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From YourSITE.com Newsletter - On Site
I was just on the phone with a client. She is a successful graphic artist. She’s also the mother of two children under two years old. Her husband’s salary is not enough for her to stop working. Besides she has always loved her work and has quite a few projects in the pipeline. Her clients like her and appreciate her work so much that they are flexible with their deadlines. She works from an office in her home. This is usually a good set up since she can see her children at lunch and periodically during breaks throughout the day. But when her son gets a cold, which is a weekly occurrence for a toddler in day care, and cries for his mommy, who is in her home office my client drops her work and runs to him, which is significantly affecting the number of hours she is able to bill. She came to our call exhausted and defeated, feeling like she was failing everywhere. At the end of her rope, she said she had to choose between working and mothering.
As we began to talk I questioned her about what was upsetting her. It became clear that all day, every day she is constantly going back and forth thinking about either her work or her family and how she has to choose one or the other. She would begin working on a project under deadline but the whole time she would chastise herself saying she was a terrible parent. Or she would play with the kids in the middle of the day for an hour, the whole time worried about her clients and money. Whatever she was doing some part of her was already thinking about the other. She was never where she was, present to what she was doing.
We talked about how exhausted she was and how empty she felt. She couldn’t understand the extent of this state. After all – she reasoned – she loved her family and her work. So what was her problem? As we continued exploring we learned that she was locked into seeing her life as either/or, this or that and therefore never experiencing her life in it’s totality.
Most of us have complex lives filled with a broad array of different activities requiring different roles. We find ourselves bouncing back and forth between activities and roles in a cycle of frustration. Whenever we get caught up in this sort of dualistic trap we begin to lose sight of our life as a whole. And we end up not being satisfied with anything we are doing. So what can we do?
First of all we have to stop taking sides. There is much to be gained by stepping out of the dualism trap. Often when we are making such distinctions between parts of our lives it is because we have not taken full responsibility for our choices or all that we have created and what is required of us given our choices. We rank things and the ranking changes with the pressures. Being in the cycle of “this or that” excuses us from doing what we need to do because if we did what was needed we would have to make some hard choices. We would take conscious responsibility for our choices. Functioning from this position is infinitely more supportive of us, and therefore our life. So we must embrace our life as a totality and step closer to all the conflicting demands our choices force upon us.
For my client embracing her dualities might look something like her saying, “I understand that I am a mother with a desire to care for my children, I also understand that I am a professional with work I have accepted and financial responsibility to my family, I acknowledge and accept I have created this life. I accept this life as a totality. And whatever decision I make about how to approach these choices I will make them honestly, directly and in accordance with the life I have designed.”
For instance in the case of my client when she heard her child crying while she was busy working she would be present to how hard it was to not go to him. She might pause and feel an ache in her heart. She would fully acknowledge this. Instead of acting without a plan from her momentary feeling she would create the space to do something different. With this opening – and here’s where the change occurs – she can ask herself, “what does my whole life need from me right now?” Not what does her child want or what does her client want or even what does she want? This simple but powerful question will support her in giving up dualities and help her move into creating consciously and purposefully the life she wants. This sounds deceptively easy – just common sense – but when we’re surrounded by trees it’s often hard to see we’re in the forest. We miss what we’ve built and therefore what’s needed to sustain and nourish it.
Pausing to ask ourselves what’s needed allows us to tend to all that we’ve created. The answer, even to the same circumstances, may be different at different times. For my client sometimes she will determine that comforting her crying son for five or ten minutes is what is needed for him and for her even though he is in the very competent care of his babysitter. On the other hand keeping on task when her son is throwing a tantrum that her husband is capable of comforting him through can enable her family to afford a summer vacation. This approach to her life is grounded in her commitment to what she has chosen to build. When she asks and answers what’s needed she will be functioning out of a broad vision of her entire life rather than being tugged by guilt, fear or momentary emotions. This will center her and support her moving from the overall plan she has for her life. And this will lead to her having more energy, feeling more accomplished and present even though she will still have a lot of balls in the air.
What are the dualities in your life? Enter the dialogue. Drop me an email with your thoughts and comments and learn more about how you can escape the trap of “this or that” to create a powerful unified approach to your life. Write to me at Elizabeth@PullenAssociates.com © Copyright 2003 by YourSITE.com |