rat race remedy: how to ease up, slow down and tune in to life!

RAT RACE REMEDIES?

How to Ease Up, Slow Down and Tune in to Life

© 2015 Jackie Woodside | [email protected] | 508-630-0340 | www.JackieWoodside.com -1-

Introduction Have you noticed lately that everyone is busy? I mean everyone - from retired people, to school-aged children, from everyday worker bees to the mega rich. Everyone complains about being too busy. Everyone seems to be caught up in the proverbial “rat race” and no one seems to know what to do about it.

The fact is that it no longer matters what the actual content of one’s week is, whether it is jam packed with appointments, tasks, things to do, places to go or not. What is happening is a pervasive “felt sense” of being too busy. I know this is true from my weekly phone call with my 75 year-old mother, or when visiting with her and several of her friends. They all speak of being too busy, but the actual content of their lives is an appointment or two here and there. Yet their felt sense of life is that they’re “so busy.”

Pay attention this week when you meet and greet friends, coworkers and people you know. Notice the degree to which you hear “I’m so busy” as a response to the standard, “Hey, how have you been?” You will find, as I have over and over again, that the majority of your responses will eventually come ‘round to some version of busy, stretched, overloaded and overwhelmed.

What this represents is the cultural phenomenon of being “crazy busy” and there is some compelling research data that demonstrates that in large part, it is killing us.

Why are we all so busy? Have you noticed the status symbol that goes along with it? Your complaints at a party about your busy schedule are completely mirrored by those around you. Busyness has a certain quality of importance that goes with it, and our egos thrive on feeling like we are special and

RAT RACE REMEDIES?



important. The faster technology becomes, the faster we feel we must move. We no longer respond with a sense of thoughtfulness and care.

We run from task to task because we have so much to do. But we are also running from the deeper issues in our lives – issues of meaning, connection and purpose. We are a culture that is deeply impoverished, but not impoverished of money – we are impoverished with time, meaningful time spent engaged with meaningful activity and people we love. We are a culture awash in goods, but desperate for goodness; cluttered and disorganized, and devoid of meaning.

We are all too “crazy busy” to even bother trying to change the situation. Or are we? If you’re reading this, there has to be some part of you that is ready to say “Enough!” and you are at least on some level prepared to look beyond the cultural conditioning which says, “If you’re crazy busy you are important, valuable and worthy.” You have begun to question the frenetic pace that so many are keeping.

I don’t know one person who died wishing they had been just a bit busier during their life. In fact, when you look at the most common death bed regrets there is a great deal to be learned that lends itself to the Rat Race Remedy.

RAT RACE REMEDIES?



THE PROBLEM

Rat Race Results: Rat race results are the elements of contemporarysociety when we are engaged in a “crazy, busy, nuts” lifestyle – running toward something that we never claim and away from the very heart and soul of our lives. Below are the three most staggering results of living the rat race life, the evidence of why the rat race is potentially killing us.

Deathbed regrets: Perhaps one of the most poignant results of livingthe Rat Race Life is the degree to which it actually robs you of your life all together. Look at the top two regrets that people report on their deathbed:

#1: I wish I would have pursued what was important to me and not what others expected of me.

The rat race robs you of your ability to slow down, pay attention to what you really love, and then act mindfully and skillfully with intention toward the manifestation of your dreams. Living in the rat race is living as what the Tibetan Buddhists call “hungry ghosts” - those who are physically alive but psychically and spiritually dead. When one is too caught up in the rat race to recognize, listen to and follow your dreams, this is exactly what you become.

#2: I wish I didn’t work so hard.

I don’t know anyone who on their deathbed wished they had spent more time at the office. Do you?

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We get so caught up in the rat race of the work place and its demands that we blindly allow ourselves to neglect the things we most love, the people we hold most dear and the parts of ourselves that long for expression. This is what I call living in survival rather than thriving.

Do you know that there are higher percentages of happiness reported in under developed nations than there is in the US?

So long as a person’s basic needs for food and shelter are met, despite how dire the circumstances may be, people are happier than those of us living in one of the most “developed” and “wealthy” countries in the world. Perhaps we should re-define what “developed” means! We would be better off following the wisdom of the small country of Bhutan where their measure of true wealth is their gross national happiness rather than monetary gain.

These regrets speak volumes of to the degree we are moving through life, but not really living. We are chronically busy, but not engaged in what is meaningful in our lives.

I drove through a nice neighborhood last week and saw the typical Norman Rockwell scene of a dad playing soccer with his son – except that I don’t believe Norman painted the picture to include a Blackberry in the dad’s hand.

I wondered if the dad even knew where he was, what he was doing.

Did the son even notice the vacuous non-presence of his father – that he was there physically, but emotionally and mentally with whoever “needed” him at the other end of his wireless ball and chain.

Or perhaps this is just the next phase of human evolution? That we are evolving in silos connected by an invisible web of text and images, rather than through the body and soul of real-time connection.

RAT RACE REMEDIES?



