The new phone I’d just purchased arrived broken. My daughter needed something urgently for her school function the next day. Technology taunted me mercilessly all day. 

Also, I felt super tired. Overwhelmed. Grumpy. 

In my line of work, Mondays are often really exciting. I love coaching. I love exploring where my business would like to go next. I love working from home. 

So, I was annoyed that this Monday was being such a…Monday. 

I went into action mode, engaging my habitual self-pressure thinking machine in order to override my emotions and get stuff done. This caused an instant heart-racing, choked feeling in my chest. 

Screeeeeeeech! I hit the brakes. 

I have a long-standing history of engaging the self-pressure override mode. It always, one-hundred percent of the time, consistently, definitely, for sure gets me in trouble. My body suffers. My spirit wanes. My heart resists. 

I end up getting less done when I use self-pressure to spring into action. 

I realized I couldn’t fall back into self-pressure mode. 

Instead, I used this simple Slacker Magic formula, which I highly recommend for those times when everything is overwhelming and you don’t know where to start:

1. Stop and tune into your body. Notice any emotions. Allow them to exist. Be with your body, emotions, and spirit for a few moments just like you would a sick child or pet. Sit with them and be present. 
2. Take stock. What is essential and what can go? Get picky. When overwhelm strikes, strip down the to-do list and trust that you’ll find a way to do the things that can wait. You don’t have the energy right now for them anyway. 
3. Find the nearest rest stop. In other words, when is the soonest you can take a ten, twenty, or thirty-minute break to rest, restore your spirit in some way, or do something fun? Put this into your schedule. 
4. Take one small action step toward the necessary goal. Without the self-pressure in the way, you’ll find it so much easier to do. Let inspiration show you where to start. 

In the end, I got everything done that needed to get done, without the Monday overwhelm. Slacker Magic made it doable. I had time left over for some rest before I needed to go pick up my daughter from school. Slacker Magic for the win!

Look left and right. Check the hallway. 

Peek carefully past the doorway and see if the coast is clear. 

Do it!

Escape. Make a dash to the bathroom. Close the door and hide, pretending you needed a restroom break. 

This is your moment. No boss, no kids, no spouse, no houseguests…

Whatever you need to escape from, you’ve done it. Take five to ten minutes to yourself and do anything that gives you a brief but delightful moment of joy. 

Congratulations! Now you know how to Stealth Slack. 

Stealth Slacking lets you release a little pressure when it feels like everything is just too much. When you really need a minute to feel free, Stealth Slacking will be a balm to your soul. You can slack off, regain your sanity, and reconnect with yourself. Stealth Slacking is an important part of the overall Slacker Magic way of being. 

Ten things I’ve found fun during Stealth Slacking episodes:

1. Reading a novel. (I keep one handy in my bathroom just for Stealth Slacking.)
2. Watching a few moments of Netflix. (This is why headphones were invented…for Stealth Slacking.)
3. Breathe. 
4. Sit on the floor and close my eyes for a full five minutes.
5. Shop. 
6. Write down ideas I’ve had throughout the day.
7. Text something funny to a friend. 
8. Vent to a friend. 
9. Look at cute puppy videos.
10. Listen to music. 

Happy Slacking!

by Endorsed Mind-Body Coach, Mara Wai

The picture to the left is of a memo pad that was given to me as a gift from a previous employee. She really captured the essence of me, straight down to the color of my dog Max’s leash! She even included the check list.

When she worked for me, I was deep in the throes of task-mastering.

I became a task-master slowly, gradually and unconsciously. As a little girl, I learned that certain things I did evoked overt displays of approval or affection – sometimes even rewards – from my parents, grandparents, teachers and others in authority. I began to seek the feel-good rush of approval. I got good grades in school and did things the “right” way.  I strived to be perfect.

