Leaning Out - The Life Changing Magic of Working Less

Image courtesy of Pexels on Pixabay

We are immersed in a cultural belief that working hard is ethical, moral and good. A corollary is that having a lot of stuff, especially the newest, shiniest stuff, is also good. This is the mantra of capitalism. Work hard. Buy stuff. Then you will be happy.

I have never found this to be true. The shiniest stuff always loses its sheen. We call this “hedonic adaptation.” More is never enough. We keep chasing after happiness and security that only exist in some future that we never fully arrive at. 

This is good for corporations - people who sell stuff and their investors. We work hard - for THEM. They employ us to make and sell stuff, creating the illusion that we are lucky to be working at all. We produce and perform so that when our performance is reviewed every year or so, we may be blessed with a raise that, maybe, if we’re lucky, keeps up with inflation. 

We are exhausted from the hours of work and the anxiety of wondering if we are working hard enough or long enough. We compare ourselves to the coworker who arrives before 7am and stays till 7pm. Then we go home and seek solace on Amazon. We comfort ourselves with a new toy, a gadget for the kitchen, a bigger, better or faster version of something we already have that’s just fine. 

I used to do this with books. I kept shelves and shelves of books. I had been an English major. My books were part of my identity. I was a reader. I was intelligent. I read high-brow literature. I was special and interesting and good enough. Then I had to move seven times in two years. That cured me of my book habit. Turns out I was still special, interesting, and good enough.

In my forties, I had bought-in to the work long and hard ethic. I had worked my way through grad school and worked three different internships to get my MFT license as quickly as possible. I then learned all I could about marketing and began filling my practice. After a few years, I began teaching other therapists to market themselves. I taught classes at my local rec and parks. I began working with a programmer to create an online directory. I hired an intern to work for me. I was “on” all the time, attending networking events, planning my next meeting, session or class.

Then I broke, thank goodness.

I had been ignoring repetitive stress injuries for years. Now I could not ignore them. The pain was immobilizing. I had been stuffing down frustration and irritation when others didn’t meet my perfectionistic standards. Instead of easing my expectations or teaching others how I wanted things done and why, I just did everything myself. 

I let go of the intern. I let go of the directory. I stopped teaching. I stopped networking. I reduced my client hours. I did not lean in. I leaned out. And something amazing happened. I felt better. I aimed for 12 sessions a week, working Monday-Wednesday. I worked about 70% less, but my income only dropped about 10%, then quickly recovered as my skills and presence improved and I could charge more. I had been doing all that extra work for no reward. 

I focused on healing my body. I learned how to putter and meander. I felt my anxiety and drive to get things done gradually ebb as I settled into a slower lane. I could hear myself think again. I could feel my feelings. I could give myself rest and care that filled me up so well that I became a much better therapist, a better friend, and a better spouse. Ahhhh.

In the spring of 2020, I forgot those lessons for a while. As COVID shut down the economy, I lost some clients and reduced fees for others. I began working more again. And by June, I realized I was back in high-stress mode, cranky, frustrated, and suddenly craving junk food - my drug of choice and the thing I had used in the past to band-aid over distress instead of responding tenderly to it.

I planned a vacation, driving 6 hours to see my beloved sister and have some play time. Though it was wonderful, it was not enough. On the long drive home, I realized I had slipped into my old way of managing anxiety - working harder. It didn’t work then, and it wasn’t working now.

I decided to try something that my own therapist had done - shifting to an every-other-week work schedule. This week is my first week seeing clients from Monday to Thursday. Friday will begin a ten day stretch of time where I unplug from everything. I have auto-replies ready to go so clients know when I will be back to work. For ten days, twice each month, my time will be my own. I will be able to follow my inner compass, to nap when I am tired, eat when I am hungry, read or write when I feel inclined, take walks once the weather cools down.

I know I am privileged to be working for myself in a field where I can do this. I also know that we must, each of us, be the change we want to see in the world - to whatever degree that is possible. I used to think that living this way - slowly, inwardly - was just not an option. I had bought in to the notion that in order to survive I would have to go along with the cultural setup, work my 40+ hours, and find a way to be happy with a weekend off (in which there was laundry and shopping and cleaning to do). But each time I have taken the risk of rejecting these cultural norms, wonderful things happen. 

So I am leaping again, not just for my own wellbeing, but to walk my talk and model self care that is expansive and exquisite. I am choosing to have less stuff so I can have more time - time being something that we can never make more of. 

I am thrilled at the prospect of allowing my mind and body extended periods of rest and unstructured time to recharge my energy and creativity. Last week I just had a few clients - people I had not yet moved to the new schedule. Even so, the spaciousness of the week was magnificent. I read a lot. I napped. I puttered. I let go of rigidity about home-maintenance. 

