To say the last couple of years of my life have been crazy is an understatement. The last twenty-four months have been a series of successive challenges and transitions. Family illnesses and deaths, moving, friends becoming distant, home-renovation just to name a few.
I’m hearing from a lot of folks who've had similar experiences in their own lives as well. The toxic soup of a culture we’re all currently living in only adds to the feelings of stress and chaos. No matter where in the spectrum our politics reside it’s safe to say we all feel the effects of the toxicity even if we can’t exactly agree on the source of it.
For those who are caregivers who bear considerable responsibility it’s so easy to defer our own needs—there are only so many hours in the day, right? Sometimes it’s difficult to rationalize taking an hour or two from the day’s productivity for self-care. Even those people who consider themselves as highly self-aware can rapidly rationalize their way right into energy deficit (burnout). It’s not that we don’t realize how important it is to take care of ourselves but, over time it’s like a kind of amnesia sets in.
I’m normally a very optimistic and easygoing person but, lately, I’ve noticed that the bright side is harder to see some days. My patience also wasn’t what it used to be. It was as though my well of inner resilience was running dry. After a few weeks of feeling this way I realized something had to change and began to seek help.
After a little research I found a great book to help guide me through the dark clouds I’ve been trying to navigate my way through. It’s called, “the Myth of Normal” by Gabor and Daniel Maté. I’m happy to say this book is helping to reframe things considerably.
I also decided to take a few hours this past weekend to do something restorative and put myself into the healing hands of The Wellness Center in Minneapolis. As it turns out I had an unused two year old gift card for a massage that they had to email me to remind me of.
After an hour on the massage table I felt a lot more like my old self. It’s hard to believe how connected our bodies and minds are. Over time mental stress is deposited in our bodies in a variety of ways and, if left unchecked, can cause a whole host of injuries and illnesses. Julie, the masseuse, said I was carrying a huge amount of stress in my shoulders and once she expertly obliterated all the knots it felt like the dark clouds parted and the angels started singing again. That was the moment I realized exactly how far down the abyss I had actually started to slip.
It was a reminder to me to put self-care on autopilot however I can. From here on out I’ll book another massage or float-tank session regularly, every four or five weeks. It's so important for us to regularly do some kind of self care check-in to access our levels of inner resilience. If we don't take care of ourselves we can't take care of others.
How long has it been since you’ve done something restorative, just for yourself? In what ways can you put self-care on autopilot?
Be well, make the most of this day. Thank you for reading!
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This makes me happy! You deserve and need to take time for yourself, even though you are strong, caring and resilient (or perhaps because of it). It really does turn out the old adage is true - you need to take care of yourself so you can take care of others. So good on you for taking the time and more importantly, for acknowledging all that. I hope you make more of a habit of it in future.
PS: Mate is mind-blowing. Have you heard him on podcasts? I had a period where I loved listening to him talk, even stuff I'd heard before. He has a very soothing, healing voice and demeanor. Well worth checking him out on Rogan, Russell Brand or any of the other podcasters.
Thank you! It's just so crazy how the amnesia sets in and you just focus on the tasks at hand, losing that close connection with yourself.
I haven't heard him on podcasts but I'll search for that JRE episode today! I should just automatically search those episodes when I find someone I want to learn more about. I bet Maté has done the whole podcast circuit to promote the book. Thanks for that suggestion!
It sounds a lot like the idea of bucket filling and bucket dipping. My wife uses that a lot with her students at school. If we are constantly filling others buckets, we are going to be empty eventually. I'm glad you are taking care of yourself!
That's exactly it, the bucket analogy is a good one. Thanks my friend. I'll have to get your address so I can mail a copy of the new book once it's ready. I'll reach out over messenger as soon as I have copies.
Sounds like a plan!
Like you, I think I'm normally a very optimistic person, but since 2-3 years it happens I have some "not-so-optimistic" days and my level of feelings of stress and chaos is high. When the level is so high my mind seems to turn off itself and I feel myself like a sort of slow sloth. I know it's because I lived some personal bad events in the last years and everything it happens around us not help me to stay up. Sometimes I think I could spend some days out of the screens to rebalance everything,
but at the end to use my brushes and colors are a good way to restorate myself . That book seems to be interesting to read, maybe it can help me too. ^_^
I'm noticing quite a few people are feeling depleted these days! Especially creatives, because we tend to lean more on the empath-side of the personality spectrum. We can shield ourselves from the chaos/negativity by not consuming certain media or filtering our social circles but it's difficult to escape it all. If you read the book we'll have to compare notes!
I take time out to walk in the local parks multiple times a week even while caring for my aging parents, even if I have to work walking into my commuting if I am out taking care of business ... gotta take care of me so I can take good care of their needs ...
Being out in nature is the best way to reset ourselves. I started wearing grounding shoes last summer and noticed a huge difference in my baseline sense of wellness.
Thanks for the tip ... checking out Groundz...
