Your Body Already Knows What You're Avoiding

I want to help you get back the hours you're losing to the things you put off (but keep thinking about).

There's that email you haven't written yet that's taking up space in your head. Or that phone call you keep putting off. You know the one. It follows you into your lunch, hovers over the brief you’re supposed to be writing, and it'll go to sleep with you tonight. Making that call will take five minutes. Not making it has already cost you time.

For attorneys, time is our commodity, and we never have enough of it.

So here's the truth: the most expensive item on your calendar isn't the deposition or the mediation. It's the thing you're avoiding, because it costs you attention throughout the day (and night!) and gives nothing back.

THE PROBLEM

We tell ourselves we're procrastinating. Or we just need more discipline. Then we feel worse when that doesn't work.

But avoidance usually isn't a discipline problem. It's a nervous system problem.

When your jaw is clenched, your shoulders are up around your ears, and your breath is living in the top two inches of your chest, your body is telling your brain:

·         We are under threat.

·         And you don't open threatening emails.

·         You don't make threatening calls.

·         You don't walk into threatening houses.

Your body is protecting you from your own inbox.

So the answer isn't to push harder. It's to un-brace first.

WHY THIS WORKS

Your brain constantly reads your body to decide how dangerous the moment is. A tight jaw and shallow breath get read as danger - so everything on your to-do list gets filed under "danger" too.

When you release the jaw, drop your shoulders, and send one long, slow breath into your belly, you're not just relaxing the moment. You're changing the report your body files to your brain.

Belly breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system: the "you're safe, you can act now" signal. Even a soft half-smile sends the same signal into your brain. Fifteen seconds of this doesn't make sending the email easier. It makes you different when you open the one you’re dreading (or not drafting).

THREE THINGS TO TRY THIS WEEK

Unclench First. Before any task you're dreading, do a three-point scan: unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, release your hands. Release each one on purpose. Don't skip the hands. Lawyers hold entire depositions in our fists.

The Half Smile. Let the corners of your mouth lift, barely. Not a performance for anyone else, a message to your own nervous system that this moment is survivable. Hold it for one breath.

Breathe, Then Begin. One deep breath into your stomach, let your belly actually move, and then start the hard thing immediately, within about ninety seconds. The reset opens a window. Walk through it before the dread rebuilds.

THE TAKEAWAY

Avoidance was never about discipline. You were trying to do a hard thing in a body braced for a blow. Soften the body first, and the hard thing shrinks back down to its actual size: an email. A phone call. Five minutes - instead of spinning in your head and taking up time.

THIS WEEK'S RECESS

Pick the one thing you've been circling all week. Just one. Unclench your jaw. Drop your shoulders. Half smile. One long deep breath into your belly.

Now send the email. Make the call.

Let me know how it goes!