Unlearning Passionate Sacrifice in Academic & Corporate Workplaces

Overing is (mental, emotional, and/or physical) disconnection from yourself, often in service of perceived expectations (both internal and external).

Mental overing comes with a compulsive “more-ness” that folks experience as “I’m not enough,” so they commit to more than is doable or required. “Doing it all” as a badge of honor, and so your creative ambition gets hijacked into busyness instead of purpose.

Physical overing is self-abandonment that can include ignoring your own body’s needs and apologizing for being human. If you remember my 2nd grade story of peeing myself in front of the classroom, this was one of the events that solidified my loss of connection to my own internal signals. This is the disembodiment I talk about unlearning.

Emotional overing looks a lot like being so externally orientated that you often can’t name what you are feeling. It’s focusing on others’ needs and expectations or chronic people-pleasing. It’s rescuing dynamics where you take over, fix, or micromanage.

If you resonate with this, it’s likely that this pattern is a protective response to educational, familial, and workplace norms. And that now overing triggers unhelpful looping spirals and at times, an addiction-like cycle.

Loudly raising my hand. I wrapped up 2021 with these lines:

“Taking on too much became a source of pride. I wore over-extending like a superhero cape! Saying no wasn’t an option because that would admit defeat that I couldn’t or wasn’t good enough or didn’t belong in the academy.

Here's what I’m reading this month:

Over 800 single-spaced pages of my own blogs from the last few years and about a decade of journals, notes, and unfinished word docs. The qualitative research part of me is THRILLED and the menopaused brain part of me is overwhelmed. I can’t and don’t want to engage in my own overing patterns AND I also feel the urgency of this moment for folks and want to share what I’ve learned.

Why? I’ve committed to writing a book proposal on career grief that brings together my own grief experience and years of holding space for others’ grief. I’m hoping for it to have some overlap with climate grief, embodiment, and creative practices, and stories from academia and corporate experiences.