The Message My Overachieving Side Needed To Hear
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been someone who gets shit done.
Aka hard worker, overachiever, hustler, go-getter, taskmaster, etc.
This meant in every aspect of my life: school, work, personal life, and for other people. I love to cross something off a list! Let me first say that this has served me well. I really believe this quality helped me create my current life. If I wanted it badly enough (and it was realistic), I put my head down, went to work, and achieved it. I feel fortunate that I embraced it in my 20s and 30s when I had all that energy!
However, there was always one major downside . . . burnout. I would go, go, go and then crash HARD. What did I experience in the lead up to burnout? Good ole unnecessary stress and anxiety because I was taking on too much. It was a vicious cycle. I would work my ass off, rarely take breaks, start to feel anxiety and stress, ignore it because I had so much to do, stretch myself thin, burnout, crash, be forced to reset, refuel, and start it all over again. This went on for decades, and honestly, I didn’t know it could be different. Nor did I care because the amount of shit I was accomplishing was significant.
In my mid 30s, I discovered the dynamics of masculine and feminine energies. This was the first crack in my armor. I realized that I was leading TOO much with my masculine—this is the action oriented energy. This awareness was key to starting the process of slowing down and connecting more to my feminine energy. It actually felt really good. I quite enjoyed not feeling so worn down at the end of the day.
Then in my late 30s, I got pregnant. Pregnancy, if you don’t already know, is the ultimate connection to the Divine Feminine. I was able to lean into this beautiful energy in a sustained way for the first time in my life. It was probably the closest I will ever get to a “balance”. I had to pull back from my go-getter mentality because my body was growing a human and wouldn’t allow me to overexert myself! I allowed myself more moments of rest and calm without feeling overly guilty about it.
When I began to think of how different my life was going to look as a mama, I had equal parts excitement and sadness. To ease the sadness, I took time to grieve the loss of certain parts of my life. [Side note: this was one of the best things I did and I highly recommend it to all pregnant women, even if it’s not your first child. Bonus points to the dads who can do it too. This is an entirely different blog so let me know if you want to hear about this.] Since I made the choice to be a part time stay at home mama, that meant I also moved to part time coach. It was so scary! Mainly because working part time was very new territory for me. One of my parts I tried to let go and grieve was the “overachiever/ hard worker”. I knew I would be doing other hard work, but I knew I had to release this overly masculine part of me so I could slow down and be present with my baby. Out of all the parts I tried to release that day, this one wouldn’t budge.
There was a deep resistance to letting this part of me go . . . so deep that I just couldn’t do it at that moment. I made a compromise and put that part of me on a shelf, with the idea that I could access it whenever I needed to in the future. [Another side note: I was forced to fully release it the first few months after I gave birth, and it was so freeing because I had no choice in the matter.]
Over the next 2 and ½ years, my internal work amped up. Why? Because every day I’m looking at this beautiful little boy and thinking about how I want him to have the best version of me possible (in this phase of life). So as shit came up, I tackled it as best I could. And spoiler alert, shit comes up hard and fast after you become a parent. We can either push it away or take advantage of what it’s trying to teach us.
Fast forward to a month ago. I was listening to a podcast and a young girl was talking about how she was diving in and doing all the self-discovery work . . . and her life was shifting in the best way. She was manifesting big things! Someone said to her, “You’re so lucky!” And she thought, “Fuck that. I’ve worked hard for this!” At that very moment, I got a full body chill. I paused the podcast to just sit and process what happened. It was the revelation I had been waiting for.
Let me break it down. If it’s one thing I’ve learned first hand, it’s this: once you change your internal world, your external world follows. It takes time, but what’s on the other side is fucking majestic. You dig deep, uncover all kinds of awareness, and you can no longer unsee certain truths. You identify negative and limiting thoughts and beliefs, begin to change them on a daily basis, and now you’re speaking to yourself like the badass you are. Your confidence, self-esteem, self-acceptance, mood, and feelings of worth begin to rise so you make healthier and more aligned choices. Those actions and behaviors add up and soon you’re creating a different reality.
I’ve been slowly shifting a chunk of my energy from completing a never ending to-do list in my external world to nurturing and expanding my internal world. Both require energy, but one leaves me feeling invigorated while the other leaves me feeling drained (I’ll let you guess which). And even though I’ve slowed the urge to overachieve in my external world and stepped up to achieve growth in my internal world, my life has still continued to flourish. I would have never imagined this in my wildest dreams! I thought as soon as I slowed down that overachieving side of me that everything would fall apart. But it didn’t.
At that moment, it was a realization that the reason I was having such a hard time letting go was because I felt like some of my most favorite qualities would have to go too; motivation, consistency, reliability, organization, persistence, and a belief in myself to succeed. But they didn’t . . . they just had to shift. I now get to apply them to my internal work. Yes, I still complete tasks in my external world because I have to keep my life running smoothly. Hopefully that’s a given. I just don’t force myself to prioritize it all AND I don’t feel like a piece of shit if I don’t get it all done. The phase of life that centers around hustling to complete tasks in my external world is slowing down. The phase of life that centers around hustling for my internal world has begun. That’s what I needed to grieve all along.
And to be honest, at a certain point in your life, it feels good to shift gears and change course. Life looks so different for me now. I intentionally created this phase of life so I would have less burn out. Why wouldn’t I want to slow down a little and soak it all up?! All the wisdom I’ve acquired over the years is pointing me towards what matters most. And I can promise you this . . . it’s not my to-do list. It’s how I FEEL inside my body and mind. It’s the environment that nurtures this for me. It’s taking care of my health. It’s being a Mama to Langston. It’s connecting to myself, nature, and others around me. It’s doing something I love to bring in the flow of money. It’s slowing down my nervous system. It’s expansion; whether that’s through reading, travel, thought provoking conversations, sitting with myself, or my personal work. It’s nurturing my marriage and other close relationships. It’s taking the time to truly enjoy what is right in front of me . . . everything I have created up until this point. And it’s being open to allowing whatever is next to unfold in the way it’s supposed to.
One word to sum is all up: Ease.
