Are you experiencing burn-out?
Honouring rest in a world obsessed with doing, achieving, and endlessly pushing.
Hello my Thyroid Friend,
When you do all the ‘right’ things – you follow the dietary, supplement, movement and sunlight protocols – and it’s still not working…
This is where I believe we are being taught something.
Perhaps we are being asked to go into a cocoon phase of healing.
To retreat from the world and go within.
Focus on nurturing and nourishing ourselves.
Living simply and quietly.
Meditation, journalling, drawing, gardening, cooking, slow walks in nature.
Reflecting, pausing, feeling.
Learning to let go of the ‘do, do, do’ paradigm. That hard-wired societal programming that tells us that if we are not working and being productive every minute of every day that we are unworthy and our existence is meaningless – that we are not contributing and we haven’t earned our worth. That we’re lazy. That we’re a waste of space.
It is this very conditioning that leads many of us to over-work ourselves, push ourselves, not allow ourselves to rest or relax until we have really ‘earned’ it by wearing the ‘stressed-out’ badge-of-honour.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against hard work. And I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and a place where we may need to push ourselves (in a healthy way). However, what I’m talking about here is the way we approach hard work - in a chronic way - almost as an addiction. It’s like we can’t stop, no matter the consequence. We keep going at the detriment to our health. Our self-worth is attached to it.
What I’m saying is that many of us have a dysfunctional relationship with rest and relaxation – the feminine archetypal energy of allowing and ‘being’.
The masculine archetypal energy is in the work, the action, the output.
Ideally, we would have a balance between the two energies. Like the waves at the beach, pulling in, then reaching out. It’s a continuous dance, an art to living this way.
But this society has made us focus on only one. The balance has gone. We don’t want to be either-or, one-without-the-other. But the scales have been tipped for far too long in the way of ‘do, do, do’, ‘action, action, action’, ‘output, output, output’.
There is nothing wrong in acting and achieving. In fact, we are creator beings, and we are here to create things. We wouldn’t be able to create without actually physically ‘doing’ things. But it becomes toxic when it is only that energy and nothing to balance this energy out.
We push and grind and force ourselves to do things all our lives. When we try to rest, we feel uncomfortable, we feel like something is wrong, that we ‘should’ be doing something, we feel lazy, we feel guilty.
But if we don’t get this time to replenish ourselves and reconnect with our soul, we won’t have the energy to act.
We will be running of ‘fake’ energy in the form of caffeine and adrenaline. This is fine for helping us in the short-term. But it’s not sustainable and has negative impacts on our overall health. There will come a time where we ‘burn’ out. The body will say ’no’. The fatigue will be all-encompassing. Everything will feel too much. The body may be so burnt out we may be bedridden.
It is at this time when we are forced to stop – to rest – we are forced to confront these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that we were trying so hard to avoid. Now we have to to face them – there’s nowhere to escape.
It is in this cocoon phase of healing that we are being asked to feel that which we have been escaping for so long. We’re being asked to see the truth of who we are – behind all the chaos, distractions and stress.
All the endless productivity, the fancy career labels and status symbols.
Who am I when I am not these things?
Who am I when I cannot ‘push’ through anymore?
Am I a failure?
Am I shameful?
Am I lazy?
Am I stupid?
Am I weak?
Am I unimportant?
Am I meaningless?
Am I unlovable?
It is here where we battle with these inner demons.
These are the messages that society and our teachers / parents have given to us. This is how we’ve been living our lives, believing these are truths.
We may battle with them day and night. Some days, we may win. Others, we may lose.
We may see glimpses of meaning and purpose – outside of grinding ourselves to the bone through soulless working and achieving.
We may see glimpses of where we are appreciated and loved, just as we are – without the accolades, job titles or endless productivity.
These glimpses may come in the form of the sunlight shining through the canopy of trees, the cool breeze on your skin on a hot summers day, the laughter and warm embrace of your loves ones, the wagging tail of your dog, the robin that stops to greet you outside your window in the morning. There is still so much love around you – even when you are allowing yourself to just ‘be’.
There are no words for these moments where you feel everything is okay. You don’t need to be anyone else. You don’t need to be doing anything else. You don’t need to be any more or any less. And, maybe, just maybe, you do have a worth outside of being a productivity machine.
You begin looking at what you genuinely love – what lights you up. Not what society or your teachers / parents said you should. You begin to take small steps to welcome those things into your life. You live more simply. More consciously. More presently. You give yourself space so you can hear the voice of your soul.
You begin to uncover natural gifts.
You begin to nurture these gifts.
The inner demons then re-awaken. They come out and tell you that these gifts aren’t going to make you ‘successful’ by society’s standards. They tell you that you are wasting your time and you should go back to your old ways.
Remember the stress? At least it was a worthy cause. At least it made you meaningful. At least it made you look successful. Stress is a badge of honour. The more stressed out you are and the more you sacrifice of yourself, the more society will deem you successful.
But these demons are beginning to lose their power over you.
They no longer have the same hold over you.
You can poke holes in their arguments.
You can now see, with clearer eyes, that sacrificing yourself at the cost of your health, is not successful.
And it is no longer a conscious choice you choose to make.
In fact, you’ve had the awakening that the most important things in life are your health, your loved ones and your purpose. And all need to be nurtured, like plants in a garden.
I believe that the cocoon phase will go on like this, with these internal battles, until we eventually take our full power back from the inner demons, until their voices become faint whispers – which we can hear and choose not to believe. We accept that they may always be there, and may even have a place at times, but we will no longer let them rule us. Using the analogy of a car, they are no longer behind the wheel in the front seat, they are in the back seat, with us driving the car.
The process of reclaiming our power and seeing the truth of who we truly are – which is wholeness and inherent worthiness – without the need for external labels – is a journey. It can take time. It is not to be forced or rushed – this is just more of that ‘doing’ energy – which will prolong the healing process.
It becomes a dance. We surrender, soften, let go a little. But then we tighten the reigns, take control and push. Each time, the need for control is getting less and less.
We go through this process, like waves washing away the illusion that we ever needed to be anything more than who we already are.
Much love, Dani
Ps. Now I’d love to hear from you! What does rest mean to you right now — and are you allowing yourself to receive it? [Hit reply to this email or leave a comment on Substack]