There is such a thing as a “second wind.” As a dancer, I’ve experienced it. I’ll be going strong until I hit a kind of wall but then, if I keep going, pushing through the tiredness, I sometimes tap into a backup supply of extra energy. Runners and other athletes rely on this process to realize their best achievements.
Momentum is a real thing too. Once you’re in the groove or “flow” it seems to take less energy to get stuff done. So as we work we get seduced to keep on going and ignore any warning signs or signals that our bodies might be sending. But now, here comes an important warning for you young dedicated striving professionals, and you accomplished elders (who should know better).
Frequently overdoing and overworking for long hours, without intermittent rest, and with a lack of restorative sleep, WILL BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH.
It is possible to have too much of a good thing, that’s what addiction is. I still remember the moment when one of my mentors, dancer Anna Halprin, told her story of being diagnosed with colon cancer. Looking back on her own behavior before the diagnosis she said, “I must have thought I was invincible.” Looking up at her from the floor of her dance studio where I was seated I thought, “I must have thought that too. After all, what were the behaviors that got me to this Self-Caring Self-Healing Workshop?”
In relationship to our work, when we push the envelope too often and for too long, self-harm comes from this bypass of our physical and emotional needs. In the body-wise system of InterPlay, we often remind one another of the need to “go the speed of the body,” and to avoid falling for the common myth. Illana Rubenfeld, another body-wise mentor told me when she was experiencing a bout of unrelenting exhaustion, “I didn’t realize I could harm myself doing something I love.”
Workaholism has become an aspirational lifestyle for millennials according to the journalist, Erin Griffith in a piece in last Sunday’s New York Time. Millennials? It’s hard to keep up with this frequently maligned generation. The last I heard people were complaining millennials were lazy and had the attention span of a nat. Griffin calls out the cultural programming behind what he calls, the “Hustle Culture.” He points to ad campaigns like Nike’s “Rise and Grind,” and signs he found in WEWork locations like “Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done.” “Do What You Love,” “Hustle Harder,” and the hashtag #ThankGodIt’sMonday.”
The picture above is of the newest millenial members of our Pittsburgh InterPlay Community.
Truth is, the culture of many multiple generation workplaces finds work teams stretched to the max, employees not taking vacation days, showing up for work when ill, and competing for the bragging rights to the Most-Hours-Worked-in-a-Week, and the “Getting By-On-the-Least-Amount-of-Sleep” awards.
In my work with helping professionals through the years I’ve stayed in touch with the research on the health cost of caring work – burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary trauma in the social workers, nurses and physicians. Loving what that do, and feeling needed was not self-protective, but rather lead to them forgo self-care and fall into practices of self-neglect. Moms and other family caregivers are also especially vulnerable to these types of self-harm.
Self-Care is a set of skills that need to be learned and practiced, and modeled and taught, to our employees, clients, students, and offspring.
Even though my own profession of social work will not allow me to offer CEs, (Continuing Education Credits) if I mention the phrase “Self-Care,” I’d like to leave you with some of the solutions to the hazards in our workplaces that I share in my recently released book
Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease,
and Time to Breathe, and Reclaim Joy.
Try an affirmation, to be recited often,
-“I am as valuable as any and all of my projects and accomplishments, and as such, I am deserving of having my needs met as I perform my life’s work.”
– A reminder sign for your office –
“Note to self – Work is not the way I earn my worth.”
– Some lines from The Prayer of a Recovering Workaholic:
help me to let got of my illusions of
grandiose accomplishments,
of expecting of myself and others,
impossible feats.
And most especially,
help me stop fighting
the inevitable.
What have you found that works well for your self-care?
Sheila
