Burnout!

Since 2018 I feel like I've been in a cycle of over-committing and burnout. Back then I had a demanding full time job and studied part time for a degree. I cycled to work, 16 miles there and back, a few times a week and had bursts of doing strength and fitness classes online at home and had an on/off yoga practice. I pushed through busy periods because I had to, knowing I had over 30 days holiday I could look forward to as respite.

I really began to feel burnt out during the pandemic. I actually enjoyed lockdowns because it felt like pressure was lifted so I really struggled towards the end of the second lockdown in 2021 when talk at work was exclusively about when people would return to the office and travel would be possible again. It was exhausting listening to and thinking of the scenarios and timelines and when we were told we had to return to the office at least two days a week my brain just couldn't deal with that. How the fuck did I have the energy to do all that before? I just didn’t want to return to that presentee way of working, it was like something snapped inside me and it all just seemed futile. I decided to quit and become a full time yoga teacher, obviously a rational solution, but it felt like the right one.

This decision brought its own challenges including an almost constant sense of fear and financial insecurity, but I wouldn’t swap back now for the world. I'd been doing more yoga during the pandemic and was finding a lot of peace and relaxation from it so I thought why not do something I love doing. I was also freelancing to pay the bills and still experiencing a lot of the same thoughts and emotions as I was while employed which got worse when I felt like I couldn’t manage everything. I could before so why can't I now? I'm a yoga teacher, I shouldn't be feeling so stressed out and anxious. I felt like a fraud. I was angry and frustrated at myself and internalised it until I couldn’t fit any more in and then took it out on other people. I had very little awareness of my inner critic, let alone having the clarity and energy to manage it. As the frustration grew so did the anxiety, brain fog, indecisiveness, procrastination, comparing myself to others, I developed not great eating habits and patterns and experienced sensory overwhelm regularly. My inner critic was running the show, telling me I was useless and lazy for not being able to do everything and I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted all the time and genuinely had moments where I thought I was completely losing my mind.

In Feb this year (2024), I tried a yoga nidra practice because all I had to do was lie down. Even meditation felt like too much effort but desperately needed something to quiet my mind. Yoga Nidra turned out to be the thing I craved. I remembered a saying, 'if you don’t have time to mediate for 5 minutes you need to do it for an hour' and so I gave myself permission to take an hour that day and kept making time for it pretty much every weekday. It was rare that I didn’t feel physically, mentally and emotionally more relaxed, able to eat something and feel space in my head although there are times when it feels impossible to settle but persevering is worth it.

It took a while but I kept this up through a busy April and May when it was good enough for me to just do the things I needed to do to earn a living. In July I noticed a change. I'd had Covid and felt a different type of physical exhaustion, or maybe it only seemed different… Maybe because I could pin it on an actually thing that it's ok to take time to recover from. I noticed a different voice telling my it's ok to take it slow, it's important to give yourself time to recover, you don't have to do everything at once. It was a relief to not push through it. Since then this kinder voice has got louder and my inner critic quieter and Yoga Nidra gave this kind voice the time and space to be heard, and for my body to begin unwinding and releasing the tension that had built up. Now when I feel the fear (tbf this is most days), the kind voice tells me it's ok. It's normal. Breakdown the task/challenge and deal with it logically rather than doom spiral to a point of freezing. 'Imperfect action' is better than no action.

I'm finding feeling content or even neutral a more comfortable space to live in, I think I'd felt so bad for so long that it started to feel uncomfortable not living that way. I try and do little things I know my soul enjoys like eating vegetables, spending time at the allotment, taking a bath, lying down for half an hour and listening to music, or even something as basic as brushing my teeth. My capacity to take care of my own health is increasing and we've all heard we need to put on our own breathing mask before helping someone else. It applies here too.

You are already good enough, maybe you've just forgotten that with everything life throws at us. Maybe you won't feel 'as productive as you should be' again but that might not be a bad thing. You might find a different way to approach life that feels good for you, and you feel able to handle challenges that come your way. I hope so because I know how hard it is feeling like you're just about surviving but it can get better, it's about finding what works for you.