How Do You Restore Yourself?

In suffering from a stress-induced illness, I realise that I was not caring for myself properly. At the time of my worst symptoms it was really difficult for me to understand how this happened. A serious diagnosis leads to a great deal of introspection and self-exploration. In so doing, I have come to realise the sources of my stress and the things that drain my energy.

I have noticed that there are many people who are sufficiently aware that they need to recharge in order to avoid burning out. Someone I know runs an exclusive fashion boutique and she takes every Monday morning for herself to catch up on things and to get organised for the week. Another friend recently took herself away for the weekend to have a massage, strolls by the sea and a change of scenery. Someone else I know visits a health spa for a week a year just to escape the humdrum of life. My previous business coach took herself out to a movie now and then. In a previous post, I spoke of these actions as a firebreak, in specific reference to the women’s retreat I recently attended.

Having developed a stress-induced illness myself, I’m now much more aware and interested in those who are heading the same way. I have noticed a lot of people lately who are either in the midst of a burnout or are approaching it rapidly. No-one but themselves can adjust their lives or prevent them from developing major health concerns. If you are feeling close to burnout, take a step back and find a way to restore yourself. Even if it’s just half an hour in the day to listen to your favourite music or to do something you really enjoy doing. The effects of doing those small acts of self-care can be quite powerful over time.

I often wonder who is reading my blog and what they’re thinking. I would so love to hear from you and to hear about what methods you use to restore yourself. I see it as part of my research going forward in writing about my favourite topic: aligning with your life passion, and thereby increasing your joy. 

I have found that it’s tricky to get in touch with what you love after living a life of obligation for a long time. I was unable to answer the question “what are you passionate about?” for at least six months. Now I can say “writing”, “helping people” and “aligning your job with your talents” but there may be some more things that emerge in the next few months.

Personally I’m getting much closer to my future career, although I’m not quite there yet. One of the really important steps is to understand what you don’t enjoy or what drains you. Once you have identified that, you can no longer continue doing what you did before. Passion is a major ingredient to success and if you don’t have passion for what you’re doing, it’s not sustainable.  Being aware of how little energy I have now is actually a blessing because I’m clear that I can’t spend the few hours of energy I have on something I don’t enjoy. I need to spend my precious reserves on things that energise and restore me.

I’m shaping my life to remove things that detract from my happiness level and including things that increase it. I am still very constrained in terms of how much I can achieve but I try to look back to remind myself of how far I’ve come and to keep up the focus on healing and recovery if I want the future I have my sights on.

Challenge vs Skill

In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book Flow, he describes the how the optimum flow experience can be gained if we can balance our skill level with the challenge of the activity. If we are doing something that is well below our skills and the challenge is low, we are bored. If the challenge is too great in that we don’t have the adequate skills, we can experience anxiety. There exists a sweet spot where our skills and the challenge mostly matched, with the challenge being slightly greater. This is when we are in flow.

Skills vs Challenge

There are many opportunities for us to be in flow, be it in our work or leisure. My focus currently is to ensure that I create a future career around my flow experiences. For too long my work centred around tasks that drained my energy and frustrated me. In the next few months while I recover from my stress-induced condition, I’m trying to find flow experiences that are not too taxing. I've been told that the brain relaxes while doing creative activities so I've been drawing and trying to find ways to express myself creatively.

I bought a second-hand piano a while back, and while I played as a child, I’m quite rusty. My energy levels are too low to commit to a regular lesson right now, but I've been downloading some sheet music. I know that my skill level is very low at the moment, but I know that I can work at it to become more skilled. As my skills grow, I can increase the challenge by trying more difficult pieces. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says in his book ‘In this growth of the self lies the key to flow activities’.

It is enthralling to know that within me lies the opportunity to play beautiful music. It’s something I’d love to share with my children. At the same time it is a little daunting but I think that is the fun of it. Nothing that is worth anything comes easily.

In the long term my work needs to centre around flow activities. I know myself well enough to know that I get bored not achieving things. That can be an impediment to my recovery so I'm occupying myself with things that can help me recover. I'm finding flow activities that may or may not be part of my long term career or leisure. 

What talents from childhood or your past have you forgotten about? What have you always wanted to try? It’s important to note that passive activities like watching TV are distinctly not being in flow. How much more can we get out of our lives if we focus on flow activities that indeed make us more skilled and happier people?