My friend and I were in the audience at Crown when we heard Liz Gilbert say the following.
“If women embodied being relaxed it would be revolutionary.”
She looked out over the packed audience of ‘Business Chicks’ curious to see how her challenge landed with us. We wanted to stand and cheer. A revolution! And then we wondered… how on earth do we relax?
Liz (I feel that we would be on first name terms if we met) went on to explain her thesis and it landed in me as logic and fact. The very brief summary of what I heard her say that day were these two lines:
You decide your priorities but you must protect them with boundaries.
You cannot be relaxed if you don’t know where the boundaries are.
Hmm.
Easy to say but not so easy to do. And so the work began. We ordered The Artists Way and began working through the program. Something else began at the same time. It was March 2020… Covid19 made itself known and the entire world around us tipped on its axis and relaxation for men or women became a thing of the past. Liz flew home to America and borders became impassable. What better time to look inwards than in the isolation of a global pandemic? I went back and read everything that Liz had written, listened to her podcast interviews, read more by Brene Brown (on my knees in the arena!), Cheryl Strayed (triggered my desire to hike) and Glennon Doyle (not really for me but she’s right, we CAN do hard things!).
It seems to have been around for decades, that concept of work life balance. I imagine balance as that momentary point in the pendulum swing of life when it is equidistant between chaos and bliss. You wave at it as it arcs past and acknowledge that moment of perfection then continue on with reacting to whichever next thing life is throwing your way. I’ve been satisfied with that moment, the knowledge that it will come my way again is enough to keep me going in the hard times and temper my glee from excess when times are good. It works for me.
As a health professional working in a hospital in 2020 and 2021 it is fair to say that all sense of balance flew out the window in an instant and the pendulum stopped right out on the extreme edge of the swing. To begin with I found myself working from home alongside three teenagers trying to do their schoolwork from behind bedroom doors and my husband who was navigating a brand new job from the relative anonymity behind a screen. Quickly my pandemic response became twelve hour days from the bowels of the hospital and I rarely even saw daylight let alone my family. I wasn’t even on the front line providing face to face care.
The revolution was not to be now. Women had no chance of being relaxed in the close confines of caring roles and I was no exception.
But for one thing. With no end in sight the only thing I had the freedom to do, along with so many other women particularly in my age group, was think. My dear friend warned me of the dangers of self-reflection. I can’t remember her exact words but the gist of her message was:
‘Be careful when you go down that rabbit hole. You won’t come out the same way you went in but it will be worth it and you will be transformed.’
And so it was for me.
I went back to my notes from Liz and spent some time thinking again about priorities and their boundaries. Such simple words, such enormous concepts when you really think about it. Life when you are working full time, parenting full time, and living all the other parts of life, tends to be (for me) reactive. I was dealing with whatever was in front of me with very little left over to actually plan anything ahead of time. I realised that I often say ‘yes’ without really considering what I actually think and what a commitment of that sort would mean and the impact was always that work encroached on life and my priorities were sidelined. All my own fault.
You would think that this would be a devastating realisation, I certainly sat there waiting for the self-flagellation to begin. But it didn’t. It actually felt like I had uncovered the answer to a question I hadn’t thought to ever ask myself. What on earth were my priorities??? I always answered ‘well, my priority is my family, of course.” Don’t we know that to be socially acceptable that has to be the answer? Oh, the guilt if we dared say anything different! Luckily I realised didn’t want to give a different answer, my family are my priority, but I did see clearly that my actions didn’t reflect this. From the outside you would be forgiven for assuming that my priorities were, in order, career, money and only then did family get a guernsey. That’s what my behaviour demonstrated, that’s what my choices were indicating. My boundaries were way, way, off course.
In theory it all seems so simple. Plan your time well. Say ‘no’ to the things that don’t matter or don’t fit your priorities. Set goals. Work hard. Be honest and ethical and committed to whatever it is you do. Blah blah blah. There are memes and academic papers and popular culture articles at the tips of my finger when I scan the internet exploring this very question. I’m not the only one grappling with it.
All of this assumes a level of control over life that truly is unattainable. This is why work life balance as a constant is a ridiculous and cruel dream.
It may have seemed like a lightening bolt moment as a catalyst for change but it was actually a growing realisation that it was past time for me to take back some of the control. I forced the pendulum swing from ‘work’ to ‘life’ with one letter of resignation and walked away from my career. I get the feeling that isn’t meant to be the way to find balance but something had to give. Months on and I have to admit that the pendulum is swinging less wildly now, sedately and kindly, and balance is something I see on a far more frequent basis.
I have no idea what the next phase will be but I do know that I have made a commitment to myself to embody ‘the relaxed woman’ of Liz Gilbert’s revolution. I have reshuffled my behaviours to better reflect my actual priorities and I am guarding those boundaries with every fibre of my being. It’s really, really hard sometimes. I am tempted to ‘go back’ to work, I feel guilt about what I gave up and sometimes I worry that I will never find another job. I doubt myself regularly but knowing my priorities means that my compass never wavers even when my resolve threatens to derail my path forwards.
To those who have worked with me in the past you will be pleased to know that, at last, I have learned to say the word I tried to teach you all to use. “No”. It’s not that hard after all. You should try it sometime.
Great!