I came back to writing this post genuinely and absolutely sure I had only abandoned my writing a few weeks ago. Then, I looked at the first, and only, four words on the page.
"2024 has just begun."
As I sit at the airport, drinking my second glass of over-priced wine, I nearly spit that $15 sip all over the table. There is simply no way, it has been 5 months since I have written something.
In this moment, marvelling over the quickness of time, I have just closed the final loose ends from my last contract. Maybe it was the wine, but I felt that sensation that only happens when you have just finished something really hard. Your body relaxes (even if it's just for a moment), your mind clears, and you say to yourself: I did it.
For me, a person riddled with both anxiety and unrealistic expectations of self, the reflection of how truly hard something was, only ever becomes real when I have been jolted out of the normalcy of daily life. That feeling you get when sitting at an airport bar, having just completed a challenging contract, about to embark on a new adventure...for example.
As my last chapter closes in real time, I have felt an overwhelming urge to write. So here we are now, enjoying a moment of quiet, and (I will be the one who says it) deserved reflection.
It feels almost too appropriate for today's topic, that 5 months ago I abandoned writing this entry and writing, for that matter, entirely. At the time, I had dreams to write at least two journal entries a month. These had become therapeutic for me. A jolt of inspiration I needed when I inevitably fell into an unshakeable funk. I even put calendar reminders of which post to work on and when...for the next year. Every week or two, a new alert appears on my phone, reminding me that "it's time!" to write my next entry.
These alerts have begun to feel more foreboding, taunting even. Certainly not inspiring. A haunting reminder that I did not do what I set out to do. 20 reminders, 0 posts written.
I have failed.
Now, it is 8 weeks later from when I was first sitting in that airport bar and I can't help, but laugh. I went on a a restoring, inspiring trip to Italy and am now back and still haven't finished this post.
What is the DEAL?!
I think that the truth is, sometimes we (and I speak for myself here) have a tendency to put expectations on everything that we should be doing and how it should be done, that it will always inevitably lead to a feeling of failing. I tend to think of an idea and if I don't feel I can knock it out of the park, than what is the point of doing it at all? Ultimately, this can lead to 1) feeling guilty that I committed to something that I am now not doing 2) doing the thing without the bandwidth and burning out.
Burnout. This year, I have been more tired, less motivated, and less inspired than I have ever been before. I mean this from a perspective that has felt completely isolated from periods where I have been dealing with depression or life throwing some really hard curveballs. I have been tired. so so tired. all. the time. Ironically, I have had more regular hours and more consistency than I have ever had before, but I couldn't shake it. I was just tired.
To me, being tired felt like a sorry excuse for being lazy or unmotivated. It lead me to have mental spirals questioning my work ethic, my capacity to succeed, and whether I will actually be the type of person who will ever achieve their dreams.
This is what led to the burnout. When I am not doing something that perhaps I committed to or hoped to do, I am feeling mental turmoil and not allowing my brain to rest. When I decide to do the thing, even if my entire being is screaming for me to chill the f*** out, I am not allowing my body to rest. If this pattern goes on long enough it will lead to burnout where you feel you never have the energy or inspiration to do anything ever. That is where I was at.
Pardon my clumsy analogy, but imagine a phone battery. If you use your phone nonstop, the battery will quickly deplete. However, if you take breaks and charge it intermittently, it has time to rest and will last much longer. If you run your phone until the battery is completely dead, even when you plug it back in, it won't spring to life immediately. The battery requires time to recharge and regain its power.
In my case, my battery was drained. I only ever allowed it to charge just enough to get a bit of life back, then used it at full blast again. This cycle caused my battery to die faster each time. I never gave it enough time to fully recharge, perpetuating a relentless pattern of burnout. The frequency of this burnout increased because my battery life was constantly diminishing, never giving it enough time to recover.
I never give myself the time to rest because that felt unproductive. The reality is, however, that the ONLY way I will be productive, is giving myself that time to rest. And I mean true rest. Rest that is not shadowed with feelings of guilt or inadequacy. It is being ok with not doing.
It took this realization of burnout, to realize that I was defining success and failure completely wrong. The truth of both is that they are arbitrary. Sure, I can do a task I set out for myself and "technically" succeed because I finished it, but if my mind is depleted and I have no energy, is that really a success?
So back to the beginning, I started this entry when I was in the deepest trenches of burnout. When I quite literally didn't have any energy outside of my basic commitments. Did I fail because I didn't write when I said I was going to? Absolutely not. I failed, however, because I made myself feel bad about doing so. For not recognizing that I needed a break.
When I went away, I set out with a goal to frequently post on my Instagram and to write one blogpost a week. I didn't. I hardly posted at all and my writing began and ended at the airport.
But, it is here that my failing was winning.
I won because I came to terms with how truly burnt out I have been for over a year and rather than pushing myself to do all the things I set out to achieve, I let myself live presently. I let myself be fully immersed in the classes I was taking and the architecture of Florence. I ate all the food, wandered aimlessly, let my phone die, and daydreamed. I didn't say no to experiences because I had other things I "had" to do. I would stand and admire my favourite door, the Santa Maria del Carmine, nearly everyday on my way home from school never once looking at my watch, letting myself take as much time as I needed that day.
I didn't allow my mind to play it's regular tricks, telling me that I should feel guilty about how I was spending my time. Of course, there were moments where those voices crept in, but I won when I didn't let them take over. Because of that, I was able to be present for the first time in a very long time. It also allowed me to be grateful about where I was. A year ago, I wrote a blogpost about the magic of summer in Italy and there I was -- living it.
What were the results? I have been inspired which is something I haven't felt for a very long time. I have creative ideas bubbling and I didn't have to force them. The most exciting, however, is where the world fell in black and white for the past few months, it is finally beginning to re-emerge in colour. My battery is on charge.
However, that means I can't fall back to old patterns of taking myself off charge too early. I would love to say that my study abroad fully recharged me and I feel 100% reset. Unfortunately, that is not quite how life works. I have been feeling burnout for too long for 6 weeks to change that. I know, despite feeling deeply counter-intuitive, that if I take time to rest, I will be so much more on the other side.
For that reason, I am taking this time to avoid over-committing. I will listen to my body, rest when needed, and not feel guilty about saying no. I will daydream and allow myself moments to simply stand, quietly admiring my favourite door.
Thank you for reading this far. If even one person can relate to my feelings of burnout, I hope this has helped--even just a little. I plan to share more about my trip to Italy and projects I have been working on. But, in keeping with the spirit of today's message, I am going to rest...a little while longer.
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