Hello September aka the seasonal exhale. I don’t think I’ve ever been more relieved to see you! Does anyone else feel like summer swept them up into a whirlwind and left them wondering which way was up and which was down?
I can’t remember a time when I’ve spent such a prolonged period feeling as unearthed as I have these past few weeks. Not just tired but discombobulated and detached from my internal compass, which I am normally very attuned to.
Last week, my chiropractor told me my head was on the wrong way around and her words seemed to give a voice to the state I’d been walking around in. I laughed but there was something about the physical description of it that felt accurate: my body felt out of alignment and my mind was following suit. I just felt wonky in all the ways.
Was it the relentless heat that we experienced for weeks on end? Was it a lack of boundaries around my downtime, with too many days squeezing things (and people) in? Was it the number of invitations and general people-ing? I still don’t quite know but quite possibly, it was a bit of everything.
Summer can sometimes be deceptive like that. There’s an expectation that we should be making the most of it and saying yes to everything, enjoying the long evenings – and somehow also continuing to work as normal. I wrote a blog about navigating summer as an introvert back in July and I feel like I should have reread it every day these past few weeks! My calendar has been squeezed to say the least – with lovely things, but things nonetheless.
Overwhelm is a familiar experience for me and seems to cycle back around as one of my patterns. As someone who identifies as a sensitive being, an introvert and a projector in Human Design, I need a considerable amount of rest to feel normal. And when I say rest, I’m not talking about a long, luxurious afternoon nap followed by a cup of tea, I’m talking about the kind of rest that just brings me back to baseline.
I’ve come to understand over the years that I need a surprising amount of time on my own to rest, recharge and recover from activity. Without it, my whole system seems to become overstimulated and I eventually enter what I call a meltdown state.
When I’m in that state, things that would normally be completely manageable suddenly feel enormous. Cooking a meal feels like an overwhelming task and even just the thought of replying to a message is exhausting, even if it’s from someone I love and actually want to speak to. I can sit looking at a list of things I need to do and feel completely unable to work out where to begin. Everything feels like too much and I find it hard to think straight.
To make matters worse, my activated nervous system keeps me awake at night, which is particularly unhelpful when what I desperately need is sleep. The experience is a bit like being plugged into a socket. My body is exhausted but my system is buzzing. I can be lying in bed at midnight while my brain is running through to-do lists or things I need to remember. Then the lack of sleep sets me back even further. I’m tired because I’ve done too much, I can’t sleep because I’m overstimulated, I become even more tired because I haven’t slept and then everything feels even harder the following day. It’s a cycle I know well.
The overwhelm that leads to burnout is interesting to observe. I’ve noticed that for me it often comes from trying to complete a to-do list in one go. The mind gets ahead of itself, wanting to achieve or tick off everything in one fell swoop, but of course we can’t do that. When we try to hold the whole list in our heads at once, it can quickly become overwhelming.
I’ve also come to observe over the years that physical exhaustion is one thing and mental exhaustion is another, although they are often inextricably linked. When the two coincide, it is a recipe for disaster.
I've noticed that my reaction to exhaustion compounds it. The internal dialogue of I shouldn’t feel like this, I have so much to do, other people seem to manage, why can’t I just get myself together? is exhausting in itself. There is the original exhaustion and then there is all the energy I spend resisting the fact that I am exhausted, rather than acknowledging that this is where I'm at right now.
This is one of the reasons my meditation practice is so important to me. No matter how hectic life gets, I sit down, or sometimes lie down, observe my breath and practise Vipassana meditation each morning and evening. Even on the days when I’m tempted to think, I don’t have time to meditate today, I know those are often the days when I need it most.
This practice has been a life-saver for me over the years and without it, I would have fallen to pieces these last few weeks.
Meditation doesn’t magically make the overwhelm disappear but it helps me bring some awareness to what’s happening and creates space around the experience. There is something reassuring about knowing that underneath all the activity and noise, there is still a quiet place within me that I can access.
I clearly have some more learning to do around managing my energy but I’m becoming better at recognising the signs earlier, before I reach a critical point. I’m learning to notice when I’m starting to become scattered or when I’m saying yes too often.
I’m also learning to pay more attention to the seasons of my life, as well as the seasons in nature. Nature doesn’t expect everything to be in bloom all year round; there are times for growth and expansion and times for retreat and letting go. Perhaps we need to learn to work with our own seasons too, recognising when we’re in a quieter phase without giving ourselves a hard time for it. A slower season isn’t necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong and importantly, rest isn't something we should have to earn by becoming completely exhausted first. I'm trying to remember that I don't need to justify needing time alone or feel guilty when my capacity is lower than usual. If nature can move through its seasons without questioning whether it should be doing more, I'd like to think I can learn to do the same.
There’s a certain irony in all of this because here I am, encouraging people to pause, breathe, rest and create more space in their lives, while sometimes finding myself with a diary that makes me wonder whether I’ve completely forgotten everything I know. But I suppose we don’t teach what we have perfected, we often teach what we are still learning ourselves.
And perhaps that’s what September is reminding me of... not that I need to get better at doing everything but that I can get better at noticing when I’ve done enough. I can leave some space in my diary, listen to the signals that my body is giving me and allow myself to slow down. And sometimes I need my chiropractor to tell me that my head is on the wrong way around before I remember to gift myself that rest!
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