Tag: heavy

Therapy and Acknowledging Things are Heavy (8-28-24)

Carrying A Heavy Weight Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images ...Last week was about therapy and being brave enough to ask for help.  Thanks for everyone who reached out with kind words, and I’m proud of everyone who is committed and/or recommitting to therapy and taking care of themselves.  This week is about therapy and acknowledging things are heavy.

After the initial part of our conversation, my therapist asked me to talk more about what was going on.  I started listing everything off.  “I have these 3 things going on with each kid, and there’s no playbook for this.  Everything is on fire at work, AND there are 4 to 5 challenges I’m trying to sift through and navigate.  There are these 3 other things happening in life.  My shoulder is in constant pain.  I haven’t been working out.  I can’t even tell you the last time I slept well.  I feel like crap.  I’m focusing on holding it together, so I can keep stuff moving.” 

After listening to me rattle off all those things, my therapist looks me in the eyes and says, “That’s a lot.”  I immediately discount her comment and in complete seriousness reply, “It’s nothing special.  All that is just another Tuesday.”  She hears me say this.  She hears me discount her original statement.  She looks me in the eyes again and says something like, “It’s a lot.  Even if it’s not one huge event it is still a lot of things to carry, and it’s a lot of weight.  It’s a lot to carry for any human.”

What does this have to do with anything?  This was the beginning of one of my first epiphanies from therapy.  I had been so consumed by just trying to make it day to day that I had lost all perspective.  I had failed to realize that all of these things were adding up.  Has this ever happened to you? 

The moment my therapist acknowledged that I was carrying heavy weight it opened my eyes and shifted how I felt about myself.  I wasn’t weak.  I was carrying a lot of heavy things.  It also reinforced that I’m human, we are all humans, and being overwhelmed at times is just part of the broader human experience.  Have you ever felt overwhelmed like this?

The challenge: Will you appropriately appreciate and recognize the weight you are carrying?  Will you embrace that it’s okay if heavy things feel heavy?  Will you remember that you aren’t weak, sometimes things are heavy?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

It’s only heavy if you lift it (7-20-22)

This week we are going to kick off a series about words and phrases that have struck a chord with me.  We’ll start with a story I recently heard from a Tim Ferriss podcast with Jack Kornfield.  The story is about heaviness and lifting things.

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma before coming back to the US to co-found the Insight Meditation Society.  During the podcast, Jack shared a story from his monk days about being on a walk with his fellow monks by a field.  As they were on their walk, one of the elder monks saw a large rock in the middle of the field and noticed the farmers all working around it.  The elder monk asked his fellow monks, “Do you think that rock is heavy?”  They responded, “Yes.  It’s huge.  It’s extremely heavy.”  The elder monk replied, “Only if you lift it.”  The monk was making the point that just because the rock was there, did NOT mean you had to engage with it.  Just because the rock was there, did NOT mean you had to move it.  It’s only heavy if you CHOOSE to take on that burden.  The farmers were working around the rock, instead of trying to lift and move it.

What does this have to do with work?  Like farming, there are thing we will need to do in order to prosper in our jobs.  However, just because we have things we must do, we do NOT have to pick up all the extra weight just because it’s lying around work.  The rock is only heavy IF you try to lift it.  I do NOT have to pick up the additional emotional baggage.  I do NOT have to pick up weight of additional stress.  I do NOT need to carry the weight of unrealistic expectations.  I can choose to leave all this extra weight where it is.  In full transparency, I’m not good at this.  This is not easy for me.  As I look at where I am now, I’m carrying weight for work, and I know I’m allowing myself to carry a bunch of additional weight that I don’t need to hold.  It’s exhausting.  I’ll have to find a way to let go of all of that.

The challenge: Will you be intentional about the weight you carry? 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry