The quote that uprooted burnout
+ the stark realizations along the way
I was laying in bed in the morning and could not get up. I felt this crushing weight upon me - there was nothing there but I felt it. The pressure. I was immediately going through my to-do list, making a budget in my head and I couldn’t move. It felt like the beginning of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I was stuck.
The phantom pressure pressing upon me that morning (and many other mornings) was burnout. I didn’t realize it was burnout - I assumed everyone was this exhausted all the time. Everyone always said they were tired, right? Wasn’t being a responsible adult just being perpetually exhausted?
I eventually and somehow mustered myself to get out of bed but I didn’t shower. I didn’t have time. I didn’t eat a full breakfast - just enough to get by. I went straight to work. I got pulled over on my way to work because I didn’t notice the speed change. On a road I drove everyday. I wasn’t present. I was dissociating - I was zoned out. It cost me $115 for the ticket. My body paid a lot more.
I didn’t stop working until I was so exhausted that I literally crawled into bed that night. I would busy myself, even at home - creating tasks for myself with an urgency from no one by myself. Who told me I needed to rearrange the kitchen cupboards that night or clean the fridge or purge my closet with an urgency of a life or death emergency? I did - more specifically, it was my agitated nervous system that was accustomed to being in life or death mode that I only felt safe, ironically, when I was coiled tightly in dire urgency.
Then I stumbled upon a Marion Woodman quote that would forever change how I live my life. “Can I really believe I am worth an hour a day? Am I, who have given my life to others, selfish enough to take one hour a day to find myself?” When I first read that quote, I went through my day and calculated how much of my time, energy and resources I was spending on myself. Time just for me, for my own reflection and rejuvenation. It was zero.
I was gobsmacked. My life reflected back to me that I didn’t believe I was worth an hour a day - I wasn’t even worth ten minutes.
I gave so much of myself away.
I gave myself away to my work - going above and beyond my pay grade and their expectations of me. My expectations of myself became what they expected of me and I felt trapped by them. A prison of my own making.
To start giving myself an hour a day felt daunting and unrealistic. I couldn’t even imagine. There were so many things to get done! I barely had enough time to care for my body’s basic needs - let alone the “luxury” of self-care. If I couldn’t muster 10 minutes for myself - what business did I have trying to schedule in an hour? So I started smaller.
I tried to give myself 3 minutes. Just 3 minutes of a guided meditation - I didn’t have to do anything. And that was the problem. I couldn’t sit through a 3 minute meditation because I wasn’t doing anything. I was addicted to doing. My whole identity, my sense of worthiness all came from “doing”, from my usefulness. If I was just sitting here doing nothing - even for 3 minutes - I felt like nothing. I was nothing.
So I tried 1 minute. I had to be able to give myself one minute of a 24 hour day! If I could have a singular minute to myself for my own presence, reflection and expression, whose life was I living anyway?
Whose life was I living if I couldn’t gift time to myself? The question reverberated through me - it felt like a bass drop reverberating through every cell of my body. Whose life was I living?
I was determined to live my own life. And completely bewildered where to start. So I tried stacking - I don’t know where I learned it from but it single handedly gave me my life. Stacking is where you do a caring supportive thing while you’re doing something you already do. Listening to meditative Hz frequency music while brushing your teeth. Doing chants while driving in the car. Meditating on a walk. Having a shower by candlelight. It wasn’t anything fancy - but I was present with myself.
It was through stacking, I was finally able to give myself three minutes. Then seven. Then 13. Then 17. Then 21. Instead of watching Netflix, I would put on a YouTube video of Alan Watts, lay with a heated blanket and let myself be horizontal. Eventually, I was going to a yoga class for my lunch break. It didn’t start easily - it was hard work.
But sometimes it takes hard work to be soft.
With Marion’s prompting, I slowly reclaimed my life as my own. I learned, in my own practice, that self-care wasn’t a luxury. It was creating a life I didn’t have to escape from. Self-care was the starting line of authenticity, to make choices for myself and create a life I loved - but I had to care for myself before the big changes and transformations I so desperately wanted could have space.
Self-care is not glamorous. It rarely is the spa days and massages that we want it to be. Self-care is in drinking more water than caffeine, in gifting yourself a shower instead of using dry shampoo for yet another day. Self-care is in the quiet moments, the time and space with your Self.
We relate to our Selves in the same way we build any relationship - through curiosity, experience and openness. You don’t automatically know how your partner or your best friend takes their coffee - you ask. You go for coffee WITH them. How we relate to ourselves is no different.
Be curious about yourself. Ask your body what you need. Spend time with yourself. In stillness. In solitude. In silence. Here’s where I like to start:
Practice driving or commuting in silence - it’s a beautiful practice of being present with what is.
If you’re on public transit, try noise cancelling headphones without music for a similar effect without being overwhelmed with noise.
Practice being with water everyday. Have a shower, a bath, dip your feet into the tub. Even for 2 minutes. Visualize stress & tension being washed away.
Give the first and last fruits of your day to yourself - instead of scrolling first thing, create an album of photos that remind you of a time you felt truly alive and happy. Scroll through these instead. Instead of crawling into bed at the end of the evening, do child’s pose while in bed.
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