are you? We value doing, right? Being productive. Getting shit done. Checking things off the never-ending to do list. Taking care of people. Being busy. It’s become part of our DNA.

If we’re not doing, then we fear that we’re nothing. Lazy. Selfish. Unproductive. A waste of energy.

It seems as though our worth is tied up with our ability to produce. When we’re busy, it makes us feel like we’re contributing (even if all we’re doing is distractedly jumping from task to task without actually completing anything—um, guilty). When we check things off our list, we feel like valuable members of society. As long as we’re busy, the wolves won’t get us.

I believe that many health issues are our bodies’ way of accomplishing what we need (whether we’re conscious of that need or not) but for whatever reason do not give ourselves. Have you ever had a cold and realized later that what you really needed was a break? Perhaps your body was giving you just that.

In my case, cancer is giving me a big fat excuse (read: health imperative) to SLOW DOWN and RELAX. But relaxing—as a new way of being, not just a pina colada sipped on the beach during vacation—was not something I would have given myself before this rather loud wake-up call. In fact, I was used to packing about 10 times more into my schedule than I could realistically accomplish every day. I would take on new projects without really assessing whether they were a good fit. I was late all the time because I didn’t want to waste valuable minutes by arriving somewhere early (I could have used those minutes to do something else!).

So what happens when our ability to do is threatened or, worse, incapacitated?

Well, perhaps a bit less gets done, but that isn’t really the issue, is it? If it were just about the to-do list itself, it would be rather easy to deal with. I could rely on others or just live with the undone (ok, I already do some of that—hence the unfolded laundry piling up). But, as with most anything, when our way of being is flipped on its head for one reason or another, a whole lot of unprocessed “stuff” comes up. Beliefs about how things should be. Beliefs about ourselves. Guilt. Anxiety.

Being a mind/body coach helps give me a clue as to why I feel so uncomfortable without my security blanket of doing, but it doesn’t make it any easier, I assure you.

UN-Winding

I am taking on the challenge of un-winding a whole slew of busyness habits that aren’t serving me. Un-winding habits is what I help clients do, so it’s good to take a dose of my own medicine. The following points are like coaching 101, but the methods are so essential that they bear repeating, no matter how many times you’ve heard them:

• Challenge outdated thoughts and belief systems that keep old habits stuck in place. This is like clearing out the clutter of a house to make room for beautiful new furniture. It is tiresome and somewhat unpleasant to assess everything and decide what stays, move the outdated stuff, figure out where to put everything, and finally sweep up all the dust bunnies. For me, this means assessing all the thoughts that have me wanting to stay busy. For example:
o I should be doing more
o I’m not okay if I’m not busy
o There’s so much to do
o I can’t let people down
o I should be able to do it myself
o I can do one more thing

• Replace old thoughts with new, better-feeling thoughts. The trick here is to replace old thoughts with new ones that feel slightly better but are still true. This is vastly different from just trying to think positively (the positive thoughts would probably feel great, if only we believed them!). The newness of changing our thoughts feels awkward and clunky at first. But with practice, it starts to feel like home. Here are my replacement thoughts:
o I should be doing more > more is overrated
o I’m not okay if I’m not busy > it’s okay to rest
o There’s so much to do > there’s so much to be
o I can’t let people down > I can’t let me down
o I should be able to do it myself > I can’t do everything
o I can do one more thing > I can sit down for just five minutes

• Ride the waves of feelings without getting caught up in the story. I’m now convinced that staying busy is a way to avoid feeling (as is compulsive eating or spending, alcoholism, etc.). Now that this “anesthesia,” isn’t available to me, all I’m left with is the feelings I’ve been working so hard to avoid. So, as with most things, the only way out is through. I need to actually feel the feelings. Sadness for not being able to do what I usually can. Fear that my energy won’t return. Guilt for not contributing as much in the household. Confusion about knowing which habits to tackle first. Anger for having to deal with the whole situation in the first place.

• Breathe.

