This essay is about how we motivate ourselves—the sources of drive we choose to rely on—and the effects of those choices on our leadership.
All emotions can be used as “fuel.”
Some emotions—think of frustration, anger, envy, jealousy, and general insecurity—can be powerful motivators in the short term but come with physical and mental side effects in the long term that prevent us from achieving our full potential as leaders and living fulfilled lives as human beings. Think of these emotions as “dirty fuel.”
Other emotions—think of hope, love, gratitude, or joy—don’t always come with the same fiery torque off the starting block but burn much cleaner over time, with none of the side effects of “dirty fuel” emotions.
In this essay, I examine why we choose dirty fuel, how that choice limits us, and what it looks like in practical terms to choose clean fuel instead.
As high performers, we (including me, Franzi) often get very far in life and career, not knowing that we’re relying on “dirty fuel” as our primary source of drive and motivation, and then wonder why we hit an eventual wall between good and great. This topic is one I’ve wrestled with and helped many clients through. I hope it serves you, too.
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Social conditioning teaches us to repress our emotions. As teenagers, we learn that we can’t cry whenever conflict arises. And in modern workplace environments, we learn to keep on a mask, hold our tongues, follow the rules, and appear “okay” for the sake of “professionalism.”
Over time, this accumulated emotional repression creates a somatic charge that teaches our nervous system to isolate for safety when we feel the intensity of friction, conflict, confusion, and indecisiveness.
This somatic charge creates emotional debt in our system, and it takes up space in our bodies. Psychosomatically, fibromyalgia, insomnia, chronic back pain, migraine, and other forms of chronic pain symptoms are signals of an overloaded nervous system, finding release in the tissues of our bodies. These ailments (or should I say, symptoms) represent the emotional events that weren’t able to leave our bodies.
Have you ever puked after a ridiculously heavy workout? It's the same idea. The body needs to release the stress because it can’t contain it anymore.
Why am I taking you on this short and simplified trip to the physiology of somatic illnesses? Because this is where we high-performers find ourselves way too often.
We run on dirty fuel, for years and decades.
Conflict fuels.
Competition fuels.
Hardship fuels.
Anger fuels.
Greed fuels.
Even anxiety fuels.
When we use “dirty fuel” we teach the body to use physiological contraction in order to drive expansion in the rest of our lives. Feel into that. Stop here. When you think about your own emotional autobiography, can you think of ways that you’ve normalized or come to embrace states of contraction to enable expansive activity?
Consider what this teaches our bodies: that the things that cause us distress actually make us come alive. I am not talking about the joy of doing hard things occasionally. I am talking about identifying as a dirty fuel kind of person.
Your body learns to run on elevated cortisol, great amounts of adrenaline, and contraction in shoulders, pupils, chest, and stamina. Our nervous system then adapts (as a form of survival and personal evolution) to a “faux window of tolerance“ - a wrongly designed window of tolerance that seems to resemble harmony in the nervous system but is actually not. Now, we need high levels of cortisol just to get the body going for basic everyday life tasks (caffeine headaches, anyone?). In moments of silence and objective calmness, the body experiences great amounts of distress (fun fact: the number of anxiety attacks for high-performers goes up radically over the weekend.)
The connection between emotional tension and chronic health problems is complex and still under-researched, but it’s certainly proven and is coined as the emergent field of Psychoneuroimmunology. I highly recommend the book When the Body Says No by Dr. Gabor Maté for anyone interested in going deeper on the subject. But because it’s still an emergent field of study, there isn’t a universal cookie-cutter way to think about its application to you individually.
So, if you’re going to begin the journey of understanding how your own over-reliance on “dirty fuel” might be contributing to chronic health issues, I encourage you to trust your own sample size of n=1. Understand your stress patterns, understand your regulation patterns, understand what triggers you, and understand what soothes you.
When folks tell me, “I am just an anxious person. I learned to deal with that.“ I always ask: How does that manifest in your body? What are the sensations that come with your feelings of anxiety?
This type of self-inquiry — called interoceptive awareness — is important to foster within yourself if you want to enable salutogenesis (read: self-healing) in your life. These two concepts alone deserve their own essays but dig into them a little on your own. If you want to read about my personal journey of salutogenesis coming out of an extensive healing journey with and for my son Benjamin, click here.
So how do you know when the body is asking to make the switch from dirty fuel to clean fuel? Here are some indicators:
Emotional Dysregulation (Stress Response and the Autonomic Nervous System):
Emotional tension triggers the body's stress response, leading to the activation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS consists of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), responsible for the "fight or flight" response, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), responsible for relaxation and recovery.
Chronic emotional tension can lead to prolonged activation of the SNS, with insufficient activation of the PNS to counterbalance it. This imbalance can contribute to physiological dysregulation (mood swings, outbursts, difficulty coping with stress, insomnia etc).
I can also highly recommend checking out the incredible work my friend, Jonny Miller, does in his NSM course.
