No more bearing bigger burdens than necessary

In a world where many routinely do not bear what they’re responsible for, there are those who bear far too much responsibility.  The biggest trouble for people who take too much responsibility is discerning where to draw the line.

This has implications for people of faith just as much as it applies to people not of faith.

For people of faith, there is a certain works righteousness that most people get sucked into, i.e., we feel guilty if we’re not doing enough or not succeeding enough.  If someone is doing more than we are, or if they’re getting better results, it can make us feel either guilty or unworthy.

For people not of faith, it’s not that much different.  For instance, those who volunteer, and so many do, want to feel valued and of value.  Most people strive for purpose.  Also, we all want our consciences clear.  It makes life simpler and more peaceful.  Conflict is the pits and most of us will do a little more work to avoid it.

But some go out of their way to make their responsibility ours.  We who bear burdens gladly bear another’s burden — even begrudgingly at times — to keep the peace.  But it isn’t a true peace, because we end up absorbing what will later turn into a resentment.

Then there are those things we insist upon bearing which were never our burdens to bear.

It’s like when we’re married and have Christian faith and our partner does not.  Is their becoming ‘saved’ our burden to bear?

I recall a lady telling me once that her friend had such a conundrum, so she asked God: “Will my husband ever believe in you?”  God’s answer surprised her: “It’s none of your business!”  That’s not God being rude; it’s a reminder of what is in God’s control and what’s not in ours.  The wisest thing we can do when we’re bargaining on something out of control is to stop engaging in futile behaviours.  I call it, “Getting out of God’s way.”

Think about it.  Those things that are out of our control are not meant to be burdens we bear.  They only cause us inordinate stress, and according to Psalm 37:8, fretting only leads to evil.

Bearing too much of a burden often means we burden others.  Besides, it’s an exercise in futility because matters we cannot affect, those that are beyond our control, are really not our concern.  We enter our interest on these at our eventual peril.

Those who will insist their responsibility is our responsibility are clearly a problem in our lives.  It’s up to us to speak the truth in love, hold the line, resist their overtures that we need to do more, if we’re already doing our role or more than enough.

Sometimes we need to be firm; too many are manipulated and only see it when it’s too late.

Committing to bear no more burden than necessary is crucial for the sustainability of our wellbeing.  It is also helping others to bear what they’re responsible for.

It’s a loving thing to say to someone, “Sorry, I can’t do that for you; that is yours to do.”

Sometimes people need support, but that’s not us doing it for them.

If we spoon-feed a person, we risk that they’ll grow to be dependent on our help.  That serves neither them nor us.

Feed a person fish and they alone are full.  Teach them to fish and they can feed their village.

None of all this is shirking the burdens we cannot avoid.  There are many roles we all have that must be attended to with diligence and faithfulness.  But no more than that is necessary.  Being diligent and faithful is the standard; it’s well and truly enough.

At a time of year when we may be contemplating New Years’ resolutions, perhaps the goal of bearing no more burden than necessary is worth considering?

Photo by Tom Moser on Unsplash

56 thoughts about self-care when approaching exhaustion

Some of these will be obvious and so simple to many of you, yet sometimes it’s the simple and obvious things we’ve either never considered or forgotten to apply.

1.             Prioritise sleep — it really is the best defense against all manner of mental illness and burnout.

2.             Sleep during the same parts of the day, each day, as much as possible, to respect your circadian rhythm.

3.             Get the kind of regular rest that means that you do absolutely nothing — no doing, thinking, feeling; nothing.

4.             Where rest is not available, break your days into 10-minute chunks and rest in several 10-minute periods — even on the lavatory if that’s the only quiet space you have.

5.             Sleep when children are asleep; too often we’re tempted to get the housework done — let the housework go, prioritise rest.

6.             Practice saying no; often times it helps to make a list of things you can and should say no to.

7.             Engage in the practice of disappearing.  Too many of us are too accessible.  Your world can do without you for short periods, regularly.

8.             When you feel your enthusiasm rise in a conversation, before you offer your help, wait!  It may just be that someone else is about to offer.  Or, another way of doing the work will be discovered.

9.             Read this.  (https://epitemnein-epitomic.blogspot.com/2018/07/passing-mentoring-baton-with-dr-keith.html)

10.          Commit yourself to a course of study on self-care.

11.          Determine your sources of support and assess whether you have enough.

12.          Insist upon hastening slowly; it’s incredible how rushed we can become when we’re burning out.

13.          Check on your anxiety levels to try and understand the role of fear to see if that’s pushing you.

14.          Determine what your BIG ROCKS are — those important things that your time should really be invested in — and fill your time jar with those first.

15.          Go to your doctor at least annually for a total health check-up.  If he or she is a good physician, important discussions will occur and important insights will be observed.

