On burnout, home, and learning to rest
Last week I wrote about our dramatic flight back home, and I ended with how hollow and empty I feel. Now, I’ve been back home for one week, and I still feel emotionally drained – almost burnt-out?
I wrote last week about the Holmes and Rahe scale, and how I need to be mindful about my own health and mental state – but if you know me, you should know that I will never admit I’m tired or that I need to rest. It’s a very old and ingrained habit of mine to deal with trauma by putting my head in the sand, ostrich-style, and burying myself in more and more work. I don’t deal with challenges or trauma. I suppress any pain or loss by taking on even more challenges.
Years ago I was a 2nd year Opera student at Tshwane University of Technology, whilst also enrolled as a third year Psychology student through UNISA, and had a contract at PACT being one of the King of Siam’s wives in the State Theatre’s production of The King and I. From the outside, people think I am a diligent and hard worker. On the inside, I’m a little duckling paddling my feet like crazy under water, trying to stay afloat.
A few years ago, I worked my thyroid into an autoimmune disease with a cute Japanese name, Hashimoto’s. Uncle Hashi and I earned our PhD in Afrikaans and Dutch linguistics whilst working full-time at one of Sandton’s top boys’ schools, and being the mom of two very lively teenagers. I don’t know how we all survived that ordeal, and coped with the passing of my father – and shortly after I completed my studies my mom passed. How did I survive? By taking on more and more work…taking it slow, listening to my body, soul and my mind, was never my modus operandi.
When we arrived last week in South Africa, after having worked for three years in exotic Viet Nam, something in me snapped. I’ve worked so hard and learned so much, and I am so immensely grateful for the opportunity, but it was a challenging position – and when we arrived at OR Tambo, I felt bomb-shocked and a bit frazzled. I have barely made contact with any of my beloved family or friends. I have been dead quiet. I have not reached out to anyone, and I am just dead tired. I felt a bit ashamed, because I started writing my stories and posting pics and creating quite a hype of expectation for my homecoming – and suddenly I’m persona non grata.
I felt like a “kaalgeplukte hoender” – a chicken bare, stripped, plucked clean of feathers. No wings to hide behind, and nothing left to keep me warm.
And then my family and I arrived in a small town, Kaapschehoop, close to Nelspruit, and on the hike through ancient rocks and stones to see the vast and endless escarpment, I could feel my soul and my heart start to lift and soar. Step by step, I reconnected with my being and my loved ones.
A study by the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan found that a “nature experience” – defined simply as spending time in an outdoor place that brings a sense of contact with nature – can meaningfully lower the stress hormone cortisol, with benefits showing from as little as 10 minutes, and the greatest payoff for time spent coming at 20 to 30 minutes. What I find compelling about this study is that it measured people in their normal daily routine, over eight weeks, not on a dream holiday in a relaxing location. Whether they were walking, sitting, or running didn’t matter – what mattered was simply showing up in contact with nature. Even a brief visit has the power to relieve your stress and support your mental health.
Edge of the world, Kaapschehoop
Sitting there on the edge of the world, I felt I am once again a wild goose, soaring through foreign skies, connecting to nature and self.
When last did you go for a walk in a forest, smelling the layers of decomposing leaves and wet, muddy ground, surrounded by centuries of wisdom and care?
Let your tired and restless soul loose in the wild, in nature, and fly to where you can meet yourself again. Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Mine loves nature and words.
Let Mary Oliver’s words inspire you to fly wild again:
“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
-Mary Oliver: Wild Geese
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