Strong Work Ethic vs Personal Growth

Over the next few months we're running a series of Q&As and posting the answers here so everyone can benefit. Some of the topics are subject specific, others will be of interest to all.

QUESTION 01:
How can I triangulate and balance these 3 things:
The desire to push myself to grow vs feeling guilty for resting vs becoming totally exhausted?

ANSWER:

When we train hard we work our system at every level and in particular our muscles. The next day we feel the work done by way of stiffness or soreness and have to take the time to stretch, nourish and replenish. We know if we overwork our muscles we do damage not only to our muscle tissue but to the attainment of our long term goals. This, in some small way, teaches us to play the long game.

It’s playing the long game which gets us our best results. 

This is exactly the same with the brain. When we work the brain hard with continuous cognitive processing and output we are effectively working a muscle. However in mental action and “work” we also engage the respiratory system, the nervous system and the endocrine system. We forget to breathe, we engage in high levels of cortisol and adrenalin, we tend to overwork the adrenal glands, engage in poor posture and other unhealthy habits like being exposed to close range visual detail, blue screens which in themselves have impact upon the eyes and hence also upon the liver.

The nourishment required following periods of “work” are behaviours which incorporate the opposite: periods of no analytical thought, time in nature, periods of no electricity, passive creativity, relaxed social engagement, relaxed vision, listening to music and nourishing the body / system with sensory engagements away from analytical thought and precise visual connection. That time needs to be planned in as significantly as the periods of work. 

Growth can’t happen in a state of depletion.

Growth in fact often happens in the space in between the effort. Just as success in one subject often happens whilst you are busy doing something else. 

Output and input, giving and receiving, action and non action all must be in balance, and a perfect “programme” allows for that. That ebb and flow, yin and yang is our natural state: it changes in a natural rhythm.

However our corporate western world has disrupted that rhythm with a false ideology that constant work reaps results. Constant anything doesn’t reap anything, you need the opposite to form the balance within the equation to get a result. A continued state can be sustained through willpower for a number of years but you can’t over-write nature, and nature has its way of changing state inevitably so the push against that tide creates a strain, and a strain leads to a collapse. So perfectly illustrated by the guas of Chinese philosophy which depict the strained lintel / bow over the doorway of a house, about to break, due to excess.

We know from nature that all things are systems and /or part of systems, and systems need to be in balance to be sustained.

When the body feels exhausted it is a sign that the balance has been lost and needs to be reprogrammed in to your daily schedule, which becomes your weekly schedule which becomes your life.

The guilt you feel for not working or pushing yourself can be a product of your education both in your schooling, upbringing and in the corporate world in which you work. This social narrative is very strong in the west and is suitable for maintaining control of workforces and keeping a particular status quo, however it doesn't necessarily promote the best of positive personal wellbeing, personal growth and personal potential fulfilment.

The challenge here is to see this narrative as part of your context and not as part of your own personal belief system. Remember you get to choose. 

Contexts need to be understood so we can separate from them as we wish. If we don’t clearly see our contexts then we become embedded in them, and they affect our personal human system at every level. Another way to view contexts are to survey their primary factors and decide: is this useful, do I want to live this way? And if not, put the attachment to it to the side.

To remove the guilt, consider how it may have been programmed into you from a variety of repetitive expectations of others and societal norms. Acknowledge your power as an individual and take a world view now from a stance as a highly informed adult who is able to make better decisions than those who helped programme you, because you’ve had the opportunity of more knowledge.

Other people aren’t in charge of us, so we need to take back that right to choose. We can do that effectively when we have the information around each issue, because with information we get perspective and awareness, and as we increase in perspective and awareness, we increase in personal freedoms.

Guilt sits in the 3rd chakra and can badly affect the adrenal glands. For an immediate resolve, acknowledge when you are feeling it, intellectually weigh up the appropriateness of it, and if its simply from out-dated programming breathe deeply into the 3rd chakra and give the body an instruction to let it go. 

You’re in charge, and from a position of authority, know you now have the power to choose. 

For One to One Coaching and online coaching in human programming contact www.fiveringstraining.com