There are projects to do and organizing that would make life easier. But with long stretches of time, I feel no pressure to get things done before my next commitment. Out of this ease comes a natural arising of desire to do or not do. Last week I was delighted to have spontaneous urges to write about my work, trusting that whatever came up would eventually be part of a book or a class - but not needing to know that or control it in advance. 

I trust that in the coming weeks, I will feel that same spontaneous pull to organize and clean, to work on the projects that need tending. I trust that rest itself and unstructured time are the fertile soil of these other pursuits. I have heard my beloved therapist describe how this is for her, and she has never steered me wrong. I have felt this on a smaller scale, when I first cut back to working three days a week. I am looking forward to seeing what unfolds from this new decision to do less.

We are in a time of change - forced change as the planet responds to our unbalanced work ethic - our bizarre drive to fill the air, the oceans and the landfills with ever more polluting stuff. I hope that in making this personal change for my own self care I inspire you to think about how you might do less and thrive. Time is the one commodity that is limited. To paraphrase Mary Oliver, what is it you want to do with your one wild and precious life?

Worth, Deserving, and Self Love

How do we learn (earn) our worth?

Innate need to belong for security and safety + family, peers, culture, media.

People are born relatively helpless. We need adults to feed us, change us, protect us from dangers big and small. There is a biological imperative to bond that’s both emotional and chemical. 

When the bond is healthy, parents love their kids for no other reason than that they are theirs. When the bond is unhealthy, the parents project their unmet needs onto the kids. This can be a need to be special or important, as with narcissism. In this dynamic, kids may feel pressured to perform to certain standards to earn love. They may feel pressure to be attractive or athletic or whatever compensates for the parent’s insecurity. 

Parents might have other unmet needs, especially when they’ve experienced trauma or trouble in their own early bonding. Parents that don’t feel capable of adulting often “parentify” their children, relying on the child to feel soothed, cherished, or safe. The child becomes a little adult, equating their worth with their ability to support and nurture others. This is a recipe for codependence (dependency on being needed).

About half the people over the globe are estimated to have insecure bonds, regardless of any other socio-economic factor. So we are constantly interacting with people who don’t feel secure. Insecure thinking, behavior and emotion is interwoven into the fabric of peer relationships and culture, and it is delivered to us through the media in a steady stream.

In this paradigm, what gives any one person value is determined by this mix of family, peers, and culture. For example, I grew up in LA in the 1970s. My family is Jewish, but not religious. My mother is narcissistic, codependent, and eating disordered. My dad has early childhood trauma and lifelong addiction. My parents and peers were all affected by the LA lens on looks. 

I learned that to be valued, I had to be thin, sexually attractive to men, subservient, and stoic. I was supposed to marry well and have money. And I was supposed to anticipate the emotional and physical needs of others and provide for those needs. In essence, my value lay in my ability to withstand indentured servitude and unpaid prostitution without complaint - like most straight, white women of that era.

Who determines/enforces the value of a person?

Whoever holds power

First, it’s family. We learn early who is in charge of the food, the care, the comfort, and the punishment, and we adapt, mostly without awareness, because we assume our experience is normal. We don’t question until we are exposed to something different.

Later, it’s peers (sometimes teachers). We learn the pecking order at school, which kids are cool, which are losers. We do what we can to be in group 1 and avoid group 2. If we grow up in secure families, we are afforded a buffer against the insecurity of other kids. If our families are insecure, we might be more susceptible to the judgments and meanness of social stratification.

As we get older, we usually have some opportunity to confront these artificial distinctions as we are exposed to different people with different values. The more we can identify that conditional worth is always relative, the more likely we are to reject values that don’t serve us.

The more insular a family or community, the fewer these opportunities. Also, the more deeply ingrained the values (through trauma or repetition), the more difficult it is to register that these values are all relative, even when we are exposed to alternative values.

This is why therapy can be so helpful, especially therapy that is holistic and considers how culture, family, and social status impact mental health. Therapy is often the first time clients get to explore and question their basic assumptions about their value.

It’s a powerful and deeply healing experience to realize that our value is not dependent on what anyone else thinks of us.

Why are some people valued more than others?

Narcissism, sociopathy, dependency needs...

An analogy:Homer and Bart walk into an ice cream shop. Homer orders beer flavored ice cream. Bart says, “Ew! Beer ice cream is gross.” And he orders rocky road. Homer says, “Rocky road is for losers who want to break their teeth on stale almonds.” And then they choke each other till their eyes pop out. 

In this story, it is neither beer flavored ice cream nor rocky road that is gross or for losers. What is true is that some people enjoy and value ice cream that tastes like beer, while others don’t. 

