I fielded this question recently: “When you have commitments and responsibilities that you just cannot put down, and you’re already depleted, what do you do? How do you show up?”
My first response was to just take a breath and sit there in silence for a moment, feeling the pain, and remembering the times I struggled with the same situation.
Life is very full. Family responsibilities on top of trying to run a business is already full, and getting sick or having another unscheduled attention-getting can put you right over the edge.
Time to talk about the different kinds of pushes and what to do about them.
Today Is About Finding Ease in Overwhelm and Push
I think it’s useful to talk about three different kinds of pushes that happen in business and life.
One kind of push is when you choose to take on an ambitious project and deadline, and you know you have to be “all in” to get there. These are fine to take on consciously from time to time, as long as the duration of the project isn’t very long, and you don’t do them very often. Let me repeat that in bold: short-duration projects and don’t do them very often.
A second kind of push is when you unconsciously take on too much, more than you need to. A combination of perfectionism and codependency has your to-do list several tons heavier that it truly needs to be. The answer to this is letting go of what isn’t yours, quitting what you need to quit.
The third kind of push is what today’s article is about. It’s the push when your kid is sick, and you have commitments you really can’t drop. You’ve had poor sleep for a couple of nights, and you need to do the minimum to keep your business going. It’s the push that happens to all of us sometimes, and you just need to get through it.
There is a healthier way to go through this kind of push.
Showing Up As-Is
Just about every self-help book and spiritual teacher will tell you to show up as you are, “be here now,” so it’s not news. I’m going to expand on it a bit, however, because it can be an unexpectedly powerful experience.
Showing up as-is means facing the truth of how you feel. If you’re depleted, you’re depleted. If you’re fuzzy-headed and can’t think sharply, then you’re fuzzy-headed and won’t be doing calculus without a scratch-pad. (I won’t be doing calculus at all.)
When you’re used to moving more quickly, or being more productive or sharp, it feels like a failure. It feels, perhaps, like you aren’t contributing or being valuable.
It’s not true, however. When you’re depleted, empty, or tired there is a different aspect of yourself that comes out, a different being-ness.
If you can allow yourself to fully surrender to just being depleted and showing up as you are, it allows for a very different experience.
The Example: Power in Depletion
The person who asked me the question was just worn out, and even more so thinking of teaching he needed to show up for. I asked him to explain something he needed to teach. As he went over two bullet points I was surprised to hear a quality in his voice I hadn’t heard before.
He has a lot of experience teaching, he does it professionally, and his teaching presence is grounded and animated. This time, though, he wasn’t.
After he surrendered to being depleted, and stopped trying to force having more energy when he really didn’t, his voice took on a softer quality. His presence became vulnerable and raw, gentle.
The points he was explaining to me had me captivated, because his presence was so open. His depletion had opened up a door of ease and flow, and of unexpected power.
What if you could just be tired? What if you could just allow yourself to sit back into your depletion, and act from that place? Loosen your shoulders, stop clenching your belly muscles, stop trying to act in a way that you don’t feel.
You will have to show a different aspect of yourself. You will probably need to be more vulnerable, softer, gentler, quieter than you might normally be. Or more raw, present and unfiltered. Or less well-groomed in how you present, and more “down-home.” It’s hard to predict, because it’s different for each person.
Better Than a Third Cup of Coffee
What makes the difference is staying with your heart. Feeling the love and trust in your heart that it is, indeed, okay to be who you are and to be how you are. Feeling the truth that your presence as-is is much more valuable than fueling yourself with a third cup of coffee in a futile attempt to “push through.”
In fact, do you notice how the coffee distances you from yourself? Every heart’s length you move away from yourself leaves you that much more disconnected from the power and presence that comes through you, no matter what condition you’re in.
Give up the coffee, embrace the depletion. In exchange, you may find that the way through requires a lot less effort than you thought.
Are you surprised by what gentler, more raw power comes through you when you’re depleted? Please tell me in the comments.
15 Responses
Love this, Mark. You’re always a long stride ahead of me and I’m grateful for your own openness and willingness to show up. It can be incredibly tender when someone shares from an honest place of depletion and it tends to increase my respect for them, not decrease it, because it turns the empathy equation around and lets the audience give back empathy.
For me, showing up when I’m exhausted is a bit like how I felt when I had my first child. There’s a rawness, a concision, a polarising filter there. None of the peripheral stuff matters any more.
Nice to revisit that feeling sometimes, huh? 😉
Jo- I so know that rawness… so glad it was helpful, and yes, actually, if I can live in that surrendered feeling, even when I’m not depleted, it’s always better.
