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Musings in the Midst of Chaos
Feb. 7th, 2020 02:34 pmDuring semesters, our life has a way of devolving into chaos. We usually start out okay- we're efficient at getting our work done, most of us are highly motivated for our various jobs, we still have a reasonable amount of emotional and physical energy. Then things begin to shift. People start to stress out and become anxious about their deadlines. Then they start to have conflicts over time management, because there's never enough time. At some point, people stop communicating, because they feel overwhelmed and just want to focus on their individual tasks. It becomes hard to keep track of what's happening. The feeling of losing track becomes anxiety-provoking.
Meanwhile, emotionally-difficult things happen. Some class material is triggering, or a weird interaction happens with family, or something rough comes up in therapy. A client talks about something really intense, or our supervisor criticizes something we did. Meanwhile, we start to lose physical spoons. Walking to and from our car is exhausting by the time we get to the end of the week. Our chronic pain gets worse from the anxiety, which in turn makes the chronic pain even worse. We start dreaming bad dreams instead of sleeping.
We continue to slog through, and it varies when exactly we realize we need to regroup. Taking care of ourselves seems less important than going to our training or showing up for class even when our performance is down because we're so tired. We always wait as long as possible before realizing we need to take care of ourselves. We're always a complete mess by then. Sometimes we're all in a panic because our body is so activated and painful.
At some point we realize we need a day off. We cancel something, or take a full weekend day off from homework despite the deadlines. We write in our journal and take a long walk. We have a meeting. We go eat our favorite foods and let ourselves take a nap.
Suddenly we realize what just happened, and vow to pay more attention next time, take care of ourselves sooner. But that never happens. It's just a repeat of before. It's so easy to care more about our work than our own health and mental state.
We took a day off this week because we were in such a high state of panic we were finding it really hard to leave the house. We were struggling to work on assignments. We couldn't focus in class. We were making mistakes at our training site.
It's hard not to feel a lot of shame about needing that day off. We feel infinitely better. We've talked a lot of things over. We did some of our favorite things, including taking a nice long nap. Our physiology calmed down to the point where we can really think again. It was clearly what we needed. But it's so hard to feel okay needing anything, or prioritizing ourselves. It's hard to be okay with our tendency to get anxious, and to allow ourselves to directly address it instead of plunging ahead, pretending it's not happening. Maybe we'll remember the lesson we just learned about selves-care. Probably we won't.
But it's okay to need a day off, and that's something maybe we'll manage to internalize someday. Hopefully.
-Calen
Meanwhile, emotionally-difficult things happen. Some class material is triggering, or a weird interaction happens with family, or something rough comes up in therapy. A client talks about something really intense, or our supervisor criticizes something we did. Meanwhile, we start to lose physical spoons. Walking to and from our car is exhausting by the time we get to the end of the week. Our chronic pain gets worse from the anxiety, which in turn makes the chronic pain even worse. We start dreaming bad dreams instead of sleeping.
We continue to slog through, and it varies when exactly we realize we need to regroup. Taking care of ourselves seems less important than going to our training or showing up for class even when our performance is down because we're so tired. We always wait as long as possible before realizing we need to take care of ourselves. We're always a complete mess by then. Sometimes we're all in a panic because our body is so activated and painful.
At some point we realize we need a day off. We cancel something, or take a full weekend day off from homework despite the deadlines. We write in our journal and take a long walk. We have a meeting. We go eat our favorite foods and let ourselves take a nap.
Suddenly we realize what just happened, and vow to pay more attention next time, take care of ourselves sooner. But that never happens. It's just a repeat of before. It's so easy to care more about our work than our own health and mental state.
We took a day off this week because we were in such a high state of panic we were finding it really hard to leave the house. We were struggling to work on assignments. We couldn't focus in class. We were making mistakes at our training site.
It's hard not to feel a lot of shame about needing that day off. We feel infinitely better. We've talked a lot of things over. We did some of our favorite things, including taking a nice long nap. Our physiology calmed down to the point where we can really think again. It was clearly what we needed. But it's so hard to feel okay needing anything, or prioritizing ourselves. It's hard to be okay with our tendency to get anxious, and to allow ourselves to directly address it instead of plunging ahead, pretending it's not happening. Maybe we'll remember the lesson we just learned about selves-care. Probably we won't.
But it's okay to need a day off, and that's something maybe we'll manage to internalize someday. Hopefully.
-Calen