The ice cream itself is neutral, and so are you. Some people will love you exactly as you are. Others will not, no matter how hard you work or how much you twist yourself into a pretzel to win their admiration or approval. 

If you try to win over a narcissist, you will have to make them feel wonderful about themselves all the time, no matter the cost to yourself. Hopefully you never find yourself romantically involved with one. You can never be enough to satisfy someone with this personality type. They live with an emptiness inside that can never be filled. And sooner or later they will let you know you are gross and a loser because your love hasn’t filled the hole. 

What they can’t and won’t accept (so don’t bother trying to enlighten them) is that the hole can’t be filled by anyone or anything but their own love. Narcissism is not an over-abundance of self love. It’s arrogance and swagger trying to compensate for shame and self hatred.

The same is true for sociopaths (both types lacking empathy for others). But with a sociopath, the end goal is not to fill a shame void with admiration. It is to abate a feeling of shameful powerlessness with power over others. A narcissist will undermine your worth for failing to make them feel good enough. A sociopath with undermine your worth to keep you under their thumb.

Unfortunately, narcissists and sociopaths tend to gravitate to positions of power in the world. They run companies and newspapers, ad agencies and boardrooms. The power dynamics in many companies are built on a foundation of vasselism. Work is structured so that employee compensation is kept at the minimum possible in order to maximize profit for shareholders. Job insecurity is the tool used to keep compensation low. Job insecurity undermines worth.

Narcissists and sociopaths also control a great deal of the information that filters through our screens regularly. Billions of dollars are made by selling insecurity.

The best way to counter these undermining factors is to look at your own dependency needs and insecurities and shore them up. Emotionally, you do this through repeated, daily acts of unconditional self love. 

Financially you do this by empowering yourself in whatever ways you can. This might mean more education, developing a side hustle, saving your pennies, working for yourself… whatever you can do to lessen your dependency on anyone who would take advantage of you. 

What power dynamics affect people we see in therapy?

Racism, sexism (gender and sexuality), bi-directional ageism, classism, ableism (mental illness stigma), looksism/sizeism.

All the systemic stratifications that are part of culture harm all of us - even those at the top of the ladder. They foster insecurity and paranoia in everyone. Case in point, the current US President.

All of these hierarchies rely on dependency and power/powerlessness to exist. This is another reason why good therapy is holistic. I have been treated as less-than based on my gender, my religious status, my weight, my height, my age when I was under 30, my age when I was over 40, and my financial status. And I consider myself part of a privileged and protected class because I’m white, educated, and middle class. My clients have shared stories of oppression based on these factors plus sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration status, skin color, accent, physical or mental health diagnosis, even hair color. 

It's important to recognize and call out systemic oppression in whatever form. In itself, this act of saying, “This is wrong,” is empowering and restores worth. It’s also important not to rent out too much head-space to fighting with people who are committed to being assholes. Sometimes the best way to honor our worth is to walk away. Strong boundaries are key to owning your power and demonstrating your value through self-respect.

What does this stratification do to people?

Subtle, chronic, trauma; depression; anxiety; low self esteem

When we are devalued, especially in childhood, when our self concept is forming, we experience that devaluation as trauma. It goes back to that innate need to belong. Ostracism feels dangerous because when we are little we can’t survive alone. Even when we are big, we survive predators and disasters better in a group. We hunt and gather better together. Feeling unwanted and devalued creates anxiety, depression, addiction and low self esteem.

Every single person I have ever seen in therapy has this exact core problem, no matter what the diagnosis.

What can we do to change how we value ourselves?

1. Stop trying to make others value us and look for those who do without condition.
2. Treat ourselves with respect and kindness all the time, without having to do or be anything to earn that care. Monitor your inner critic and listen for what it is afraid of. Then gently remind it to tell you about the fear instead of yelling at you.
3. Notice (co)dependency relationships and work on leveling power dynamics. Resentment is a good clue you are over-giving. Practice letting go of the need to please. Practice saying no without shaming, blaming or justifying. Seek out education, training and support to become financially self-sufficient over time.
4. Become aware of cultural dysfunction and create/rehearse your own counter-narratives. In the fat community, we do this by using the word fat as a neutral descriptor instead of a pejorative term. As a woman, I call out use of the words pussy, wuss, and girl meant as put downs. I actively look for role models who look like me. And I question my own learned fears and assumptions about people different from me.
5. Refuse to participate in gossip. I cannot emphasize this one enough. When you gossip, you implicitly condone it when people undermine your worth by talking shit about you behind your back. Practice saying, “I don’t gossip because I want people to know they can trust me to be kind, even when they’re not here.”