On Effort and Hard Work

I have been in “Doing Land” for most of May. In Being, I create, and in Doing, I deliver.

I delivered seven workshops in May alone, and my work touched the hearts of about 150 leaders.

One of our leadership journeys starts with a “Being” experience, which involves sound healing and deep conversations on important life questions.  Holding space during this program allowed me to be on the balcony and watch others “Being” from a distance.

This osmosis between Being and Doing has been on my mind for a while. In fact, it has been since I had a session with my coach about three weeks ago. While giving him an update about where I’m at, he noticed how often I used the words “effort” and “hard work,” so he suggested we pause and explore it.

Doing is an integral part of who I am. I have been a hard worker all my life. In fact, it is my hard work that got me this far. I understand that hard work is important to me, but at that moment, it seemed like the only lens through which I could see life. My coach was merely inviting me to explore a new perspective.

Through the trauma healing work I have done, I learnt to pay attention to whatever feels like an old structure, which I wear like armour.

“The trauma response is a very intelligent process” – Thomas Huebl

The first thing that came to mind when my coach asked me what comes through when I say hard work, I said: “People like us have to work hard”. Then, there was complete silence. This resonated like such a deep truth inside of me that my eyes welled up, and I just stopped. It felt like a heavy stone dropping into the depths of my being. It felt like armour, a deep trauma structure that I am carrying probably not only from my own life experience but from that of my ancestors too.

I was born to a Palestinian father who was kicked out of his home in Jerusalem in 1948 during Al Nakba and had to work hard his entire life to be accepted and to succeed in a country that was not his own but became his home. My mother, one of eight children in a middle-income household, couldn’t study at university because she had to start working early to support her father and help her younger siblings go through school. She also had to work hard, especially when the Lebanese civil war broke out.

I learned hard work from them and my grandparents. The belief that “people like us have to work hard” is deeply engrained, and it became the structure on which my overwhelmed nervous system constantly relied to survive during difficult times. Somehow, I convinced myself that no matter what happens, if I work hard, I will be safe.

This belief suggests that it comes easily for others but not for me.

When we can distance ourselves from the beliefs that have been running our lives for so long, it feels like such a blessing. Suddenly I was able to see the trauma structure that had served me so well but was making me run on autopilot for as long as I can remember.

Now that what I was subject to became an object I could see, the next natural question was: What would be a more empowering belief?

A few came up:

-         I don't need to work hard.

-         Finally, I know that… I don't need to work hard.

-         I am a seed of possibilities (too much out there and philosophical!)

Then, my coach invited me to remove the word “work,” and it was difficult even to imagine anything without work and effort.

When he saw how much I was struggling, he asked if he could make a suggestion, and he offered me this new belief to contemplate:  

Finally, I know it's easy.

 There it was! The simple truth my soul was yearning for. This sentence resonated with my whole being. I could immediately feel the opening that this new belief was inviting. To keep it alive, I need to ask myself this question whenever something feels like hard work: In this moment, am I making it easy or hard?

 The deeper I dive into my journey and those I do this transformational work with, the more I realize the importance of personal development work. The “seeing” is what allows us to shift from Doing to Being. Without it, this transition will not be possible because it will not seem necessary.

 “We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

“We are collectively exhausted because of our inability to hold competing parts of ourselves together in a more integrated way”. – David Whyte “The Three Marriages”

 I trust that if you are reading this, it’s because you have an inner calling to go further on your spiritual journey. I hope you will find inspiration in my deeply personal reflections. Writing is a healing process for me; it helps anchor my learning and growth. I hope you can also find what could be healing and anchoring for you.