After the Virtual Retreat, I wrote a post about feeling scooped out, feeling like a pumpkin after scraping, but before carving.
Kelly made this brilliant comment:
Jen, I hope you will speak some more about the “vacuum” following leading.
I feel the same way after I lead a group and I now work to seriously ground myself–attending to basic first chakra needs: cleaning up, using the bathroom, drinking water, taking a walk.
Even so, I still find it a restlesss place to be, and I’m curious about that.
She added:
Falling asleep last night, I realized that this emptiness comes after finishing a writing project too. And after attending a birth or a dear friend’s wedding.
Which makes me think that maybe it has to do with being deeply part of something without it being “ours.”
When we lead, or support, or create, we are the vessel, but not the destination.
Kind of makes me think of Moses.
And about how it’s going to feel when my kids fly the nest.
Ouch. And AAAAAHhhhhh (awe.)!
Kelly, that’s exactly it – it is a restless place, isn’t it?!
I’ve learned that for me, some scooped out is good. It means I’ve given it my all. Too much means I haven’t taken care of myself. One really important way to manage the scooped out feeling:
Scooped Out Moderation Tip
Image from dcnstrctr on Flickr
Create conditions of satisfaction (COS) for your event. We use COS’s a lot at the Comfort Cafe. In a nut shell, you create COS’s for anything that you want to create or achieve. COS guidelines:
- They are measurable in facts, dependent only on you, and have a time element.
- You are competent to fulfill them.
- You declare you will be satisfied even if you don’t feel satisfied.
COS’s for leading a retreat could be, “I will take five actions each day to promote my event; I will take the afternoon and evening off the day before, to rest and meditate, starting at noon; I will invite three people to help me during the event; I will only sign books at lunch; I will ground my energy at least three times during the event.”
- Notice I can do all these things without relying on anybody else to do anything. Yes, I am inviting people to help me but I am not saying I will be satisfied if they perform a certain way. I can keep inviting people until I have 3 helpers.
- Notice I am competent to do these things – I know how and I have the time and energy.
- Notice I can measure if I did these things – or if I didn’t.
- Notice the measurable elements – by noon, three times, five actions.
What we usually do instead of naming COS’s is have vague aspirational thoughts like, “I will be happy with this retreat/yoga class/ group coaching session if everybody has a huge breakthrough” or “If 1000 people sign up” or “If everyone tells me this is the best retreat/yoga class/coaching session ever.”
Or, if we aren’t that greedy, we simply don’t ever decide what will satisfy us. So instead we feel vaguely like a failure, a hungry ghost who may start to doubt her work has any merit in the world because there is no sense of completion.
You never arrive. You’re always raising the bar on yourself.
What do you think? What do you yoga teachers/retreat leaders/coaches/parents/caretakers do to sustain yourself so you can live to lead and teach another day?
How do you deal with the restless scooped out feeling? I’d love to hear!
10 responses so far ↓
1 Kelly Salasin Mar 3, 2010
I like this! Can’t wait to try it on! And wow, thanks for responding to my request so fully!
2 Cairene Mar 3, 2010
Thanks so much for speaking to this. I always feel that restlessness after teaching. Energized, yet also empty. (Nice to know I’m not alone in that.)
I’ve been experimenting with working with it (allowing it instead of trying to eliminate it), and this gives me some ideas about how to do that with more intention.
oxo C
3 Kate Mar 3, 2010
I LOVE this. This past weekend I did a photoshoot and noticed that afterwards, I felt “scooped out.” I notice myself thinking of the Bikram yoga practice that I recently started. In between each posture, there is a moment where you stop completely and either stand (if it’s the standing series) or lay (if it’s the floor series) completely still. The instructors will say that you give 150% of yourself to the posture, and rest in these savasanas in between so that you can ready yourself to give again. I think there’s some connection (at least for me) with the “scooped out” feeling. When I’m doing a photoshoot, in a coaching session, etc., I’m giving all that I have to that, and afterwards or in the rests in between, I want complete nothingness. So in the vein of self-care, I’ve learned not to schedule myself with things back-to-back. This gives me that space for just being before I put myself fully back into something again. I needed to stumble around that many times before I prioritized it.
4 Hiro Boga Mar 3, 2010
Jen, thanks so much for talking about this, and for sharing your Conditions of Satisfaction, which sound wonderfully practical and helpful.
Self-care, for me, is vital before, during and after teaching an event. This includes taking care of my physical needs for rest, prep time, and seclusion.
More essentially, it means taking the time regularly, both during and after the event, to clear my own chakras and energy field. I hold my inner process with as much spaciousness, love and care as I can, and I work consciously on the stuff that emerges for me at the end of each day of teaching.
I seem to need at least as many days off afterward as the length of the retreat, so I build this into my schedule. And include lots of solitude, time to begin integrating the shifts that have taken place in my self during the retreat, time to debrief, as well as added support for my body–massage, walks on the beach, rest.
The post-retreat let down comes, in part, from a huge expenditure of energy. But also from a greater-than-usual discrepancy between the quality of spiritual energies that enter my energy field as a result of the retreat, and the capacity of my body to handle those energies.
So a lot of my post-retreat self-care is about working with body energies in a conscious way to cleanse and clear my body, and to increase its resilience, strength and capacity to handle higher energy frequencies.
This is a process of restoring wholeness to a system that can otherwise become polarized by the intensity of the retreat process.
Working with body energies like kundalini, creative energy, male and female energies, etc, helps to even out the flow between soul and body.
5 Viveca Mar 3, 2010
I am scooped out right now so I am … cleaning. Cleaning and blasting Mary Chapin Carpenter. Listening to her song “Passionate Kisses.”
Little by little I feel myself and my courage coming back together.
Cheers!
Viveca
6 Lacey Mar 4, 2010
I love the description, “scooped out.” I’ve referred to it as being a zombie. I avoid anything too stimulating, anything that requires too much energy out of me and anything that requires much brainpower. This including setting strong boundaries with people who take energy from me and spending time with people I can just “be” with. Activities may include house cleaning, petting my furkids, sitting and staring off into space, flipping through magazines, taking a bath, etc.
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8 Sandi Delia Mar 5, 2010
Wow. I had forgotten all about Conditions of Satisfaction! What a powerful antidote to that pesky negative inner self-talk which says “Not Good Enough.” Thanks for the reminder!
9 Sarah Mar 5, 2010
I like this! When I’m teaching, I’ve found two things really critical: I need ten or fifteen minutes to myself to do my own work before I can put on my “I’m a teacher with pithy things to say” hat, and I need to make sure I have enough water (or herbal tea if it’s cold) to drink.
These things are also true for the first few days after I get back, when I try not to schedule much and to make sure I’m refilling my own well as much as possible.
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