I'm so glad you took that break! There's nothing like reading and getting a massage. We live in a world where we have to be doing a thousand things, which causes us stress and anxiety . In your case not only the death of your father and the moving, but also sitting in front of the computer for long days can create those knots in your shoulders and neck. I remember the last time I had a massage was a year ago, maybe more. I remember it was on the beach and it was so placid that I fell asleep. I think I need a massage like that again. Take care of yourself, my friend. A hug
Thank you! It was definitely an epiphany. After that massage I felt everything shift, kind of like doing a hard reset on a computer. Yeah, there's just been like an avalanche of things, both good and bad, transition/change creates its own kind of stress..especially as we get older. That kind of thing used to be much easier for me to handle. I appreciate it, Nancy! I hope you're well!
The first thing we must understand is that we are responsible for our own body and self-care is one of the goals we must have in our lives.
I used to have a formula that every 30 minutes at work I would stop and dedicate 5 minutes to myself because the pace of work makes you forget that you are a man, not a robot.
There is a saying that says healthy mind in healthy body and this validates what you say about the connection between body and mind.
About the massage and the knots, it is true about the specialist and the importance of eliminating the knots that we have in our body because those are synonyms of problems that many times are produced by the stress of daily life.
Thank you for sharing.
Happy day.
Cheers and greetings.
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I really like that idea of taking short breaks while working. That would be helpful if you had a physical job or a desk job. Thank you my friend I hope you're having a great week!
Just Saturday! Lily was with her mom, so we took advantage and my girlfriend, her siblings, my brother (who's visiting from Germany) and I went to a pool. We just chilled and drank beer and talked SO much. It was wonderful.
Very similar experience over the last 24 months - though I actually burned out a year ago. It was horrible and took me most of 2024 to get out of it. The book that helped me a lot was "The Burn-Out Society" by Byung-Chol Han. It's a little hard to read, but the main thing I realized that I was so programmed on productivity, that I couldn't do anything without it as a goal. I did walks to calm down and be more productive later. I did meditation to be more focused and productive. And so on. There are a few more insights in that book, but that one was the biggest for me. Changed my life quite completely.
I'm glad you noticed the signs and started to work on it before it becomes severe!
Oh, living in a different country also helps. I'm not connected to either politics, nor sides. I'm an expat, so nobody cares about my vote nor opinion. That's a lot less stress, as I read in other people's posts 😅
That kind of socializing is so restorative! I love how when you're with a group and the conversation is flowing so well that you lose all sense of time.
I'm sorry to hear about the burn-out but glad you were able to recover! Thanks for the book suggestion, I'll look that up. It sounds like the perfect follow up to the one I'm currently reading. My family is very goal-oriented too. If I don't feel like I'm being productive there's a certain guilt that sets in. I'm getting better about balancing that now after I started working for myself in 2017. It's crazy how so many of us are programmed to be worker bees from a young age. It's like our entire sense of self-worth is tied up in how much we can get done.
It's my dream to become an expat but I'm not sure it will ever happen at this point. Being in the US is like whirling around in a cyclone of stress sometimes. At least we don't live in the city center anymore. It was much worse with the rampant crime and noise.
Yes, that's exactly how I felt - even though my family was already telling me to tune it down a bit. I had achieved almost everything I had set as a goal, yet I couldn't stop. My brother, another burn-out-candidate, actually flew down to Ecuador to smack me around a little and get me back on a healthy track. He's better at giving that advice than at taking it though - he went back to Germany and started a second business 🤣
I think the book might help you. For me, it was very introspective. I had to read pages several times in order to understand first the words, then the meaning, and finally apply on my situation and hence feel them. I wish you all the best! Thanks for opening up and sharing!
I also worry about my younger brother sometimes. At 50 he's already been in the corporate world three years longer than I was before I began writing full time and it's starting to show on him. He's always connected to work through his phone. He does everything quickly and has to wear himself out physically before he can relax (kind of typical for a lot of guys, I think).
I'll definitely be adding it to my reading list...I'll probably queue it up as my next read. Thank you for the thoughtful comments!
It is absolutely true that when those people in life leave, when we love them the most in life, especially our parents leave and brothers and sisters move to other cities, then life becomes very sad inside and even on the occasion of happiness we are not happy, so it is better to live with each other in which city and enjoy happiness.
Yes, when you're young I think we just believe that we'll find a way to stay close to family and we also think we have all the time in the world to reconnect. As we get older we realize how fast our lives go.
We will understand how important taking care ourself is when we have started to get old.
Middle age is definitely when your lifestyle and quality of your inner thoughts begin to show in your body.
agreed.
a lot of people have died in the past 24 months, some were old and some were young.
Death don't see ages.
Very true!
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I totally relate to feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. It's great that you recognized the signs and took action. The book 'The Myth of Normal' sounds like a great resource. And that massage experience was just what you needed! Putting self-care on autopilot is a great idea – it's essential for maintaining our well-being and being able to care for others.
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