If you’re like me, and so many of the people I work with, people are relying on you to bring your A-game every single day.
To the sales pitch, the team meeting, and to your family and community.
These days, there are no natural transitions and breaks in the day. We don’t have the car ride to work or the subway ride home, or even the act of shutting down the laptop so we can pack up and head home to sort out dinner.
It’s just one long marathon of waking up and caffeinating until finally, the alcohol picks up where the caffeine left off, and then we sleep. And the whole catastrophe starts all over again.
I was on a call with a client the other day, and he said, “It’s like this: you have just enough time between meetings to either go to the bathroom or pour a second cup of coffee. But not both. Never both. And then the next meeting begins.”
If there was ever a perfect storm for burn out, this is it.
A friend recently told me she had to cancel a vacation and I said, “Don’t tell me! Let’s play Apocalypse Bingo! Was it because of fires? Floods? A freak lightning storm? Racial uprising in the streets? Covid outbreak? Voter suppression? White supremacy? Killer wasps?” It turned out to be a run-of-the-mill work emergency, but still.
WE ARE TIRED.
I think many of us are past the point of tired. We’re now numb. Dead inside. In fact, the other night, after having horribly mismanaged my energy, I was talking with my son and I heard a strange sound coming from my own mouth.
“What is that strange sound?” I wondered.
Turns out the sound was a laugh. Something he said made me laugh, but I was so dead inside that in that moment, my own laughter sounded like it came from some foreign place.
My own laughter confused me.
I hate what is happening to us.
But here’s the thing, indulging in a “poor me” narrative has never done me much good.
I have never enjoyed playing the role of victim in my life.
I am far more interested in playing the Heroine who, when all hell is breaking loose, knows how to regain balance, punch the ground, and come back with some nuclear level countermove that just Fucks. Shit. Up.
So, friend, I want to offer you that counter move. I want to offer you a way to come back strong and annihilate the odds that are so stacked against you.
But before I share this move with you, I need to warn you:
What I’m about to share with you looks and sounds nothing like a ground punch.
In fact, what it looks and sounds like is a heavily wooded space, filled with smallish pools.
Ummmm what?
Let me back up for a minute.
IT’S ALL ABOUT TRANSITIONS
One of the great secrets to productivity and performance that often goes neglected is the art of transitioning well.
The quality of your transition determines how you show up to whatever comes next.
Let me say that again:
It’s the time spent in the ‘in-betweens’ that determines the quality of your energy, presence, and power in the moments that follow.
When we properly transition, we move from one state of being, into another. We close out one experience before opening a new one.
If you’ve ever had a toddler or preschool-aged kid, you will likely remember just how HARD transitions can be. Grown-ups also have a really hard time letting go of one thing and pushing into the next, so we numb out with scrolling or compulsive email checking. Or, we zap ourselves with stimulation from the unending litany of terrible news that is available on demand.
I’d like to suggest you try something different.
And by that, I mean you need a transition ritual.
TRANSITION RITUAL
I’d love for you to design a quick, repeatable ritual that you do habitually in between tasks, meetings, and whatever else. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy, it just needs to be something you do as consistently as possible.
To me, a good Transition Ritual has three key components:
- Capture the Gottas
- Process the Feels
- Take a Brain Bath
1. CAPTURE THE GOTTAS
Part of what keeps us perpetually drained is that there’s always a bit of bandwidth that is dedicated to worrying about the thing you might be forgetting to do. Did I write it down? Did I already send that email?
The first step in your new transition ritual is to Capture the Gottas. If the action takes 2 minutes or less, I try to take care of it right then. But if that’s not possible, I take 30 seconds to schedule the time required to do what needs to be done.
This is much more effective than putting them in a to-do list, because it visually shows how much I have to accomplish. This makes it easier to schedule time for new stuff that comes up, and helps with saying no to things, if necessary.
2. PROCESS THE FEELS
Some of the things you’re bouncing between have strong emotional signatures, whether it be the contentious client conversation, that meeting with your overwhelmed, anxious, and slightly depressed direct report, or the sales pitch where you gave it everything you had. And all three of those meetings went down before you ate lunch.
(What even is “lunch” right now?)
