Productivity…

Good afternoon dear reader & welcome to my world for another week. Further to my comments last Saturday I wish to comment further on the theme of Ambitions today. Some of the qualities people will applaud in your life are the very things which will wreck your soul.  Rewind.  Read this last sentence again.  Let it soak in & let it serve as a red flag warning in your life.

Being productive is a great characteristic & I was always patted on the back for my strong work ethic, until it transpires, one turns into being driven & consequently workaholism.  Then it becomes toxic.  Ambition is wonderful when it is motivated by the correct reasons.  But when it gets hijacked by our ego, it is lethal & leaves devastation in its wake.  Having good people skills is a wonderful quality, until we begin to live for the approval of other people & find our significance in what other people think of us.

The result can be a situation where you end up wearing your dysfunction as a badge of honour.  For example, I secretly loved it when people would talk about how hard I worked & the great results I achieved. But what other people did not know was there was a shadow side to what they perceived as a strength. I consistently pushed beyond the lines of a healthy work ethic. I worked all the time & had little recreational interests, no sense of healthy rhythm, no acknowledgement of my limits, & an out-of-control pace. My soul & my family paid the highest price.

When you do not pay attention to your soul, you will try to manage your brokenness by adjusting & rearranging the externals in your life.  In my life, I always tried to deal with being driven by tweaking my schedule.  I thought if I could just figure out how to work smarter, I could satisfy my compulsive need to be productive & also live out my stated values & priorities. But it never seemed to work.  I always felt compulsively busy, & I always felt like I was cheating my family. Often, I still do.

One day I asked myself the question, Kenn, “why are you so driven?  Why are you always compulsively busy?  Why can you never say ‘no’?  What is behind all this?”  This moment started me on a path of understanding which began with the realization of my being so driven was a shadow issue of the soul & an emotional health issue.

The darkest part of your shadow side is found lurking around this insidious situation in which we learn from an early age to mask our lack of emotional health. Someone may enquire to how we are, & the façade automatically responds, “Great or good thankQ!” Others usually see it earlier & more clearly than we do.

François Fenelon, the French author, said, “We have an amazing ability to self-deceive. Your self-interest hides in a million clever disguises.”  

This is so true.  I have spent a lot of time reflecting on this issue of self-awareness.  And I have come up with a list of things which will keep you blinded to the issues of emotional health. A topic for another day, & probably from someone much better equipped than I one suspects…
Facing your shadow side is not only about self-awareness, it is also about courage.  Facing your shadow side & addressing emotional health is not only disruptive & uncomfortable for you, but it is also unsettling for those around you.

Let me explain.  Let us suppose you are the person on the team who has always been the available, accessible, get-it-done, go-to individual.  You have established a kind of social contract with your team.  When people need something, they often call you, & you drop whatever you are doing to respond to their need.  Part of your motivation is driven by an authentic desire to serve.  But then you begin to realize some of your response is driven by some co-dependency tendencies as well as an unhealthy people pleasing.  

The situation has become unhealthy, & it is taking a toll on you & your family.  You now decide you need to implement some healthy boundaries to protect your own soul & health. You are going to start employing the word “no.”  You are going to turn off your phone at nights so you can be present with your family. You just changed the social contract… & trust me, not everyone is going to be thrilled. I still struggle with this, as it has been a huge aspect of growth for my business.

Let me give you another quick example.  Let us suppose you are the person on the team who has an engaging, warm, winsome, likeable personality.  You are a bit of a pied piper, & people love being around you.  However, the honest truth is you have always skated by on your personality.  And it has created some dysfunction. And as you become more self-aware & seek honest feedback, you discover your shadow side has done some damage to the team. While people truly like you, they resent & begrudge the fact & aspects in you sometimes.

I believe the greatest gift you can give your team is your own healthy soul. They are not in denial about their shadow side, & they live with an acute awareness they are still very much a work in progress.  But there is no frantic striving, because they typically live in the settled reality where they are unconditionally loved & accepted. In fact, living with an awareness of their brokenness makes them much richer. Do you also aspire to be in a similar position with your soul dear reader?

Thank you for taking the time to be with me once again. I hope my journey may encourage you also. This is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson, with my best wishes for the week ahead. I look forward to being with you all again next weekend.
 
 
 
www.kennbutler.com