What if the time we spend at work didn't require us to escape from it?

Picture this: You wake up early to squeeze in meditation before the workday starts. Maybe you rush to a yoga class at lunch, eating at your desk afterward. After work, you're back at the gym or trying to find a quiet moment to journal, to breathe, to reconnect with yourself. If you're a parent, forget it—those practices get pushed to the edges even further, fighting for space against school pickups and bedtime routines.

We've built our lives around this rhythm. Work depletes us. So we scramble to fit in the practices that restore us—the things that help us stay centered, present, connected to ourselves. We squeeze our wellness into the cracks of our days, just enough to keep ourselves afloat for tomorrow.

And then we do it all over again.

Here's what strikes me: We've accepted this as normal. We've accepted that work equals depletion and life equals restoration (if we’re lucky). We've accepted that there's the version of ourselves we bring to work, and then there's who we actually are. And those two things must remain separate.

But what if this separation is exactly what's keeping us stuck?

The Pattern of Separateness

This isn't just about scheduling or time management. It's about something deeper. A worldview that operates on separateness.

We see it everywhere in how we organize work: We separate our "professional" selves from our whole selves. We separate the work we do from the people doing it. We put problems into silos, even when they're deeply interconnected. We separate nature from business, people from the bottom line, leading from feeling.

This separateness allows us to operate in a certain way—with command and control, with clear boundaries, with measurable productivity. It's what we've been taught. It's what shareholders expect. It's what professionalism has meant.

But it's also what's exhausting us.

Because humans aren't actually separate. We aren't machines that can compartmentalize indefinitely. We're interconnected beings—connected to each other, to something larger than ourselves, to the natural world we're part of whether we acknowledge it or not.

And when we try to deny that interconnection, when we try to show up as only a fraction of ourselves, it costs us. It costs our energy, our creativity, our ability to see clearly. It costs us the very things that make us effective.

A Different Approach

Here's what I've learned in my 20+ years in the workforce, but really in the last 10 years of navigating parenthood, career progression and burnout. The practices that help me stay connected to myself—mindfulness, slowing down, being present—these don't take away from my effectiveness. They enhance it.

When I create space to be still, I see patterns more clearly. When I'm grounded, I can hold space for others to process and arrive at their own solutions. When I show up as more of my whole self, I'm better at the work that matters. I am also happier, healthier and more creative. I am motivated, inspired and clear. All things that benefit a workplace.

These aren't revolutionary tactics. We already know this stuff works. But we treat it as the exception, the nice-to-have when there's time, rather than integrating it into how we actually operate. What if we flipped this script and made it the priority that work had to fit around? Imagine.

This isn't about being soft or impractical. It's about recognizing that the separation we've created is actually limiting our potential.

The Shift Isn't What We Think

Here's what this isn't about: Adding more programs. Offering yoga classes or meditation apps. Checking boxes to say you've addressed wellness.

Those things can be beautiful. But they're still treating the practices as separate from the work, something you do in addition to rather than as part of your way of being.

The real shift is about embodiment, not doing. It's about how we actually show up.

Can you lead with presence instead of reactivity? Can you see interconnections instead of just silos? Can you hold space for your team to be more whole, even when it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar? Can you slow down enough to recognize patterns and make better decisions? Can you recognize when you’re feeling overwhlemed or naviagting a hard conversation? And can you stop and resource yourself in the moment rather than stuff it down for another day? Can you get ask for what you need? A break? A breather? A listening ear?

The Real Challenge

When you open the door to people bringing more of their whole selves to work, it can feel unwieldy. Different people have different needs. How do you honor that without everything becoming scattered? How do you maintain momentum as a unified team while still allowing for individual wholeness?

I think the answer isn't a perfect system. It's about the willingness to navigate that complexity and hold the tension between structure and flexibility, between collective purpose and individual needs. This is leadership.

It requires vulnerability. It requires questioning what we've defined as "professional." It requires giving up some control.

And yes, there's fear around that. Fear of what others will think. Fear that it won't serve the bottom line. Fear that we're wasting time on things that don't matter. But here's what I keep coming back to: The workplace demands so much of our time and energy. If we continue to expect people to do all their inner work, all their reconnecting, all their restoring outside of work—while work takes most of their waking hours—we're setting everyone up to fail.

We can't keep operating on depletion and wondering why people burn out.

What if we recognized that slowing down, being present, and creating space for wholeness doesn’t take away from effectiveness, it enables it?

What if we saw ourselves not as separate from nature, from each other, from the larger systems we're part of, but as deeply interconnected?

The practices matter, meditation, mindfulness, time in nature, whatever helps you reconnect. But the real work is in the embodiment. In how you show up. In your willingness to lead from wholeness rather than separateness.

It's not easy. But neither is the hamster wheel we're on now. Maybe it's time to step off and find a different rhythm, one where work doesn't require us to escape from it, because we’re allowed to bring our whole selves to it instead.