We are more productive when we stay calm and are at ease

I DON’T know about you but at this time of year I find that a lot of my clients become super busy.

A combination of returning to work from time off, children returning to school with all that this entails and the feeling that we should make the most of the rest of the year, seems to be a perfect storm for extra stress and pressure, with it all seemingly needing to be ‘ done now’ before time runs out.

I remember a while back now, I had a professional client who was experiencing just this, she was an extremely capable woman, the type who was used to juggling a million things all at once.

However, what struck me at the time was the amount of effort and energy she was putting into everything that she was doing, she was racing around at a hundred miles an hour – even rushing into my office to see me and unsurprisingly she was totally exhausted.

Her whole approach to the situation she was in was that she simply didn’t have enough time but that also she wasn’t working hard enough, that she needed more energy and if she wasn’t so tired that she could get more done in the limited time she had. She felt that she was letting those around her down because things weren’t getting done that needed to get done and even though she had numerous strategies and techniques, there never seemed to be enough hours in the day or energy in the tank.

I remember asking her gently, “does your head go as fast as you do?” She looked at me a little deflated and replied “my head never, ever stops, it’s just constant”.

We then explored what that was like, she described how her mind would go over everything that she had to do, tell her that she didn’t have enough time, set out what would happen if she didn’t do it. It would describe pitfalls and problems which made her feel worried and stressed. She would make a decision but then almost immediately her mind would doubt it was right. Like a swirling whirlpool of thought, she was getting more and more sucked in.

I enquired how much energy did she think all that thinking took up? She stopped in her tracks and she laughed as she replied, “absolutely loads – it’s exhausting”. I asked if it helped, to which she replied “no, not at all”.

I shared with her that in my view being busy in our minds is like intending to go for a lovely bike ride in the country on an exercise bike, it doesn’t matter how fast you pedal, you won’t leave the house!

I then explained my own story of burnout and stress. How I had come across the teachings of Sydney Banks and that what I heard in his teachings was that just because I thought something, it didn’t make it true.

Noticing how our mind plays tricks on us, that we may not have control over what we think, but that so often have the choice to listen to it or not. Moreso when we don’t pay attention to them, the thoughts pass naturally leaving our minds quieter and thus us, with more energy and feeling of time, to simply do what we need to do with more ease and calm.