I’m in the recovery phase of shingles. [1] For those of you who’ve had it, you know it’s not fun and quite painful. For those who haven’t, I hope you never get it.
You may be wondering what shingles has to do with overusing your masculine side. Shingles presents with a red rash that follows your nerve endings. It typically starts on your trunk and goes down one side of your body. For me, it started at my lower back and went down the right side of my body, the masculine side.
What’s the difference between our masculine and feminine sides and masculine and feminine energy? The table below illustrates the differences.
Feminine Energy (Yin) BEING & GIVING
Masculine Energy (Yang) DOING & RECEIVING
Creative
Linear & Logical
Intuitive
Analytical
Receptive
Assertive
Collaborative
Competitive
Emotional
Rational
Passionate
Determined
Empathetic
Objective
Allows for “flow”
Goal-directed
Associated with left side of our body
Associated with right side of our body
As leaders and change-makers, (and you may be a leader in your family, community, workplace, business), it’s important that we use both sides of our body and both types of energy. When we don’t, our body, mind, relationships, and” success” at home and work are negatively impacted. For example, if we are constantly in our masculine energy, over time it leads to illness, lack of fulfillment, restlessness and unhappiness. Conversely, if we are dominated by feminine energy, we can become needy, resentful, ill and insecure.
It is important to note that a balance between yin and yang does not necessarily mean 50% yin and 50% yang. It means learning to create your own unique mix so that your happiness is amplified and your success (how you define it) is enhanced.
How does this apply to my recent bout of shingles? I realize I have been “breaking” one of my “rules” related to working. I have a “rule” that I typically turn off my computer before having dinner. That way I have a few hours before retiring to share time with my partner, relax and ideally not think about work. I realize lately I’ve been on the computer after dinner sometimes till 9:30 pm or later. I also typically leave spaces in my agenda to take daily walks in nature. I have been “falling down” a bit on that one as well.
So how can you balance your masculine and feminine sides?
Spend time in nature five or more days a week. Often a 20-to-30-minute walk enables you to return to work re-energized with increased focus and creativity. If this is new to you, start slowly and do three days a week for 20 minutes and gradually increase the time.
Unplug from technology for at least one entire day each week (Saturdays work best for me). I’ve found this strategy truly re-energizes me and others I’ve shared it with.
Get at least 7 hours sleep a night and go to sleep at the same time each night (if possible). Sleep is necessary to rejuvenate and repair our bodies and having a regular schedule supports deep and healing sleep.
Instead of leaping out of bed each day and “hitting the ground running” make a conscious effort before you get up toquiet your mind and scan your body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Notice any tension or discomfort; breathe into these areas and consciously release and let go of the tension.
Meditate regularly (ideally daily) for 10 to 20 minutes. There are a number of digital products available to help you do this. I have found Deepak and Oprah’s 21-day meditation experiences helpful as they focus on a key theme, and each day break down the theme. In addition, beautiful nature sounds, and music play in the background to assist you in relaxing and staying focused.
Practice yoga at least three times a week. A style of yoga I’ve found particularly helpful in balancing the right and left sides of my body is yin yoga. It is a meditative form of yoga done in a warm room and focuses on holding poses for up to five minutes. This “untangles” our connective tissue which grows “fuzz” during the night. If we don’t stretch and untangle our connective tissue, it results in reduced movement and flexibility and ultimately in contractures. Check out Dr. Fuzz on YouTube.
Eat a healthy diet rich in fresh, colorful, unprocessed foods at each meal.
I welcome your suggestions on what you’ve found helpful to “balance” your masculine/yang and feminine/yin sides and energies.
[1] For anyone who has had chickenpox, you have the possibility of getting shingles sometime in your life. It’s caused by the herpes zoster virus which stays in your body and presents itself as shingles when your immune system is compromised.
I’ve claimed 2024 as my year of Playful Creativity. How about you? Do you have a word or phrase for this new year?