Overweight, overmedicated, addicted generation in history

Dr. Brene Brown, a nationally known speaker, researcher and a professor of Clinical Social Work at the University of Houston has done some ground breaking research on vulnerability, alienation and disconnection in our culture. In her poignant lecture on TED.com, (http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html)

Dr. Brown notes that we are the most overweight, overmedicated, addicted generation in American history. All of this, she notes is a failing and feeble attempt to mask the pain that we feel from being so deeply disconnected from the ones we love. I believe that this level of disconnect is yet another byproduct of the Rat Race Life that our culture has become. How sad is that!? Many of us are living what Thoreau called lives of quiet desperation – running on the hamster wheel, with no sense of where we

are going or why.

We take drugs rather than changing our lives.

Most of us know someone who is taking an antidepressant or anti anxiety medications. Many of us know SEVERAL people who are doing so!

CNN Health reports that according to a government study, antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. They are prescribed more than drugs to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or headaches. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen discusses the CDC study on antidepressants.

In its study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at 2.4 billion drugs prescribed in visits to doctors and hospitals in 2005. Of those, 118 million were for antidepressants.

What is driving this cultural epidemic of depression?

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Could it be that the more we run ourselves into frenzy in our rat race lives, the more we are losing our soul?

I believe this is the case, and we have come to a time in our cultural history when more and more of us would prefer to take a pill than take a serious look at changing our lives.

Stress-related heart disease #1 cause of death

According to a study done by the American Institute of Stress, 80% of American workers reported feeling work-related stress and over half of those said they needed help dealing with it. 65% said that their stress level caused difficulties that have a major impact on their lives. Further studies have shown that 60-80% of workplace accidents are stress related, and that

accidents are the number one cause of death in the workplace.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America, and information provided by the Mayo Clinic web site indicates that stress is one of the leading contributors to heart disease. In fact, the majority of factors that lead one to die prematurely from heart disease relate to conditions and factors that are almost entirely under our control. The Rat Race is killing us, both literally and figuratively. Is it really worth the price? Is there another way?

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THE SOLUTION

Rat Race Remedies: Wake up (awareness of the messages and your own sense of tension/hurry) All true change begins with awareness. In order to live beyond the rat race life, you have to wake up to the choices you are making and the messages that you are

constantly responding to from our culture.

Wake up to what you are running towards.

What are you trying to achieve? Do you know?

What are you missing in this constant drive to do more?

What are you running from?

As Thoreau once wrote, “Things don’t change. People do.” In order to get out of the rat race live you have created, you have to face the fact that you need to change.

In the 12 step recovery movement, there is a slogan, “If you keep doing what you have been doing, you are going to keep getting what you have been getting.” This is not exactly rocket science here, but the perennial wisdom of this statement applies to the awakening of one’s life.

Here are four simple steps to helping you do just that:

1. Get clear on what matters to you

I teach a values clarification exercise in a couple of my courses. While it seems that most of us know what is important to us, so many people find that exercise challenging and also valuable. If you would like to engage in a values clarification

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inventory, you can go to this link and download one of the exercises I use in my classes www.jackiewoodside.com. In determining our core values, we then get to see to what degree we are or are not living in alignment with what we hold most dear.

It is not only important to get clear on what you value, but also get clear on what you love doing, what makes you feel good. Many people caught up in the rat race totally forget about or feel they cannot bring pleasure to their lives. Social science research on happiness has found that the most significant factors that lead to a happy life are engaging with activities that are meaningful and pleasurable, as well as those that contribute to others, and utilize one’s strengths.

2. Recognize that less is more – if you do itall, you’ll be overwhelmed. Choose.

In my energy management course, I teach an exercise where people write down everything that they are currently doing in their lives – everything. And then I have them place that list of things they are doing on their schedule, item by item.

What nearly 100 percent of the participants discover is that there are not enough hours in the week to do everything they’ve committed to doing.

This is yet more evidence that people everywhere are walking around stressed out, overcommitted and “crazy busy.”

When people become aware that their unconscious choice to try to do it all is largely what is making them crazy, there is both a sense of relief, and a sense of sadness.

The relief comes from realizing they are not crazy, that they have simply been trying to do something that is not humanly possible. There are not enough hours in the week to accomplish what they have been trying to accomplish.

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The sadness comes to those who are the “I want it all” types who simply find it difficult to say no to opportunities. This is sometimes born from a martyr complex – those who ceaselessly give to and care for others, other times it is adrenalin junkies who cannot stop their frenzied movement.

Whatever the reason, this driven, “got to do it all” quality leaves one stressed, burned out, and not much good for anyone.

Once you realize that you cannot do all that you are trying to do, there comes a huge wave of freedom to choose what truly supports your highest values and what you truly enjoy, and you are free to let the rest go.

This is sometimes easier said than done, but as we saw earlier, “things don’t change, people do.” You will have the opportunity to relate authentically to the people in your life, telling them that you are choosing a saner pace, more open spaces in your life, more ease and less stress.