When my parents divorced when I was 11, I convinced myself that I was perfectly ok. I was proud of how strong I was, not needing any help to deal with the outer chaos in my family life. I smiled and acted like all was peachy keen. In retrospect I can clearly see that on the inside, I was confused and I stuffed down just about all of my emotions. I was totally unaware that I had any emotions! At the time, I didn’t know any better. I soldiered on, did well at school and acted like everything was ok.

As a teenager I continued to strive to appear perfect. I thought being self-sufficient and not ever asking for help was an accomplishment.

This is how I learned to be a task-master. I learned how to do. Do. DO.

Nowadays when I see these memo pages (it’s still on my desk), it reminds me of what I’m recovering from.

• The impulse to do TOO MUCH.
• The whirlwind of stuff that manifests in my mind when I’m task-mastering, including the ruminating and replaying of past scenarios, over and over, and the ruminating and replaying of future scenarios, over and over.
• the constant feeling of worry, the anxiety, the frenzy.
• The tension that lived in my body.
• The sleepless nights.
• The slew of other symptoms that accumulated in my life.

As a task-master, my attention remained at least one step ahead of the present. When I finished a to do item and checked it off the list, there was always another to do, and another, and another. It was addictive, and it became second nature to view my entire life as one giant, never-ending list of stuff to accomplish. I was productive!

Until, I wasn’t. Task-mastering left me feeling unsatisfied and empty, like it – or I – was never good enough. So I was always striving for the next thing right around the corner, just out of reach to make me feel better…but to no end.

Eventually, I crashed. The symptoms caught up with me. And I needed to learn another way.

I began to gain awareness of my task-mastering habit. 

I learned how to cultivate mind-body awareness. By becoming aware of the sensations in my body, the habitual movement of my mind and how it impacts me in life experiences, and the feeling of emotions that I have learned early on to ignore or override, the addictive, anxiety-laden rush of task-mastering goes away, and is replaced by:

• more ease,
• greater connection to feeling, and
• a better sense of what I want.

These days, seeing the memo page above (it’s still on my desk) serves as a reminder of who I want to be, and how I want to live.

• I want to feel ease and openness in my body.
• I want to my thoughts to be clear and to translate my experiences in a way that serves me and others.
• I want to feel enthusiasm and joy in what happens in life.
• I want to feel grounded, and not get so caught up in the busyness of life.

Task-mastering has never helped me to gain any of these wishes. But cultivating mind-body awareness has and still does.

By developing a habit of noticing my mind-body experience, a doorway has opened that invites in another way of being; a way that is more spacious, at ease, and that directly connects me to truth of how I feel. This way of being is a life-changer. It provides me with the choice to take actions (or non-actions) that support what I want in life.

Gaining awareness can be simple. When you notice yourself getting caught up in your task-mastering ways, try this:

• Turn your attention to your body, notice what it feels like. Is there sensation? Where? Bring your attention to it and be curious about what you find.
• Then, turn your attention to your mind: you may notice thoughts arising, or a voice that is still caught up in the activity you were doing or the one that was next to come. Notice that chattery voice, and then bring your attention back to the body.
• When your attention is back in the body and you are regathering awareness of sensation, check to see if there’s any emotion present. What does it feel like? Is it familiar? See if you can simply notice it, without interfering with it, for as along as is possible.

That’s it! It’s that simple. You can do this in a minute, or 3 minutes, or longer. Each time you shift your attention from the DOING of task-mastering, to the noticing of your inner experience that ensues as a result, you are disrupting the habit of task-mastering.

Slowly and gradually, you will become a recovering task-master, too.

Mara Wai, M.Ed. is a body-mind coach who supports her clients to connect to their inner wisdom to cultivate clarity, discern their own path and take decisive action to improve physical health, establish emotional well-being, clarify energetic boundaries, improve relationships, and experience greater overall life satisfaction. Mara also teaches Mindfulness-based Stress Management for the Penn Program for Mindfulness. To learn more about Mara go to www.marawai.com.

I knew something was off.

