i’m not a cybernetic organisam, but…
ARE YOU SMOKING HOT?
Yes you are 🔥🔥🔥
But are you smoking and actually burned out?
Well, this is why I think feeling burned out by January is a good thing.
Bear with me.
At the risk of sounding like chat GPT, emotions and feelings are data. They are temporary and they are real.
They let us know something; the ‘thing’ being somewhere on the spectrum of good, or not so good.
It’s only when trends appear that we can get information from these emotions.
So, burnout is a good thing because it is telling you something loud and clear.
But you didn’t see the trends in the run-up to the aforementioned burnout, becuase you’ve being doing so much for others.
Now is the time to listen to yourself because the burning signal is from one of your circuits being unable to complete.
Hold on, I’m not saying you are a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.
I’m saying that you are temporarily held still.
And that’s OK.
A salve is needed to connect to the next stage.
Progress is around the corner if you listen to what your mind and body need to reconnect to the next natural stage of the circuit.
Let’s dig into circuits so you don’t think I’m a robot.
Circuits.
Loops.
Circles.
Cycles.
Systems.
One minute for a game time first.
Set a timer for minute and write down as many natural or man-made cycles, circuits or loops as you can think of.
Pause and jot them down now.
1 minute later.
How many did you get? 10/20/60?
I got 25 (some might be synonyms)
Seasons
Weeks
Years
Days (24 hours)
Wake sleep
Cell cycle renewal
Hormone cycles eg stress
Blood circulation
Oxygenation
Appetite
Menstruation
Pregnancy
Hibernation of animals
The solar system
Heart pumping blood
Breathing cycle
Running tracks
Travel Jjourneys
The Circle Of Life
Electrical circuits
Plumbing
There could be infinite examples.
Infinite is a loop. That’s another one.
I admit this took a little longer than one minute as I did not know about Infradian Rhythms until I was on Wikipedia.
Are we agreed that there is a lot?
They could be categorised into natural and man-made, e.g. plumbing and electrical circuits being the latter.
Humans were able to create these engineering progressions from inspiration in natural world. Biomimicry if you want the tekkers term. For example butterfly wings inspired advances in solar power circuits.
So I have two questions for you and your natural circuits, cycles and loops.
1. Do you feel you want or need to be ‘always on’ or ‘living your best life’ every day?
2. Did you feel ‘bad’ when you were last down, unproductive, quiet, or wanting to hibernate for long periods of time to recover your energy?
If you answered yes to any of the questions, you are not alone. We are with you.
But it doesn’t mean we are correct because that would be us resisting our natural cycles and rhythms.
Man-made advances like global business, the internet, social media and ‘prime’ delivery have contributed to this expectation of delivery all the time.
Slack, WhatsApp, email, mobile phones and ‘wearables’ like techno-jewellery giving us feedback and commands at all times makes us aware we are ‘available’ and ‘on’ call for everything and everyone.
Can you use your emotions like that in 2024? Responding to the ones you care about, ignoring the rest.
Tune in to you, turn off the interruptions.
Because the ups and downs are part of our cycles. They are good things; they actually need to be completed for us to work well.
Take stress.
Stress is a cycle.
The stress cycle is baseline to trigger. Trigger to reaction. Reaction to release. Release back to baseline.
The issues arise when we get stuck in one stage of it.
Burnout happens when you can’t open the door to the next stage in its cycle, so you get stuck and tres fatigued.
Like rumination over that thing your boss said last year that keeps you from moving forward and learning how to master something.
Or frustration from not being able to communicate to your partner as clearly as you would like due to sleep deprivation from babe needing you in the night.
Or inaction on a project you want to do because that keeps you trapped in the same place.
If that’s you, do not panic.
If you are feeling like you have frozen still and nothing will make you want to move again, that’s OK.
Or if you have proverbially run away and hidden, or want to hide from life, that’s OK.
Or if you have your defences up and are ready to fight, that’s OK.
But can you do this for yourself now?
Just feel the feels.
Proverbially, sit down with your feelings and feel them.
They are natural. They are part of the loop, the circuit that wants to be completed.
When you let them happen, you’ll be able to open the door to the next stage, season, or level more easily.
Trust it will open.
In time.
I can’t say when, but it will.
And remember that mood follows action.
Like the release you feel when you go for a walk at lunch instead of eating at your desk.
You know moving always makes you feel better and more in control.
Take action, feel more in control.
1. Can you make a commitment to yourself to look at your cycles of emotions and energy as necessary parts to embrace for the period ahead?
2. Will you agree today, to nestle into your melancholy’s bosom (for days, weeks or seasons) in 2024 with a cup of yogi-tea and the confidence that she won’t be around forever?
3. And can you remember to fist pump your energy bounce when she is here because she will get tired soon will need a break?
Both highs and lows are gorgeous parts of your natural rhythms and need to be cared for just the same amounts.
It’s natural.
Right, let’s close out and let’s circle back. Let’s come full circle and return home after one last round.
Burnout is a good thing because it means change iscoming.
You only need feel where you are and be open for the next door start to move.
You can open it by releasing the previous handle.
You are capable of big things.
But you can’t do them all at the same time.
You are building a blooming human. You can build anything.
You just need to do it slowly, brick by brick. Stage one onto stage two and beyond.