Restructure Your Day-to-Day Living
Third, as we travel the road to recovery, we are seeking practical, day-to-day routines that can restructure our lives so we can have time for what matters most. The first step in this process is to pay attention to our inner life. As the late Irish poet, John O’Donohue, wrote: “We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives.”
To better attend to the “inner rhythm of our days and lives,” we need a daily life pattern that has more open time and space. Greg McKeown in his book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Crown Business, 2014), writes “once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, you can make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.” For McKeown, “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.” It is “living by design, not by default.”
When recovering from chronic burn-out, we need clear personal and professional goals, and well defined priorities at home and at work. We also need time and space in our daily lives to accomplish these goals and to stay true to our priorities. This means giving our self permission to create open time for action and for reflection, i.e. time to work and time to recover from working.
As we do this level of restructuring, we discover that the intention and commitment to recover from chronic burn-out is as important as our actions. Furthermore, when we pay attention to our inner rhythm and are clear about our intentions and commitments, then we discover a new way of working and living that does not generate routine cycles of being overwhelmed and over committed. The sum of all these choices creates an outcome that yields continual recovery and continual new and better opportunities for living and working.
Explore The Wilderness
When we seek hospitality, prepare for the journey, and restructure our day-to-day living, plus pay more “attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives.” we will discover, something that Thomas Merton calls the “wilderness” of our own interior journey. Or as John O-Donohue writes, “the infinity of one’s own interiority.”
As we explore this infinite, inner wilderness, we will remember the importance of connections. “Connection is why we’re here,” writes Brene’ Brown in her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead ( Avery, 2012). “ We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.” When we experience chronic burnout, our connections have become tangled, lost, or forgotten. We need to recover these inner and outer connections as we walk the reconvey pathway.
For in the end of our exploring this inner wilderness, we will learn something very important about recovery and connections. As Brene Brown writes in her book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (Random House, 2021), “So often, when we feel lost, adrift in our lives, our first instinct is to look out into the distance to find the nearest shore. But that shore, that solid ground, is within us. The anchor we are searching for is connection, and it is internal. To form meaningful connections with others, we must first connect with ourselves, but to do either, we must first establish a common understanding of the language of emotion and human experience.” This common understanding takes time to build, but it is worth the effort. For when we have that inner anchor, that inner clarity, that inner connection, we can not only rediscover a healthier life, we also can find a better, integrated and more truthful way of living and working. And this will not only be good for us at work, but also good for our families and our community.
© Geery Howe 2024
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