In “Learning to Dance with Life”, I identified seven keys to what I call “Creative Living”. Seven keys to consciously cultivating improved health, happiness, fulfillment and inner peace in your life. Who doesn’t want that? One of the seven keys is “Tap into and express your creative side.”
Why is creativity so important?
When we consciously bring creativity into our lives it connects us with our inner child; that part of us that loves to laugh and comes from a place of wonder
When we engage in creative pursuits such as singing, painting, dancing, gardening, writing, drawing, it is therapeutic. We can get lost in the creative process and at that time forget all the challenges facing the world or the stressful parts of our own lives, and instead focus on feeling light and passionate about what we are creating.
When we create, we are totally in the NOW[1]. That is the space when we can tap into our inner wisdom, and also feel a sense of freedom and awareness; appreciating all that we have, and all that we are.
There is much data to support the health and healing benefits of the arts
Now, more than ever, we need creative solutions to solve the complex issues facing us such as climate change and systemic racism.
What are some ways to tap into and express your creativity?
Sit down in a quiet place, free from distractions. Take a few deep breaths to relax and close your eyes for a couple of minutes if you feel comfortable doing so. Ask yourself the following questions and write down your responses to them. Write down the first thing that comes to mind without judging or editing it.
Do you consider yourself a creative person? If yes, why? If not, why not?
Are there any creative pursuits you enjoyed as a child but haven’t done for years? If so, what are they?
Are there some creative or artistic pursuits you would be interested in exploring/trying out?
Commit to either starting to integrate a childhood “passion” into your life or choose a new one such as “learning to play the piano” that perhaps you always wanted to do as a child but never had the opportunity to do. Identify the next steps for taking action to integrate a new or “old” creative or artistic pursuit into your life. It’s helpful to use a two-column table with “activity” heading one column and “timeline” the other. For example:
Activity: Explore online and via word-of-mouth “good” teachers offering piano lessons in my area. … Timeline: Start tomorrow (January 10, 2024)
Activity: Begin piano lessons … Timeline: Start first lesson by January 29/24.
Support is important to many of us when starting something new and continuing with it. Enlist the support of a friend, colleague or family member to encourage and support you in your new endeavor or invite them to join you in doing it.
Observations and Insights from engaging in artistic/creative pursuits.
After you have engaged in a creative/artistic pursuit, go into your body and note how you feel. Does your body feel lighter? Do you have more energy? Is your mind quieter?
When you engage in a creative/artistic pursuit over time what changes if any do you notice in your body? Mind? Emotions? Relations? Life in general?
If you have been engaging in a creative/artistic pursuit with a friend, colleague or family member, what changes, if any, do you notice in them?
The Importance of Play and Laughter
Creativity is connected to play and laughter. There is much evidence to support the importance of play and laughter in our daily lives. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play[2] has conducted research that shows that play is not only energizing and fun, but also important for human physical, emotional, cognitive development and intelligence.
“Play activates the reward centers of the brain, floods the rest of the brain with feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin and triggers the release of powerful neural growth factors that promote learning and mental flexibility. It causes stress hormones to drop, mood to lift and has an energizing effect.” [3]
Integrating Play and Laughter into our lives
Playing imaginary and other games with my young grandchildren has been a fun and easy way to integrate play and laughter into my life.
Here are a few other examples of how to integrate play and laughter into your life.
Identify and write down types of play activities you enjoyed and engaged in as a child.
Reflect on how many of these activities you currently engage in as an adult and how often you engage in them.
Rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how energized each of the above activities makes you feel – 1 being “not at all” and 10 being “full of energy”.
Identify several play activities you would like to begin integrating into your life. Experiment and notice how they make you feel.
Commit to engaging in some form of play or laughter on a daily basis. Ask friends and family for support (perhaps make it a family project to laugh and play at least once a day) and encourage play and laughter in their lives as well.
I encourage you to try out some of the exercises shared and consciously integrate more creative pursuits and more play and laughter into your life. And notice what you notice.
I welcome your thoughts and experiences below.