16.          Commit yourself to a season of counselling for insight and movement.

17.          Choose a mentor who has been through burnout but choose one who is open-minded enough to know your case is different to theirs.  They will give you wisdom.

18.          If you’re sad, cry, if fearful, seek support, if angry, find whatever you can to cool down.  Be real about your emotions.

19.          Audit the expectations of others.  There are bound to be some that are expecting too much from your role or you.

20.          If you can, go and enjoy a movie, eat some popcorn, let your mind be lost in a story.

21.          Practice progressive muscle relaxation.  If you need help, simply sit where you are and tense a muscle group (e.g., calf muscles) for 5-10 seconds and then relax.  Don’t go so hard that you cramp.

22.          Stop past a family member or friend and simply connect with them on a human level.

23.          Take a DASS assessment for insight into your mental health status.

24.          Journal about what you’re learning about exhaustion and recover.  Get excited about the increase to your empowerment.

25.          Resolve to stop pushing yourself too hard.

26.          Listen and heed your inner voice; you may find you’re completely out of touch with it.  Learn that your inner voice really is your best friend.

27.          Stop beating yourself up for past failures or things you can’t presently do or for ‘letting people down’.

28.          Give yourself the grace you would give the next person.

29.          Believe in the core of who you are that you can overcome this exhaustion and put strategies into place for it to never occur again.

30.          “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” — Romans 12:12

31.          Say it if you need to: “I will recover from this.”  You may need to say it over and over.

32.          Accept that you cannot do everything you want to do or feel you need to do.

33.          Contemplate disappointing people.  Anyone who won’t allow you to disappoint them potentially represents a problem relationship.

34.          Take a trip down memory lane.  Yes, I do mean a trip.  Get away.  Plan enough that you can enjoy it.

35.          Resign from that job that is driving you to your grave.  Take the leap of faith if you can.

36.          Enjoy your coffee and other caffeinated drinks but limit your intake so it doesn’t have a stimulant effect, and limit intake to before 6-8 hours before bedtime.

37.          Exercise.  Gee, it’s taken to #36 to get to such an important strategy.  But if you’re depressed you may find it hard to have the energy for it.  Exercise, along with sleep and good diet, is a key proactive step in self-care.

38.          Walk with a friend so you can chat while you exercise.

39.          Step along the earth in your bare feet.

40.          Read “Invitation to Retreat.”  One of the best books on self-care in my opinion.

41.          Engage in a study of the contemplatives and mystics, like St John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, St Catherine of Sienna, St Teresa of Avila.  They teach us much about the inner and deeper life.

42.          Go to a funeral and receive instant perspective about the important things in life.

43.          Visit a national park and get back to nature or go to a beach and take a long safe swim.

44.          It may seem novel but open a Bible and let your fingers go free.  So often you’ll be directed to something meaningful that brings life.

45.          Nap daily, and if you don’t know how or don’t believe in napping, give it a try.  Some of the best inventors napped.

46.          Sometimes a challenge of mindset or paradigm helps.

47.          Look at the role of guilt and shame and see if either or both of these is a problem for you.  These are common problems for most people.

48.          Look at the structure of your marriage and work.  Are you getting enough support or are you carrying the load?

49.          Resolve to write a book of your life.  Not now, but sometime in the next 5-10 years.  Think of other ‘you’ goals.

50.          Brace yourself for further impacts if you don’t respond to your present state of tiredness.  This will motivate you to draw a line in the sand.

51.          Write a list of things that replenish you.  It may be a short list.  Agree to build on it.  These activities will gradually bring you back to life.

52.          Ask those close to you what they think you can do.  If they’re wise, adopt what they say.

53.          Take time to decide important matters no matter how much pressure you’re under.

54.          Hasten slowly.  Yes, I know it was stated in point 12.  It’s incredibly important.

55.          Enjoy this present moment and allow hope to fill you.

56.          Do what you want right now.

Photo by Benjamin Suter on Unsplash

 

What people need to feel safe enough to heal and grow

Not a single person on the planet hasn’t been infracted in some small or large way — and it is very much the latter when we consider the role trauma has played in billions of lives.  

For just one instance, it’s often said that for each veteran of war who came (or comes) home traumatised, there are eventually 30 casualties of trauma at home as those impacts of trauma work their way through the generations.

Trauma, it can be said, affects just about every single one of us.  Yet, there is the very real plague of PTSD that many suffer and find little recourse to recovery from.  It is such a complex dilemma.  Healing and growth can seem a fanciful pipedream when you’re wrestling with the emotions that come from being trauma-triggered.

The rest of this article deals with what we CAN do.

Trauma is a great big problem, yet as faith-believers we also have a conundrum to wrestle with.  We can’t let go of hope.  It is one thing that saved us, and we cannot accept that people, situations or cases don’t have hope.