If you do this with authenticity and sincerity, you will gain the respect and admiration of those around you. Who knows, maybe you will even be the one to set a new trend for those in your life and others will choose to follow your lead.

3. Schedule your life and live your schedule

Simplifying your life and beginning to say no to things will bring you tremendous strides in getting out of the “rat race life” that you’ve created. The next step is to start mindfully paying attention to what you are saying yes to!

One way to do this is by beginning to locate your commitments on your schedule, so you can see them in REAL TIME and not just keep it all in your head.

Jackie

Jackie

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When you keep everything in your head, it is impossible to continually hold all of the commitments, with their respective time requirements. You move into unreality with time, and thus end up feeling stressed and overwhelmed. This is because you are truly over committing.

Once you start locating things IN TIME versus in your head, you see where you have open spaces, down time and what degree of balance you have in your life.

The best way to do this exercise, as I mentioned above, is to write down literally everything you do in a given week or month.

Just brainstorm so that you capture all of it – the things you do for work, your family, working out, volunteer commitments, social engagements and so on. I recommend even including the mundane things like weekly errands and household chores as these things too occupy a good deal of our time.

When you write down all that you are doing or have a commitment do to, then begin placing them on your schedule in actual time slots – not on a to-do list. If you are not sure when you do a given thing, just give it a place in your schedule that is reasonable. This way, once it is all located, you get a very good visual display of what your life looks like.

Are there any empty spaces? Is there room for creativity, spontaneity or even rest?

People often say that if they scheduled everything in their lives it would lead them to not be spontaneous. However, how spontaneous or creative is anyone who walks around with their head spinning, stressed out, wondering how and when they will “get it all done?”

It is in training yourself to live your life with intention that true freedom and spontaneity begins.

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4. Quiet your mind – meditation

There has been so much written and researched about meditation. There is no way to capture the degree to which it brings benefit to those who practice it.

Research has clearly shown over and over again that even 15 minutes a day of mindfulness meditation helps to reduce stress levels, improve depression, decrease anxiety and even improve one’s memory.

There is simply no better way to slow down one’s life than to slow down one’s mind, and by far the best, most powerful way of doing so is through meditation.

For those who are not already practicing meditation, there is a tendency to think that it is some lofty spiritual practice reserved for saints and sages. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mindfulness meditation is so simple to practice –simple that is, but not easy.

Let me point out the simple formula:

Sit in a quiet place

Gently close your eyes or fix your gaze on a candle or a shell or some other object of beauty.

Focus only on your breath. Yes, that’s all – count your in and out breath. One, two, three.

If you are like most people, by the time you’ve gotten to three, your mind is already spinning off somewhere: what am I going to do for dinner, I forgot to put the clothes in the dryer, I cannot believe my friend said that to me yesterday, what am I going to say to my networking group tomorrow…. And on and on it goes.

Oh, wait! I am supposed to be counting my breath! Back to the breath, one, two, three. Stay with your breath for as long as you can, and watch your mind and body begin to soften, slow down and become quiet.

Jackie

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When you practice this consistently over time (even as little as three weeks), you will begin to notice a decrease in that rushed, hurried feeling, a decrease in anxious thoughts and feelings and a tremendous increase in an overall sense of wellness and ease.

There you have it. That is mindfulness meditation – simplified.

While it may seem silly to simply sit and focus on your breath, research has proven that a focused mind creates relaxation and decreased reactivity.

Focused awareness is a frontal lobe brain activity, and when the frontal lobes are engaged, feelings of anxiety, depression and irritability subside.

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Conclusion It is an exciting, yet challenging time to be alive. We live in a fast-paced, high demand culture.

There is more information and choices available to us today than ever before in history.

If we learn how to use these elements of our culture to our benefit, we can thrive beyond the rat race existence, but we can only do so by waking up, slowing down and truly tuning in to our lives.

The choice is ours each and every day.

How will you choose to live?

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About the Author Hi and thank you for your interest in the Rat Race Remedies! I am Jackie Woodside and I have been working with people who are caught up in the rat race lifestyle for well over the past 20 years. I am a licensed psychotherapist and certified professional coach. I design and deliver powerful coaching programs for people who are committed to living life beyond the ordinary.

I developed my Rat Race Remedies model after being told by an acupuncturist that my “chi”, or life force energy, was frighteningly low, and that if I did not make some significant changes in my life style and pace, I would not be around to enjoy life a whole lot longer. Well, that certainly got my attention and I began redesigning how I was living my life.

What a blessing that encounter in the acupuncturists office proved to be! Today, I intentionally create my life, finding balance between raising my son, enjoying my coaching, speaking and seminar business, playing racquetball, doing yoga, skiing, and enjoying the summer months off while living in the Thousand Islands in upstate New York.

If you would like to receive a complimentary consultation with me about how you can immediately begin employing the Rat Race Remedies, send me a quick email now. You will be glad you did! I look forward to speaking with you!

rat race remedy: how to ease up, slow down and tune in to life!

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