Answer yourself this: are you always tired? do you struggle to get up in the morning? do you struggle just to get through the day? do you ache to stop? do you ache for your life to be something other than what it is? do you feel disconnected from your self, your partner/lover/husband/wife, children? do you cancel or avoid socializing with friends? do you find yourself binging on reels, tv, bad food, alcohol, gummies, and other vices? Any and all of this is burnout and it is a really tough place to find you’ve arrived with too much baggage and not enough tools to navigate your journey through this.
I hear you.
I see you.
I feel you.
I love you.
How do we move beyond burnout when you feel immobilized?
Like this, maybe, or something like this.
- Journal – start to write down what is going on, what is sitting on your heart, and what is the war you are wrestling in your mind. Expressing this can be really helpful.
- Get outside into nature. Here in Virginia it is early spring and the invitation is there to go wandering. Take a part of the day or a whole day to go off solo wandering in a park, on a trail, or into a nearby woods to commune with nature. Phone on silent. No one with you that you have to manage like a dog. Bring your journal in case you get inspired, a re-usable water bottle and a snack. Stop somewhere in the sun where you can sit with a tree, close your eyes, and breathe in the smells, listen to the sounds, and take in with all 5 senses the natural world around you. Do this daily or several times a week as your dose of medicine from Mamma Earth.
- Put on your favorite music playlist and dance. Feel into the music and let your body move organically, freely, wildly.
- Scale back – stop saying yes to so much, cancel what you can and reschedule, delegate where you can, and lighten the load on your plate. Call in back up. Ask for help like your life depends on it, because it does.
- Listen to an inspiring podcast or read an uplifting book.
- GO ON A RETREAT – you knew this was coming – It’s true! A retreat is an invitation for you to stop the world and get off for a weekend or a 5 day Self-Reclamation. Open Sky has been my healing container for 2 1/2 years. Nature is medicine, silence is medicine, our yoga practices (hatha, meditation, pranayama breathwork) are medicine, being fed nourishing wholesome meals is medicine, and allowing our story to be told and our heart and souls to be held in sacred space by a trusted and wise spirit guide such as Nitya offers here is absolutely medicine.
- Breathe mindfully into the power of your belly feeling it expand and lift that breath up to your radiant heart, and then through the grief of your lungs, holding hear and then audibly exhale. Repeat to calm your nervous system, anxiety, stress, and overwhelm.
- Love – love yourself, dear one, for all the messy gorgeousness you are right now. Forgive yourself for not showing up like you used to. Stop trying to go back to her, she is not there anymore. Instead love yourself with lots of needed self-care in this now moment trusting that the way forward is finding itself, day by day, moment by moment. Just love yourself as if you were a little child. Yes, like that.