We are experiencing a wild explosion of justifiable pandemic exhaustion . Clearly, something isn’t working, and there’s a radical amount of finger pointing and frustration. I’m curious if we can find ways to support ourselves and each other that allow for us to move through the burnout and create ease and connection.
How can we be part of change? How do we release tension in a way that doesn’t include avoiding or attacking people and conversations or going into full-fledged hiding? The fatigue is built from layer upon layer of messy emotions. Can we find some optimism in the wild and out of control experience so many of us are having?
I know that our frustration, anger, sadness, pain and feelings of hopelessness are growing. This may not be the experience for everyone, but many people are feeling this. So how do we support each other when so many are experiencing exhaustion? We’re smart and brave, I think that many of us want this. We see our potential and have some amount of hope that we can become better for this experience.
The problems we’re facing are systemic responses to a culture that has faults, and the stress test that is this pandemic has exposed our weaknesses. If we continue to respond to each other with blaming and shaming, we will build communities and a culture that will highlight those behaviors, which continue to grow out of control.
I think we can find healthy ways to support each other even in this period of deep fatigue. But we must choose to make different choices. That’s the hardest part, learning how to unlearn responses that aren’t serving us.
When exhaustion seeps into our lives we tend to respond in ways that include:
- Self-isolating hiding from people, our work and our responsibilities. This becomes problematic when it’s a habitual or continuous response.
- Expecting perfectionism from ourselves and others; having an inability to forgive and no space for difficult conversations or alternative points of view.
- Being raw and tender and tending to take things personally; potentially being reactionary instead of being able to calm ourselves.
- Creating an ‘us versus them’ world, in which anyone who thinks differently or makes different choices than us makes them wrong and us more right.
- Bringing our ur pains right to the surface; instead of seeking help from therapists, counselors or anyone else who can help with healing our trauma we dig into our beliefs and potentially unhealthy responses to the world (one way for me, it’s believing no one likes me; that sends me into a solo tailspin of disconnection and defensive reactions).
- Getting behind a cause, something we feel like we can stand behind and get loud about. We channel our discontent and use that mission as a platform to share our anger or frustration instead of channeling our energy into healing ourselves.
- Becoming impatient with those closest to us.
There are many other ways we show our fatigue, but these are examples of how our symptoms can present. In Dr. Brene Brown’s work, she says that “blaming and finger pointing become norms when we don’t know how to hold each other accountable in healthy ways. When we live in a daring culture, we don’t need to rely on blaming and shaming.” So how do we create a daring culture and find ways to support each other when we’re feeling depleted? Cynicism and criticism are often more common than making a positive contribution to our or someone else’s life, workplace or culture.
If you’re feeling too depleted to help someone else, you take time to take care of yourself and you ask for support from others. If you’re in this state, I would recommend avoiding difficult conversations unless they revolve around asking for help and finding ways to replenish so that you can avoid regular physical or emotional crashes. Self-care is about taking care of yourself in ways that make you feel better so that you’re not constantly crashing and burning out from your life. Build a life that you don’t regularly have to escape from.
Other ways we can support each other in time of deep exhaustion:
- Give a friend, coworker or family member the opportunity to share their frustrations without needing to control, judge or manage their language, perspectives or experience. Ask for the same in return. Be honest with each other about how much time you want to dedicate to sharing your frustrations so neither of you feel more depleted from the experience.
- Be generous, help someone out that you know is struggling. You could make them a meal, send a gift card or help out with some task that overwhelms them . Or just ask them what would help them; get their input.
- Instead of engaging with discourse on social media, send someone a random message and tell them how they impact your life in a positive way.
- If you’re feeling gripped by the need to be right about any topic, take five deep breaths and step outside. Smile, breath in fresh air and think about someone that brings joy to your life.
- If you’re someone who’s been able to save money during the pandemic because your financial situation hasn’t been negatively affected, be generous . Support local businesses; if you don’t have anything you want to buy, consider donating to them. Find local causes to support financially. Tell others you’re supporting them and share that in a way that raises support. If you already do this, consider spreading your abundance to a global cause.
- Smile at people when walking down the street. Masks have taken away our connections to each other, so use any time you have without a mask on to spread kindness and joy.
I’m sure many of you have ideas of how we could lift each other up during this time of exhaustion. Would you be open to sharing them and perhaps I/we could promote this concept on social media versus creating more angst, separation and unhealthy drama?
If we’re going to come out of this better for it, we are going to have to make choices that aren’t reaction based and be audacious with our kindness and willing to be uncomfortable to fumble and learn what that looks like.
With love
Noelle