Slowing Down to Save My Life

What I did to start healing from burnout

Photo by Alyson Wagner

Welcome, friend. Do you feel harried and hurried?

Are you so chronically exhausted that you’re wondering if you’ll ever want to jump out of bed again, instead of dragging yourself out, one leaden foot at a time?

Are you so careworn that it seems as if the light in your soul is dimming and the threads holding your heart together are fraying? 

I’ve been feeling all of these heavy things for a while now. 

It goes without saying that the past two years and counting have been especially tumultuous for the entire planet. And I think many of us are aware, at least on a subconscious level, that the pandemic is not really the author of our woes, but the messenger. This global crisis has caused a ripple of disruptions to every aspect of our lives, which in turn has forced us to pay attention to the many social, cultural, political, and economic fractures that have been compounding over time in our human society and affecting our ecology as well. This ripple effect has also seeped into each of our very specific, personal circumstances. 

Just several months prior to the pandemic, some fractures that had been compounding in my personal life began to disrupt my notions of stability and security. Once the pandemic emerged in my little corner of the world, it accelerated these fractures until they erupted into what felt like a relentless onslaught of greater and greater challenges. 

At first, I kept pushing myself to keep going, thinking that was the way for me to stay ahead of fear, hopelessness, and depression. Until one day last year, I just couldn’t find it in me to keep going anymore. As someone who has been goal-oriented for nearly my entire life, it felt very strange and disorienting when I began to feel a strong resistance to the mere idea of doing anything productive. I also felt my dreams and plans slipping away from me and no longer had any idea where to go next. All I wanted to do was cocoon myself away from the world. As I started to contemplate these new feelings, I finally understood they were the result of exhaustion and burnout. I realized I needed to make my health and well-being top priority. 

What I yearned for more than anything was a long, uninterrupted stretch of rest—a sabbatical. But I couldn’t afford to take a true sabbatical. It was not a viable option for me to stop working. 

So I did the next best thing: I slowed down. 

On nights and weekends (and any other down time I happened to scrounge up between the couch cushions), I created my own space in which I made time stand as still as possible. I began calling this my after-hours sabbatical. 

What did I do? It was more about what I did not do. 

At the outset, I decided that…

…I wouldn’t try to make any long-term plans.

…I wouldn’t start any new projects, goals, or other commitments that were results-oriented. 

…I wouldn’t load up my daily to-do list beyond the essentials.

…I wouldn’t feel bad if all I wanted to do was watch TV, read a book, or just stare into space.

I allowed myself to simply be. To fill in the time and space without an agenda other than self-care, to appreciate the present as much as I could, and to only do things that nourished me and gave me joy (as much as possible). The more time I spent in this liminal space, the more I began to enjoy the slower tempo. Instead of being fearful of my disorientation and lack of direction, as I felt initially, I began to see the fog around me as an opportunity to retreat and rejuvenate. 

In the past two years, I have experienced loss, grief, burnout, insecurity, discouragement, bewilderment, disorientation, fear, anger, and anxiety. I have also experienced clarity, mystery, wonder, delight, gratitude, compassion, hope, kindness, grace, and mercy. What I’ve learned is that the more I slow down and make room for life in all its complexity to happen, the more I am able to sit with my complex feelings and simply let them be what they are—whether I understand them or not. 

Photo by Marinko Krsmanovic

How about you? What feelings and burdens are you weary of wrestling with? Do you yearn, as I did, for time and space to process all of this apart from the sound and fury of the outside world?

The practice of slowing down hasn’t made my life automagically easier. But it has saved my life, helping me to see with better clarity what truly matters—and what doesn’t matter much at all. If you have a feeling that it might just save your life too, then I invite you to walk with me for a little while. Let’s explore the gifts of slowing down together. 🐌