Each of those meetings left a mark, and it is INCREDIBLY helpful to rapidly process that emotion, even if it’s just for 60 seconds. How you process is totally up to you, and the more you practice processing the feels, the more you will learn about how you best process.
For me, frustration is something I’m feeling a lot these days. I’m frustrated by the number of interruptions, and my lack of time alone. And when I have frustration to process, I need to MOVE. Sometimes I literally shadow box an invisible opponent. Sometimes I growl (I learned this from my husband. He growls after he gets off a frustrating call).
Here’s an example;
Last night, despite my best efforts at processing the day, I still felt tightness in my chest and shoulders from lingering frustration, and a simmering sense of RAGE.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep unless I found a way to process my own toxic soup beyond what I’d been trying to do during the day.
I closed my eyes and visualized a wide-open field, covered with old broken down cars. I then visualized a baseball bat in my right hand, and with that baseball bat, I saw myself destroying each and every car in that field.
I felt the glass shattering around me … the crunch of the metal car doors as I landed one heavy swing after another. And once I felt like I had well and truly trashed every car in the field, I set the whole goddamn thing on fire with a flick of my wrist.
Did I mention I visualized myself in a yellow Cavalli dress like Beyonce in the Hold Up video?
Once it was all on fire, I visualized myself dancing like a wild pagan witch as the whole thing burned to nothing.
It was GLORIOUS. My plan was to do another meditation that was more love and light, but I fell asleep soundly before I could execute it.
Processing your feels means using your imagination, your body, and your HEART to move emotional experiences safely, so they don’t haunt you or hold power over you.
3. GIVE YOURSELF A BRAIN BATH
While processing feels is key, our brains need some TLC too. Given just how overstimulated we are, I am a HUGE fan of activities that allow our brains to just rest.
Funny enough, you may notice that during brain bath times, brilliant ideas and solutions arrive unbidden, as if some benevolent force was just waiting for you to slow down and shut up long enough for it to whisper sweet somethings in your ear.
So what activities constitute “brain bath” activities? Here are some of my favorites:
- Knitting. Yes, Knitting. More on this in a second.
- Gardening, deadheading flowers, and weeding
- Whittling
- Drawing, doodling, coloring, and painting
- Playing guitar, piano, harp, harmonica, whatever
- Snuggling your animal
NOT brain baths:
- Scrolling
- Checking your email
- Going to the kitchen
- Calling someone to bitch
- Checking the news
- Talking to your roommate, spouse, or partner about things that need to be done around the house. That is SO not a brain bath.
The thing about brain baths is that they are intended for you to completely let go and relax. To stare at nothing and give your mind a break.
For me, that means giving my mind a very low cognitive load skill, which is why I love knitting. It requires a bare minimum of focus and allows me to feel my grey matter exhale.
I was talking to a friend of mine who said she found herself in the middle of the workday, weeding and tending to her garden. She was kind of ashamed about it, because she had to offer comments on a complicated legal document, and instead of working on it, she headed into the garden.
But once her hands began working with the weeds, her brain was able to stretch and breathe, and before she knew it, she was mentally working through the document, forming cogent thoughts. 25 minutes later, she returned to her laptop and was able to provide the sharp, wise legal counsel the document required very quickly, a task she thought would take hours.
She just needed a brain bath.
And my dear one, so do you.
Capture the Gottas.
Process the Feels.
Take a Brain Bath.
Use your own intuition and imagination as your guide in constructing a liminal space for your mind, body, and heart to recover.
Not once a day, but many times a day.
As I was planning this episode, I kept thinking about the mysticism of liminal spaces, and of the in-betweens. I thought of this passage from The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. This passage opens Chapter Three, which is aptly titled, The Wood Between Worlds and describes the moment the main character, Digory, wakes up in a strange, liminal space:
“He was standing by the edge of a small pool—not more than ten feet from side to side—in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just come out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others—a pool every few yards as far as the eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. When he tried to describe it afterwards Digory always said, “It was a rich place: as rich as plumcake.”
My friend, create this peaceful, rich place, and let it nourish you.
When it’s time, dive into whatever that next pool is with integrity, intention, and kindness.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
