What are you unconsciously clinging to?
On freeing up your energy and mental space.
Earlier this year, I gave in and bought a new laptop. I’m not an early adopter. Not that I’m a luddite, it’s just that I tend to hold on to my (Apple) tech for as long as possible. My thinking is if it works, why get something new?
Yet back in April, I’d gotten to the place where I realized that my almost 6-year old laptop really (really) wasn’t working. The analogy I like to use is that it’s like a frog in boiling water — the pot on the burner initially has cold water until it begins to heat up and the frog doesn’t realize it. The change happens over such a long period of time that you don’t notice it.
And with it, the slow, unrecognizable adaptation to the device slowing down. All the little habits I adopted to make the thing work that I didn’t even realize I was making. Until one day, when on a call with a client, it became clear that it wasn’t the Wifi that was the problem, it was the laptop. I call it the point of “enough-ness” — like, really, enough already. And I took action.
The new device arrived, I set it up, and I saw now just how bad things had gotten. This shiny laptop booted up in less than thirty seconds. Pages loaded in an instant. There can be 20+ Chrome tabs open and it’s not an issue. And I silently shed tears of joy (and relief).
And yet… I recently noticed that I’m still making small mental adjustments, the tiniest decisions based on how the old laptop was operating before I traded it in.
For example, taking a moment to decide to open (or not) my Notes app while have two instances of Chrome running and Zoom in the background. Closing out of applications because I’m afraid to keep them open. Not wanting to wait for Excel to load to open a file. Absolutely none of which are a problem with my shiny new device.
Which got me thinking… where else do we so this in our lives? Where are we compensating for handicaps, challenges, or mental blocks that have been resolved, addressed, or healed, and yet we’re unconsciously operating as if they still exist? Where are we holding are breath when we can now fully exhale?
How this can show up.
I think about this in terms of where we hold ourselves back even though we’ve done the physical, mental, or emotional work that allows us to freely move forward. The places we’re unconsciously handicapping ourselves when it’s no longer necessary.
It’s the same situation for any physical, mental, or emotional pattern you’ve addressed or healed. There can be a ghost of it that remains without us being aware of it.
Here are some ideas to get you thinking.
Do you…
still go easy on your right foot long after your broken baby toe has healed?
hesitate to pick up the laundry basket for fear of hurting your back (again) even though you’ve done rehab and the work to get your core in shape so that you now move in an entirely new way?
Or do you…
still question yourself before agreeing to be a podcast guest because your first outings were not a polished as you’d hoped and you learned how to better present yourself and your work from those first experiences?
hesitate to record yourself on video even though you’ve made a boatload of progress when it comes to not caring what people think?
remain uncomfortable in the sales process even though you’ve learned to successfully close business at your current rates?
There are more.
What causes us to do this?
The answer is simple (and not easy)… well-worn grooves in our minds. Actions and thoughts on repeat. Adaptations we’ve made to help us get over or through whatever physical, mental, or emotional challenges we’ve faced. Yes, this even includes the tiny adjustments made to continue using a slowly malfunctioning laptop.
It takes time to undo our patterns. To adjust to new circumstances and ways of being, even when they are what we wanted and are good for us.
Why it matters.
Let’s take my laptop experience. What became clear to me is that part of my brain was stuck in the past, in the way things used to be. I had been adapting and adjusting my actions for so long (my guess is at least a year, if not more) that my mind automatically produced thoughts like the one I shared above. That I needed to consider what was open when and doing this pretty much constantly. Until one day I caught myself and thought “wow, this is pretty f**cked.”
There is mental energy involved in these involuntary thoughts. They take up valuable brain space. They’re what I call “mental load.” Other things contribute to mental load — for example, a decision you need to make (big or small) but keep putting off. Or a work or personal project that you want to do but other activities constantly take priority. In all of these situations, there’s the very real cost of carrying these thoughts around but doing nothing with them. They exist, taking up space and keeping other, more interesting and productive ideas from being born. There’s just no room.
It matters because these adaptions keep us from taking action in a real, uninhibited, full-throttle way. There’s second-guessing, the tiny bit that’s held back, the part you don’t reveal. And whether, we realize it or not, it holds us back from getting the results we truly want.
Awareness.
It really does start with awareness. Until we realize we’re handicapping ourselves, we can’t do anything about it. With this new understanding, we can start to choose differently, to take action in an unencumbered way, to lose the mental load and free ourselves up to bring new energy and ideas to our world.
Until next time,
Katherine
p.s. I wrote about continuous learning earlier this summer… how our brains and emotions work being one of my top three topics at the moment.
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Love this example of how we keep ourselves stuck. The piece about our unconscious thoughts and the weight of them, stuck with me.