Willpower is Real and So is Magic (Harvard Meets Hogwarts)
Exhaustion arrives when you overextend yourself by taking on others' tasks as your own.
When you assume other people’s responsibilities, your willpower will inevitably become depleted. When you lack willpower, it’s harder to have self-control, resist impulses, make decisions, and stay committed to your goals despite facing temptations.
Intelligence backed by willpower, however, can swing to the extreme manifestation of “playing God”, where we naively take responsibility for all things and imagine a self-importance and control beyond reality.
Repeat after me, friends: “That is not my task.”
Unless you own the business, guess what? It’s not your task to make sure the company is a success — it’s the owner’s.
If your mother doesn’t understand the choices you’re making, guess what? It’s not your task to make her understand -- that’s on her.
If your group of friends no longer makes you feel empowered, guess what? It’s not your task to entertain, console, or inspire them anymore -- they are responsible for their own life.
Here’s exactly how to find the peaceful place where you have willpower — and therefore control over your actions -– without taking on other people’s responsibilities or trying to control them:
This is Where Harvard Meets Hogwarts
Focus, service, productivity, politeness – these are the neurological, psychological, and social skills you can learn in a school-setting (ie. Harvard).
Trust, confidence, serenity – these are more illusive, spiritual skills that are not taught in the typical school syllabus (ie. you’re going to have to go to “Hogwarts” to get these).
The things that everyone wants often have no set roadmap to obtaining them.
You know when you have it, you know when you don’t have it, but “getting it” requires unexplainable, intangible magic.
Or so it seems.
Your task is to focus on what you can control, to be of service in the way you’re asked and called to be, and leave the rest up to SPIRIT.
But, damn, if that’s not easier said than done.
Feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, I used to consume (i.e. drink, binge Netflix, or eat food) to keep life’s pains at a comfortable emotional distance.
Sometimes it worked perfectly:
A frozen pizza
A saucy season of reality TV
A few glasses of wine (or a bottle)
These worked as solutions for me because they allowed me, if only for a few hours, to let go of other people’s problems, tasks, and confusion. They allowed me to just be me and not care about anything else. I found an immense amount of relief and peace in that.
Unfortunately, my “solutions” had sneaky consequences:
Leaky gut
Poor sleep
Shit memory
Life in the hamster-wheel*
If you’re drinking, eating, or shopping your way to relief, you’re settling for far less than you deserve.
The ultimate solution is one that helps us with all of life’s experiences and has no negative consequences.
It’s time to seek the spiritual energy that you can trust to unconditionally love you and help you in life.
Whether you’re eating poorly, drinking, content binging, being codependent, or completing other people’s tasks for them, it’s exhausting you and making your life harder.
Asking for help doesn’t come easily to many of us, let alone asking for help from a spiritual “thing” that no human can really explain to another human.
Many of us were taught that spirituality or religion was a sign of weakness, or “nice for those who needed it,” signifying a brokenness in those who sought.
But, here’s the kicker…
We've All Worshiped Something
I've worshiped:
Men
Food
Follows
Banana Republic
…to name a few.
My invitation to you is to explore your own conception of SPIRIT. It can, but does not have to, have any specific gender, name, race, or human attributes. This process has no requirements and will be completely customized to your personal needs and beliefs.
I use the term SPIRIT to reference this higher power whom I invite you to personalize to your own understanding. Where you see the word SPIRIT in any of my letters, please note that it is not an ideal or a concept I am pushing on you. Rather, it is merely an acronym that you can take or leave:
S - something outside of yourself, that is
P - personal to you,
I - itentional in its existence, that you can
R - rely on and
I - instinctively
T - trust
Your SPIRIT could be your grandma, your nephew, your dog. It could be the ocean, the stars, the felt-sense of collective energy you get at a concert or sports game. It could be a thing in the sky, the most beautiful version of yourself you can imagine, or the wind. It could be anything, as long as it’s not you and it’s something you feel you can instinctively trust and rely upon.
Do you trust the ocean is fulfilling its purpose or that the sun will rise again tomorrow?
Do you rely on your teammates to put in the work and help you on your way to success?
You’re invited into a new or continued relationship with SPIRIT that allows you to set new boundaries, know your self-worth, and claim the support you desire without fear.
Look back at a time in your life when things were going well, where you felt like (or trusted) that you were in the right place, or where you were supposed to be. Maybe it was a relationship, a job, a city, or a dream you were chasing. Whatever it was, you instinctively knew it was right for you.
You’ve Always had the Capacity to Trust in SPIRIT (You’ve Likely Already Done it)
Have you ever played a sport or been in a musical?
Have you taken a class or hired someone to teach you something?
Have you ever hired a therapist or life coach or financial advisor?
You’ve always had the ability to trust that something outside of yourself was capable of guiding you through something, teaching you what you needed to know, provide you with the resources you needed, and draw out your best talents. You’ve done it so many times before.
Let’s take the sports analogy: If there was a coach that you can rely upon to know your best skills and how you can best use them to live an amazing life, would you hire them?
If that coach made practices tough some days to prepare you for tough games, would you practice even though it was hard? Would you trust the purpose of those tough days?
Would you believe that you could win the next game if your coach told you that you could?
If your answer is yes, maybe coach is a better term for you than SPIRIT. It really doesn’t matter what you call it, it matters that you believe.
Fear and faith are similar in this way – there is no evidence beforehand that things are going to turn out the way you think it will.
You have to choose to believe that things can turn out in your favor.
How to Find Your SPIRIT
Journal Prompts
List out some of the experiences you have had in trusting something outside of yourself, that was personal to you, and intentional in its existence.
What aspects of the people who guided you in these experiences would you like to believe are true in your present day conception of SPIRIT?
What other features, characteristics, or personality traits would you like your SPIRIT to have in order for you to be willing to trust that it is helping you?
What are some of the purposes you’d like your SPIRIT to have in your life? This can be anything from “provide all of my financial needs” to “ensure all events that happen in my life have divine purpose” or “to guide me to my truth.
What name will you give your SPIRIT? This can change tomorrow, just try something on that feels good to wear today. Examples: coach, God, Delilah (as in, “Hey there, Delilah”), Goddess.
Now that you have a working concept of SPIRIT, it’s time to try some of that “relying and instinctively trusting” stuff.
Let me know how it goes.
Talking the talk and walking the walk,
Jenna Lou
