I have been MIA for a couple weeks, not because I got caught up in the busyness of Christmas, but because I broke and to heal I needed to take care of me. This meant I had no capacity to put out a blog, I could barely “adult” if I’m honest. I could jump right past what broke me and on to how self care healed me, but the truth is lack of care caused me to be drained, not processing life, grief, loss, and anxiety caused a backlog that combined with two large curveballs and broke me.
This year has been a great lesson to me in ALL the ways I care for me. From the way that I eat, to how much sleep I get, to spending time with friends, to privately processing in a journal. These daily moments are, over all, more helpful and caring than a periodic spa day! It is so easy to equate self care with little luxuries, but it is the kindness and care we show ourselves each day that makes the greatest impact.
So where did I go wrong? My sleep schedule was the first to go. My diet became more erratic. And I was giving a lot, while not receiving enough. I felt the drain and flailed, grasping at air to try not to crash, but I did crash. And I broke a little in the process.
The thing about breaking is that in the process we end up losing something we didn’t actually need to carry. The self carries so much in life. And it collects stuff we don’t need, the weight of it all adding to our burdens, dragging us down, breaking us. The truth I am reminded of in this process is that there is no healing if we don’t first break. Healing requires us to release that which causes pain. That which burdens. The lies we choose to believe. When we don’t allow ourselves to do this difficult work of letting go of what causes the pain, to put down our burdens, and to let the tough truth dispel the lies, we break.
So now what? The root cause of my breakdown was grief. As I walked through December I took account of my year and was overwhelmed by the dreams that died this year. The goals not achieved. Time with friends sacrificed to pandemic compliance. And the deaths of friends and family. It is easy to shake my fist at 2020 and curse it. But these are the struggles of life, not just a year. After identifying the root and grieving my losses I took the time to restore. There was sleep and good food. There were phone calls to friends who support and encourage. I fed my mind, my soul, and my body while rejecting lies about how lazy I am, what a failure I am, and how could this happen when I know better? But this is the truth of this year, as exceptional as it’s been, so many normal things have happened, and we can’t live on the adrenaline of the exceptional. We MUST make choices to keep routine, feed our selves, and to show how valuable we are by valuing ourselves.
I cannot wait for the adventures of this new year! How about you?
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