On butt spasms, self-doubt and writing your business essence
Let’s start with my butt
Earlier this year I got a seriously bad butt spasm.
I was really struggling for about six weeks, just managing for another month or so after that. At the height of it, I was in bed for a week on hospital-grade pain-killers and valium.
The spasm made me excruciatingly aware of every little twitch, every twist, every slight activation of that muscle – who knew how much we use our butt muscle?!
My mind became razor-focussed on how to avoid pain. All brain power was diverted to anticipating the next move, planning the series of careful manoeuvres that would get me from lying on my back, to lying on my side, to sitting upright, to standing, to shuffling towards the bathroom.
My world closed down to four walls, my butt and my pain.
Amidst all this, an idea was planted
I got advice and treatment from a GP, physio, oesteo, acupuncurist and yoga teacher – some helped more than others. And there was no miracle cure. Even now, six months later, I get twinges (and I’m still doing weekly bodywork sessions).
However, in all this I started absorbing an idea my yoga teacher kept repeating – sometimes she only touched on a part of it, and sometimes she said it in different ways, but the gist (in my understanding) was this:
You can’t ‘work at’ a tension or misalignment in an athletic, driven sort of way. Focussing on that one point simply strengthens the knot. Tightens the noose.
You don’t want to tighten. You want to release.
Become intimate with your whole body, like a lover, and gently invite each and every part (not just the part in distress) to release and open. When you do you will rediscover your natural balance and ease. Your body and your deeper self know the way, they’ve been waiting for you all along.
What does any of this have to do with business or writing?
Around the same time I was working with a client who felt really stuck. She could sense the general shape of what she wanted to put out into the world with her business, but she couldn’t articulate it in a way that satisfied her. She wasn’t confident others would understand what she was talking about.
When I received her response to my Delve Deep questions* I immediately noticed an incredible focus on process.
Describing your process is an OK place to start, but a functional description of what you do will never adequately capture the essence of your business and it won’t help you communicate that essence to your ideal people.
Wherever I had asked questions designed to lead from process to a broader view (such as how her people benefited from her services), this talented woman would circle back to describing how she did step 1, then step 2 and so on, coming up with ever more intricate metaphors for the process.
I realised she had a spasm, and she was having trouble focussing on anything else.
*Note: there are no wrong or right answers to the questionnaire. When answered freely and honestly, it is simply a window through which I can see what’s going on for you.
The spasm of self-doubt
I think focussing on process, process, process whenever you talk about your business is a hint you may have a spasm in your self-confidence muscle.
This particular client was feeling a lot of self-doubt, and being questioned about the value of what she does was setting off that spasm. She was trying to anticipate the pain and carefully plan every move to avoid it. Her had world closed down to her, in a room, with her process and her self-doubt.
No wonder she was having trouble conceptualising anything outside of that – like her people, and the qualities she brings to the partnership, and the ways they are transformed by her work.
Don’t tighten the knot …
Great ways to tighten the self-doubt knot: “Hey, you do good stuff so snap out of this and let’s get on with it” or “OK, you think you suck so why not just fake it ’til you make it? Ready to go now?”
Yeah, I wasn’t going to say either of those things.
… look around for other places to release and open
It is useful to have a third party to help with the looking – someone who’s not closed down in that room with you, someone who can offer some little ideas to start opening your view (without blowing the roof off and freaking you out completely).
With my client, we acknowledged the spasm and I explained I wasn’t going to try to ‘talk’ her out of it. We just looked for openings at the edges – we started with people she had worked with previously and their feedback, moving more into their experience.
I think that opening ideas and perspectives in other areas flows back to help release the self-doubt spasm, much more effectively than trying to ‘fix’ the spasm directly. It’s the opening through which you can glimpse your essence, which has been there all along, waiting for you.
I come back to the release approach again and again
It’s been fascinating to play with the idea of ‘don’t tighten – release’ in different situations.
When I can recognise myself in that closed-down, frustrated, pain-responsive state (and recognising is half the challenge!), I think, “OK, I’m tightening the knot here. How can I let go of this specific point of spasm and look around for other places where I might get some opening – can I go sideways, can I go underneath?”
It’s not precise, it’s felt more than thought, but, for me, it’s about finding possibility in last-straw situations. Maybe it can help you find some possibility too.