And yet, we must balance idealism with realism, otherwise misplaced hope can create further trauma.

As faith-believers, we want to gently insist that something CAN be done, without creating anguish in people, and in many cases, this is about holding open enough space that miracles might be done as we simply stand in the gap by faith.

What is faith but trust?  And what is trust but to acknowledge we don’t have all the answers, but we do have the moral obligation to do what we can to support positive outcomes.

Trust accepts the things that cannot be changed, because it accepts it doesn’t need to change things. Changing things isn’t the point.  It is easier and more sensible to just let things be.  When we can do this, we no longer hold ourselves accountable for the madness of procuring miracles.

And into this space those who seek healing can enter.  Knowing there is no agenda, just a simple trust for each moment’s direction, those who are especially vulnerable can feel safe.  Our anxiety doesn’t become part of their problem when we’ve taken the pressure off ourselves.

Vulnerable people need more 
than anything else safe places to BE.

Vulnerable people — and we’re all 
vulnerable or have been there — need the 
kind of empathy that implicitly 
understands where they’re at.

In BE-ing there is space to heal at their own rate and timeframe.  And healing in this regard isn’t even something we should call healing.

It may surprise many to contemplate that there may actually be much more therapy and healing in simply the provision of safe spaces where there’s no program or agenda of therapy and healing about them.

It’s sad to realise that this world has few inherently safe places of sanctuary.  This is certainly what God is calling the church to be, but alas, the church too has failed at times to be the safe place it needs to be for the vulnerable.

But the church cannot afford to give up in this, its greatest mission in this age.

Helping people heal often has less to do with programs and agendas and more to do with a heart that seeks to listen and to attend to what an individual needs.

In a world that has decided to do things in bulk, helping people heal from trauma must be done in a person-centred way.

When people see in us a real interest in them as genuine capable human souls worth encouraging, they really do begin to believe the narrative that our interest shows them.

It is amazing what a little encouragement over a sustained period will do to raise the confidence in a person.  We’re not that much different, you and I.  We need each other.

Photo by Jachan DeVol on Unsplash 

43 ways your life is significant

1.             Unless it was a dead heat, you beat all the other sperm to the egg.

2.             You survived in utero.

3.             You graduated that dark comfy existence to experience light and breath.

4.             Your body was able to stomach food, grow and thrive.

5.             However little or much you got, you were worthy of and received nurture.

6.             You learned, day by day, year by year, and now look at you.

7.             You stepped faithfully throughout all your school years, facing many exams.

8.             You endured many hundreds of painful events and injuries.

9.             You lost more than you won and yet you kept going.

10.          You overcame fear and anxiety, thousands of moments, more than you had peace.

11.          You believed in yourself, underpinned by God’s belief in you, despite others.

12.          You had others believe in you especially when you didn’t believe in yourself.

13.          You endured dozens of betrayals and hundreds of disappointments and vouched for yourself in that you knew you deserved better.

14.          You loved others well and you knew that your significance blossomed in the love you sowed.

15.          You applied yourself to a pastime, a career, a field of study, a sport — and you became good at it!

16.          You stood upon many lands and locations and you became what those experiences gave you.

17.          You spoke words into being and thereby created your earthly footprint.

18.          You, by just your being here, came to be a reason for others’ being.

19.          You, by just your being here, gave much delight to your Creator.

20.          You were able to sustain 18,000 bodily decisions each second, every second of your life.

21.          For what you can do without thought, with all the wiring and piping in your body, you are a moving miracle.

22.          You made a million life-maintenance decisions last year and you don’t even bat an eyelid.

23.          You have gathered countless possessions.

24.          You made at least one person, and possibly up to a dozen, immensely proud of you.

25.          You think and perceive and walk and talk like no other human being ever.

26.          You have executive decision-making capacity and power.

27.          You have an elaborate array of emotions and you can express your emotions like no other kind of creature.

28.          No matter what you’ve done, you can change the course of your own history.

29.          You have power to create good habits.

30.          The whole known universe is your home, and majesty of creation is reflected in the cosmos that is you.

31.          You have the capacity to bear children or to care for those younger than yourself.

32.          You can be trained to do skills, and taught knowledge.

33.          You have a memory and you have the gift of reminiscence.

34.          You will get to share what you have learned with those much younger than you.

35.          You will get to do many different tasks and roles in this life.

36.          Sorrow and pain, you will learn from just as much, and if not more, as joy and pleasure.

37.          You will many times reflect over life and how you’ve engaged in it.

38.          Many friendship opportunities will be had.

39.          You will have the chief role of loving others.

40.          You will leave a legacy in this world.

41.          You will be the only one not alive at your own funeral.

42.          You will pass from this physical life into mind-boggling eternity.

43.          You will face God.

Photo by Vitor Pinto on Unsplash