{"id":228,"date":"2011-06-16T12:37:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T16:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ohe.5c7.myftpupload.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2014-03-24T10:45:24","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T14:45:24","slug":"a-revisionist-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inourrightmind.com\/?p=228","title":{"rendered":"A revisionist history …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of my clients, a career woman named Mary, wife and mother of two school-age kids, has been feeling so overwhelmed that she wants to request a 30% reduction in her workload. And she\u2019s willing to take a 30% reduction in income. In the past few months, she has created several maps of how her life would look, less this 30%. She likes what she sees.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the hitch. Part of her just can\u2019t say \u201cNo\u201d when there\u2019s work to be done. She\u2019s always taking on more. Even when she has no energy for the extra effort, a voice deep inside is urging her on.<\/p>\n

So she knows that unless she actually says<\/span><\/em> no and does<\/span><\/em> less, she\u2019ll be feeling overworked and overwhelmed again, even at 70% \u2026 and<\/em> earning 30% LESS for the privilege!<\/p>\n

Mary knows this voice well. It\u2019s the voice of duty, of loyalty and service. It helped her reach the top of her career ladder at an early age, and it has kept her in a predictable cycle of getting overextended and exhausted ever since.<\/p>\n

In the past several weeks, she’s been listening to this voice differently. Rather than just reacting to its familiar chatter, she\u2019s distancing from it, listening with curiosity, and paying attention to the energy charge that comes with it. Twice, this new approach has rattled Mary’s worldview and given her some choices she didn’t know she had.<\/p>\n

She chairs an advisory committee that supports a new system-wide collaborative effort. \u00a0The project is run by a director hired last fall; he’s a man she knows and has some doubts about. In December, Mary sent the committee’s recommendations to him.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, she and her committee met with him. One of the committee members asked him about the status of their recommendations. He wiggled and squirmed, and didn’t answer the question.<\/p>\n

Mary told me, \u201cI’m thinking, \u2018Uh, oh, I really dropped the ball here. I should\u2019ve been following up and keeping this on track.\u2019 So I started defending<\/em> this guy, even though he’d clearly done nothing with our recommendations.<\/p>\n

“Another committee member jumped in and said to me, \u2018We’re an advisory committee. We did our part: we advised.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when it hit me. Wow, maybe it\u2019s NOT me! Maybe my doubts about this guy really ARE legitimate. Maybe it\u2019s OKAY that I didn\u2019t follow up!\u201d<\/p>\n

Normally Mary’s quite tempered in both tone and actions. But as she was telling the story, her face was bright with discovery. She was waving her hands and, literally, grabbing the air as if she were snagging the next scene to offer up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen this guy turned to me and said, \u2018I hoped you\u2019d take over this other program for me.\u2019 It\u2019s a program he brought when he took this job. Normally I\u2019d just suck it up and say, \u2018Okay.\u2019 But something about this moment made me step back.<\/p>\n

“Maybe it was the other committee member saying we\u2019d done our job. Maybe it was you pushing me to watch the stories I tell myself. I don\u2019t know. I just know that I got a whole new perspective. I thought, He\u2019s got more than he can handle and he wants ME to take him off the hook.<\/em> I\u2019ll do all the work and he\u2019ll get all the credit.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018So instead of my usual, \u201cYea, I can do that,\u201d I said, \u2018I\u2019ll pass.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd suddenly, everything<\/em> looked and felt different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that moment, I saw how I heap all this stuff on myself<\/em>! I assume that I\u2019m the one who has to pick up the failing project \u2026 keep the committee rolling \u2026 make sure nothing falls through the cracks \u2026 even though I don\u2019t like doing ANY of it. I\u2019m looking at the stuff I didn\u2019t<\/em> do and feeling like I let this guy down \u2026 while my colleague\u2019s looking at the stuff we did<\/em> do and saying, \u2018We did our job. What have you done with yours?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a revelation for her, this discovery that her self-talk is just a story. It\u2019s not Truth or Reality. It\u2019s just a bunch of assumptions about how she should be and what she should do that she has never questioned. And it runs continually, dragging her down a well-worn path to exhaustion and depletion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like getting an unexpected glimpse of yourself, from an angle you never see, in a full-length mirror or storefront window. The image [\u201cTHAT\u2019S what I look like!?!\u201d] can be a shocker.<\/p>\n

Mary\u2019s second example, which she dubbed her \u201crevisionist history,\u201d came 10 minutes later.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019ve been miserable for months, overwhelmed, exhausted, and treading water until a couple of big projects come to an end and I can relax. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It\u2019s almost here. And what do I do?<\/p>\n

\u201cI revise my own history! I look back and tell myself, \u2018It really wasn\u2019t that bad. It was okay. I got through it. I can do it.\u2019 And then I tell myself, \u2018I SHOULD be able to do it.\u2019\u201d She paused for several seconds. \u201cWhen I get out of a situation, I lose the sense of how much I struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is her other huge discovery. She actively revises her story to minimize her own suffering. She has no idea why she SHOULD be able to do something; it\u2019s just \u2018the way I’ve always been.\u2019 And the crazy thing is, the \u2018shoulds\u2019 have nothing to do with what she WANTS to do–the stuff that excites and thrills her.<\/p>\n

Awareness is curative. Now that Mary knows how she undervalues her own experience, she has some wiggle room. She can watch herself. She can catch herself in the act. Oh, there I go again, thinking it\u2019s my job to do it all. Oh, I\u2019m doing it again: telling myself I should be able to juggle all of this.<\/em><\/p>\n

When she shifts to this other vantage point, she has choices that don\u2019t exist when she\u2019s locked in her \u201cI have to do it all\u201d story. <\/em>She\u2019s learning to shift vantage points and to use them to rewrite her stories. <\/em><\/p>\n

So let\u2019s go back to her 30% plan. She has worried about not being able to say \u201cNo\u201d at work. It\u2019s a legitimate worry when that inner voice is calling the shots.<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s playing with saying \u201cYes\u201d: yes to commitments that energize her, yes to a lifestyle that includes her kids\u2019 soccer games, stress-relieving morning swims, growing interest in a promising new technology and a collaborative relationship with a new colleague. She knows that the inner voice is just one voice. She can activate others.<\/p>\n

Which one does she listen to? The one that gives her energy. The one that quickens her voice and sends her arms flying excitedly through the air and launches her into each new day with a sense of curiosity and interest.<\/p>\n

Is the road really this easy? Of course not. And yes, of course. It takes mindfulness to remember we have a choice. It takes the willingness to suspend judgment about next week or next year and to reset our anchor in here and now. It takes the courage to act on our own behalf as an integral part of serving others.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re feeling overwhelmed and under resourced, listen to the stories you\u2019re telling yourself. Then try a few rewrites. What do you have to lose?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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