Weston is the founder of the Weston Network, which provides trainings, consulting and coaching.
Hey, Joe.
I’m tired. Every time I seem to feel like my efforts are having some impact, a new thing happens in the world, in government, in society, in my immediate circle. It’s hard to stay motivated. Any thoughts?
Too tired to even write any more than this
Hello, Too tired.
I get it. I have experienced this, and I receive a lot of questions from people about this. The current ongoing struggles have taken on a depth that most of us couldn’t possibly have imagined, exacerbating our anxiety in a way that makes it difficult to find hope – we fall into cycles of individual disempowerment, anxiety and confusion, chronic separation and isolation, and exhaustion.
My hope for you is that you find the time to rest like you’ve never done before, meaning you may need to find new ways to rest, restore and nurture yourself – physically, emotionally, mentally and maybe even spiritually.
Along with finding ways to rest and restore, you may want to consider where you are “leaking” energy, or “forcing” things to happen, which requires perhaps more energy than is needed. Worry is a perfect example of how we leak our energy; not speaking our truth in a respectful way and complaining instead is another. Other examples of how we are not using our energy effectively include overworking and expecting perfectionism in all situations.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
What if the most courageous and impactful thing you could do at this time is cultivate a daily practice of embodying a deeper level of resilience, as well as maintain and deepen authentic relationships? And when I talk about resilience, I don’t mean surviving, or enduring, or suffering. When I’m working with groups and individuals, I reframe resilience as a way to move through the world – and face challenges – with grace, skill, creativity, awareness, balance and flow. In other words, how can you find a way to go from surviving to thriving?
You may not have the power to change what is unfolding in the world on your own. You may not be able to influence policy today; you may not be able to solely change the future course of the current volatility.
Where do you currently have power? Within you.
Here are some ways to realign and rediscover where you do have power, and build from there:
- Your capacity to influence your own thoughts, words and actions. The media and power structure are really good at keeping us dysregulated and in a state of agitation. As you reduce your internal confusion, you take back your power and how you act and react with others, resulting in you needing less effort to get things .done .
- Your ability to keep your nervous system regulated. Maintaining internal balance results in minimizing reactivity and the ways we harm ourselves and others
- How you respond to stressors. You may not be able to have control of the challenges you are confronted with, but how you respond to them is up to you.
- How and whom you choose to engage. Because we spend more time connecting with others and the world through our devices, we find ourselves more isolated and depleted. It is essential to devote extra time and energy to deepening your relationships (even through devices) and to taking extra care of one another.
- Do an inventory of your relationships. Take some time to take a look at the people you interact with and consider the dynamic of how you are nurturing one another. Try to have an objective assessment as you do this, and not judgment, blame or criticism. Maybe you have a relationship where the proportion of nurturing one another is equal. That would be a relationship you would want to celebrate and cultivate. Do you have any relationships where others are nurturing you more than them? Like a 70-30 split? If so, you may want to check in with them and see if they are OK with that. If they are, great. Find a way to honor them and show gratitude. And how about the relationships where you are doing most of the nurturing? Are you okay with that? If not, you might want to have some respectful confrontations with them as a way to both take care of yourself as well as the integrity of the relationship.
Too tired, these suggestions can help you “live into” a renewed sense of thriving, where you actively work on increasing your physical vitality, emotional stability, mental clarity and spiritual grounding.
There are plenty of books and trainings out there that can support you with this. If you are further interested in how I approach this, check out my two books, “Mastering Respectful Confrontation” and “Fierce Civility” to help you come up with practices for internal balance, empowerment and renewal.
Sending you nourishing well wishes,
Joe
Have a question for Joe? Send an email to AskJoe@fulcrum.us. Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here.
