I Am a Recovering Workaholic
I am a recovering workaholic.
I don’t say this to label or condemn myself. I developed a habit of over-work as a response to my environment growing up. It was a creative solution to a real problem. But fast-forward 30 years and you will find a man who can’t stop working—who can’t rest, who can’t have fun, who can’t enjoy.
Yesterday’s solution, if not examined, can become today’s problem.
Let this newsletter be a prompt for you today—to examine. Actually, “examine” may not be the best word—a better word might be listen…
If you’re up for it, try this today. Just five minutes. I’ll do it, too:
- Settle. Let your body rest. Let your shoulders relax. It’s possible that you’ve been carrying a lot of weight—for the next five minutes, put it down.
- Breathe. Don’t try to breathe, just be aware than you are breathing. Let go of the doing of breathing and let your body be breathed.
- Stay here for a moment. Let your thoughts and judgments come and go, like clouds. They’re not a problem right now, unless you grab onto them. This is an open-handed, open-hearted posture.
- Now, listen. Notice what you hear. It may seem impossible to distinguish between the noise of surface-thoughts and a deeper intuition. The more you practice listening this way, the more you’ll feel the difference—your body will tell you. Let intuition speak.
- Whatever you hear, write it down. Take it seriously. Even if it feels trivial. This is worth a thousand books full of your thoughts.
A warning: when you do this, something in you will likely resist. Remind yourself of these two things:
- We’re just exploring here. You’re safe to explore for a few minutes.
- Growth is always met with resistance—that’s how growth works. It needs resistance. So you can register the feeling of resistance as a good sign. Acknowledge it. Thank it. And keep exploring.
As humans, it is crucial for us to learn to hear from our intuition, not just recycle our thoughts. We have purposefully advanced our technology to a point where it can recycle our thoughts for us—and much better than we can. We’re ready to hand off that kind of work—to grow past our information-age and into a new chapter of life.
We must not let old programming or the discomfort of unfamiliarity stop us. These next steps of ours will feel unfamiliar. We’ve learned to work hard, to make things happen. That was yesterday’s solution. Today, we’re ready for something new.
Rest, trust, and enjoyment mark the way ahead.