Rebirth in the Midst of Living at Work

“You don’t work from home; you live at work”
Institute for Social Ecology (@InstSocEco)

It’s been over a year since many of us shifted into full-time remote work. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that shift was like or all of the complications that came along with it.

To be sure, we have been sheltered from the worst of the brutish treatment bestowed upon “essential workers,” who have been sacrificed upon the altar of productivity without so much as proper PPE or hazard pay. While those of us at home enjoy many benefits, we have all had to bear the brunt of a poorly handled pandemic, and while work-from-home productivity is up, so is burnout. And this doesn’t appear to be run-of-the-mill burnout. This kind has depth and is carving out canyons in our bodies, which won’t be soon forgotten.

In the last year, I’ve experienced regular burnout, but I have also experienced something new. It’s as if I burned out - was burned away - and then fell into a thick mud. The burnout was primary and much less shocking. Now, I find that my community and I are facing the secondary and tertiary consequences of carrying so much - all within the presumed sanctity of our homes.

Home should be a refuge. It should be a container in which you can fall apart, mend, dance, love, create, rage, and nourish. Ideally, home is a safe and big enough space where you can process the difficult emotions that come up at work and explore new possibilities when you’re ready to make a change. But when you live at work, as many of us have done for over a year now, home starts to disappear. The work eats at its edges, making the sacred space too small to hold us. I suspect that even as more working people return to office spaces and hybrid arrangements, the elusive boundaries between work and Home will remain corrosive.

The consequences of this are stark. Many of my clients work from home, and they describe the internal and external noise rising to a level that is simply overwhelming. For working people who are disconnected to their work, there is simultaneously so much to do and so little that really matters. In early 2020, this may have been masked by the novelty of doing laundry between conference calls or popping out into your garden early, but that’s no longer enough to drown out the pain of living inside of misaligned work.

Many of us are weary, but Springtime blooms such as the crocus and daffodils beckon us to keep going. The dark-eyed juncos and chickadees are building nests in my backyard even as I question how I could manage another year of this. The Earth still turns, and rebirth is still possible.

Most of us have become so used to the manic, all-consuming nature of modern work that this all felt normal at first. But what would it look like to shift things so that Home was primary, and work was a small part of what happened within it? And I’m not talking about your cute kids interrupting more Zoom calls or eating a homemade lunch at your homemade desk. I’m talking about the amplification and expansion of Home until it gets so big that it can hold you and your work again.

What would it mean to really work from a place of Home (Home being both your physical dwelling but also your internal sense of center)?

How could work actually be in service of your life at Home? How could your work contribute more to your sense of safety and respite? It may mean that what you do for work has to change; and as the daylight increases along with the hope that we’re through the worst of this, you’re in a good position to do so.

If your work was once life-giving, then it could be that it’s time to work from Home and stop living at work. This will not be easy. You’ll be making changes against the currents of cultural and workplace norms that tell you it’s normal to always be available and productive without end.

It’s time that we accept the idea that our work should be an aligned way for us to express our gifts and enjoy our lives. No job or line of work is worth giving up the sanctity of your home for. No type of work is so important that it should invade the inner confines of your heart and convince you that you are bad or that life is meaningless. But if we’re going to evolve through this instead of just gritting our teeth for another who-knows-how-long, we’re going to have to take risks.

What could be reborn inside of you this Spring if you reconfigure where work fits into your Home life?

Instead of living at work, what if the work was a beneficial part of your Home? What if it was nestled into an appropriate container that made it even more beautiful and rewarding to you?

I won’t pretend that it’s easy to make changes like these after a year of getting into a groove with yourself, those you live with, or your coworkers. But I’m also not going to pretend like the way we’ve been doing it is sustainable. Now (like, literally today) is the time to start expanding our experience of what’s possible in this reality. For years, we’ve allowed dominant workplace culture to come into our Homes, and it’s time to tell a new story.

If you know that discovering new, more aligned work is something you need right now, consider working with me one on one. My Spring coaching program starts April 20th, and you can learn more here.