[1] Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, New World Library, 2004
I was recently nudged to reread a book I wrote ten years ago. From that experience I’m called to share my reflections and reframe the book through a lens that I hope will make it more valued and understood by more people. This is the first in a series of posts on those reflections.
In the past ten years, more and more influential women, and some men, are coming out of the woodwork and acknowledging that they have burnt out. An example is Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand who in January 2023, announced “I no longer have enough in the tank to do the job”, and declared that was why she was stepping down.
It is being acknowledged more widely that the traditional ways of doing business and being successful; of driving and striving, valuing competition over collaboration, and leading from our heads and egos rather than from our hearts, are no longer sustainable. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post and founder and CEO of Thrive Global, has shared her story of collapsing from overwork and why she created Thrive Global. It was as a result of her experience of “working day and night” and the negative impact it had, and her desire to share that there is a healthier way to be “successful”.
The experience of the pandemic caused many people to burn out. Working at home, many parents had to also look after their children which stretched them very thin. Others had difficulty creating boundaries between their work and home life. Still others felt isolated which led to depression and other mental health issues.
In 2014 I said that I “almost” burnt out[1] and I didn’t acknowledge that I had, which I now do.
I now have heightened awareness of the importance for me of being in nature every day, and what happens when I don’t get my nature “hits”.
What remains the same since writing “Learning to Dance with Life”
Some things remain the same. For example, the seven keys in my book are still relevant. Seven keys to consciously cultivating improved health, happiness, fulfillment and inner peace in your life, and the powerful practices associated with each one, supporting us to heal from the inside out.
The proven strategies and powerful practices woven throughout the book are based on evidence from neuroscience, eastern psychology, and the health-promoting and healing benefits of the arts, and my own journey as well as that of women I have coached, all of which are being recognized more broadly as supporting healing and positive health and well-being.
The link between High Achieving Women and burnout. My work and the growing body of research related to burnout demonstrates that having qualities of a High Achieving Woman increase your risk of burning out.
When I was writing “Learning to Dance with Life: A Guide for High Achieving Women” my editor wondered whether a more appropriate title might be “Learning to Dance with Life: A Guide for Driven Women”. Perhaps that is so, as many women who I would consider “high achieving” do not perceive themselves as such. While writing “Learning to Life” I interviewed women from three continents who I perceived as high achieving and some of them said things like, “I’m not a High Achieving Women or, I don’t have any great accomplishments to my name, or I’m not in the corporate world, or it sounds arrogant to call myself a High Achieving Woman.” I think that is still the case today.
I identified nineteen attributes of High Achieving Women that I validated in my interviews that still hold true today (in chapter 1). The majority of High Achieving Women tend to give more than they receive, and many are challenged to reach out for support. The also spend much more time doing than being.
Why I focused on women.
More and more women are becoming leaders, managers and entrepreneurs
Increasing numbers of women are primary breadwinners in their families
Women in all cultures transmit their values and wisdom to their families
Women have the power to change the world.
Why I wrote the book including that “I’m called to get the message out about the negative impacts on our bodies, minds and relationships that result from driving ourselves, not listening to our bodies, and living in our left brain (p. 4).”
I welcome your thoughts and comments below on what you believe has changed in the past 10 years related to burnout and how to prevent and heal from it.
I so needed this vacation. My mind was buzzing, and I wanted to escape from the day-to-day responsibilities, to be in the warmth, to speak Spanish, to have little or no structure in each day, to swim and do lengths in the pool.
When I glide through the water I feel such freedom, such strength, such focus on the rhythm of my breath as I do the front crawl for 50, 70 or more lengths. It feels so good! Perhaps I was part fish in a previous life!?
