by KateTwo weeks ago, a month ago, year ago, if I’d woken full of restive thoughts at 4:30 a.m., I likely would’ve headed for my computer to check my email, spin off on the 50 things I wanted to get done during the day, and begun ticking off inconsequential tasks. An hour would pass, and I’d find my shoulders hunched around my neck and my face scrunched up around my eyebrows, because it was too much trouble to find my glasses on the way to the computer.
That would just be the beginning of my self-employed day. . . How heavy it can get when you, alone, carry the burden of your business on two shoulders, yours? How big are your shoulders?
At a measly 5′5″, 125 lbs., I’ve scrambled, clawed, and grunted my way through three service-oriented businesses, not to mention life in general.
If you’re the type of person, the type of business owner, who regularly carries four bags in two hands, a box under one arm, clamps loose papers between the fingers of one hand and car keys in the fingers of your other, and still manages to get the front door unlocked without dropping anything–we need to talk.
You Mean I Have to Take Care of Myself On Top of Everything Else?
You know, they call me the infrastructure queen here at Heart of Business, and I have to laugh. In all my earnestness in setting up structures to help our business sustain itself and grow, I’ve been forced to face the lack of support I’ve built within my self. It’s been what you might call a Divine arm twist behind back. The kind that makes you gasp, “Uncle.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve exercised, eaten obsessively well, avoided alcohol, caffeine, refined sugar, wheat . . . for years. I’ve meditated off and on since I was 18 years old, read oodles of spiritual and self-help books, chanted, yoga’d, and communed with nature intimately.
Yet ironically, it was as a self-employed massage therapist many years ago–meditating between each client and being surrounded by peaceful music, candles, incense, and transformation daily–that my internal infrastructure, what of it I’d managed to prop up alone, took its greatest tumble.
Exhausted from holding all the bags, at 29 years old, I began having nightmares, feeling anxious and depressed, experiencing palpitations that led to terrifying bouts of tachycardia. And it got worse before it got better.
I know many ways to take care of myself; I’ve actively practiced many of them. But in my experience, they don’t hold you up if they’re not anchored in a sturdy, yet dynamic, structure, something far greater than my self.
Something’s Got to Give
In your business, you can be plugging info into Quickbooks, creating elaborate folder systems set up for your emails and files, generating new information on your website and blog, attracting clients, and getting by financially . . .
But if you don’t have a clear strategy and system that ties each of these efforts together, a structure greater than the sum of parts, you’ll be the one continuing to hold the weight of those efforts.
You will continue to be the infrastructure holding your business together. You’ll be the one continuing to hold the bags, the one mustering the energy and strength to keep them off the ground. And we both know, the longer you hold those bags, the heavier they get.
If you are holding your personal bags as well . . . well . . . the bough breaks.
Getting to the Source of Well-Being
But if you don’t know deep in your soul, in that place that knows you’re only responsible for opening and receiving the Divine energy of life and sharing it, you’ll continue to feel like you’re holding all the weight of maintaining of your well-being.
No matter how many tools you’ve piled up in your “please take care of yourself box,” you’ll still be using them as if you’re responsible for making them work and having them work for you. Wow, that’s straddling the line, huh?
If you don’t know on what or where to set your personal bags, it’s unlikely you’ll find an easy spot to rest your business bags.
As you might benefit from asking why you’re changing internet servers for the third time this year, or why you’re still ignoring your financial books for another month, or why you’ve to stayed up all night to meet a project deadline again, you will benefit from asking why about your personal well-being.
The Ultimate Infrastructure
How often it turns out that what you believe you want is not what you are actually longing for. So what shows up can often be deceiving in its importance.
All my adult life I’ve longed for someone to show up who I could share work with that is meaningful, purposeful, and creative. Working with a master Sufi teacher and successful entrepreneur who teaches heart-centered business and marketing methods, was not what I had been envisioning, but there we were. Mark doin’ his thing and needing some help, struggling in my freelance business needing supplemental cash.
Nope, he wasn’t that someone I had always been looking for exactly. And he’s exactly the turning point catalyst for finding the working relationship I’ve really been after. Inconspicuously, as I’ve toiled at reinforcing Heart of Business’ infrastructure, a business founded on spiritual practice and guidance, I’ve been being led internally to tend to my own lacking infrastructure.
How about you? Consider striving to incorporate self-caring and nurturing into your daily life. Owner your own business is demanding enough when you are replenishing yourself regularly. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.
- Eat whole, natural foods.
- Drink purified water all day–keep a full quart jar on your desk.
- Sleep eight hours a night.
- Get out and exercise, breath fresh air deeply and often.
- Play.
- Share your feelings, thoughts, and experiences with those you trust and love.
- Revel in beauty and practice gratitude.
- Avoid things, people, and places that threaten or harm your well-being.
- Dare to explore your inner world, especially the wounded nooks and crannies that can mislead you.
- Sit peacefully and remember your Source, fill up often and give it away.
But . . . Don’t forget to rest it all in the ultimate infrastructure–Divine Source. Your shoulders will thank you, as will your longings.
Only then walk into your office and do the same there. I’ll be right behind you, beginning again each time I falter. Remember infrastructures are dynamic. They expand, contract, transform with growth. In their purity they are messy at times. And if embraced, they certainly hold you in life and business.
