Why we need to give ourselves a break before we break
Will 2023 be the year we finally learn to be kinder to ourselves?
Come January 1st it’s always a mixed bag. Some people go all guns blazing into the New Year with big plans; others, like me, stand there feeling like road kill in the wake of it all. But this year I’m noticing a shift toward kindness. Have we finally had enough of beating ourselves up, or have we given each other the collective permission to stop?
As I tentatively scrolled through Instagram that first week back, I noticed a sense of community and kindness, an abundance of positive messages. People sharing their struggles instead of hiding behind posts about the #hustle. I admit I had a suite of content for my business ready to go the first week back; it was all goals and planning. I shelved it. And it felt good. Instead, I shared how I was really feeling - overwhelmed and reluctant to get back on the Instagram content treadmill. And I was not the only one; there is a greater sense that no one has their shit together. But most of all an understanding that we don’t need to.
It seems more and more people are finally figuring it out. This way of being is not working for us. Fast, always on, and always something to prove. One by one, in one way or another, we are all being told to slow the fuck down and take a good hard look at how we are living. It happened to me in 2020 when I suffered workplace burnout.
Until that point, there was not a work situation I could not think my way out of, but after being in a particulate tough one for months, I was so used to being in fight or flight mode, in a constant level of high stress that I did not realise the impact it was having on my nervous system. Then in July 2020, I was unable to think. It was a wake-up call that I needed to get out, but most importantly, it told me that this way of living was not working for me anymore. I was so far away from myself that it was as if life was happening to me. In the years since, I have been curious about the experiences of others; and found there is often a similar thread.
This week I heard actor, author and speaker, Richard Tyler speak about his experience. In 2021 I joined a session he was running on boundaries through The Marketing Academy. Shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer. This week I heard him speak about his experience. The session was incredibly moving and thought-provoking. He spoke about a few potential moments in the lead-up to his diagnosis that he felt were like warning signs to slow down. Small illnesses that he believed were red flags to change the way he was living; but instead of listening, he did what most of us would do, he dealt with it and kept on going until he couldn’t. His experience has had a profound impact on the way he is now living life, in remission, he is now thinking more about what he needs and what he needs to give up.
In her newsletter,
Holly Whitaker talks about her great transition and the moment she realised that her setback was the wake-up call she needed.“What I was left with, besides an odd protectiveness and love for a rock that is supposed to represent what have felt like the worst years of my life, was the moment I’ve been waiting for all this time, which is the moment you understand it had to happen this way, or you realize you wouldn’t change a thing, or that you’re grateful for the depth the whole awful affair carved into you, how it made you into a version of yourself you would have otherwise never known.” - Holly Whitaker #40 Secret work
Sometimes it takes a huge life-changing event to make us change how we live, but what if it didn’t? What if we all give ourselves and each other a break? What if we shared our stories so openly?
Since 2020 there are so many things I’ve questioned, many of these in this very newsletter. I’ve had to unlearn and relearn and on these, I’m still a work in progress. I still find myself thinking I’ve not done enough or I’m not enough. I should be more productive. But then I stop and remember where that took me.
If you need permission to give yourself a break, it’s granted, but I wish you didn’t need it. Listen to what you need, what you need to change and then do it, even if it's just one small step at a time.