It’s all too much.
I can’t keep this up for much longer
What if everything just crumbles?
What if I can’t provide for my family, let alone reach my personal and professional potential?
I wake up already tired and go to bed exhausted.
Does this sound familiar? Maybe this is you, or maybe this is a friend.
This is Slow Burn Burnout.
But…it is the type of burnout that is trying to tell you something. This burnout is not just overworking, this is your soul trying to get your attention to wake you up to your truth and your life!
You are afraid you can’t keep this up, when everything inside you doesn’t want to keep it up. But you just don’t know how…yet. And you haven’t been taught how to trust your body, gut, and heart intelligence.
Your life starts using your body and moods to try and get your attention-calling out for you to change. It is not weakness, and it is not punishment, it is a kindness. You don’t need to stay in a frantic state of holding it all together. You can wake up and learn to plug into guidance.
This is where I meet a lot of clients, and why they reach out for help. They know they can’t keep going they way they’ve been tolerating, they don’t know what else to do or how, they’ve tried several tactics to cope but it’s not working, even medication isn’t working- it is a tiring, vulnerable, scary time. Friends are nice to talk to but aren’t equipped to provide the guidance, and presence needed at this time. And a lot of therapists or coaches don’t quite get it, because they also are only using their cognitive mind to navigate a whole being issue.
You find you are impatient, then guilty about being impatient because you should be more patient, and your fuse never seems to be long enough. The little things all feel big. There’s not enough time, and you’re always behind.
You are in the middle of it.
You don’t see your way out.
You can’t drop any balls and you have to keep on keeping on at work, at home, and in life.
The train, called your life, is on full speed and you have a feeling of impending doom it will go right off the rails or straight off a cliff.
HELP?
But most people look at you and think, “You?!” “But you always are so strong, smart, resilient and capable?” “Im not worried about you, YOU GOT THIS.”
By the way, saying, “you got this” to a powerful, capable person asking for help or being vulnerable is seriously not helpful. I am one of those people myself. I’m the one every one else comes to from help, and when I need help it’s an odd vulnerable time. Reaching out for help is like a real-life sighting of the Loch ness monster for strong, independent people.
Some friendly advice for friends of high-performers and sensitive powerhouses- just listen. Don’t try to fix. Do NOT start talking about yourself and the time you felt just like them. Be there.
As for me, I professionally guide these kinds of people because I am just. like. YOU.
I’ve been driven my whole life to heal broken parts, and become my highest potential. Not to impress others, but just because I’m built that way.
BUT- when life gets hard, and it all piles up, and old tactics won’t work. PANIC!
Well, I used to panic before I discovered human beings need to re-source themselves back to their Nature and back to their Energy in order to thrive here on earth, with other people, in society within the systems we’ve collectively agreed upon. It starts with beginning to listen to ourselves, everything we need to “hear” our guidance is in us.
What also helped me was when I realized I didn’t have to fear big feelings. Big energy, means feeling BIG. I didn’t know there were ways to deal with all these big things. Then I discovered methods that work, to make life work, and to feel deeply secure no matter the circumstances or other people’s behaviours. So, don’t be afraid of the big feelings, they are big energy waiting to be used.
“The only reason things feel overwhelming is because we don’t feel resourced enough to deal with the challenge.”
So, we can learn to re-source.
There are natural laws and universal laws, and when we can tune into those powerful forces, we aren’t alone. It’s not all on us. It’s not all on anyone else or anything else either. We stop needing to be validated at work or by other people because we know our worth is deep within us, and infinitely unconditional. It is our Nature to be worthy. It is also in our nature to be resilient and adaptive and tuned into intelligence.
How to get yourself BACK when you feel like life is coming apart.
1. Stop Lying to yourself.
I see this all the time, I help people simply have the courage to see an inconvenient truth in their lives because I make it safe to be in the unknown, because I have a flashlight. Seeing the truth on our own can be really hard sometimes, so don’t be mean to yourself.
The film, “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore brought some scary realities to common knowledge. BUT, it needed to be said, we needed to wake up to global climate change and start to make conscious choices to collectively contribute to our planet.
What if life loves you enough to wake you up?
