Recently, a fly on the wall witnessed me cut and tape blank documents together. My digital versions were lost in a computer crash and my scanner was dead, so I cobbled together new forms. Armed with liquid paper, I felt like I was in an ADD 1980’s flashback, as I managed these linear aspects of my private practice.
I was not left to my own devices long, as I began an online two-week Business School Bootcamp for Therapists.
During this training, my bed was covered with books, handouts, and Excel sheets. Imagine me amongst this Tempur-Pedic chaos. Seemingly, I would be unable to focus. However, with any deadline, I can hyper-focus.
The drawback of this laser attention, is that in the left brained linear world, I ‘worry an issue’ to death.
Picture me at a freestanding chalkboard, obsessively working on an issue. I can’t find the answers just beyond the board, blazing in neon orange, because I am too close to the problem.
Several things became apparent during the Business School Bootcamp.
- I had little mind/body health balance.
- While in study mode, my shoulders crept upwards, tensed like a deer in the proverbial headlights.
- Worrying, I clamp off my right-brain creative energy, or intuitive gifts; effectively shutting off my creative life force.
- While I strained to be a more linear thinker, I could not think of ‘out of the box’ solutions. In other words, if I don’t take a break and tend to my mind and body health, I shut off my whole picture, systems, or non-linear thinking.
- My business slowed considerably during this energetic clampdown.
Hallowell, author of Driven to Distraction and Worry, shared an apt definition of ‘worry’ from the old Oxford dictionary. That definition is, “To seize by the throat, strangle, throttle, or kill by violence.” Accordingly, when I worry, or focus obsessively (without mind/body balance), I strangle my intuitive creative thinking. That’s something to think about!
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How does your ‘big picture’ or intuitive brain help you?
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How do you give yourself down time to reboot your brain?