#161 - What To Do When You Just Can't...
The only trick for surviving the unexpected
…
Don’t.
That’s right, it’s as simple as that. Do not.
The deadline can wait, the client understands you’re human, the meeting can be moved.
I’ll be back in February with new insights, tools, and resources for better communication through storytelling.
Additional Context (in case you’re curious):
I had a flood of all the emotions and challenges I hadn’t taken the time to process in 2023 hit me in December. Then I started moving through a breakup. Then I got COVID. Then I got kicked out of my rental in Mexico City with only five days to find a new place.
The COVID has been the worst of it. It has left me in a state of fatigue I have never experienced before on top of dealing with my natural incapacity to sleep at night and feel rested during the day. It feels like the Universe screaming in my space with spittle flying: REST!
But I run a business. And have clients with deadlines and things that need doing. But sometimes even with all the responsibilities and demands of life you have to stop. Just do what your body needs more than anything and simply rest. So that’s what I’m doing. As of today as I write this (Monday). For a few days. It’s my new job.
That’s why you haven’t heard from me. I decided January 2 that my new year would begin in March after all my work and life deadlines had been dealt with. Well. That meant doing the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t after burning out in 2021 (normally I’d put a link to that post, but I just don’t have it in me as I sit here on the couch of my new airbnb so…if you’re curious search burnout in the search tab to learn more about that): pushing through.
That has not worked out for me in the short time I attempted to do it.
I have updates and insights and lessons in storytelling to share. But they’re going to have to wait. Because I need to heal and quite frankly I’m too tired to string much of a sentence together much less infuse insight into it. I’m writing these few short words of update by the grace of god and through some instinctual part of my brain that can always put words together even when mere movement feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done in life.
All that to say, this newsletter means the world to me. Sharing with you means the world to me. But, and. It has to wait. I have to heal and I have to give myself time and space to do that. So I’m doing exactly that. The plan is to return in February hopefully back on track and full of energy. I’ll keep you posted.
Until then, I’d encourage you to not be like me. Don’t put off healing until you just can’t. I backslid a little on my commitment to myself to not ever burnout again but I’m back on track and that means closing my computer, grabbing my puppy, and getting cozy in bed for the nap my body is so desperately demanding I take. I’ll see you on the other side.