Many of us have probably had the experience of many people wanting many things from us, seemingly all at once. This summer, my family and I have gone away a couple of times for short vacations. In the period before the vacation, I have often thought that I’d be better off just not going away at all. This is because I inevitably feel incredible pressure to get a ton of work done, reply to all of my emails, and completely clear the decks of work so that I’m not overwhelmed when I return from my trip. In the days leading up to a trip, requests from other people keep coming in – for me to review a manuscript, a book or a thesis; submit my paper/book on time; get back to clients, colleagues, or loved ones about various things; meet about stuff; to help someone out with one thing or another; to go to India or Africa to collect $10,000,000 from uncollected inheritance funds from a deceased boy prince (these ones I can delete right away, thankfully!).
On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that I’m involved in peoples’ professional and personal lives. The things I do actually make a difference for others, to the point where they want me to do even more of those things! I once watched a video of Dr. Robert Leahy’s presidential address for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). During this speech, he (and I’m really paraphrasing here, as my memory of this is a little murky) espoused the value of being someone that others count on, seek help from, and need for one thing or another. There’s value in being valuable to others.
On the other hand, it can be easy to become imbalanced in terms of what we often call priorities and demands in DBT. Your priorities are things that are important to you – things you want or need to do. This could simply be to sit and read a book quietly, to have fun with other people, to get work done, get groceries, relax, to do something that’s completely pointless just because you want to, and so on. Demands would be what others want you to do. When priorities and demands are imbalanced in either direction, stress is often the result. If you are feeling the press of others’ demands and barely keeping up with things, you’re going to feel stressed out. If you are focused completely on your own priorities and not attending to others’ feelings or needs, your relationships (both personal and professional) will probably suffer. Many of the people I know suffer more from the first pattern – putting others’ demands ahead of their own priorities on a regular basis. This is what brought the idea of “letting go” to my mind.
For me, when I’m trying to meet others’ demands while frantically getting ready for a restful vacation (sounds relaxing, doesn’t it!?), I often have to practice accepting and letting go. I need to accept that I simply won’t get to everything, respond to every email, or do everything that others would like me to do. I might miss a deadline. It’s possible that I won’t do something I said I would do (mainly because I’ve overestimated what I thought I could do). I might have to change my mind and reschedule meetings. I might be able to help someone with something, but perhaps not until much later than I’d like to. I might even need to prioritize some extra fun and self-care (such as watching a favourite show, reading, exercising, relaxing) over other things that objectively seem more important. This is not easy! But, acceptance is the first step. Then, the next and possibly even harder step, is letting go of the need and desire to get everything done. I find it helpful to take a short breath, relax my body posture, slow down, and remind myself that things will probably be just fine even if I don’t get back to so and so or do such and such. Even if things aren’t totally fine, I’ll likely live through it. I have to keep doing this repeatedly. Letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care; it just means you’re letting it be OK not to everything others want you to do (or everything you want to do). If this resonates with you, try it out and see how it goes. Put it on your to-do list, and make sure you get it done by 5pm today! – Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.