Between Knowing and Navigating: A Cautionary Tale

Three weeks ago, I was in San Francisco delivering a workshop. The week before, my husband got a cold. We had just gotten back from Mexico City, so it was likely a strain that we weren’t used to. He was sick for a couple of days, complained a lot, slept a lot, and got better. A couple of days later, I felt that same cold coming on. Unlike my husband, I pushed through it. I kept working, I kept exercising, I kept up my walking. We went out late the night before my flight to San Francisco and saw a wonderful concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Feeling marginally better, I delivered the 3½-day training workshop. I worked hard during the days, took long walks in the evenings, and had late-ish dinners. I flew home on Thursday evening and realized that I really didn’t feel well. Over the next few days, it got worse—a painful cough, profound exhaustion, no energy at all. I eventually had a telehealth appointment, got stronger meds, including an antibiotic that wreaked havoc on my stomach, and slowly got better. It was miserable. Even now, I’m still coughing.

This is all a little embarrassing to admit. If you’ve read my blogs or worked with me before, you’ve noticed that I talk a lot about polarities. Whether something is an “either/or” or a “both/and” is one of the first things I consider when faced with almost any challenge in work or life. And, rather ironically, in San Francisco I was teaching polarities to the group and, as I usually do, used the activity: rest polarity to demonstrate the dynamic of both/and. I like using it because it’s obvious—we need both. It’s easy to see that overfocus on either activity or rest has an immediate impact on our lives. And yet…

When I got home and finally had to stop and dedicate myself to rest, I realized, anew, that understanding a polarity doesn’t guarantee you will consistently navigate that polarity. I was suffering the very polarity I had just used as my example!

And, it’s bigger than that. I’d already been noticing and working on what is almost an addiction to activity—to productivity. We suffer polarities when we have a strong preference for one pole and underuse the other. That’s certainly been my relationship to activity and rest. Allowing myself to rest isn’t easy. A part of me is afraid of stopping, resting, simply enjoying time rather than filling time—as if my worth were tied to what I get done. It’s very easy for me to find myself on the “overuse” side of activity and to miss out on the “benefits” of rest. I count on having an unending store of energy, on getting an enormous amount “done.”

I am drawn to the work of people who speak to the value of rest, who counsel that “we can’t do it all.” My favorite is Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and Meditation for Mortals) and I could see so clearly that I don’t always live his advice, even though I value it.

I’m now working to recognize—to catch myself—when I’m entering “overuse” territory and take steps to adjust the balance before it’s too late. To calibrate my energy, to learn to enjoy the downtime—even a little bit of boredom.

I’m guessing that you, too, have a polarity that you “suffer” and would benefit from exploring. I’d encourage you to reflect on what that polarity might be and how you might notice the impact of your preference and the value of leaning into the other pole. We never solve polarities, but we can surely get better at navigating them.