Being and doing

And breathe!

I know I’ve pushed for too long when my skin flares up, my brain starts to fragment and my breathing is consistently shallow.

It feels as if I’m held together by tension, and if I relax, I may just disintegrate.

So it is definitely time to breathe. And relax my jaw. And experience the moment. And drop by shoulders.

Look at me! Even my relaxation turns into a list of and, and, and. Pressure upon pressure upon pressure. Rush, rush, rush.

Recently I have been spending a lot of time ‘in role’ and not much time ‘being me’. Being ‘in role’ is about performing, delivering, doing. ‘Being me’ is about finding that still point where I just am, and the response you get from me is the same whoever you are and whatever the context.

I have an ambivalent relationship with roles and being. I think roles make me more efficient. They help me focus, achieve and deliver. I like being ‘in role’ because I like achieving. Being in role also lets me do things that I struggle to face doing when I am ‘being me’. It’s the same for my daughter. When she has to do something that feels impossible for her, she hunts for a persona she is comfortable to put on that sees tasks like that as pleasurably simple.  I achieve ‘in role’ by using props like how I dress, sensory inputs (a smell, a taste, a texture) and how I hold my body.  She achieves ‘in role’ by imagining herself that person.

Being ‘in role’ has its dangers. Stay in roles too long and I forget who I am. It takes me an age to slow and deepen my breathing and find that spot where I just am. Until I have found that spot, I don’t process emotions.

Weeks like the last few weeks have required me to play several different roles, often within the same day. I’ve had very little time to switch between roles.  This exacerbates the dangers of being ‘in role’. When I am in a role, I don’t make connections between that role and what happens when I am in different roles. So it’s hardly surprising that I start to feel disconnected from myself and overwhelmed. When I do stop there are so many competing demands on my time, emotions and brain. There is just so much stuff to integrate and connect within me.

As I said, I play roles because that is how I am efficient, and how I manage to do things that I don’t feel capable of doing as me. But, perhaps, I am prioritising efficiency at the expense of being effective. I am less likely to contribute anything uniquely me when I am ‘in role’. I am more likely to adopt the processes and thinking that goes with that role, so come up with an efficient solution or output. My most effective work comes from me seeing situations differently, and therefore responding differently. And that only happens when I drop the role-playing and I am ‘being me’.

In some situations, I now ask whether we are going to interact in our roles, or as our whole selves. That’s my equivalent of asking people whether they want to leave their job title at the door. In my mind, this is also equivalent to asking people whether they want to collaborate (efficient work done ‘in role’) or coproduce (effective work that flows from ‘being who we are’).

Of course, for me, there’s the whole added dimension of living with a committee in my head. Being ‘in role’ is different from handing control to different internal people. But when I/we spend too much time in role, we lose our close internal cooperation and start to fragment. But that’s for another blog.

For now - just breathe.