One of the things I have heard myself saying recently is: “It doesn’t have to feel good right now; we just have to find an ounce of capacity and courage to show your body that you can do it/that this is possible. “
This relates to my work as much as conversations with my children. Especially leaders who have witnessed and experienced substantial work trauma, or founders on the brink of burnout, often have little nervous system capacity to hold the many decisions, options, conversations, and overall changes that are required from them to lead effectively, to move towards a reality that is healthier, more capacious, and more resonant or happier.
Traditional motivational speeches and concepts remind us to “push through, to “give it your all“, and to “never give up“. And while I remember the period of my life when this used to resonate deeply, I now acknowledge that this was a deep-rooted and programmed coping mechanism in itself. My heart aches writing this: this is how most kids are still raised today, this is how most young adults still “get through“ higher education, this is still the most dominant “work ethic“.
Our sense of choice is the first thing to go when we experience distress, hard times, and difficult conversations with others. So we learn never to stop, never to reflect, and never to allow vulnerability to inform our own boundaries, our limits, our genius, and for other opportunities to expand more consciously and fulfill us. Never enough comes from a place of never stopping.
I remember it so vividly. The unwillingness I felt to fall, to let the tense edges of my back soften, to let my jaw open softly. The “push through” and “don’t give up now” messages I would repeat to myself (see above) showed up undeniably in my body language. Tense, tight, rigid, harsh, never enough. I still see myself pushing myself even harder during my workouts to show the pain in my body and my mind that I won’t allow it in. No way. Not here. There is no space for you. A 12-hour day of work was no reason not to crush another CrossFit workout.
That is until my body started screaming at me. Anxiety, sleepless nights, a racing heartbeat even when I was not doing anything active, irritability, short temper, hard time focusing, and that feeling that I couldn’t take another deep breath. My body was in a constant state of fight-or-flight, and it affected everyone around me. My stress became my partner’s stress, it became emotional unavailability for longer meetings that required more nuanced decisions, it became my lack of presence and the desire just to get it done. No joy, just moving through the motions of the day.
We all have experienced tension in the room, and we all know it can be harder to access empathy in crisis management moments. Sometimes, you just have to get it done. But if the “tense emergency manager” is your persona most of the time… then when do your people know that the emergency is real? When do we refill the shared trust account and come back to a collective homeostasis? When do we reflect on what went well, and where we went overboard? As teams, it’s crucial to invest in our collective nervous system capacity through shared reflection, saying what needs to be said, and witnessing each other in our triumphs and our struggles. Those are the basics. All other fancy team-building and mindfulness exercises should come after.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned in running businesses since my massive inflection point in life 11 years ago (the death of my father, which resulted in burnout and a surge of childhood trauma re-surfacing) was to rest and surrender to a shared sense of humanity with each other no matter where I go. Partially because I just had to. If I didn’t want to keep living with anxiety and surges of panic on a frequent basis, I simply had to start listening to my body.
Choosing to start listening to my body as the primary informant of my behavior and decisions precipitated so many of the best conversations I’ve ever had, the best experiences I’ve ever had, the best decisions I’ve ever made, and allowed me to heal old wounds. However, this choice also cost me friendships, particularly my best friend. Life offered me the chance to really understand what truth feels like, and I would never want to go back to a place of blissful unawareness and the stress of wondering where the literal tightness in my body comes from.
Business is relationships. It’s people. It’s nervous systems merging, diverging, converging, colliding. And it all becomes a lot easier when we really learn to see each other - as humans on imperfect, messy, but beautiful journeys toward legacy. We all have the desire to leave something behind, but we all have to learn (some earlier, some later) that a truly successful legacy cannot be fueled by ego or greed but by living the art of giving every single day.
Surrendering to all the hard feelings, all my pain, all my sorrow ultimately took my mask off. It was the greatest gate of growth; it was God-sent pain that turned into the flow, joy, and groundedness that is my life today. Every moment that might conventionally be considered a hard, dark moment becomes a reminder to me that I am here to surrender to the edges of my lived capacity, that I am here to expand beyond something that I didn’t even know I needed.
Resistance reminds me that I am human. It might mean I haven’t done it in a while. It might mean I have never done it. It might mean it is an old fear of mine flaring up. It might mean I don’t feel safe in this space or with this set of people in it. It might mean various things. But learning about the language of your body, appreciating and honoring the restriction and resistance comes already with an expansion of a body that feels listened to. It’s because you stop, you breathe, you stand still. Sometimes, it’s that simple to find a spot of capacity inside of you to surrender. It reminds me that my spirit and body can walk me to magical places if I can find the capacity inside of me to see the light in the dark. And sometimes that light is so damn small. But that’s ok.
So next time something doesn’t feel right, feels overwhelming or just too much, lean into it:
Plant your feet into the ground and feel the stillness by scanning your body head to toe, even tending to your organs, your bloodstream, and your vessels. Become truly aware of your state. You can also do this during meetings while your’re sitting. Just scan your body. Nobody will notice. Promise.
What feels tight, less capacious right now?
Why is this hard?
What is your body remembering? Or is it growing pain? (huge difference!)
Can you find an ounce of capacity (light) inside of you that has the chance to grow over time? What would need to happen physically?
If you can’t feel it, say no. Don’t do it. Respect the liberation of a limiting constraint.
From that place of newly emerging capacity (if so), write down what needs to be true:
What conversations do I need to have?
How does my day need to look?
_______________________ (stay here and fill in more)
Practice this simple exercise in a low-stake environment first a couple of times, maybe more. You will know. It could be the Monday all-hands or a casual conversation with your spouse or best friend about the plan for the next week.
Build your capacity for this over time and then unfold from there, learn about your own way of working with it and what becomes available inside of you and for your daily leadership.
Let me know how it goes.
All the love, all the power,
Franzi
Before you go: Those essays are written with love, dedication, rawness, while always trying to provide value - something that you can take away. If you think, there is something in here that really resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. For real. I love emails and voice messages. And please share it with folks you appreciate so this type of work can continue to land in the hands of people it belongs to. I appreciate everyone coming back to those essays every week. I started writing as a way to make sense of the depth and richness of my coaching sessions, and now I also get to enjoy doing it for you.
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