My monthly resolution: planning cathartic releases to cope better with burnout
Instead of doing yearly resolutions that are easy to break, I’m trying a system of monthly resolutions to break toxic patterns I’ve learned from awareness in two years of therapy.
One pattern I have observed, every year is, there’s a certain period of time, where I hit my emotional, physical, mental threshold to an absolute state of exhaustion. I feel in the dark pit with no light at the end of it and feel like hitting the rock bottom. I get cranky, argumentative, sluggish, tired, demotivated and simply uninterested.
Also, there’s a feeling of sacrificial martyrdom for giving up things I wished for at a certain period of time for looking after the needs of someone else. That’s the vicious cycle I’ve been grinding at, every single year. These usually come after panic-ridden stretches of time or depressive episodes.
I observed that I’ve been internalising trauma and pain in various situations: at work, at home, in interpersonal relationships — and almost getting consumed by everything related to the ‘other’, leaving no time to be centred in myself.
I see these now becoming as codependencies where I feel guilty for saying a ‘no’, when I can’t be there for them. Adding on to the occupational hazard of being a user researcher where I listen to user stories, and practice empathy for hours, often observing and talking to folks navigating their problems and issues which can be as simple as navigating through a set of screens on an application to abuse they dealt with growing up.
The anxieties of the world are borrowed anxieties and generational traumas, which I seem to internalise. The core of empathy is to be able to find a piece of yourself in the other, however, you might hit a compassion fatigue when you internalise these feelings without processing them, and separating yourself from the other.
This month I choose to break that pattern of extreme exhaustion and find a better way to cope with the constant burn out. Before the burn out stage is a constant state of panic and anxiety — essentially, it is your brain in constant urgency to solve something and configure energies to cope with the ‘problem’ at hand, it could be the smallest of inconveniences, but the brain’s fight or flight part gets activated to deal with the situation.
That constant state without a resolution is what causes the grave exhaustion. Anxiety or panic attacks are a cycle, they need resolutions at the end. While we categorise anxiety as a mental health issue, the symptoms and realities are very physical, and it needs a massive physical release, often to the extent of catharsis.
Our current stressors are very different from the lion at a hunt which gets our heartbeat up, the anxiety gears us up for running and surviving and takes us back to normalcy from survival mode — that’s a complete cycle. In our present lifestyles, are stressors are intangible, it could be a deadline too close or our partners’ health / struggles, or someone’s story of childhood trauma that could trigger us.
Finding a piece of ourselves in others is a part of being human, but internalising that pain without processing it or releasing it makes us carry it along. All of it comes together to the catastrophic end as it is. That said, I feel there needs to be a safe space for these feelings to be released.
I am looking to create planned safe spaces for myself in my process of release, catharsis and coping mechanisms; to avoid triggered emotional throwing-up at unintended points in time. I’m a rather extroverted, talkative, expressive person, I need a medium that helps me express outwardly of my internal feelings. Here are some rituals I’m planning as monthly exercises to handle my feelings better:
Keeping it real on the internet, and writing about my thoughts everyday
The internet is no more an anonymous spot and there’s a dangerous yet interesting vulnerability about it. While most people present their perfectly curated, photographed and best moments on the ‘gram or elsewhere, I’m determined to write whatever strikes my mind — whether it is an external trend I notice or an internal feeling I’m fighting out there on the internet, almost airing my dirty laundry to put my thoughts together. Let some of the pieces be unfinished, raw, jumbled, puzzling and spontaneous. I want to make this a place to release thoughts as raw and quick as they come, instead of hiding behind the perfectionism hoax.
Ritualistically and literally trash out intrusive thoughts and internalised negative feelings
Anxiety leads to intrusive thought patterns, resulting in internalised negative feelings. I want to find a set of physical objects symbolic of the particular nugget of thought or feeling. I want to disengage with it by giving it a physical form that can be visualised, broken down, solved and trashed out. The intrusion in my clarity of thought is a larger payback. The idea is to not indulge in the thought like a comforting blanket, but take the effort to emerge out of it.
Schedule a fortnightly session with a therapist or a support group/ friend and process feelings beyond myself
Talk therapy is one great aid to the expressive souls, and one for me helps me stay away from oversharing otherwise outside of safe spaces. Being able to afford and talk to a therapist is a great way to find someone completely unbiased and professionally trained to listen, empathise and not be burdened by your issues. The next best thing is to find a support group where individuals from different walks of life come together to listen, vent, support each other. These can be simply online chatrooms, game zones, cafe centres or a group of friends. This particularly for the need to talk about issues so that other time spent together is simply about company and not pressure steam and release.
Paint my state of mind and evolve out of it
During the pandemic isolation and lockdown I found a very interesting way to ground myself at different moments of the day while the entire world went intangible and virtual. I started to draw out how I was feeling at an abstract level at a certain moment, while talking to someone, while attending a meeting or a webinar, or simply listening to music. It helped me stay in touch with my inner self and let me cathartically express while creating something that I could relate with and see myself coming out of, and releasing.
That’s what I’m going to try and practice as this month proceeds. Others may have their own mechanisms and I would love to curate them here as a spot to allow everyone to find a way to deal. Feel free to add yours to the comments section.
