Be Here… Now
“Our great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings.”
The other day I received an email inviting me to be a guest speaker on a webcast on the topic of burnout and resilience. I was honored to be asked to speak on such an important topic (more important than ever, given our challenging times).
“What date will the webcast occur?”, I asked.
“I know it’s a long shot, but it’s in four days! I have had a very difficult time securing a second panelist,” said the organizer. Even in the first contact to me, I could feel the stress of this other person and a strong sense of urgency.
The organizer went on to explain that they are a well-known brand in the marketplace, and that their webcast series has reached more than 5,000 people to date. The opportunity to reach such a large audience on such an important and relevant topic was too good to pass up, and naturally I said “yes” before even looking at my existing commitments.
“Great!! I appreciate this so much! I will be in touch with more details soon!” I could feel the surge of adrenaline on the other end, and I began to feel the excitement too. But then reality set in.
I looked at my calendar and saw a commitment already booked at that time with an important client. I could feel my shoulders get tense, my teeth grit, and my breath begin to shallow. My mind began to furiously work at how I was going to finesse this, and somehow influence the situation to alleviate the pressure I just put on myself with this mindless double-booking. Since I got the email on a weekend, I couldn’t really do anything about it until Monday - and the webcast was on Tuesday.
Monday came, and in looking at my to-do’s in the morning of course I had a busy day ahead, and I had just added this critical shuffling item to my list over the weekend. Immediate tension arose… and I noticed a strong impulse to fix it. So I engaged in a heroic effort to move heaven and earth to make this all work, and somehow keep everyone happy in the process. Thankfully, the universe seemed to be on my side with this one, and magically the client commitment that was scheduled for this time moved, opening up the slot for the webinar. More adrenaline rushed in. And then reality hit again… what am I going to talk about to this massive audience I will be in front of in 24 hours??!
I scrambled some more for the next day, ultimately getting prepared for the webinar. I received a prep email from the organizer, who emphasized that the webinar needed to be only 30 minutes, so we needed to be “succinct with practical strategies.” The mail was densely packed with talking points, telling me what I should talk about. I was amazed at how much work the organizer had done themselves, undoubtedly to alleviate the stress of the void of having no speaker.
We met 15 minutes before the webinar started to prepare (this was the first time we had ever met in a live conversation). The tone of the prep call was furiously fast-paced, with an overall message that “we have a lot to get through on this topic of stress and burnout and ONLY 30 minutes to do it all!!!”
Odd way of teeing up a webinar on stress and burnout, I thought to myself. The irony was not lost on me, and in this moment I was able to have a chuckle that calmed me in realizing the stressful context we had co-created. I decided at that moment before we started to breathe long and deep, to slow down, and to be present for this webinar. I let go of the content in my head, knowing that what I had to offer would emerge when I needed it. I decided that my presence and energy mattered more than what I was going to say - after all, content on stress and burnout can be readily accessed anywhere by anybody.
My decision to pause, breathe, and slow down became a wonderful counterbalance to the frenetic energy that had been dynamic between us to-date. It allowed me to be more succinct, as I was not scrambling in my head when asked questions. It also enabled me to be more impactful as a speaker, as I was able to experience the emotional climate of a stress-fueled webinar, and offer an example of how to change the energy right there in the moment. What I said mattered, but how I showed up mattered more.
I share this story as a personal example of just one instance that is so common for so many of us. Burnout and stress are a way of life in our culture. We celebrate “heroes of doing”, and strive to take one more thing on, be a part of one more event, fret about “idle time”, and go to all lengths to stay busy. We tell ourselves stories that if we aren’t doing something, we aren’t enough. Our mantra seems to be “I do, therefore I am.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of a the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, amusingly observed that we are so addicted to doing, we should be called “human doings” rather than “human beings.” (Kabat-Zinn, 2017).
The mindfulness movement that Kabat-Zinn is a part of is one example of a very different way of living. It is based in a philosophy to embrace stillness, non-doing, and being as a way to experience. It embraces a different mantra: “I am, therefore I am.” When i was first introduced to these concepts some years ago, I admit that I was quite skeptical - seeing all of this as fluffy “woo-woo” that had very little to do with reality. But as my stress grew in my life, it consumed me mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I found myself at one point completely burned out - so much so that I had to take a leave of absence from work to regain my strength and energy. It was at this point that I began to lean into the principles of being - and it changed my life.
Cultivating our being in the midst of an environment fueled by crisis feels very unnatural, counterintuitive, and even dangerous. When things heat up, we are supposed to slow down?? What?! The short answer to this is “yes”. But it is just a moment that is needed to get you somewhere different… and this is the thing that our hyper-doing addiction keeps from us. Our energy is on overdrive so much that we can’t create the space for even 2 minutes to ourselves. But here’s the good news for all of us doers: you can start cultivating your being by giving yourself a to-do to just pause and breathe.
Think of the example I share above. Right at the hottest moment before taking the stage, when we were feeling the most stress, I woke up and chose to pause, breathe, and slow down. The environment around me was still crazy, but I was choosing something different. I was choosing not to be at the effect of my context, but rather to cultivate my own sense of being in that moment. I was choosing to shift the energy in the room by being (a focus on managing energy) versus doing (a focus on managing time and tasks).
I invite you to adopt a practice to cultivate your own sense of being in your life. If you are skeptical, that is to be expected. I invite you to let go of your skepticism because there is much at stake here - your health, well-being, and relationships all depend on how well you manage stress. Below are a few suggestions for cultivating more being in your life (Cashman, 2017). Pick one of these and experiment with it for the next week or two. Ask for others to support you in your endeavor, and seek to do the same for others. Notice what shifts occur for you over time as you cultivate more being in your life.
Practice Mindfulness. Science has shown us that practicing mindfulness literally rewires our brain to access higher-order functions. There are countless apps and guided meditations online. Calm and Headspace are great starters. YouTube is full of free, short meditations ideal for beginners. You can also practice mindfulness by simply becoming more aware of the present moment (like I did in preparation for the webinar). If you are a person of a certain faith, meditative prayer is a wonderful vehicle.
Be in Nature. Tune into the natural rhythms, sights, sounds, and smells around you. Take a cue from the David Whyte poem excerpt above and work on truly being intimate with your surroundings, rather than just look at it. Evoke all five of your senses. You will begin to notice a very different energy in the natural world the more you tune into it.
Engage in the Arts. When experienced directly (this is key - engaging), music, fine art, poetry, theater, literature and other arts evoke a deeper sense of our being. There is nothing more powerful than listening to a soul-stirring composition; empathizing with a character in a play; or feeling a moving passage of a story that transports us to inspiring new worlds.
Be with Others You Love. A spouse, partner, friend, child, family member, or anyone whom you feel a warm, safe, affectionate connection to can help you to rest into your being. Recall a time when you were last with someone in which time seemed to not exist, and the worries of the world around you no longer consumed your thoughts. That is the power of loving relationships in cultivating your sense of being.
Reflective Journaling. Free writing, even a little each day, can create a fabulous space for you to go where you can sort through thinking, express yourself, and experiment with new ways of thinking and being. A good journaling practice knows no bounds, and truly is a means for you to unfold your being.
REFERENCE
Cashman, K. (2017). Leadership from the inside out: Becoming a leader for life. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
ZINN, J. K. (2017). MINDFULNESS FOR BEGINNERS. Jaico Publishing House.