08/08/2024
I had been dancing the line of chronic, low-grade exhaustion for the last year. It flipped to full-blown burnout in the months leading up to summer.
Business was thriving, so I kept adding more sessions to my schedule making the days longer and longer. My body and hands hurt, signaling to me to slow down, but… what’s that saying? “Make hay while the sun shines”? 🙄
Weather was warming; plans, hangouts, and events came rushing in. By May, my calendar was completely filled for the season. There were only three days remaining out of the entire summer that didn’t have anything scheduled on them. 🤖
A sassy Oura ring made it very clear that I wasn’t getting enough rest or recovery. My ‘sleep and readiness scores’ consistently started to drop, until Oura asked me what the heck I was doing once my numbers were steadily in the red zone. 🔴
The Burnout Symptoms I was experiencing were similar to those of depression:
* Disinterest in things that once brought me joy
* Addictions to social media, Netflix, and shopping as a way of numbing and for a quick dopamine fix
* Reduced focus and productivity at work with extreme procrastination
* Unhealthy eating habits and weight gain
* Little to no motivation or energy to take care of myself or make a change
I think that, in today’s American society, burnout is much more common than we think and we likely mistake it for depression. Part of our culture is to barrel though, do more work, be more productive, achieve and accomplish… which often means we sacrifice our rest and self care, disregard our mental health, and resort to numbing and distracting in effort to ignore the way we feel and pretend that everything is okay. 🤡
Then what happens?
Instead of making a lifestyle change, which requires significant change in all areas of life, we take medication so we can keep going and doing what we’re doing. And that creates a whole separate set of problems while putting a bandaid over a bullet wound. 🩹
So what do we do about this?
The first step is admit and acknowledge: Something is wrong, and I am not okay.
Unpopular opinion?
It takes strength to admit that you’re not okay.
It’s okay to not be okay.
Believe me when I say — you’re not the only one; you are not alone. 🫶
Take a nap, get fresh air, drink water, disconnect from technology, set heathy boundaries, soak up the sun… and breathe.
Making the shift from burnout to recovery requires radical self care, commitment to your wellbeing, patience, grace, and deep listening.
It requires an entirely new Way of Life. 🌻
A Way of Life you’ll probably enjoy a lot more than the one you were living before.
❤️
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Music: You Know
Musician: Jeff Kaale
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