What doing “the work” really entails – The Mental Well-Being Coach

When people say they are “doing the work” what does that mean.

When talking about doing psychological and spiritual work we are talking about shining a light on to our behavioural and thought patterns and how and why they manifest.

I’ve been actively engaging in this as a priority for the last 5-8 years now through my work with the enneagram. I’ve been gradually bringing more and more awareness to what I do habitually out of ego and digging in to WHY.

I just wanted to give an example of what this can look like.

Recently I came to the realisation that I’ve been carrying a self imposed need to be upbeat, happy/ok and positive for most of my life. (As and enneagram 7 this is very typical). I’ve realised that the reason I need alone time so much is because it gives me time to just be how I actually inside instead of being whoever the people around me are used to seeing… the upbeat, energetic, happy person. Who’s fault is it that everyone expects this of me? It’s mine! I’ve set this as the default for myself and others have learnt to identify happy positive and upbeat with who I am. Naturally when I’m not, then people notice.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason I fell in to a really deep depression when I left home and went to university was partially this. I was in a situation where I could be whatever I actually felt. People didn’t know me as anything else. So they got to know helen as someone who wasn’t always ok… in fact who had a lot of pain.

Of course I didn’t know that then, and when i came back from university It was back to my family and friends and my old persona.

My twenties were punctuated with periods of me becoming down/depressed and I can see now that the effort involved in maintaining this positive optimistic front is actually exhausting and when we become exhausted we end up having to recuperate and relax in order to recharge. I think my depressive episodes are just that. Times when I physically have to slow down. I can emotionally reset and recharge so I’m ready to go again.

I noticed a few years back that I tend to crash in February and August each year for no real obvious reason until now. It seems I can maintain my egoic self for 5 months at a time then I need a reset.

It is February and I am in need of a recharge/reset. So I’m allowing myself to not be fine for a week or two. Which means I’m just going to spend more down time where my energy isn’t needed to be projected outward. This has to be something that I allow for more often than once every 5 months. I am going to start talking more about this with friends and family so they understand when I’m not bubbly it doesn’t mean I’m not ok, it just means I have finite energy that I need to ration it out better.

Doing the work is painful but it really is worth it. If going forward I have a much more healthy energy balance then I am going to benefit from the mental health improvements. We all have to look in to our shadow if we want to minimise it’s effect on us.

Anyone looking to do some more inner work I am a certified enneagram coach