An open letter to Striving

Dear Striving (“You”),

I know you have a ton on your plate- but gotta minute?

I want to address you publicly because you just keep slinking around, normalizing things that aren’t always helpful.

I’ve known you as efforting, pushing, excelling, pursuing, and upleveling. Your energy is a tidal wave of seeking, propelled by a never-ending search for fulfillment. By just writing this, I notice that my facial muscles have suddenly tensed up (I believe we still have some unresolved issues).

While I appreciate your captivating resolve to create (you’ve helped me achieve a lot) your focus on the end game disrupts my balance and inherent sense of enoughness. You shout at me in the morning to get on my cushion and admonish me when I fail to publish, create a foundation, save the world, or ride the steeper gravelly bits on my mountain bike.

I know, it’s so embarrassing- but I thought you should know.

We go way back, don’t we? Remember the first time you gripped my whole being?

So much effort – I froze

It was during the Grade 9 Social Studies final exam. More than most hip-hop loving 14 year olds, I wanted to get all “9s” in school. So in prep for final exams, I filled Duo tang books with key points and summaries from hundreds of textbook pages- quizzing myself endlessly to remember dates and facts.

As I began the final exam (do you remember this?), I felt good. With excited flutters, I realized I could answer every question. Yes! This meant I could win the prize and have my name underwhelmingly mentioned at year-end send-off to high school.

But during the exam, all my efforting and preparation, suddenly brought on waves of nervousness. Then nausea. Then a Big. Stall.

I stared down at my full paragraph answers and correct multiple choices, but couldn’t continue.

My perplexed teacher sent me to the principal’s office for a “chat”.

When value is synonymous with achieving

 

 My 14-year old over-pressurized self was devastated to bow out.

Down the hallway, the principal, donning a white polo t-shirt and healthy mustache, advised me: “You just need to relax”.

He then sent me outside to count dandelions, or something like that. Head buried in the grass, I realized that my own efforting was an unpleasant undoing. 

Dear Striving, the toll of you was equating my value with achievement.  The prize signified my perceived social worth: to be a top student and be seen.

So while you tag along with many leaders, I want to remind you that our experience of striving is gendered and intersectional. The more marginalization we experience, the more often we feel compelled to work harder to be seen or appreciated.

Striving is connected to our human drive for belonging AND informed by systems that exclude and alienate based on social power and privilege.

Less Striving, More Flow

So dear Striving, here’s the both/and.

This thing we’ve got- you relentlessly pushing me to be productive and perform is old. As I wake and grow up, I release the desire to please, conform to the rules, compare myself, and dutifully embark on the ‘Grand List of Shoulds’. The more I explore and find my voice, creativity and imagination- the less effort I need to expend. From there, the more flow I experience.

And while we live in contexts, systems, and social networks that reinforce patriarchal, colonial and racist ways of being- with this flow I seek to co-create new ways of being and relating where equality and justice win instead.

Maybe, if I had had that kind of conversation with my principal, back in ‘89, my 14 year-old self would have breathed a sigh of relief.

So Dear Striving, I’m going to give you a break. I’m undoing our co-created rules of performativity so we can all breathe a little easier. It’s about efforting and pressuring less, even decades on.

My flow and creativity- and the root of my power- depend on it.

A Practice For You: Less Effort, More Flow

Where are you gripping too hard, too tight? Are there places where you can release, just a little, the intensity of your holding?

Part 1: Come home to your body

• Lie on the ground and practice super-tensing each part of your body, and then letting it fully relax.

• Start with your face, shoulders, arms, hands, core…and then move to thighs, calves, ankles and feet.

• If you’d like, do another round or two and see what you notice. Is any part of your body more tense than others? When you exaggerate tensing, what do you experience in the full relaxation?

Part 2: Daily Life- where can you relax your grip?

• Witness your body as it moves through the day. Notice anything where you can unconsciously ‘grip too hard’.

• Observe how you:
–Wash the dishes
-Grip the steering wheel of the car, stroller, or your bike handles
-Wash your hair (vigorously, or not)
-Hold a cup of tea
-Type on the computer
-Scroll on your phone
-Other…

• In any of these micro-places, where can you relax your grip/tightness/intensity?
• When you do this consciously, what opens up for you?

Now, I‘d love you to join the conversation below! In your own leadership, where do you tend to grip, push, strive or excel? What area would most benefit for a relaxation of effort? In service to your flow…

Jennifer