When you are forced to slow down
I’ve had a few moments in my life recently where the Universe has said, “oh hey, yeah you, it’s time to slow down.” Of course I ignored those messages until then I got slapped upside the head and I was kind of forced to stop.
A few months ago I had a pretty severe case of burnout. For me the burnout felt a little bit like depression with a smidge of PTSD disassociation thrown in. I’ve been dealing with that for a huge chunk of my life and so I went off to my therapist to figure out what unresolved issue had reared its ugly head only to find out that my issue was current. I was burnt out. All my stress hormones were over firing and my body was calling for a time out.
When I was burnt out I couldn’t even read a book because there was too much spinning in my brain. I was really short with people, which I hated because that isn’t who I am. I was making a lot of little mistakes (I also was doing two jobs at the time, which lead to the burnout!), but I couldn’t focus long enough on one task to get it done right.
Of course I ignored the problem, until I couldn’t any longer. The main antidote for burnout is rest. A lot of rest. Slowly my mind and body started functioning again. Gradually I could read a book without the words blurring on the page because my mind wasn’t able to process them. The biggest shift was I started feeling like myself again. I felt optimism and laughter creep back in. My ability to interact with people shifted and I wasn’t reacting to everyone with anger.
Other things started to shift and I was able to pick up sewing again because my brain could finally figure out how to put the pattern pieces together. While in burnout I couldn’t process information. Lin-Manual perfectly exemplifies this in the video below!
I had to slow things way down in order to regain focus, clarity, energy, optimism, joy, laughter and so many other things.
What I wish I had done differently was pump the breaks sooner. I had been running on empty for a couple of years and then when more was expected of me, I had nothing to give and burnt myself out. I should have set boundaries with work. Do you know how many studies are out there that show if you are well rested your productivity increases? So many! Yet, we all believe that if we just put in more hours we’ll get it done. It doesn’t work that way because we are human beings with human bodies and not machines.
I wish I would have prioritized taking care of myself. For me that includes daily movement, journaling and a bit of crafting. Crafting is my form of meditation. Another thing all of the studies say is super good for you, yeah, meditating. I really should have been doing that.
If you need help prioritizing yourself and setting boundaries, then sign up for a free coaching call. I’d love to chat with you about how coaching can help you find your way back from burnout and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
