Phew. What a month. Am I the only one having experienced challenges where my confidence and personal boundaries were tested? Where my my self-care on all levels got super important and fatigue came to say hi on the regular? I know I’m not alone at this, we never are.
Us humans are a pro at do-ing. Constantly being ON, being active, achieving, ticking off boxes on our to-do lists, reaching targets, crushing deadlines, getting results. After a year of living in a pandemic, with many in and out of a lockdown or quarantine, our nervous system has had the chance to rewind. To slow down. To step back from our busy lives, professional and social, and retreat within our homes, families, and ourselves.
However, now that the line between working from home and living at work got a lot thinner, it’s especially important to set clear boundaries, take our time to disconnect and come from a place of rest and being completely ourselves, more than living in response to our external experiences and keep saying yes to everything and everyone but ourselves.
Exhaustion, burnout, fatigue, stress, anxiety are all consequences of how we react, how we handle our daily lives and how we take care of ourselves before tackling the day. As a Mindfulness teacher, I’m happy to share with you some tips that have helped me and my clients handle fatigue, stress, anxiety, burnout and come back to a place of rest, worthiness and deep inner peace. I bumped into these tips while listening to the world’s greatest leaders on wellbeing, health and personal development, especially the last week and month, when I also needed it the most.
Listen to your body right now: what is it telling you? How do you feel, and where do you feel it?
Self-Check Ins
The first step is becoming aware of those signs of exhaustion and demotivation. You can do this by taking regular breaks, setting a timer every 2 hours to take a deep breath and check in with yourself.
If you’re feeling emotionally drained from work, try checking in with yourself and stop doing things for the sake of doing. Ask yourself: why are you ticking off to do lists? Does it come from a place of have-to, of fear, of exhaustion? Or does it come from a place of get-to, or excitement, of motivation?
My no 1 tip is: take care of yourself first. Fill your cup first, because you cannot pour from an empty cup. You have nothing left to give if your cup is empty.
So, where do you start? Get enough sleep, drink enough water, get some exercise (even if that is gentle stretching, going for a walk or doing some yoga), eat nutritious meals. Take care of yourself. Your body and mind are interconnected, science keeps proving us.
Giving Yourself Grace
What is very important is to practice acceptance and self compassion. You are doing your best. You are only human. You are worthy of happiness, of rest, you do not need to deserve it. We tend to have forgotten about that in our society. It is as if we have to achieve, get results, first, before we can enjoy life and rest. We feel bad if we do so, without any reason – while actually, who says we can’t?
Your worth is not attached to your productivity. If you catch yourself getting off trail and trying to prove yourself, overwork, for the sake of getting approval, or validation from other: be gentle with yourself, and come back. Take a deep breath and come back to yourself. Remind yourself you are worthy, no matter what.
Retreat Within
Give yourself permission to rest and go against what society thinks humans are: robots.
Honor what you need. Do you need to tune off social media? Do it. Do you need more sleep? Prioritise it. Do you feel like you need to stretch your legs more? Go for a walk or run. Prioritise your needs.
Retreating within and finding a still space within is something that has become less and less common, but so important. Sometimes, we just want to tune out all the noise of the outside world and find that space within, that space of stillness, of silence.
Your intuition always tells you what is best for you, you just need to listen to it and tune into the right frequency. As with radios, we can be tuned into certain frequencies. We can change those. You wouldn’t listen to a rock radio channel 24/7, right? Sometimes, you want silence or a classical music radio channel. So why don’t we do the same for our minds?
Not only our body needs attention, our minds needs it to: self-compassion, positive self-talk and meditating, retreating within is of utmost importance.
If you/re new to meditation, don’t worry. Even a few deep breaths and a timer for 2 min can get you in the right space and leave you feel refreshed and recharged. The more you do it, the more you will notice the benefits (outside your meditation practise itself) and the more often you will practice, because you will love going back to that place within.
Remember, meditation is a practice. It should not be perfect and it is not perfect. It is about practising taking a moment for yourself to sit down, repeat a mantra, count your breaths or visualise something that relaxes you. There are so many different forms and ways of meditation, I really encourage you to experiment and find what works for you.
Routines & Rituals
Routines serve as the building foundation of your wellbeing and it consists out of the things that make you feel good and that help you be the best, most inspired version of yourself. As I mentioned before, starting with the basic rules of health: getting enough sleep, nourishing meals, hydration, and movement automatically put your body in its best position.
Two routines that have helped me so much lately to come from a place of rest are my morning & evening routine. When I get up, the first I do is meditate. I tune in with myself before I tune in with the world. It allows me to come from my place, my true self, rather than being thrown around like a bottle on a stormy sea, moving from the one thing that calls our attention to the other. It’s about reacting from the inside rather than reacting from the outside.
What will you add to your routines or rituals?
Small habits throughout the day that have the deepest impact: checking in with yourself through deep breathing, sipping some water for hydrating, going for a walk, stretching and taking time for your tea/coffee/lunch/dinner. Do them mindfully, with your fullest attention, instead of rushing through it.
We tend to live with this one belief: whatever comes next, is more important than what is happening right now. Whatever happens next, is more urgent than what is happening right now. If we keep living like this, we always miss out on this very moment. And this very moment is the only moment when life happens.
Serene Minds 