I didn’t feel good. I could sense my mood plummet; my energetic vibrations go lower and lower. I was impatient with people, not able to focus on my work, my creativity was not cooperating with me and I found myself standing in front of the open refrigerator at odd times, or with an empty bag of coconut chips in my hands.

I stopped and asked myself what the matter was but couldn’t figure it out.  It wasn’t sadness, anger, or fear, although I’m sure if I peeled the layers of the discomfort, I’d find fear somewhere in there. But I was too busy to deal with this. I had work to do!  I had only two days left to hand in the remaining two of seven articles I was supposed to write for review by my writing mastermind group.

So I put up with it. Ironically, the more I let the dark cloud stay around, the more darkness it brought in. But I was too busy, right?

Finally, mercifully, the deadline date arrived and I had nothing. I received the reviews on the five articles I had already sent in and as I was reading the suggestions, it suddenly occurred to me that I had done a lot of work during these eight weeks; I had learned and progressed, and I didn’t have to hand in two more! This wasn’t a pass or fail school! Nothing bad was going to happen if I wasn’t able to do them all. I was not going to be punished, or thought less of, or shamed in public.

No one was pressuring me but myself!

Hmm…No one was pressuring me but myself…

As these thoughts moved around in my head, I decided to let go of my expectations of writing the remaining two. I had 12 hours left and it was not happening. It was a quiet, gentle decision, almost a subconscious one. I just knew I wasn’t going to do it, without debating the pros and cons.  I didn’t pay much attention to it.

Half an hour later I got up from my desk to go for a walk and that’s when I realized an immediate shift had happened in my body already. The dark clouds had disappeared. There was lightness to my mood. I felt energetic, ready to tackle whatever else I wanted to do that day.  The difference was physically palpable. A light bulb went on as I asked myself what had changed?  I had simply lifted my own pressure on myself.

This realization might seem to be a small thing, but for me it was huge. How many times I had felt uneasy, tense, impatient, and even sick and in retrospect, it was all due to me putting unnecessary pressure on myself.

As I sat quietly with this out on my bench in the garden, I asked myself why, why am I in such a deep habit of pressuring myself that I’m not even aware I’m doing it.

Many reasons popped out:

I need to achieve more.

What for?

Because I’ll look better?

To whom?

People? My colleagues? My friends? My children? My husband? My long gone parents?

The ones that mattered on that list already know me. People in general don’t even think about me or what makes me look good.

How about myself? Will I look better to myself if I achieve more?

Yes! I’ll look good to the self with the false beliefs that I’ve accumulated over the years since grade school. To look good and feel good I have to achieve more.

Is that true? Who made that rule? My five year old self?

Actually, that belief makes me feel so bad that it leads to just the opposite result- disconnecting from myself and achieving less, as I had demonstrated the last two days.

Do you need to volunteer at your children’s school five days a week so you look like a good parent? Bake cookies, run the publishing center, the newsletter, become PTA president, do fundraisers.. I thought I did.  Pressure.

Do you need to make sure you cook a healthy meal each evening for your family, bake everything from scratch? That makes a good wife and mother. I thought I did. Pressure!

Do you need to answer every call for help from all your friends around the world?  That makes a good friend, right? Pressure.

Do you need to give up your coffee break and lunch break at work, so that you stay on top of things? That’s what makes a good nurse of course? Nah, an exhausted, overworked, burned out nurse… Pressure!

All of the above unkind habits were actually draining me and making me less of who I am. I thought I had already worked on them and had come a long way, until I caught myself in the act again the other day. There are hidden ways we still pressure ourselves.

Where in YOUR life are you putting unnecessary pressure on yourself? Look closely.

1. The first step is always kindness. Don’t beat yourself up now for the past.
2. Your clue is any unexplained discomfort. Become present for it. Notice with curiosity, ask, “What is going on NOW?”
3. Actually ask yourself the question: Am I putting pressure on myself in any way?
4. If you are, gently dig deeper. Why? What does it mean if I don’t? Who am I trying to impress?
5. Do some thought work on what you discover. Ask what do I really want and does this help me?
6. Use humor and love.
7. Once you have your answers, you’ll feel a shift in your body and energy.
8. Well done! Go play or take a nap.

