The world values productivity. And in response, we power through. We check our phones every three minutes. We tune out our kids, our friends, our partners because thoughts of work won’t leave our brains. We run from one meeting to another to another. We don’t take lunch. We work nights and weekends. We wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work and lose hours of valuable sleep. And this is all made even worse now that so many of us work from home and don’t have natural boundaries around our work lives. Sound familiar?

Upside: Big jobs, big promotions, big paychecks.

Downside: This single-minded focus on achievement is sometimes at odds with what our bodies and hearts need and want. And when we’re out of integrity and alignment with ourselves, it comes at a cost. A steep one.

This drive for high-achievement and perfection can cost us our joy. Our awareness of the present moment. Our mental health and wellbeing. And our physical health.

Let me give you an example. I started my company 20 years ago. After years of successful work and striving, I found myself in my doctor’s office. I didn’t consciously realize I was approaching burnout. I just knew I was getting absolutely no joy out of the work that once felt very fulfilling.

I made a doctor’s appointment because I was experiencing regular insomnia and heart palpitations that scared me. On top of that I was irritable and emotionally exhausted. When I saw my doctor, she diagnosed me within moments. “You’re stressed out,” she said.

“Stressed?” I scoffed. What did she know? I wasn’t stressed. I was an extremely capable woman. I had grit. And stamina. And smarts. I wasn’t stressed!

“Look where you’re breathing.” She pointed to my collarbones. “You’re breathing way up at the top of your chest. You’re basically panting and not getting the oxygen you need. That’s what happens when people are under chronic stress.”

I wish I could say her observation reached me, but it didn’t. I decided she didn’t know what she was talking about. Several years went by and I continued my high-intensity, high-achieving approach until a moment on a treadmill scared me awake.

My heart felt like it flipped and twisted in my chest and pain shot across the front of my ribs. A cold sweat broke out over my entire body and I thought I might faint. I managed to get myself off the treadmill to a spot where I could sit down for a while. This time, when the cardiologist said, “You’re stressed,” I listened. And I embarked on a journey of recovery that helped me bring joy back into my job.

In the coming weeks I want to share with you the most powerful practices I found. Let’s start here:

Get back in your body.

Our bodies are wise and sensitive instruments. But so few of us are taught embodied techniques that can help us listen to their wisdom. And when we’re running 10,000 miles an hour in a high-pressure environment, we’re sprinting from one thing to the next with our consciousness firmly centered in our heads. We don’t pay attention to our bodies at all.

When I slowed down long enough to start listening, I realized my body talked to me in all sorts of ways. I started to see the body language I expressed when I said something I thought would please someone else. I started to notice how my body felt when I did something in order to achieve some kind of external reward or validation that was out of alignment with my own gut instincts. I felt the tension in my body that came from overworking. This discovery was life-changing.

Listening to our bodies only takes seconds.

The number one thing I hear from my coaching clients and from the people who experience the Heartwood Self-Mastery programs is this: I don’t have time to slow down. Friends: Listening to our bodies only takes seconds.

Try this: The next time you have a decision to make, slow the train down for just 60 seconds by taking 5 deep breaths.

1. Breathe consciously. Breathe in with a count of 3 and out with count of 6. This tells your nervous system to send a message to your body and brain that you’re safe, all is well, and it’s okay to relax.
2. Consider the decision you need to make. Bring the options you see into your mind one at a time. Notice how your body feels with each option. Do you hold your breath or is your breathing up high in your chest? Do your shoulders tighten up? Does your back start to hurt? Do you feel light and excited?

This kind of inner attention is called interoceptive awareness and the more you practice using your senses to listen inside your body, the more adept you will get at discerning your body’s messages.

And the more connected you are to your body at work, the more it will open the pathway to creating more joy in your job (and life).

Love,

Jacque

Reading the list of names that makes up the new White House COVID-19 Task Force under the Biden administration is like reading the names of the brave humans who agreed to travel to the moon for the first time. These people will make history as they help shape the pandemic response in 2021.

These courageous souls on the task force will be called to lead during very dark times. They’re not the only ones. Leaders of organizations around the globe are being called to lead in new ways. And we’re all being asked to lead ourselves, our families, and friends through painful and challenging territory.

In order to lead through this era of discord and disruption, we must have tools we can use to help us return to our feet and a state of creativity, forward-motion, and hope.

Pause. Breathe. 

The coronavirus has impacted nearly every aspect of our lives. We’ve lost precious in-person social interaction with each other. We’ve lost access to in-person education. We’ve lost jobs and businesses. And we’ve lost loved ones in a wave of death that has swept the globe.

“This magnitude of death over a short period of time is an international tragedy on a historic scale,” says Dr. Naomi Simon, a psychiatrist and head of the Anxiety and Complicated Grief Program at NYU School of Medicine, in the October 20, 2020 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

At the time of this writing on January 22, 2021, the United States has seen 402,803 deaths. The worldwide death toll is 2,075,870. Grief experts estimate that each death leaves 9 people bereaved for a mind-bending total of 3,625,227 people in the U.S. and 18,682,830 across the globe who are suffering.

Pause. Breathe. 

You might decide to put your hands on your heart, or your stomach, or somewhere else on your body that would feel soothing. 

All of this anguish is on top of everything else that happened over the past this year—the heartbreak of social injustice, the divisive election, the terrifying attack on the Capitol. And all of that distress is on top of all the other challenges we face as humans in a regular sort of year. The American Psychological Association recently sounded an alarm and announced: “We are facing a national mental health crisis that could yield serious health and social consequences for years to come.”

This reminds me of a scene in the 1977 movie Star Wars Episode IV—A New Hope, in which Luke, Princess Leia, and Han Solo are trying to escape a fight with the Stormtroopers. They end up in a trash compactor filled with garbage and a creepy monster swirling around their legs in the knee-high water.

After a few minutes spent freaking out about their location and battling the invisible creature, the walls begin to move in, relentlessly squishing everything in their path. This is what challenging times feel like. This was 2020. This is now.

Pause. Breathe all the way down into the belly. Slowing the breath down. You might push the breath out with your stomach muscles and exhale until all the air is out, so the exhale is longer than the inhale. You might breathe in this way for three breaths. 

So how we do we return from chronic stress and burnout?

How do we return from fear, grief, and loss?

How do we get back on our feet and re-ignite our passion and purpose?

We learn the skills of returning. The Art of the Return is our ability to be resilient. It’s our ability to connect to our core of inner strength. It’s our ability to be persistent when we’re going after hard goals.

And because humans have practiced The Art of the Return since our brains could comprehend loss and hardship, there’s a roadmap we can follow.

Here’s an exercise to help you get started.

Pause. Pick up a pen and piece of paper. 

Ask yourself: What nourishes me? What makes me feel really good? Self-care is usually seen as a soft skill and a “nice-to-have” by most high-achievers, but when you see that self-care is tied to being able to perform at peak performance—it becomes a must have. If you’re up for a challenge, put the items you list on your calendar and make them non-negotiable.

My friend, it’s not enough to read this. I hope you’ll test out a regular diet of activities that make you feel good and cared for, because it will help give you the stamina to return again and again to your mission.

White House COVID-19 Task Force, I’m looking at you.

With love,

Jacque