Lockdown's Chiselling Effect Is Real

If you "chisel away" at something, you chip at it gradually. You keep doing or saying something which slowly changes someone's feelings or opinions or desires about something.

It started with a case of the ‘CBF’s’ that arrived on the Wednesday morning after the announcement of the extension by a further week of Lockdown 5.0 in my home state of Victoria, Australia.?

But did it really start there?

Was it that precise moment or was there something bigger at play here??

It’s easy to pin it on a moment in time, an event, an announcement or even just having got out of the wrong side of the bed that Wednesday morning.?

But that would be lazy and indeed a cop-out on my behalf to not get above the thinking and examine it in greater detail from a feeling perspective.?

As I started to do that ‘balcony’ view work of why I couldn’t be fu#ked, some rather profound words came into my head that was shared over the fence by our neighbour Kate the previous weekend when she said:?

“These lockdowns have just chiselled away at us all each time………”

It appears that the chiselling and chipping away at my freedom to operate on so many levels had finally landed a blow that temporarily knocked me to the canvas.

There were some signs that I had looked away from such as interrupted sleep, an overreaction to a trivial hitting of my funny bone that turned into an angry outburst, and the increase in my resting heart rate, and exercise threshold heartrates by 8-10 beats per minute, and my increased desire for nightly connoisseur salted caramel and almond ice creams (and other comfort foods).

Overlay this with postponements or cancellation of multiple family and work events and getting a feeling of “what have I got to look forward to….?” and the chiselling away seemed to be getting deeper and deeper, every stroke of the chisel deepening the grooves of negative emotions and feelings.?

Remember this is the human whom only last month wrote about the 4R’s and a great week of self-care at a wellness retreat in the Hunter Valley!!?

What is interesting is that business is stronger than ever, family is healthy and we’re in the middle of some exciting renovations at home, so there’s plenty to be upbeat about – right??

I was then introduced to a term by a recent SPH Podcast guest, Brian Klindworth:?

“Successfully Unfulfilled”

Now there you go – I had something that started to help me make sense of how I was feeling. Thinking all is great but feeling somewhat different. Lots of external success but internally unfulfilled. A trap many of us get caught in.?

Now the work of ‘Mark’ can start.?

It’s what Craig Harper calls the “Inside Out Work”.??

The first step was to share this with other human beings. I did share with Allison that I had the ‘CBF’s’ in a big way, and on a recent co-share Podcast with Craig where he asked me:?

“How are you?”.?

I could have said “yeah good thanks Harps”, but that would be putting on the armour of 'maleness' coming protecting a human who is supposed to have his shit together.?What would Mark tell Mark to do? "Hold Your Nerve" comes to mind.

Instead, we had a conversation for this weeks co-shared Podcast about the chiselling impact, the CBF’s, the physiological responses that I had experienced and the impacts of cancellations and rescheduling on both family and work events as well as my emotional reaction to my deceased twin brother, and the thought of loneliness or lack of connection that came with both that and delivering virtually versus in the room.?

We didn’t ‘fix’ anything because the chiselling had moulded feelings, opinions and desires into a new state that wouldn’t take five minutes to reshape. Some things may never be rehaped. It would take some more conversations with myself and others to make sense of what was going on.?

What’s my point here??

It’s important to observe and listen to the signs of the gradual chiselling and when it occurs be prepared to look broader than “I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning” or “I’ll train away my feelings by getting an enormous dopamine hit” or via a "favourite junk food".?

Oh and talk to someone whom you know will not try and fix you but rather just listen at a time you need to be heard.?Thanks 'Harps'.

I’ve started small by adding the Headspace app to my phone as a way to assist me in regulating the feelings that have entered my head as the gradual chiselling over the past 15 months got deeper and deeper.?

Just one small thing to kick me off as part of the ‘work of Mark’.??

Oh…..and writing about it has been helpful...?

What’s chiselling away at you right now??

Mark LeBusque is in the business of building Connection and Belonging in Workplaces, and believes that there are some Simple and Practical ways to drive up the humanness that we miss in the pursuit of complexity or the "next big thing".?