Let me know what you find out and what you think about this.

Leda Asmar is an endorsed Mind Body coach and a Certified Martha Beck coach. She helps people though transitions in life. She specializes in helping hardworking midlife women get unstuck, make authentic choices, and take charge of their lives by tuning into their inner voice and reconnecting with their true Selves.

website: www.ledaasmar.com
email: leda@ledaasmar.com

Today, I am inspired to talk about doing less and still getting it all done.  Do those two concepts seem competitive instead of complimentary?  Think again!

This is one of my favorite topics, which is why I decided to create the Do Less, Be More telecourse this month (details above).  Let me tell you more about the intention behind this class, and why I so love this topic!

One of the underlying issues beneath both physical pain and weight issues is the practice of over-efforting.  Yes, I just made up that word.  I kind of like it, actually!  It describes my past lifestyle and habits perfectly.  I am certainly not a zen master, but I have learned a great deal about why I put more effort and energy into everything than is strictly necessary – and how to get better results by doing less.

Quickly, though, I want to define doing less.  Most people probably think of doing less as actually having fewer activities, projects, and to-do’s in the schedule.  To some extent, that is part of doing less.  But doing less also means doing less unnecessary mental activity.  Have you ever noticed just how much mental energy you exert on things that are actually quite simple?  What is all that mental energy?  Usually, it’s one of the following:

Planning
Ruminating
Worrying
Reviewing
Thinking

I’ve certainly found I spend enormous amounts of time engaged in those mental activities around quite simple and small issues in my life.  This is making a mountain out of a molehill – but just in my own mind.

Thinking, planning, ruminating, worrying, and reviewing takes a lot of mental energy.  Since we can’t disconnect the mind from the body, this means it takes up a lot of energy, in general, from your physical reserves.  Things that seem simple are exhausting and overwhelming.  Soon, your body lets you know via illness or pain that you’ve seriously depleted your reserves.  You start looking for ways to feel better and up your energy (though this is often quite unconscious), whether via overeating, over-vegging, over-exercising, or other activities.

Without tools to decrease the amount of mental energy you’re exerting, you end up taking this mental habit into the rest of your life.  You start to try harder.  If something goes wrong, your first move is to work harder and do more.  If you’re trying to lose weight, this might mean adding in more exercise, or working out harder.  If you’re struggling with pain, you might try to do more mind-body work, or see more doctors/health practitioners.  Yet, all this extra effort rarely pays off.

Every time I’ve moved into an over-efforting pattern, I’ve ended up more tired, more overwhelmed, and more frustrated.  It usually creates some kind of issue in my physical body as well.  It often makes whatever I’m trying to get done even harder, and I often don’t get the results I want.

We live in a culture of doing.  We underestimate the power of less.  We even think of “being” activities like meditation as things we need to add to our to DO list, and chastise ourselves for not getting it done.

Doing less and being more is not about your to-do list.  It’s about your mind.  It’s about your emotions.  It’s about this moment, right now, and how much energy you’re putting forth.  Does it match the amount of effort truly needed?  Have you experimented to find out?

Doing less is a little more complicated than you realized, isn’t it?  Not to worry – once you start experimenting, you’ll see what I’m talking about.  If you want to know everything I know about making your life work with less energy and effort, join me next week for my Do Less, Be More telecourse.  It’s going to be a blast, and what better time to learn these tools?  Your holidays can be the perfect practice ground.  (Can’t make the class time?  No worries – calls will be recorded and sent to you.  You still get live participation in the online support forum and the worksheets.  This is one to-do that you can schedule at your leisure!)

Come chat with me on my new Facebook page!  (Link below.)

The Healthy Life Coach – Helping You Create Your Healthy Life

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