Pushing through

Like many prey animals, this vicuña will conserve its energy by waiting to see if you get any closer before it flees. Eating is so much work that it doesn’t want to have to expend unnecessary calories. (Image by Francesco Bovolin)

I believe that the pandemic has made me a more resilient person.

I’m able to handle certain stressors, like long-haul travel and government paperwork, with a new equanimity. Even my household chores are more doable than they used to be.

But this resilience depends upon rest. If I’m going to push past the bounds of what is comfortable, I also need to have time in which I’m able to retreat and relax, gearing up for the next challenge.

It can become a habit to ignore the necessity of rest and push through. Sometimes, though, there’s a moment when I am sitting at my desk late in the afternoon and begin to feel a buzzy fatigue asserting itself. Instead of hanging out in my head, nudging myself to keep going, I experience my entire body and listen to what it’s telling me—indeed, what it’s probably been telling me for hours or even days. “Hello! The reason you’re having trouble concentrating is because you’re exhausted.”

As you can see, this body awareness is not a strength of mine, but it, too, has been strengthened by the experiences of the pandemic. Spending that much time at home without the distractions of work and a social life made things pretty simple: When you’re hungry, eat; when you’re restless, go out for a walk; and when you’re tired, rest.

The interesting part, to me, has been the moments in which I have had to ignore these natural impulses and push through in order to meet a deadline or follow through on a commitment. Indeed, like a muscle that needs to be exercised, I believe that’s how my resilience has been strengthened in the first place. And just as with weight training, the key is to push just enough to build the muscle without risking injury.

In my teaching, I love to help a student layer ease upon ease. A given step is small enough to accomplish successfully, and so is the next one and the next one.

This is important for beginners because they have little resilience. If they experience excessive frustration in their initial stages of learning a skill, they are unlikely to want to continue. Therefore, we build a gentle slope upward in the early stages, building success upon success.

However, as the student progresses, their journey need not be so tightly managed. They can handle bigger challenges and discomforts without getting demoralized and giving up. I become a companion and guide instead of a gatekeeper. They don’t need me to help them stretch—they begin to have their own goals and ambitions.

It is good that we expand our capacity as we grow and learn, for life can’t always be ease upon ease. During the hardest parts of the pandemic, there were many times when I had to go beyond what was comfortable—especially those times in which doing much more than feeding and dressing myself was uncomfortable. All the while, I chose to keep writing this blog, leading my teams, and trying to find solutions to the difficult problems that were arising due to the coronavirus.

I’m proud that I did these things, and it helps me understand why I wasn’t able to do too much beyond that. It helps me understand why there have been times when enough sleep and food still wasn’t enough. Every time I pushed or stretched, I had to follow it up with a period of not pushing or stretching. It’s a reasonable trade-off.

There are plenty of days when I don’t feel like writing, eating healthy food, doing the dishes, or keeping up with my work. There are plenty of days when I choose not to do these things (particularly Saturdays and Sundays!). But there are other days when I push through the reluctance, resistance, or fatigue to do what’s necessary. Like so many aspects of life, it’s a balance, and I am learning how to do it.

What about you? What are the feelings that tell you that you’re pushing too far and need to take a break? Do you ever find that you need to ignore these feelings and push through anyway? What are the consequences, good and bad? How do you build periods of ease into your life? I’d love to hear.