“Pull yourself together,” people say. What does that mean to you?
To me, it means gathering my thoughts, feelings and desires into a cohesive unit so I can focus on some desired result. It feels good to be “pulled together.”
But it also feels good to let myself go. I do that in dance, in hiking, in meditation. I do that in the evenings where I let my mind relax. In my world, the day belongs to the mind, and the evening belongs to the soul.
Here’s what many “together” people miss. If you let yourself go for a while – for even just an evening or weekend – when you pull yourself back together, you come back with a higher order. You have more of your internal resources available than you would if you didn’t let yourself go. It’s a process and an important part of The SpeakStrong Method. Focus. Relax. Contract. Expand. Strive. Let go.
One of my SpeakStrong mottos is “excellence through wholeness.” The experience of wholeness gives you perspective to draw from when you “pull yourself together.”
So when I hike, my thinking deepens. When I come back and refocus, I see whatever I was grappling with through new eyes. Problems aren’t solved at the level they were created on, and the hike enables me to solve them at a higher level.
Plus, I get to enjoy my beautiful world.
At the very least, take your breaks! Your wholeness needs them. So does your effectiveness.