Battling My Internalized Capitalism

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As I sat down to write this month’s blog post, it felt like such a slog. Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’ve been riding on the Struggle Bus in an incessant loop, and writing or creating for myself or business has been the pinnacle of difficult tasks. It really has felt near impossible to put pen to paper—er, more accurately, fingers to keyboard.

What’s been happening slowly over the past few weeks is that my rock-solid routines have wavered. For nearly two years I have been consistently up at 5am to meditate, journal, write/read (often for pleasure!), and leisurely start my day. Granted, if I’m being truthful, a sizable number of those mornings were co-opted by “getting ahead” of the day and taking advantage of that quiet time before my inbox started buzzing.

I can’t remember exactly when this started, but at some point a few weeks ago, I shifted my alarm from 5am to 5:30am. And even more recently, I’ve been getting up at 5:30am, only to set another alarm for 6:30am. I’ve been getting an extra 90 minutes of sleep, and I am still tired. This realization has been fraught with immense guilt, and my internal dialogue has largely revolved around questions like:

What is wrong with you? Why can you no longer hack it?
Why are you still so tired?
Why are you making all of these excuses to not do the things that have previously brought you joy and stability?

When I breathe a little bit of spaciousness around it and offer myself a whole lot of compassion in those moments when my inner critic is loud, I can begin to see the truth behind it all. Yes, maybe I can no longer produce at the capacity I had previously, but I was also in a state of unhealthy over-productivity. It’s reminding me to question the systems and norms that we’ve created around the idea of work.

Systems like:

Measuring a “good day”, and therefore often my worth, by my productivity.

Feeling guilty for taking time away from work.

Perfectionism-fueled overwork and an all-or-nothing rest mentality that often, isn’t remotely restful or restorative.

Perpetuating the idea of a “workweek” and feeling the pressure to perform Monday-Friday. In keeping with this rigid structure, I often neglect my natural energy cycles even though I work for myself and can absolutely create my own rules.

All of these things are systems and ideas created by capitalism to increase productivity, which over the years has reduced human contributions to the workplace as merely variables in an equation to solve for maximum productivity. These systems reduce human contribution and the need for rest to a problem to be fixed.

Even though I am well aware of the problems surrounding the system of capitalism and consciously strive to live and work a different way, I still struggle to treat myself with compassion and detach my worth from the checkmarks on my to-do list.

For those of us who grew up in a capitalist system, this is a challenge. We believe one thing (in our conscious minds, at least) and yet we do another. I hold so much gentleness for anyone who has these similar struggles around internalized capitalism. For centuries, we’ve been conditioned to believe that work must look a certain way, and it takes so much strength and persistence to detangle the web of untruths we have been presented when it comes to work and worth.

So how can we better align our living and working habits with our beliefs?

We can regularly check in with our habits and systems and question whether they are serving us.

We can observe our energy levels and remind ourselves that our needs and capacities are fluid and design our systems around that truth.

We can strive to give ourselves the same kindness and compassion we give to our family members, friends, and even our pets. (After all, I’d never base my cat’s worth on her productivity!)

This is a practice, a process, and we will not be perfect at it. There will always be times when we are tempted to place productivity on a pedestal and neglect our human needs. Again, perfectionism is a flawed capitalist ideal, even when it comes to rest.

Maybe instead of “best” or “perfect”, we can allow ourselves a little more flexibility, a little more softness, and eventually see those days we spend on the couch in our pajamas watching Netflix and eating last night’s cold pizza as just as valuable as the long, nose-to-the-grindstone workdays that can sometimes be incredibly satisfying.

Instead of striving for perfect balance, perhaps we can adjust our values to make room for both ends of the spectrum and everything in between.