Having met with so many exhausted leaders lately, Bobbie LaPorte shares a comforting poem in her August 16 “Your Best Next Move” video. The poem, “For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing” by Irish poet John O’Donohue, provides a few moments of comfort and reflection as well as valuable insights for exhausted leaders.
Transcript of Your Best Next Move: Insights for Exhausted Leaders
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tip for your Best Next Move – where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act and see what you can do right now.
I am taking a bit of a different tack this week. Over the last few weeks….as we move what we hoped was out of COVID into a more normal way of living and working…we are discovering that this is just not the case. There is still uncertainty, fear, anxiety, doubt, and often paralysis, not knowing what to do, how to move forward.
And there is exhaustion. Pure, unabated, bone-crushing, and mind-numbing exhaustion. Hard to understand; even harder to describe.
But I hear it; I see it; I FEEL it when I speak with you.
I don’t have all the answers… other than to tell you to stop; step back; connect to how you are and what is really, truly important to you (and it’s not work).
Be compassionate with yourself and everyone around you. There is no other option.
And to that, I wanted to share a poem from the late Irish poet John O’Donohue titled:
“For One Who is Exhausted”
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
My tip this week is to acknowledge that you are possibly exhausted; it’s OK to say it. It’s not OK to ignore it and hope it goes away, or worse, to just accept it as a condition of employment in an uncertain world.
As always, I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you, one of possibility thinking that takes advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have.
That’s my tip for this week. I’ll see you next week; please, take care of yourselves.