Wheels Within Wheels

I’ll spare you the full details, but suffice to say it has been a bit of a nightmare getting back online again. The usual rollercoaster of emotions came in to play as it seemed like the problem was solved, then it wasn’t, and all the while deadlines were looming ominously – the past couple of weeks have been uber-stressful, to say the least. Oddly enough, illness, tragedy or even sheer exhaustion have never put the brakes on my writing before, but a crashing laptop has managed to stop me in my tracks. Such is the power of technology …

While we’re on the subject of exhaustion, I have to admit that a recurring pattern of burnout is emerging in my life again. That’s the agony and the ecstasy of psycho-spiritual development – it’s great when you break through one level of a pattern, but not so much fun when it reappears in another guise and you realise you didn’t have quite so much of a handle on it as you might have thought. Bummer!

Yes, it’s rather frustrating, but in reality if you’re wandering around on the planet, you’re guaranteed to still have stuff to be dealing with – beware anyone who claims to have it all sorted. We do what we can and we stay mindful for opportunities to shine light on our blind spots, where the types of self-defeating behaviour that we habitually indulge in lurk. Mine is the classic overdeveloped responsibility/caretaker gene – trying to please everyone, get everything done and meet every demand without taking proper self-care.

I know that pattern exists and I’ve suffered terrible consequences from it – including years of illness with chronic fatigue – and yet on some level, I’m still doing it. No matter how much you know intellectually, until you really begin to live that knowledge in a way that’s deeply integrated into your life, the pattern will continue to re-emerge. As you start working on it, it does crop up less often and you do catch it earlier, but it takes a quantum shift in awareness to shut down a persistent pattern of self-destructive behaviour. While I’m a little frustrated with myself right now, I have now taken the lesson on board at a deeper level than before, which means it will affect not only the way I think, but the way I run my life from now on. The purpose of these kinds of occurrences in our lives is to bring up something that needs to be healed. It might drive us a little crazy along the way, but ultimately it’s the road to a more fulfilling life.

As the philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin notes, “The actual task is to integrate the two threads of one’s life … the within and the without.” If your outer life is incongruent with the values of your inner world, something’s got to give. In my case, it shows up in the things around me – my graphics card on the laptop burned out, which is quite neat symbology, when you think about it – and then it starts to impact my health. Auto-immune issues are symbolically quite fascinating too, when you realise that the inability of the body to maintain its defences reflects the psychological inability to maintain good boundaries.
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It all comes down to self-worth at the end of the day. When you value the demands of others more than you value your own priorities, you’re going to suffer. If you do not provide yourself with the support and self-care that you need, don’t be surprised that there’s a price to pay. If you constantly place yourself in circumstances that undermine your self-worth or are not conducive to your well-being, that will take its toll. The company you keep is a very important aspect. Interestingly enough, I was listening to the financial coach, Suze Orman, the other day, who said something that hit me right between the eyes – “you cannot get involved with others who don’t value you and expect to thrive in your life”.

Even when we know what the problem is, it still takes more self-enquiry to uncover the reasons why we do the self-sabotaging things we do. We need to look at the reasons why we think other people’s priorities or demands are more important than our own, uncover those emotions, realise just how false our assumptions are and start taking action. When you make a commitment to stepping away from sacrifice and move in to creating firmer boundaries, you’ll get an instant response. Those who were around you because you were an easy touch will fall away, those who think they have a right to your time will put up a bit of a fight but will eventually capitulate and your very good friends will be applauding your new-found confidence.

We’re moving in to that time of year when we’re all a bit frazzled and there are plenty of demands from work, family and friends to be juggled. In fact, in a recent Harris Interactive survey, only 15% of people said they were energised by their jobs and a staggering 45% said they were burned out. This December, if you want to avoid burnout, start the month by working out your own plan of self-care. What demands are others placing on you that are unreasonable? How can you rearrange your schedule to drop the things that aren’t urgent or that you genuinely don’t want to do? What are the things that keep you feeling energetic and positive and when can you schedule them in to your day to make sure that you take care of yourself? Who do you need to say no to?

When you have a few minutes, take a look at a problem that keeps popping up in your life. What’s the underlying pattern? Is it the same situation in a different guise? What kinds of symbolic things are showing up – car battery going flat, health issues, keep losing things? What might those occurrences be reflecting back to you? Know that a pattern recurs until you heal the underlying belief that’s sabotaging your life. What is this problem trying to tell you? Get out of victim mode (the one who suffers) and into power mode (the one who has the vision to heal it) and get ready to let that sucker go.

Let’s say adios to our self-sacrificing habits this week and create some much more beautiful patterns that reflect the truth of who we really are.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 3 Dec 07)

Putting Out The Fire With Gasoline

It’s taken me a while to work it out, but I’ve finally realised I have been having close encounters with a crazymaker on a daily basis. You’ll recognise what I mean when I tell you that a crazymaker is someone who feeds on negative energy and pulls everyone around them into some kind of drama. For most of us, negative attention is difficult, shaming or at the very least a little unpleasant, but for a crazymaker any kind of attention – even the most negative – is validation. They’re natural emotional firestarters, creating havoc wherever they go.

Bizarrely, a crazymaker will take any straightforward and seemingly easy situation, get everyone worked up about a problem, and then walk back in and act as if it’s all someone else’s fault and they’re the hero. They create turmoil then project all the blame. They feel powerful when they upset the apple cart and get to feed on other people’s negative energy. Like a small child who just wants someone to pay attention, they’re ultimately not fussed if it’s good attention or bad, just so long as it’s focused on them. As Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, who coined the term ‘crazymaker’ says, “Chaos serves their purposes”.

You might be thinking that their firestarting is all their fault, yet crazymakers do not function in a vacuum – they usually have at least one or more ‘enablers’ around them who are willing to put up with their behaviour. As Julia Cameron describes it, a crazymaker “is surrounded by his tiptoeing enablers all pretending that his outsized ego and its concomitant demands are normal”.
Escaping the powerfully destructive force-field of a crazymaker is not an easy task. They tend to wear down the self-esteem of those around them by creating dramas then blaming the problems on those who try to solve them. A crazymaker will never take responsibility for their own mess and is always looking for someone else to blame. If you want out of this one, the only answer is to get out of the relationship – period. Whether it’s a working relationship or a romantic one, this is an emotional pathology best avoided if you want to retain even the smallest remnant of self-worth.

If you find yourself unable to remove yourself from the circumstance immediately, then at least stop being an enabler. Crazymakers get away with their behaviour because they don’t act logically, so stop trying to figure them out and just start telling the truth about what they do, even if it’s just to yourself. Know that you can’t solve the problems they create, because even if you do, they’ll just go and make another one. Unless you’re the patron saint of lost causes, don’t try and rescue them. Leave them to their own little world of power and control and get on with your own life.

The ultimate solution is simply to walk away. If you can’t do that, then limit your contact. If you’re in a working situation, try to make sure that none of your work is dependent on the crazymaker completing a task. Get smart and see it coming – you know they’re just going to create a mess, so aim for damage limitation.

Real hard-core crazymakers are, thankfully, quite rare, but we are all affected by other people’s unwillingness to take responsibility for their own behaviour. Take a look around you and just tell yourself the truth – is there someone in your life creating chaos because they simply won’t take responsibility for what they’re doing? Or are you not willing to see how something you’re doing is having a negative effect on others?

This week, take responsibility for all your choices and how they impact others. While you’re at it, help those around you to see how their ways of behaving affect you. You can’t change a circumstance unless you’re willing to tell the truth about it. Freedom comes from having the courage to liberate yourself.

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 28 May 07)