What if breakdowns are ways to shake up your habits, routine and complacency so you don’t go too far down the wrong road? They aren’t life or the universe messing with you. You perhaps haven’t been taught how to truly listen to truth, rather than the interpretations of your smarty-pants mind.
I personally am more afraid of regret, than the prospect of needing to change big things in my life.
They might even be small things. Like, “Hey girl, that bottle of wine several times a week is trying to cover up your feelings about not playing the cello more.” Or bigger things like, “How much longer do you want to be co-parent roommates with your spouse?”
The messages are SO personalized. You just need to learn to listen.
Just stop, listen and meet yourself daily with a pen and paper to start to unclog your receivers to the intelligence trying to talk to you. Writing is a powerful tool to bridge our think-y mind to our body, heart and Spirit.
2. You don’t need to see all the specific details, but you do need to trust your body and feelings. Face yourself, and discover how much more capable you are than your fears let on.
If you push down your truth, it will hijack you in other ways. You might get pain that can’t be medically explained. You might be convinced the problem is a co worker, or someone or something else outside yourself. If you are the common denominator in the suffering, oppression, victim, drama, dissatisfaction, complication, or “bad luck” in your life, the good news is you can WAKE UP and change your relationship to reality itself.
Time for journalling. Try these journal prompts to begin to listen to yourself.
DON’T be impatient. WAIT. Wait for the answer to bubble up from the space in between the ping-ponging thoughts.
- If I let myself see the truth? If I was 100% honest with myself, what would I change?
- Who would I choose to be?
- What am I not seeing?
- What do I not want to face?
- How would I shift my lifestyle?
- What do I want more of?
- What do I need less of?
- What do I need from others that I am not getting? How can I start giving that to myself? How can I better ask for what I need so other’s can give it to me?
Once you start, you will begin to come up with more personalized inquiries. Pretend like you are writing to a wiser part of yourself and it is answering you. 🙂
Try it. It only works as an experience you can’t do it in your head. Your head is a minefield of interpretations and noise on its own not grounded to your body, heart and Spirit.
3. Let what needs to fall away, fall.
Sometimes you just need to let certain things fall away, and stop pretending you can will everything, strategize everything, and control your life all the time.
- How is your romantic relationship or marriage… really? You don’t need to make rash decisions, but just look at what is real to you.
- Are your friends real friends you can be you with, and they give as much as you and you receive as much or more from their being in your lives?
- Is your work-life working? Or…are you getting the clear indication you have hit a ceiling and it’s time to evolve? Maybe you need to bring more of you to the table. Maybe you’ve been playing safe and small. Maybe you’ve been waiting for other people to notice, rather than claiming what you want and going for it.
- Is there a passion you are afraid to act on? What would you need to give up to make more time for it?
Let what needs to fall away fall. Stop grasping and white-knuckling so you can create space for new things come into your life.
4. When your old tactics stop working, it is time to grow, evolve, and expand.
The perfectionist.
The controller.
The beast mode.
The even-keel, always there, always on top of things high-performer.
Being there for everyone else, and not considering yourself as a priority- People Pleaser.
Eventually, we mature and evolve out of identities that were at one point celebrated or necessary to get by. And when those masks get glued on, they can impede our fullest expression.
Our life wants us to be fully expressed, and fitting into old models, strategies, and mindsets keeps us bound. Who are you if you didn’t need to try, convince, defend, prove? Who ARE you? What is your true nature? Let that self come out more.
The problem is WE ARE AFRAID of the changes because we are scared of the unknown and we are scared we aren’t capable.
Know this.
- The unknown is where fresh, new possibility lives. Creativity. Life. Go there and let it give to you. Let it show you step by step. Relax into presence, it WILL teach you and guide you in ways your cognitive mind was not equipped for.
- You are capable. You are enough. You don’t need to know all the answers to feel safe. Trust your body, trust your gut, trust your energy, trust your dreams, trust all the many ways life talks to you to guide you. Trust yourself.
If you want to learn more and access free resources go here: https://jennasmithcoaching.teachable.com/
If you need guidance I can help: bit.ly/333withjenna
For videos on all these topics: go to my YouTube Channel JennaSmithCoaching
www.jennasmithcoaching.com – Free resources are available on my blogs and more will be coming on YouTUBE.