Insight Out

The fighter in disguise

By Mei Lan

“First I will write the next chapter of my thesis, then I’ll make the phone call with a new client, while I finish the dishes and in the meantime I’ll make a plan for the packing and moving into the new house. After lunch I will have the Skype meeting while doing laundry. If I’m not too tired I can still call my friend to check on her and if the day isn’t over yet I can sit down and spend time with my partner. Oh but then there is that movie we wanted to see and that restaurant we would go to!”

I hardly notice the impact on my breathing while I speak the words. It takes me another couple of days like this to crash into my own exhaustion.

I used to have a big ‘fighter’ within me. The one who would drive me safely through hectic times, who made me realise things in short periods of time and the one who made me proof to myself what I am capable of. This fighter is also the one that drove me into a burn-out state when I was 26 and just started my first job.
I worked through my old patterns and broke the habit of having to proof myself. I learnt so much from the times I went passed my boundaries.
I am grateful for what the fighter in me made me realise and achieve. And I am at a point in my life where I fully let go of that fighter and make room for self care, joy, fun, following my flow, etc.
A week ago I thought I am so conscious, I learnt the lesson, I know my boundaries now.

Burn out ain’t gonna happen to me again, baby! 😉

Well, not the full blown burn out for sure. I have made space within me to catch myself running after life. I see it happening more easily and faster when I’m starting to loose myself in doing, doing and doing.
I am writing a thesis, doing an internship with a demanding project, running a start up coaching business, planning a big move with my partner, co-creating a radio project and in between healing some old wounds from the past. Besides that I have a vibrant social life and stressy financial situation I worry about daily recently.
I started to notice that I kept saying: “whow, a day should have 72 hours instead of 24”
It became harder and harder the last weeks to fall asleep and my dreams were all about things I forgot to do that day.
It all sounds like the perfect recipe for burn out or at least being over stressed. I see the signs, but this time it was different.

When I used to be overwhelmed, I would feel like doing nothing. I would really want to cancel things, I felt like not seeing my friends or not going to meetings. At the end of the day I could make choices of what I should not have done. I would label certain things as “waste of time”. This label enabled me to make choices, clear my calendar and find rest easier.
Now, I see the silver lining in every-f*cking-thing. Even the most annoying phone calls or meetings make me say things like:
“I definitely learnt something from this” or “It was irritating and painful, yet it truly brought me insight about myself.”

I am proud of this view on life, that nothing in itself is negative, it is the relationship you have towards the things that makes it negative or positive. So every moment in life is bringing something to be grateful for. Every feeling of overwhelm, every moment of irritation is a gift to me. It just depends how I look at it.
I have benefitted from the power of gratitude immensely the last years. It made me build a wonderful relationship with my blindness. Gratitude transforms every fight with my partner into a beautiful growth. Gratitude makes the sun shine brighter and it gives me loads of extra energy.

Gratitude also made me create a story as a trap.
The story goes like this:
“I am grateful for everything that life has to offer. So, there is no reason to say “no” to anything. So I do everything. So I become super busy. But there is no reason to say “no” to anything, because I can be super grateful for everything. So I become more and more busy.”
This is an endless story that draws me into exhaustion more and more.

The only way out is self love.
When I tell myself that there is no reason to say “no” to something, I actually forget the most important one: I can be the reason to say “no” to it. Just for the reason that I want time for myself. That I like life to be a bit less busy. I don’t need a valid reason to organise my life the way I like it.
I don’t always have to grow. I don’t always have to see the silver lining and I do not have to be positive all the time.

The old fighter is not there anymore. I don’t fight against myself that harshly nowadays. I don’t do things I really do not want to do anymore. I don’t act just to please another. I don’t work too hard to proof myself.
I just like everything I’m doing. So I’m dancing with gratitude between the 100 things I want to do and I still loose myself completely.
My old angry fighter turned into the joyful, grateful fighter that loves it all, yet still makes me loose myself equally.
It is such a smart trick of my system to disguise the angry fighter into the joyful fighter. The latter is harder to catch and recognise and can get me trapped in the exhaustion even quicker and better.
The question for now is, what is the benefit of getting myself exhausted time and again? Which responsibility am I avoiding by making myself so tired that I will have to pause things?

And my question to you is:
What masks is your fighter wearing today?