Your work is not your worth

The other day I was lying in bed with my girlfriend Millie and after a long day of work, I noticed how hard it was for me to turn my mind off. There were still so many compulsive stories and ideas floating around in it. That was frustrating to say the least. There I was, having spent 2 years living in monasteries meditating, receiving and then practicing therapy and learning about many elements of the brain and the body and yet, there didn’t seem to be much change. It was like a pattern inside of me was frozen. This was almost exactly the same as just a few years earlier when I was still working at the startup I co-founded. 

Time travel empathy

And that was a cue for me. Things shifted a bit. What if this reaction to working had a longer past for me. I started to wonder if that had begun when I was working at my previous company. My sense was that no, in fact it seemed older than that. With Millie’s help, the irritation and frustration slowly morphed itself into a curiosity. 

I travelled further backwards in my mind, through college and high school where that pattern seemed to be present already too. As I looked closer, I saw that this was part of me seemed like it couldn’t stop thinking about how to perfect myself, how to make things better. The journey took me back even further, to the days of wanting to play soccer professionally desperately, constantly dreaming about how well I might be able to play if I just perfected or improved this or that skill. The baseline sensations and beliefs seemed to be the same as today.

Finally, the time warp slowed down and I arrived at an image of myself, maybe about 7 years old, coming home to the house I was living in in a suburban part of Austria. And I remember feeling extremely empty and sad. There was no one I could turn to, ask for a hug or to sit with me as I cried about this experience of my inner void and sadness. I could see clearly, how my pattern of not being able to stop the thinking about work as a professional had started right then. 

This aligned with what I’ve learned since then about how the brain stores and holds memories and difficult experiences. I also saw how in the absence of a loving parent that I could turn to, I came up with a strategy that a 7-year old might to get through a tough time like this. In an attempt to shut out the void and emptiness, my 7 year old self must have created an inner promise based off of behaviors I’d previously observed around me and made a sort of pact to stop these unmanageable feelings of misery to stop occurring. 

And that contract might have gone something like this: 

Only if I work extremely hard, will I receive attention and love, otherwise, I feel empty and meaningless inside like today.

 

Leo, 7 years old

As I discovered this, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to practice “Time Travel Empathy”, a process I was introduced to a while back, similar to my own trauma healing techniques I learned in my therapy training. I sat with my 7 year old self in my mind and asked him about his difficulty, the pain in his stomach, and the emptiness inside. I was quickly moving through tears and gentle trembling and release in my body. Being this vulnerable next to Millie who had seen me many times by then in similar processes still had a hint of embarrassment and shame that I felt too.

Uncoupling worth from my intention of doing work

As the crying and trembling slowed, I saw my inner 7-year-old going from being curled up to slowly waking up, lifting his head, looking around and starting to take in mine and Millie’s presence. I also remembered a simple exercise that seemed to match this moment very well. In my training as a somatic experiencing therapist there’s the concept of “uncoupling”. Often in childhood, we couple certain things together that don’t really go together. In my case, as a survival strategy of my 7-year-old I had coupled “work” and “worth” clearly together. Here’s a video of the short exercise that I did. 

In talking to other entrepreneurs, my sense is that this particular coupling of work and worth is a very common one. In bringing the two apart from each other, my own experience has been that a whole new world of possibility can open up. I let go of the previous belief and was able to form a new one, that seemed less of a coping strategy from a 7-year-old and more of an adult belief for enjoying and savoring life. I formulated it something like this:  

In my life, I can go do the things I want to do, because they are fun. And I can stop doing them once I want to rest, have time with friends or am interested in something else.

 

Leo, 28 years old

It seems so obvious to me to write this new belief down here, that it triggers some shame for me. And yet, this continues to feel quite revolutionary and insightful to me, especially to my inner child that is still grappling with this being fully true.

I plan on staying curious whether this dynamic might reemerge, but so far, just spending that one session deeply in touch with my inner child’s experience has felt extremely healing. I’d love to hear if any of this resonates with you at all and if practicing this exercise brings you any ease or relief too.  If you’d like to work with me on uncovering similar difficult beliefs that hold you hostage and keep you stuck, you can schedule a chat with me here.