Thursday, January 9, 2014

Is it time to change your MOO? by Charyn Gant


** please excuse the dust...my computer won't let me upload pictures to Blogger right now, but this post from Charyn is too good to wait on! - Sarah **

Everyone has a different M.O.O. I believe it’s a combination of how we survived our childhoods and what we learned growing up. There usually comes a time when we are presented with the opportunity to realize that our current M.O.O. is no longer working for us and something has to change.

What am I talking about? M.O.O.: Mode of Operation. Maybe it has never occurred to you that you have a M.O.O. It’s how you choose to move through life everyday, accomplish goals and tasks, and approach your challenges. It defines how you show up in the world.

Burnout is a debilitating condition and is a reflection of your current M.O.O. Anyone who has experienced burnout knows how sidelining it can be, especially if they ignored the signs and didn’t catch it early.

Burnout is about a half-second behind breakdown; so if you don’t catch burnout early, guess what’s next?  However, if you do catch it early, you can use the opportunity to hit the pause button, take a much-needed break and reflect on how your M.O.O. is affecting your life.

Burnout out first visited me in September and I missed the message even though I wrote about it! I found a sheet of paper where I had written, “Why does it feel like I have too many balls in the air? Should I let a few of them drop down until I’m ready for them?” Yeah, it does seem like a “well duh” moment, but because I was doing a brain dump, I didn’t redirect my attention back to what I had written; I simply moved on to other thoughts.

And I really did have too many balls in the air. By mid-October, I was becoming physically run down. My energy would abruptly run out at odd times of the day, leaving me exhausted and depleted. My thoughts were fuzzy and lacked clarity. My creativity became severely limited. I was oversensitive, emotional and was experiencing an increased sense of overwhelm. Simple decisions became monumental.

After attending a business boot camp the first weekend of November, my body finally gave me the finger and began to breakdown starting with a headache, sore throat and achy body. This time I listened. I called in sick to work and went back to bed for another 5 hours. I did nothing for the rest of the day. And believe me; it wasn’t easy; I could list at least 20 things that I knew needed to be done.

I decided my health was far more valuable.

So, for the next two weeks, everything just sat… and waited.

And during that pause, it hit me: there was something wrong with my M.O.O.

The M.O.O. I’ve used over the years was neither healthy nor supportive. Listening to my own inner wisdom, I discovered that my M.O.O. very energetically masculine and reinforced by13 years of military training. It was very imbalanced. My M.O.O. had been the antithesis to the feminine and with the re-emergence of the Feminine on the plant, will no longer be an acceptable way of me being in the world.

Burnout, when its message is heard, deciphered and understood, can reveal a great deal of information about the structures we are operating in: our M.O.O. When we are unwilling to listen and miss the message of burnout, rest assured it will visit us again.

One of the most self-loving acts you can perform for your health and wellness (and to benefit everyone around you) is to reflect on what your M.O.O. might be and whether or not it’s serving you in fulfilling your goals, visions and keeping you healthy.

If you’re finding that you’re exhausted, uncreative and getting sick way too often, trust and love yourself enough to check your M.O.O.

Choose to begin the New Year by reflecting on and changing your M.O.O. if needed, so that you can avoid burnout, conquer the impossible, shine your brightest, be bad ass & bodacious, and stay healthy!

And when someone asks you what your secret is, smile mysteriously and say, “I changed my M.O.O.” 





1 comment:

  1. Wow, this sounds like me from last summer til now...even the military training! (I've got nearly 19 yrs in the Air National Guard).

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