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...In the winter of 1997 I witnessed a special spectacle at the start of the Eleven Cities Tour – the ultimate cross-country ice skating race through eleven northern cities. A man, in his forties, sportily dressed, is eager to start this two-hundred-kilometre skating race.
He steps onto the ice and with quick, powerful strokes he sprints towards the finish line that he mentally can already see in front of him. However, he doesn’t move an inch, but he doesn’t realize that, focused as he is. People shout at him: ‘Hey dude, you still have your skate protectors on’. After a one-minute sprint, the penny drops. With heavy legs and freed from skate protectors, he continues his race.
I am reminded of this event when I treat a man who returns to work after a burn out. He is very reluctant to open his laptop for the first time and, well prepared as he is, has resolved to only do things that have priority.When he opens his laptop, in no time he’s doing tasks that don’t take priority and that he hadn’t set out to do. His brain is focused on ‘the finish’ and the connection with his body is lost.
I ask him to open my laptop as an experiment and feel where the tension is in his body. He can clearly feel it around his diaphragm. I ask him where he experiences peace in his body. He feels it in his feet. I then ask him if he can feel a connection between the diaphragm and the feet. He succeeds and now feels a lot calmer behind the laptop.
By connecting with his body in this way, he can avoid starting the marathon called work with a sprint that puts his whole body in stress mode. Landing in his body prevents him from sprinting like an unguided missile towards the endless horizon. And so he can set the right pace for the work marathon without getting heavy legs.