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13 Comments... Care To Join Us?
[...] Don’t Forget to Tend to Your Personal Infrastructure [...]
Good post, Kate. I’d add two things to your list:
1, grow something, either literally or figuratively.
2, if you live with someone who is difficult, for whatever reason, walk away frequently without getting sucked into conflict.
Jean Gogolin´s last blog post..From Now On, We’re All About Stories
@Jean,
Thank you for adding to my list! Yes, growing something is all about what we can offer when we’re tending to ourself well–when we’re receiving from our Divine Source, we can turn right around and use it to grow things.
Oh, and the walking way suggestion. Been there, done that, and it’s critical. I actually was including this kind of situation within the bullet point: Avoid things, people, and places that threaten or harm your well-being.
I appreciate your specific example, because it can be easiest not to take care of ourselves well within our most intimate spheres. It can be easy in those relationships to forget what we know to be true, forget to listen to that voice that comes from our heart, for fear of . . .
The ultimate infrastructure would be to clear away all the emotional and energy blocks and then this will allow a condition where you will receive inspiration, just follow it with joy and amazing things will happen
With Love for I Love You
Ian Stone – Metaphysician & Founder of HEART Energy Healing System,
Human Energy Assessment Release Treatments
Metaphysical Institute
Metaphysical Institute Blog
Facebook Add as a friend
Great article, great reminder of what’s really important at a time when I needed it!
I’m finding that no matter what’s on the list of “self care tasks,” simply remembering that:
-I’m deeply loved and
-I’m not in charge
makes the biggest difference in how high up my shoulders are!
@Jill,
Oh thank you for that. That really is it isn’t it–to know we’re loved and not in charge. When that lies beneath all those other self-care things, they can then add to our well-being in the way they are meant to.
Hard to really receive any of our self-care efforts when we don’t feel loved and when we do feel that we’re in charge. Ha!
Hi Kate,
When you are removing blocks or healing yourself you only need to know that all is not well and then follow a few simple steps. This works because your Spiritual Side knows every incident that caused these blocks we just need to ask it to change the meaning it has for these incidents. Simple ways to Heal Your Human Life Energy Fields
With Love for I Love You
Ian Stone – Metaphysician & Founder of HEART Energy Healing System,
Human Energy Assessment Release Treatments
Metaphysical Institute
Metaphysical Institute Blog
Facebook Add as a friend
I’m continually amazed by your ability to put words on your experiences, Kate, in a way that speaks to me deep in my soul.
I have reached that identical conclusion about my own personal infrastructure and learned from a colleague the importance of recognizing what my “daily basics” are.
The “daily basics” are those things that if I don’t do at some point in my day – my day will feel tilted (meaning slightly or sometimes not so slightly off kilter).
For me those things include:
-water
-at least 5 hours of sleep (needing less as I age)
-some protein every 3-4 hours
-time with my animals
-a shower
-50 minutes of meditation
-5 minutes with my gratitude journal
If I miss any one of those things, I have less to give others and, consequently the bags of my business feel like enormous weights.
Then, there are the recommended extras in addition to the daily basics. When I get some/all of these things in, I find I’m really cooking with gas:
-yoga practice at home (at least 20 minutes)
-journalling time (at least a half hour or however long it takes to play a CD)
-3 to 5 miles of fast walking
-coffee with a close friend
It has helped me a lot to have this framework because I can usually pinpoint why when things feel especially stressful.
The time parameters are also helpful to me as they lend more specific containers to my infrastructure.
My kids are now in their 20’s and out of the house for the most part. When they were younger and I was a single parent, for me to do anything pretty much required me to pay a sitter as I had no family available.
I got the idea that to take care of myself I’d have to pay someone.
It was only after the youngest reached 16 that I realized how depleted I was and started attending to it. Now, thank God, I’ve got the space and lifestyle to attend to myself in a nurturing way more easily.
I can complete a thought, finish a sentence, do one thing at a time, etc – and things like that were much much harder when they were young.
After years of living like that, seriously – every time I back out of my garage I feel blessed that I don’t have to pay a sitter in order to do it!!! And they’re 20 and 24 years old now.
I’ve told the kids this and we have a good laugh together.
The biggest blessing I have ever been fortunate enough to receive is having the kids and watching them grow into the fine young men that they are. It’s the gift that keeps on giving in incredible ways.
And, feeling so blessed as well as taking care of my daily basics – well, let’s just say that I have a very fertile infrastructure in place to grow my business and be of service.
Thank you again Kate – it’s a joy to read your writing.
@Char
Thank you so much for sharing your journey to personal infrastructure sanity. I love the part about backing out of your driveway with a new sense of freedom!
It is so powerful to keep that gratitude alive, to remember the ways that are lives are blessed.
Yeah to your “fertile infrastructure.” Every moment that I can honor mine, I am grateful, and I intend to make it more sturdy as I move forward.
I love your responses, your part in these conversations.
Thank you for your presence,
Kate
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@Ian,
Yes, I would say that clearing away emotional and energy blocks is the fullest way to experience our “ultimate infrastructure.” We have to know it’s there and to be able to interpret, hear, experience it for it to have its greatest effect. Would you agree?
Kate i will never ever agree with you
Hi Shelves,
That’s okay with me. And I’d love to know your thoughts. What in particular do you not agree with?
Kate
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