• Stay grounded. For this, I draw on my yoga background and do the pose called Tadasana, or Mountain pose. Feel the “four corners” of the feet. Place the pelvis directly over the heels so the weight is in the heels instead of the toes. Imagine roots going down into the center of the earth. Soft knees. Drop the shoulder blades, as if putting them in back pockets. Long spine. This is about taking a stand—for my health, my wellbeing, my values. From this position, I can handle anything.

• Incorporate new, healthier habits in baby steps. For example, I have been meditating in the morning for a while now (this habit took six years to fully adopt—yes, six), but I have been intending to meditate at night too because I think more relaxation would really help right now. I kept avoiding starting this new habit because getting 15-20 minutes of alone time in the evening seemed selfish and indulgent when there was dinner to make, dishes to be done, baths to give, stories to be read, etc. So I bit off the very smallest chunk of time I could muster—just a few mintues—to spend some time un-winding. Instead of thinking of it as meditation (which feels a little too official and forced), I call it a re-boot. I lay down. I breathe. I allow my body to slow down, engaging the relaxation response (the opposite of the fight or flight response). I don’t keep a timer or anything rigid. I let it feel delicious, instead of like an obligation. When I feel like I've had enough, I get up. Sometimes it’s one minute and sometimes it’s 10. I return feeling rejuventated and ready for the evening. Someday I might do more, or I might not. Baby steps.

Un-winding habits is not easy, but with stakes as high as they are for me, I’m taking stock and starting to make some important changes. What about you? Do you have a habit of being busy all the time? What is your busyness costing you? What would it take for you to slow down?

Photo by Patrick Brian

Another Step Forward

If you’ve ever been through a healing process of any kind, whether from an injury, surgery, a divorce or loss of a loved one, you know that physical or emotional healing is not linear. It feels as though it is two steps forward and one step back most of the time. This is how it’s been for me since my surgery a few weeks ago. I get my energy back and start feeling really good and then I push a little too hard and BOOM, I’m back on the couch for a day or two, feeling less than stellar.

My mind wants my body to be fully recovered. Although I’m pretty good at listening to my body, my mind can be pretty darned convincing. It consistently tries to override the signals I get from my body. For example, this past weekend, I planted flowers in the morning and ran a few errands in the afternoon on Sunday. It was nothing too crazy, but once I came home, my energy was low and my first thought was that I wanted to sit down for a while. Within mere moments, my mind kicked into gear with a familiar pattern, the gist of which goes something like this: I can do just this one more thing and then sit down later. I need to do [insert task] because [insert person] wants [insert result] and I wouldn’t want them to feel [insert uncomfortable feeling].

Sound familiar?

The bottom line is that I do lots of tasks hoping to please other people or feel the familiarity of being “productive” at the expense of taking care of myself. Niiiiiicccee. But these days, when I’m miserable on the couch a few hours later because I didn’t heed the whisper to sit the heck down, my body is talking back.

Why, you may ask? Well, here are a few of my reasons:

• I want to make other people’s lives easier. I’ll often trade my inconvenience for their convenience, especially if they’re ultimately doing something to help me (more on that topic later).

• I want to contribute. I want to do what I can to make another person’s experience better.

• Being productive feeds my self-worth. I feel more valuable when I’m doing something. And I don’t think I’m alone. This culture values busyness over almost anything else.

• I don’t want to be seen as selfish or lazy.

• I don’t want to feel guilty while someone else does something I think I should be able to do.

I would guess that most people have a fundamental value to be of service to others. And most people want to do things for their family members and society as a whole. I am certainly not questioning these values. What I’m talking about is much more insidious than that. It’s going way past our own limits in the name of being of service, and who wants that? It’s the opposite of self-care.

So what to do? I’m still on a pretty significant learning curve here, but I’m starting to recognize when when my energy starts to wane and my body starts telling me to slow down. Instead of considering it “one step back” (which upholds the “I should be productive!” way of thinking), I’m actually starting to think of it as an invitation to rest. It’s another step forward, in the direction of health and healing.

Resting is something that is rather hard to do, at least for me. But it is absolutely the most important thing I can do right now because my body heals best when it’s relaxed and free of tension. This is requiring a radical change in the way I think. I'm up for the challenge.