I sit outside in front of our casita in a pueblo magico in Mexico. It is a beautiful fishing village that has a special vibe. The beach is long and wide, and each evening people gather to watch the sun set. When the glowing orb drops into the sea everyone claps. It’s quite an experience. The locals are a mix of ex-pats and Mexicans. There are more and more young people visiting the town and there are also a number of older hippies from North America who live here half the year. It is indeed a special place. I feel like I belong here. My Spanish has come back after about 3 years of not speaking. It flows easily off my tongue until every now and again when I forget a word and have to ask what it is in Spanish.
I love Latin culture. I lived in Colombia in the late 1980s in a small town of 250 houses about 3.5 hours north of Bogota. When I arrived there, I felt like I’d come home. Curious! I gave myself three months to learn Spanish and I did it! Living in a pueblo where hardly anyone speaks English, if you are someone who loves to connect with and communicate with others, is an incentive to learn a language quickly. How fortunate I was to have had that experience!
Over to you, how do you recharge and rejuvenate? What is your favorite place/activity/type of vacation? I welcome your comments below.
To make a life change, moving from one way of being and living to another, requires letting go. What do I mean? And why does it matter?
An example is when we are let go from a corporate position and are faced with the decision of whether to seek a new employer or start our own business. If we consciously choose to become an entrepreneur, our beliefs and emotions around the transition are quite different than if we are given a “pink slip” and are forced to leave a position. In either scenario, we need to let go of; for example, a regular paycheck, status (perhaps), “perks” such as a company car, an expense account …. If we consciously choose to leave, we may have some fear of the unknown and must deal with feelings of uncertainty. However, the emotions we have around the experience are different. In the case of being fired or “right-sized” we may feel anger, sadness, grief, as well as fear of the unknown.
I recall in the early 1990s when I started my first business. I had initially been lured away from a good government job to work with a management consulting group on a handshake. My father thought I was crazy to leave a good job with benefits, but the idea of consulting and being an entrepreneur was exciting. I recall my husband at the time had been encouraging me to strike out on my own for a few years. I noticed fear coming up in me and it took an offer from a consulting group to be the “carrot” that lured me away from a more stable position. That said, I was excited and energized about the new opportunity. In contrast, people I know who’ve been let go and forced to leave their jobs sometimes feel angry, victimized and low in energy. This can over time negatively impact their health, self-confidence, and their relationships with others.
So why is important for us to learn to let go when faced with a life transition be it chosen or imposed on us?
If we don’t learn to let go of certain emotions and beliefs, we may continue to repeat the same patterns in our lives and remain unhappy and unfulfilled. An example is if we keep choosing positions for the money rather than getting in touch with our passions and purpose and choosing positions in alignment with those passions and purpose.
Here are some proven strategies for “letting go”.
Identify and surface the emotions you have around a current or previous transition; for example, anger at a boss, a previous partner, a friend. The Feeling Wheel by Dr. Gloria Wilcox[1] is a useful tool to help you get in touch with and name your emotions.
Release those emotions from your body. When you think about a particular emotion notice any tension in your body and where it is located. It is often felt in your gut or your heart. Think of emotions associated with past hurts and transitions as “rocks in a backpack” and visualize and experience releasing them all from that backpack.
Forgive yourself and others. This is powerful and often keeps us stuck and holds us back from moving forward. A mindfulness tool that facilitates forgiveness (of self and others) is “Forgiveness Meditation”. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHKCy4f6Dk for a process developed by Jack Kornfield, a psychologist trained in Eastern and Western Psychology.
Write a letter to your previous boss, partner, friend from a balanced and empathic perspective. There are always two sides to every story. Reflect on the lessons learned from that experience.
If you still have anger and strong emotions associated with a past relationship, it is therapeutic to write a letter to that person sharing how they wounded you and what the experience was like from your perspective and then to either burn it ceremoniously or tear it up into small pieces and at the same time commit to releasing the negative emotions associated with the relationship.
We all face a number of transitions throughout our lives. Learning how to let go is the key to moving forward and living a life of health, happiness, fulfillment, and inner peace.
I welcome your thoughts below on your experiences with “letting go” and strategies you have found helpful to “let go” of beliefs, emotions, feelings that are no longer serving you.
