Dear one,
When this one more thing becomes the drop that is too much…then we know that the bucket has been full already for a while. The question is: why do we keep on going even though our body, our mind and our soul have been sending us many signals for probably quite a long time.
When I had my first burn out I was in my begin 30s. I was standing at the train station in Amsterdam and the train I had to take got cancelled. Instead of taking conveniently just one train to get to my destination I had to take a bus, another train and one more bus. That cancelled train was the drop too much. For me. At that time. I remember starting to sweat, feeling dizzy in my mind, wobbly in my body and empty in my heart. I couldn’t feel anything anymore, only this huge cloud of overwhelm. My thoughts were frozen and wouldn’t produce any coherent strategy anymore. I felt completely lost and was unable to make a move. It was a dear friend of mine that made me realise what was going on after he said: “ Yo, lieve schat, je bent hartstikke burned out.” Me? Burned out? But I have always been Misses endless energy! It was the same surprise when I had my depression in my begin 20s. Me? Depressed? But I have always been Misses hyper happy!
It was as if someone had pulled the plug. I didn’t feel like being around people and wasn’t up for anything social - things that would usually be fun and enjoyable felt like an unbearable burden. Back then I was still giving tours in the Red light district in Amsterdam. Walking around the packed narrow streets talking passionately about my research to a group of strangers was absolutely impossible. One of the hardest parts was calling my parents and asking for money. As a freelancer I can’t just call in sick. That’s the luxury that comes with having a contract that might feel limiting in other times but in those kind of situations is worth gold. Just like in any crisis, my parents showed up for me. With the price of the projections of their fears. But at the end, I can always count on them. That is my luxury and I feel truly blessed.
I pulled the plug on everything.
Once I could surrender into it, the healing could start. All I did for about a month was laying on the roof terrace of my friends place in Amsterdam, looking up at the sky, watching the clouds pass by, connect to my breath and to my heartbeat, feel all that was moving through me and sleep a lot in between the ‘not doing’.
Back then I told myself that this was never gonna happen again to me. But history repeats if we don’t manage to “hack the script and update the story” (as Francine Oomen would say). There is a part in me that feels embarrassed acknowledging the fact that again I have been going over my own boundaries so much that the burn out is knocking on the doors of my nervous system. If we look at burn out from the perspective of Voice Dialogue, burn out is another survival strategy that is just trying to protect us. The question is: from what? Burn out is the polarity of my inner pusher that collaborates with my spider mam that is known for her endless energy. She climbs walls, juggles thousands balls at the same time and gets an incredible amount much shit done. Even though I have worked with these parts a lot, they still rule my life. Because that is what our primary parts do. They take over the steering wheel and do what they have always done: to make sure that the script stays the same. That’s the comfort zone. Growth happens in the discomfort though. Very often, we first go into the other extreme (the polarity) before we are able to restore balance in the system. That’s the healing crisis. And the work that needs to be done is building connection with all the parts involved in the inner war. Through that connection we eventually get to the core of the vulnerability. Once the vulnerability is taken care of, the protecting parts can put their weapons down. Our system starts to relax and we can slowly experience who we actually are.
When we got the wounds of our inner child under the loving wings of the divine mother, our body is strong and can stand viruses, our mind is resilient and our heart is soft. Life becomes easy and we get to experience flow and abundance.
It is humbling to realise how much work there still needs to be done.
The difference that comes with age and life experience is though that this time I can see the signs and understand what is happening. I am not being hijacked by the burned out part. From my centred middle position (aware ego) I am able to observe what is at play. Instead of pushing through I know I need to slow down, to breath, to connect to my heartbeat, to do what nourishes me, what gives me energy and doesn’t take energy. For me it is actually very simple: keeping up my morning practice, going for long nature walks and most importantly: working less on the computer. That is also why the online platform theEDGE is paused. For now. Until I feel the honest inner impulse to re-start. New material is filmed and ready to be edited. But for that I need more funds to be able to pay the person that does the editing and more funds means I need to work more in order to generate them (as we are bootstrapping everything). In a culture in which everything needs to happen fast, slow growth is a big challenge. However, it feels right and healthy to my system. So please be patient with me and keep on trusting in the process…everything has its own divine time.
When we got the wounds of our inner child under the loving wings of the divine mother, our body is strong and can stand viruses, our mind is resilient and our heart is soft. Life becomes easy and we get to experience flow and abundance.
It is humbling to realise how much work there still needs to be done.
The difference that comes with age and life experience is though that this time I can see the signs and understand what is happening. I am not being hijacked by the burned out part. From my centred middle position (aware ego) I am able to observe what is at play. Instead of pushing through I know I need to slow down, to breath, to connect to my heartbeat, to do what nourishes me, what gives me energy and doesn’t take energy. For me it is actually very simple: keeping up my morning practice, going for long nature walks and most importantly: working less on the computer. That is also why the online platform theEDGE is paused. For now. Until I feel the honest inner impulse to re-start. New material is filmed and ready to be edited. But for that I need more funds to be able to pay the person that does the editing and more funds means I need to work more in order to generate them (as we are bootstrapping everything). In a culture in which everything needs to happen fast, slow growth is a big challenge. However, it feels right and healthy to my system. So please be patient with me and keep on trusting in the process…everything has its own divine time.
