How to Build Your Internal Capacity to Handle Pressure

Transcript:

Hey there, it’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. I’m sharing this episode during what can be an incredibly stressful couple of weeks for many people. Holiday celebrations, navigating family pressures and expectations, turning the page on one year into a new one that we hope will be better than the last…we can’t change most of our circumstances around this time but we CAN change our internal capacity to handle them.

A couple of weeks ago we talked about navigating the pressures often felt when our personal and professional lives converge. The main point of that episode is that we have the power to increase our capacity by 1) delegating tasks and responsibilities or 2) by increasing our internal capacity with internal transformation that releases us from the internal pressures we put on ourselves. 

You may or may not know this about me, but this is probably one of my greatest areas of experience and expertise. My master’s degree is in counseling ministries – so there are both psychological and spiritual threads that weave throughout my understanding of personal and organizational transformation. But honestly, sometimes I shy away from talking much about the spiritual side of things for a number of reasons. I want what we share to be relevant to people from various faith backgrounds, and  – as one of my mentors says, “we value least that which comes easiest for us.” So maybe, because it is such a huge piece of my own life and such a natural thing for me to discuss, maybe I push it to the side, assuming it doesn’t have as much value as something that takes more effort for me to discuss.

Then I go and post something on social media about my own experience of internal processing and all of a sudden there are a bunch of people interested in it. That’s what happened last weekend – which I’ll tell you about in a minute. 

So today I want to dig a little deeper into the idea of building our internal capacity. And I promise to share from my both my head and my heart on this one, ok?

OK.So at the end of last week I began to feel “off,” not knowing why. All I knew was that I felt increasingly twisted up inside, experiencing internal tension and resistance to feeling like I had any sort of power to make myself feel better.

While I am aware of a number of things that weigh on me in my life, just knowing these things wasn’t helping me untangle or relieve the tension I felt. Does this ever happen to you? Where you just feel like the weight of your world is so heavy that you feel trapped or stuck? For me, this is a feeling that comes and goes periodically. So I’m not living under the heaviness all the time, but when it comes, I don’t appreciate how helpless and hopeless it makes me feel.

I used to spend a lot of time journaling, processing the areas of life that cause stress, looking for the common thread that runs throughout the things that weigh on my heart. I don’t do this in writing as much anymore. 

Writing takes so much time…

But here’s what I know:  important things — internal things — take time. 

So rather than letting the tension control me, I decided to do something about it. Saturday morning I got up and told my husband that I was headed to a coffee shop for a while. I grabbed my journal and pen and headed out. I didn’t sit in the booth where I usually set up camp. Instead, I found a soft chair that nearly hugs it’s occupant. Why? Because location and physicality matters to how we are present in our environment.

Journaling isn’t an intellectual exercise for me. Nor is it a task. If it were, then the booth would have worked just fine. I sat in the chair because journaling is a spiritual for me. I needed to feel relaxed and comfortable, not alert and focused.  Writing out my thoughts and feelings in my journal slows me down long enough to be present to my inner life. It helps me get back in touch with the truth of what I fear. Admitting my fears and looking them right in the face is honest. It’s vulnerable. It’s courageous. 

You see, our fears rarely reside where we can see them. They’re generally under the bed, in the dark, in our peripheral view. We have a sense of looming doom or anxiety about what could be, but we can’t quite nail it down as we’re moving through life. And moving through life is what we often go to in order to maintain some semblance of control. 

I don’t have to think about missing my mom’s hugs when I’m busy thinking about the emails I need to write today. 

I don’t have to think about wishing I had more time to travel with our kids before they leave the house if I’m busy recording and editing the next podcast episode. 

I don’t have to think about my fear of failure to meet a financial goal if I’m busy driving kids around and listening to podcasts. 

And the truth is that for every “i don’t have to think” it’s really an “I don’t have to feel.” Because I actually do think about these things. What I don’t do is hold space to allow myself to feel them. And unexpressed feelings are what reside under the bed, in the dark, and in my peripheral view. That’s why journaling isn’t an intellectual exercise. It’s a spiritual experience because of the emotion tied to these thoughts.  

This is soul-level work. And it’s something I avoid with busyness when I fear experiencing the truth of my emotions.

Writing what I think and feel in my journal is the act of holding space for this part of me. And the day I went to the coffee shop, I found myself crying a bit, too. Now, I understand that tears come more easily to me than to some people. And that’s ok. Whether you actually cry or not isn’t as important as expressing the emotion in some form that is natural and true to who you are. In fact, journaling isn’t the right answer for everyone, either. You may find that you’re better at holding space for your own inner-world while praying on a walk or while listening to music in your car. These are other things I’ve done before, as well.  

The goal is to look under the bed, shine a light where there is darkness, and bring into focus what was once in your peripheral view. This can be difficult or intimidating when you first start doing it. Most of us push away pain because we don’t want to feel it. But the truth about pain is that it will stay with you and if you don’t confront it, it will begin to overtake your will. It’s like that monster under the bed – it will become bigger and scarier the longer you wait to actually turn on the light and stare it down. The fear of that monster – whether that be a fear of feeling inadequate…a fear of feeling sadness…a fear of losing something or someone…a fear of failure… that monster will start to control you. 

Last weekend I started to realize that there was a monster of fear controlling my ability to engage and be present with my family. It was starting to control my motivation to make progress in my business. Thankfully I’ve stared down enough monsters by now that I’ve learned what it’s like to come out on the other side, free from it. That’s why when that feeling of tension and feeling tangled up inside started to control me last week, I knew I needed to confront it. I knew I needed to FEEL it to find out what it really was.

Because if you have a framework for dealing with fear – if you believe that you can turn fear into love – if you believe deep down that you don’t have to be tangled up inside but you can rest in knowing that you can’t control everything and everyone, then you end up being able to control your own response to the fear. You end up realizing that on the flip side of fear is hope and you can turn that coin over in your heart and find something beautiful.

I can turn the pain of missing my mom’s hugs into a desire to hug others with that kind of love.

I can turn the fear of losing travel opportunities with my kids into a deep appreciation for the opportunity to drive them to activities and be more intentional about scheduling trips with them.

I can turn my dread of missing a financial goal into gratitude for how far we’ve come and how we’re able to be a part of the dialogue in many companies that want to have positive impact in the world and with their employees. 

I can turn my fear into expressions of love.

YOU can turn your fears into expressions of love, too, my friend.

So don’t be afraid of the fears that rumble around in the dark. Find your own way to hold space for that sadness, pain, and fear — FEEL IT — and then go and be released to love.

We have free resources on our website that can help you on your journey in developing your Voice of Influence: an insights paper with a framework that helps you engage others more fully and energetically with your message and then a mini-video course to help you learn how to have a deeper impact when giving feedback. 

We also offer 1:1 programs that hone in on and provide a custom response with what you need right now in your journey in developing your Voice of Influence (internal transformation, interpersonal communication strategy, identifying and activating your unique voice, etc.), and leadership strategy and keynotes for organizations.

Reach out through the contact form on our website for more information: voiceofinfluence.net

May you find peace and be released to love this week, my friend. Your voice matters.

I put Carrie Underwood & John Legend’s “Hallelujah” (link below) on repeat and started writing.

But then at some point I remember that shining a light on the truth in my heart is the only way to find peace. It’s the only way to release my soul back into a state of love and abundance.

May you find peace this weekend, too, my friend.