Ups and downs

In the last five years I’ve grown more accustomed to listening to what my body is saying. Sometimes it says I’m about to get sick, or that I’m pushing too hard, or that I’m bored, anxious, scared, curious, excited, thrilled, angry, sad, and so much more.

Figuring out what our body and mind are saying requires paying attention, building a vocabulary of what that looks like, and seeing how the patterns of our behavior and resulting actions influence change.

In the past I’d often followed a day of extreme output with another just like it. Then I’d keep repeating, pushing myself past the brink. Sometimes I pulled all nighters in an effort to make the thing happen through sheer force of hours thrown at the problem. The result? At some point you’ll just come up empty, realize you have nothing left, and wonder what’s next.

Being angry, upset, furious, sad, hurt—these emotions are all good and point to the symptom of what might be going wrong. The challenge is if we feel nothing. Inside Out does such a beautiful job of conveying the sheer despair of nothingness. If we’ve become so numbed due to extreme energy spent (without the resulting and equivalent payoff) we'll start to wonder why it all matters, start to stare into the abyss and question the futility of it all.

Thankfully that’s not where I’m at. Not at all. But I have been, in the past. And when you reach that point there are a few choices available. You can keep pushing, forcing, expending energy to work past it. Sometimes that works, but each day you’re flipping a coin and hoping it turns up heads. This may seem like the obvious answer, the easy answer, just keep going. Many choose this path. You can do that, until you can’t.

The eventual result of such a path is a deadend, full stop. You’ll come up so empty that you’ll question everything in your life and wonder why you keep trying. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, provided it leads to a reconnection to the things that matter in our lives. But sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes we stay in the abyss and can’t find our way out.

If you feel you’re at this point I’ve found several things to be helpful.

First, talk to someone about it.

Find a trusted person and let them know your emotion. Just conveying those feelings can help a lot. You can give voice to the thing inside, and remove some of its stigma, strip it of its power. If you can, test out speaking to a therapist. Given the right person—and therapists are just that, messy imperfect, but sometimes helpful, people—you may learn the tools necessary to move away from the abyss. They can equip you to process what you’re feeling and work through it. Combine that with calling out to loved ones what you’re going through, and you’ll take away some of its sting.

Second, spend time reflecting and learning about what you’re feeling.

When I went through some issues with burnout I spent time reading books on the topic, learning about the value of therapy as a whole, and in general searching for my meaning as a person. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped.

Third, find the things you appreciate.

This isn’t foolproof. If you’re truly at the point of empty it’s hard to see the value in the good around us, the beautiful things and people there for us. This seem to pale in comparison to the weights pulling us down. But there’s value in the thought, in the contemplation of the beautiful.

Fourth, find space for you.

We’re often far kinder and more patient to others than we are to ourselves. We give space, grace, and time for someone to figure something out, but expect our own selves to solve the problem immediately. One thing I strive for each day is to spend a small amount of time time doing something purely for the joy of it. That might be as tiny as reading a book, playing a game, going on a walk, or tinkering with a creative hobby.

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None of these are foolproof, none of these can solve the direct problem you may be facing if you feel the emptiness. Perhaps greater things are at play with health, people you love, finances, or things at a scale far above us.

It’s ok to sit with those, recognize they are challenges, and that it’s also ok that we’re can’t figure them out right away. Having kindness to ourselves is key, recognize that it’s a lot, and maybe we need time to work through it.

You’ve got this, and even if you don’t you’re still loved and appreciated.