Mark, earlier you wrote about quitting, letting go of all those things we think we have to do that don’t really serve us. I’ve been thinking about what you said ever since, and this post is a perfect follow-up. I have this image in my mind of how I should be showing up in the world. Of what it means to be a mentor, a teacher, a guide. But in looking at these “shoulds” I realize that I’m trying to hold myself to an impossible standard, and that it would be much harder for me to relate to someone who was so perfect. When I’m truly depleted, I don’t have the energy to pretend. I don’t get to show up as I think I should, but instead show up as I truly am. It requires a whole new type of vulnerability, but there is wisdom in that vulnerability and it’s something I intend to explore further. I want to show up fully, whether I am showing up all excited and full of energy and ideas, or whether I’m depleted. When you’re truly being yourself, being vulnerable is a part of how you show up regardless of whether your energized or depleted. You can probably tell that I’m thinking out loud as I type, so thank you for the opportunity to explore this idea further and for the reminder of the power in depletion.
Exactly, Erica! And bless you for thinking out loud.
Yes – it’s always surprising what comes through when I’m tired and not “on”. A type of surrender can take over if you let it. Fatigue or crisis can be a powerful tool for dropping what is unnecessary and letting go of how it “should be”. What’s left is just being.
Isn’t it amazing, Darlene? Fatigue can be our friend.
You make great points Mark. I believe ANYTIME we try to force ‘ANYTHING’ we are asking for struggle. It’s when we ALLOW that we open ourselves up to both possibility and ease.
Anne- Yes, there is a place for striving, but forcing, not so much.
What a beautiful post, Mark, and perfect timing (for me at least). I’m now in the 8th day of struggling with a sinus/lung/intestinal illness and seem to be getting nowhere. I was just contemplating how I would show up for my clients today, and for our Momentum conference call, and you’ve given me a beautiful way to embrace my presence in the world. It’s not “less than”, as I typically view it, but just “as is”. In fact, as I recall a client meeting last night (while sick), I realize that I showed up for him in a raw, vulnerable, open, caring way because I was having to care for myself while coaching him. It was a remarkable session. Thank you for helping me understand how that happened. Maybe vulnerability is really the ease with which we accept who we are at the moment.
Holly- Oh no, you, too? Our family has been so sick for two weeks now. And yes, what a beautiful example of your session with your client- exactly!
This post really resonated with me. I had a flashback to the days I was a primary school teacher. One one particular day I was feeling awful physically (more depleted than normal) and it took all my strength to get through each moment.
I was extremely fragile. And the kids must’ve known it because they were so, so peaceful that day. It’s like everyone orbited around me with compassion and respect. It was serenely beautiful.
I’ve stored this day into my memory. On the many occasions since when I have had to turn up to work feeling under par, I trust that being “off” is ok. Sometimes I articulate it and let others know (like the day my grandmother died, I turned up to work knowing it would be a good role model for the kids to see me fragile). Other times I trust that people will sense I’m raw/fragile/whatever, and adapt accordingly.
It’s nice to remember that push-push-push isn’t necessary anymore.
PS. Your post today, Mark, has also helped me deepen me understand something in my business which I call “weather check”. At the start of each webinar, each person does a “weather check” (both the weather outside and the weather/feelings inside).
I find it powerful for myself to voice where I’m at emotionally, and also to gauge the collective mood of the participants. It’s like everyone “arrives” once we’ve done the weather check together.
Thanks again Mark!
ERin- what a beautiful example of what we’re talking about here. I think it’s even more powerful because it shows how the kids tuned into you also and supported you where you were. And yes, the weather check is a wonderful thing. 🙂
Mark,
You put words into
Hi Mark,
You put words to my experience – thank you for your clarity and vulnerability. I sincerely appreciate your perspective, as it normalizes my experience and helps me drop the expectation of, “I need to feel or be a certain way to be present and teach.”
The past few years were grueling for me – lots of depletion, stress, raw grief and depression. So many days I would show up to work, cry over my keyboard, and wonder how I could string a sentence together, let alone teach.
And yet being in such a raw state – and for so long – enabled something more true and real to come through me. I feel vulnerable sharing this, but those times of deep, excruciating sorrow were some of the times when I’ve felt the most present, the closest to the Divine.
And that came through my work. Out of financial necessity, during this time I continued to teach classes, blog and write programs. I remember one audio blog that I recorded during this stretch, where I spoke about befriending my depression. It’s my most popular blog post ever.
It came through directly out of my depletion and sorrow. And the program I wrote during that time is my top seller, and the one people call a sacred healing space.
Yes, a different power came through me. And it was an honor to midwife it.
In gratitude and are, Karly
Karly- Amin! That is such a beautiful example of this. Thank you so much for taking the time to share it. Inspiring.