I’ve been thinking about this for a while. If you’ve read my previous posts, then you know that this year I had a burnout, and consequently, several months of recovery (article here). You also know that this recovery time was not easy for me and having “free time” was very stressful (I say “free time” because clearly recovery time is an active process, but I had to stop many activities and habits to be able to align my head and my body again – article here.)
Anyways, it’s been several months now and I’m finally starting to feel with more energy. Healthier, more capable of doing several things at the same time, of reading and listening to podcasts and take classes, etc. Buuuuut… I don’t have the same capacity -specially intellectual capacity- that I had before my burnout. Now I am much more connected to my body and I can feel when I’m reaching my limit. My head starts to feel heavy, I feel pressure in my chest and sometimes I even need to stop in the middle of the day to take a nap, for example. Those are my signals, some a bit late in the process, that I am going overboard again. The good thing is that everything I’ve learned about myself has been useful.
Nowadays, I know that when I tend to overload myself the most, is when I have an open agenda; meaning, when I have a blank day. It doesn’t help me. In fact, it drains my energy a lot.I am the type of person that performs better when I have a couple of activities planned which set the tone for the day (or the week or the month.) But I don’t plan my day at the beginning of it, like many people advice, I prepare mentally the day before. In fact, I like to finish the day going through what I did during the day. Why? Because I like not having a fixed structure, I preferred to keep it more flowing, and I feel proud of myself when, already in bed and closing the day, I reflect about what I’ve done and I realized it’s been very productive. I love to feel that my energy has been well used (I also learned this through Human Design, since I am a Manifesting Generator.) After that, I take care of writing down some things for the next day and this way I “semi-plan” my day or week. It gives me an anchor; it makes me feel grounded. It helps me a lot.
I also make very good use of my phone calendar, especially when I’m “on the go.” Since I don’t carry my planner with me, I write my plans of appointments or reminders that spontaneously appear and then I write them in my paper planner. It’s really useful for me (know that I am the type of person that, when working, I color-code my Outlook calendar per activity.)
Lastly, I have learned to stop and decrease the noise. The noise of information and activities. For example, it has been extremely useful to divide what I want to do into smaller parts, it helps me to finish what I defined as an objective and I don’t get overwhelmed for that which I haven’t managed to finish yet, but as I know that I am advancing and that each littler achievement is a new brick for the construction of the house. On the other hand, since I know I love to read and learn about different things, when I start to feel overwhelmed, I stop. In fact, this week I cancelled an online subscription that, even when I loved it, they were making more content than I could digest so it was triggering anxiety. Therefore, "hasta la vista, baby." I’m also considering suspending my audiobook subscription to decrease the temptation to consume more info when I can’t seat and read. I also realized that it really drains me to learn by listening only. I’m more visual and kinaesthetic, clearly. Similarly, I’m implementing that the ends of my days are “information free”; meaning, the last thing I consume is some light entertainment or something relaxing while listening to ambient music. Going to sleep after trying to read a little bit of three different books (plus a podcast) was overwhelming me. So, I don’t do that to myself anymore. In the end, everything helps. I help myself.
And you, what do you do to help yourself? I’d love to read you.
Photo: Imagen de Ольга Бережна en Pixabay