The visitor
It was never about the amount of work
“It’s because I have so much work to do”.
That and variations of this sentence is what I usually told myself and others when it came to explaining why I was either tired, irritated, or why I lacked the time to see my friends, work out or why I simply didn’t do anything outside of work.
But it’s never the amount of work, stupid.
In my last corporate role, I was promoted to a senior leadership position. This involved managing several teams, taking responsibility for a budget in the tens of millions, restructuring teams, and devising ideas, strategies and directions.
But also... completing yet another PowerPoint by 5 pm, preparing for several important meetings the next day, wondering how to approach more senior people, considering how best to support team members, preparing for redundancy meetings and trying to stay on top of a myriad of emails and MS Teams messages.
This also included deciding where to go for lunch and whether to go alone. Mind you, I live in Switzerland where lunch is a sacred thing – never skip it! I asked myself if five coffees at 10 am was already one too many. I thought that picking up smoking again might give me some relief. I wondered if maybe, just maybe, tonight I could finally sleep again. I thought about what the next day would bring and the week ahead. I thought about what circling back actually meant and tried to figure out what was really important.
It also meant not lying awake at night, worrying about work and things I said or should have said.
No, it was never about the amount of work.
But I can only see this now.
My thoughts were the biggest source of my suffering. I believed what my mind was constantly telling me had to be the truth. There was no room for doubt.
All I wanted was to push those thoughts away, to keep them at bay, as if that would make things better.
But it never did.
I had to open my eyes - which were already trying to be wide open, I had to go through meditation, breathing exercises, learning about the brain, to an occasional glass of wine after work before it simply dawned on me .. and it seemed too simple.
Too simple to be true, too simple to be good.
“You are not your thoughts”.
And with that,
suffering, a complicated life, judgment all faded.
And now?
The thoughts still come, but nowadays they’re like a visitor, and sometimes it’s time for the visitor to leave.
Tomi, to add a bit of color here: finding true flow requires engaging your unique skills within a supportive environment.
It demands a radical unwinding of your old programming, which often means changing roles or exiting a toxic space.
Giving your thoughts the quiet space to work through their own noise is the very heart of the growth process.
— The Marketplace Mystic