Floundering

I’m feeling a significant amount of anxiety right now. The underlying
tension is almost too much to stand. I want to move. My natural
inclination, though is to move away from the source of tension, to
escape. And yet the tension seems to follow me, leading me to believe
there is no escape AND that the way I am approaching (or rather
retreating from) what is happening continues to perpetuate the cycle.
I want to change the way I react, to unlearn my habit of flight when
things at work get to feeling icky.


I want to examine moving toward not away. I want to lean into
opportunity disguised as discomfort instead of recoiling in dread or
disgust. I want to get curious instead of nervous.


I’m starting to see some parallels in other areas of my life that
might help. Building new habits is just like building muscles. I
exercise at my local Curves two to three times a week. For quite a
while, I was not able to exercise due to the complete disintegration
of my left knee. But now I have a new knee and a new lease on
activity. Getting through that was harder than I though it would be,
but I literally took it one step at a time and now I am more mobile
than I have been for a very long time. Through that recovery process,
I had a lot of resistance – physical and mental…but mostly emotional.
No one wants to be in pain, to have to push through it. But in order
to recover and get stronger, you must. So I did. But then again,
escape wasn’t an issue. I couldn’t get away from that pain. It was a
part of me. Is the tension I am internalizing around work a part of
me too? If so, how do I get that replaced? It’s not as if I can
replace an attitude like a surgeon replaces a joint. Or can I?


The Curves workout is a circuit. Each station isolates on one or two
muscle groups for 30 seconds, using resistance training. The harder
you push, the more resistance the machine creates and the better the
work-out. At the end of the 30 seconds, an automated recording prompts
everyone on the circuit to ”change stations now.” If I have pushed
as hard as I can against the machine’s resistance, I am SO relieved to
hear those words. After each machine is a “recovery station”,
basically just a board that you march or jog, or stand panting on to
allow the muscles to recover for 30 seconds before moving on to the
next station at the cue.


I realize that the Curves process of tension -> resistance -> work ->
release -> change -> recover -> repeat is similar to the cycle I go
through at work…except I never allow myself to release to accept the
change or recover after all that tensing, resisting, working and
changing. I just go from tension to resistance to work and
repeat…with change happening intermittantly and sometimes covertly in
and among and around all of that.


Hmm…That’s sure some metaphorical food for thought. And now back to my
regularly scheduled floundering.