Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I am reading a book that describes a woman who is having trouble keeping all of her life’s responsibilities on track. She is performing all of her roles and duties, lacklusterly, at best. She is coming apart at the seams, but doesn’t quite understand why. She forgets important meetings, she snaps at her kids, and she doesn’t get enough sleep. The author describes the woman as “unintentionally going on strike.”
I thought that wording was so interesting. If we take the time to examine the clues of our own lives, and our own bodies, we may find that we have gone on our own “unintentional strikes”, in protest of how we are going about living our own daily lives.
When workers go on strike, they are saying bravely and forcefully that they are no longer willing to work in the same conditions. They are loudly bringing attention to inequities and unfairnesses that have made their current working conditions intolerable to them. The striking workers are making demands for changes, in order for the workplace to run safely and smoothly again.
Are you on an “unintentional strike”? Are you feeling strained with all of your duties at home and at work and even at leisure? Are there things that you don’t say no to, in fear of disappointing someone, or making someone angry (at the expense of your own exhaustion)? Are you forgetting important details, failing at multi-tasking, feeling grumpy all of the time, being short with others and resorting to passive aggressive behavior? Do you have a lot of unexplained aches and pains in your body? Do you feel lethargic and unmotivated? These could all be signs of an “unintentional strike.” This could be the deepest part of your intuitive heart and soul, holding up picket signs, telling you that something must give. Something(s) has got to go.
I was getting cash out from the ATM yesterday when my husband called. I took the call, but as I was driving away, into rush hour traffic, I started panicking because I couldn’t find my debit card. I was trying to drive, talk to my husband, and locate my ATM card all at the same time. I was distracted and panicky. I wasn’t driving safely, I was half-listening to my husband, and I couldn’t locate the card. I finally told my husband that I would have to call him back. I pulled over. I parked the car and I quickly located my debit card that had fallen between the seat and the console. When I called my husband back, I said, “I’m sorry. I’m not as good at multi-tasking as I used to be.” He said, “Multi-tasking usually just leads to nothing getting done especially well.” I agreed.
Why has “multi-tasking” become the norm? Why do we take pride in being “able” to do 18,000 things at once? Why are anxiety and depression become more and more commonplace? And why can’t we see that we bring a lot of this on to ourselves? How much of what we do, on any given day, is vitally important to our overall health and well-being? Over 2000 years ago, Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” This quote is often used in a philosophical or a spiritual sense, but isn’t it really quite a practical tool to use? When we examine our own lives, we can figure out what is working, and what isn’t. Our bodies are great navigation tools. What feels good in our life, and what doesn’t? Who feels good in our life, and who doesn’t?
We are our own life’s managers. Our own life is really the only life which we have any kind of control about, in the long term. Are you having an “unintentional strike” against your life manager? A good manager knows how important it is to have a healthy, robust, excited, and appreciated workforce. How is your life manager doing? Are there any rumblings that need to be addressed?
Throwback Thursday (past popular posts, from the blog):