In a world where productivity has become inextricably connected with the value of a person, it is no surprise that traumatized individuals struggle to get the support they need to heal.
What Do I Mean By Hustle-Culture?
When I talk about hustle-culture I'm not talking about hard work, putting in effort, committing to things, or persevering through hardships – all of which are incredibly important to trauma healing.
Rather, I'm talking about the narrative that says that anything you dislike about your life is because you aren't doing enough. It's the unnamed fear of death our culture has that makes people believe that every moment needs to be spent in drive.
No pain, no gain. Keep grinding. I'll sleep when I'm dead.
It's a hyperfixation on continual self-improvement, productivity, and efficiency. And it is the killer of healing.
Hustle-Culture Rejects Nervous System Needs
We share a nervous system with all other animals (particularly mammals), yet we regularly demonize very natural processes of the nervous system. Some examples (not an exhaustive list):
We Need Rest Periods
Our nervous systems are built to flow between periods of rest and activation. And I'm not just talking about our sleep and waking hours. A healthy nervous system is flexible and capable of finding its way back to rest after times of stress.
Which means to maintain a healthy nervous system we must allow it time to recover after seasons of stress. In a culture where we are expected to "always be on", restful seasons are often labeled as laziness or unproductive. People who have spent years under deep stress may require generous time in recovery. This doesn't make them lazy. It makes them a person.
Pleasure Is Important
Pleasure is a powerful indicator of safety in our nervous system. When we take time to really pleasure ourselves (not just sexually) we can seem self-indulgent to others. The truth is many survivors of trauma don't really know how to experience pleasure. Hustle culture says, "you can have fun on the weekend" (if you're lucky) or "if you have time to rest you have time to hustle". When we teach ourselves to feel guilty about enjoying our pleasures we are removing a key player in our nervous system's regulation.
We Aren't Built for Constant Stress
Working extra hours, picking up a side gig, overcommitting ourselves – all the ways we participate in hustle culture are built on continual stress. When we remove our recovery time and reallocate it to stress, our nervous system becomes more rigid and attuned to managing our survival. When the nervous system is focused on surviving, it isn't available for things like social connection and rest.
Pathologizing Victims of Toxic Work Environments
Most American workers that experience work-related mental health issues, are having a logical and reasonable nervous system reaction to a toxic work environment. Rather than asking why hustle-culture is stimulating generations of anxious and depressed nervous systems, we transfer responsibility to the workers by labeling them as mentally ill.
All these mechanisms of the nervous system are critical for our trauma healing process. So much of somatic trauma healing is based on the creation of flexibility, resilience, and balance in the nervous system. None of which is available if we are overworked, denied pleasure, constantly stressed, and shamed for logical stress responses.
Nature Doesn't Hustle
Some lessons about healing we can learn from nature:
Healing is slow AND productive
Hustling says, "Healing needs to be quick. You've got stuff to do."
Nature says, "Healing takes time and supports your ambitions."
Contrary to hustle-culture narratives healing does not, in fact, need to come at the expense of ambition. Spending the time to rest and regulate ourselves helps us approach our ambitions with more focus, energy, and balance. People with chronically over-charged nervous systems cannot operate at their highest capacity. Slowing down supports nervous system regulation – providing us with healing and productivity alike.
We are cyclical like everything else in nature
Hustling says, "You should always be at peak performance."
Nature says, "You were created to ebb and flow."
The hibernation of bears. The migration of birds. The natural burning of woods to make space for new saplings to grow. Even life and death itself. Nature is full of cyclical processes. Our healing will have its own patterns to follow. There should be times of ease, and times of stress. Times of big motion, and times of stillness. Times of growth, and times of contentment. This isn't a linear process we can hustle through.
Nature is embodied
Hustling says, "Ignore any sensations holding you back."
Nature says, "Your instincts are important and worth listening to."
Our animal cousins are more in tune with their "body brain". Whether its fighting, hunting, or mating, the body sends them signals and they listen. While one of our greatest gifts as human is our shiny-new prefrontal cortex, we have been trained to allow it to supersede our body-brain. When considering that trauma is held in the body, the inability to listen to the choices/messages of our bodies makes healing far more difficult.
We are built to express
Hustling says, "Keep it to yourself. There's no time for your needs."
Nature says, "You can only have your needs met if you express them."
In service of doing what needs to be done to accelerate our path to success, we have taught ourselves to continually stifle the expression of our healthy needs. Animals are so much more expressive than western communities that indigenous peoples practicing expressive rituals (such as chanting, dancing, and drumming) were historically called "animalistic" or "wild". In truth, these indigenous cultures practice our natural healing process of expression.
These lessons in healing from nature cannot be implemented in the hustle-culture paradigm. We will only be able to take the time we need to heal, live authentically within our cyclical rhythms, be embodied, and express our needs when we treat ourselves as more than widgets of productivity.
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