I feel like a flat tyre

I hadn’t written a blog for four consecutive weeks.

I hadn’t been keeping in touch with my friends and I definitely wasn’t making plans to see them.

I was avoiding my emails.

I kept putting off business related tasks.

Then I got sick.

It took for my body to make me physically unwell to realise how far things had gone…

I had a horrendous panic attack for the first time in years.

It started off as a stonking head cold. I was snotty. I couldn’t breathe. I felt constantly tired and weak and dizzy.

I ignored it.

I kept working.
I kept pushing and pushing and pushing my poor little fragile body.
I kept going to the gym.

I drove for hours and hours to go to Newcastle for our last ever casting pop up because I didn’t want to let anyone down.

I came home and went straight to my part time job for two full shifts before my body finally gave up on me and said no on my behalf because I hadn’t been able to.

I thought I was well because I’d been eating a nutritionist designed meal plan for weeks and I was feeling great. I’d been going to the gym regularly and felt full of energy.

I just didn’t know when to stop.
I hadn’t been looking after the other aspects of my wellbeing.

This is from someone who has ALWAYS prioritised the wellbeing of the people around me - especially my staff when I worked in management roles. I always prided myself on being an ambassador and role model of good wellbeing practice and positive boundaries.

So what happened?!

I’d simply been spending too much time doing lots of things that don’t fill up my cup and not enough of the things that do.

There have been a LOT of things happening behind the scenes that on their own wouldn’t cause too much stress but accumulatively were just far too much for me to handle.

I spent a long time reflecting and journalling on how I’d ended up here and realised that my TEDx talk, despite being an incredible experience, had left me feeling very raw, vulnerable and exposed speaking about how my career had been my entire identity and how I still didn’t know who I was.

That hasn’t changed overnight. It’s something that still affects me because the work that I do now is not exactly what society sees as a success. The work that I’m currently not even doing because I’ve been too frazzled to focus.

So where does that leave me? Who am I without my work, without purpose? What is my life outwith the work that I’m doing or, at least, trying to do?

I realised that I’ve been neglecting the other areas of my life that make me who I am outside of my career. I’ve lost sight of (again) who I am.

It was only in reading ‘Make Change That Lasts’ by Dr Rangan Chatterjee that the realisation hit me like a bag of bricks.

He writes about six signs of burnout:

Disconnection:
A feeling of separateness from the people around you, like you’re watching them from behind a window.

Emotional Exhaustion:
Becoming cynical about everything and everyone. Little things become irrationally agitating. Small requests from loved ones start to really bother you.

Creativity Crash:
At work, an inability to think creatively leads to a declined work performance, which creates more stress and anxiety. At home, simple problems and obstacles mount up as you find yourself unable to think of a way through them.

Inability To Feel Pleasure:
You no longer are able to find pleasure in simple things. Pastimes and experiences that used to give you pleasure no longer do.

Tired & Wired:
You feel physically exhausted all the time and have no energy to do anything, yet you also struggle to sleep.

Self Care Spiral:
Your diet gets worse as you skip meals, snack late at night and begin comfort eating. You stop moving your body. You stay up later and later into the night, watching box sets and trash on TV as you try to unwind.

Well… hello.
It’s me.

I’m burnt out.
Exhausted.
Frazzled.
Fucked (and not in a good way).

The only part of that list that I couldn’t fully relate to was the snacking and comfort eating because, as much as that is absolutely something I would have done in the past, the meal plan that I have been (mostly) sticking to has kept me away from that habit. However, I haven’t done yoga for as long as I can remember. I haven’t been able to go to the gym because of how physically unwell I’ve been feeling and I have 100% been bingeing on shows like Love Is Blind to numb myself to everything else I’ve been unintentionally trying my hardest not to feel.

Every single other point on that list is spot on.

Even this blog became a barrier because I’d convinced myself that since I’ve re-branded my business it HAD to be about periods and pleasure - that, in itself, became not only an excuse but a complete creative block that stopped me from writing altogether.

Being burnt out is one thing when you’re working for someone else and can take time off sick - maybe even get paid for it (I don’t) but it is something else entirely when you work for yourself. I can’t take time off and yet I can’t find the focus, energy or motivation to do anything with my business either.

I AM my business.
So if there’s no me, there’s no business.

In not looking after myself, I’ve not only affected my physical health but I’ve affected my mental health, my sanity, my relationships, my work and my business.

I can’t even do the things I love.
The things that keep me well in the first place.

Today I described myself as a flat tyre.

It’s like having a slow puncture where topping it up regularly with air (i.e the things that usually keep me well) keeps the tyre working and the car moving. I’ve neglected to top up the air for so long that the tyre is now completely flat. It’s not going to be so easy to top that tyre back up. A little bit of air isn’t going to do very much at this point. It’s going to need a whole lot of air to get that tyre back to a point of being functional. In other words, a whole lot of looking after myself.

So I’m taking time to rest.

I’ve been forced into it but I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that it’s exactly what I need. Rest can mean more than just physical rest for my body - we need rest for our mind and our soul too. Those are the parts I’ve been neglecting and now it’s my body that is paying the price.

So let this be a lesson to pay attention to the smaller signs in a way that I didn’t so that you don’t also become a flat tyre.