Cortisol and Inflammation:
Chronic stress is associated with an increase in cortisol levels. Cortisol, a hormone released during the stress response, plays a role in regulating inflammation. Prolonged elevation of cortisol levels can lead to chronic low-grade inflammation, which is implicated in various health problems, including cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and metabolic issues.
Immune System Distress:
Emotional tension can modulate the immune system. Chronic stress may suppress immune function, making individuals more susceptible to infections and other health issues. The intricate communication between the nervous system and the immune system contributes to the overall health of the individual.
Muscle Tension and Pain:
Emotional tension often manifests physically, leading to muscle tension and pain. Prolonged muscle tension can contribute to musculoskeletal problems, headaches, and other physical discomforts. Additionally, chronic pain itself can become a stressor, creating a cycle of tension and discomfort.
Digestive System Impact:
Stress can affect the digestive system, leading to issues such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other gastrointestinal problems. The gut-brain axis, a bidirectional communication system between the gut and the brain, plays a role in the impact of emotional stress on digestive health.
Neurotransmitter Imbalances:
Chronic emotional tension may affect neurotransmitter balance in the brain. For example, imbalances in serotonin and other neurotransmitters associated with mood regulation can influence mental health and contribute to conditions like depression and anxiety, which, in turn, can impact overall well-being.
Epigenetic Factors:
Emerging research suggests that chronic stress may influence gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms. This could potentially contribute to long-term changes in physiological responses and increase susceptibility to certain health conditions.
Additionally, individual differences, genetics, and lifestyle factors also play significant roles in determining the impact of emotional tension on health.
The switch from dirty fuel to clean fuel can look different for all of us. Here are three small changes you can start with, though, to explore how you and your body define clean fuel:
Not making decisions when stressed and regulating your nervous system first
Deep breathing (Long exhales such as 4-3-8)
Nature walks
Non-sleep-deep-rest (NSDR): This is my favorite account (it is also called Yoga Nidra and is an ancient mindfulness technique)
Working within your body budget to understand how much you can give today:
Ask yourself: what and how much have I eaten? (this may include for some that fasting is a good idea, get to know your body, get some blood work, know what foods resonate with your body, get into a regular rhythm once per year counting calories for 6-8 weeks to get a feeling for your food consumption again)
How much have I drank today? (no, not coffee — WATER!)
Have I moved my body? (Have I given my body a minimal level of movement, release, and momentum?)
Have I said what needs to be said or have I asked for help? (belonging)
What is my body’s charge today? (safety)
What boundaries do I need to set today to improve my relationship with others? How much of me is available to others today? This includes digital product use too - email, social media, podcasts, reading articles, etc — all forms of receiving input. Realizing what is mine to hold when and how is a major regulator for our nervous system. (Dignity)
Somatic perspective and capacity shift: What would it feel like to do this from a different place in my body?
What would it feel like not to push, but pull this towards me?
What would it feel like to act from a place of service, not effort?
What other places in my body have more capacity for this day/task/responsibility?
This is a beautiful martial art practice to practice the body-mind connection of possibility and choice: How does choice live in your body, and how easily is it accessible to you? There are phases where choice and possibility are harder to access simply because a lot is required from you, and your view on things narrows down. Those are the times when it is even more important to rely on the vastness of somatic responses in our bodies: What else is my body capable of doing or holding in this moment? How can I find a moment of relief in my body? Where does this live inside of me?
For me, this is my breath and moving places of tension in my body and letting them move throughout my body while curiously wondering which other part of my body can hold this for a moment. What comes to me, as a result, are always better ideas and a more relaxed state to pull the next thing towards me. I don’t always have the luxury of not doing something at all or just pushing it to the next day. But what I can do is find space and spaces inside of me to energize new capacities.
Consider making the switch as a rite of passage, a moment of awakening to another way of fueling your leadership and growing your organization. Consider it a non-negotiable you don’t fully understand yet, but understand that it might help you to stick around for longer. Consider it an investment whose ROI spans over the rest of your life and gets expressed through less “efforting”, less pushing against, more choosing, more possibility, more pulling toward.
What questions are coming up for you reading this?
Ping me anytime. (franzi@franziskagonder.com).
What small action can you take today to start the shift?
All the love, all the power,
Franzi
Every post is written from a place of giving forward. If someone in your life needs to hear the above or any other essay you find here, consider giving forward as well by sharing, talking about it, and supporting them with what you are learning here.
Great share. Love your way of expression!
This is really articulate, practical, and warm. I learned a couple of years ago to pay attention to the sensations in my body when I am anxious. Anxiety, especially trauma-related, can also affect your range of vision as well as other aspects of your eyesight. This is truly amazing!
I long to delve deeper into these effects and find ways to truly reduce stress responses.
Wonderful insight, too, about how the body can start to depend upon "dirty fuel."
Thank you for your writing!