Recovering from Social Emotional Exhaustion

Uncertain times calls for greater equilibrium

Let me know if you resonate with anything in this one…

The biggest challenge I have personally risen to time and time again in the last two years is being able to notice when I feel as though I’m “going down“.

In these moments I feel as though my hyper-vigilance is amped up to the max. And on quite a few occasions I was actually experiencing dissociation. 

Yep it had kept me safe all these years. But in the depth of all the uncertainty, I wanted to feel secure, confident and able to choose to maintain my sense of equilibrium. No matter what.

As I became grace under fire, each time starring down the flames in these moments that threatened to reduce me to ashes. I gradually created the pause to engage from 4th gear to neutral to observe.

I realised that I certainly had been relying on old patterns, habits and crutches that helped me survive from ‘before’.

And that I had been hiding this so strongly every day to ‘fit in’ and ‘act normal’ that it was exhausting me.

This was social emotional exhaustion at the deepest depths. 

This exhaustion often came from me unconsciously emulating the approach of others.

Contributing to spaces in the hope of being liked. 

Always being just a little bit not me. 

Leading with my not self. 

All in my wish to belong.

Little by little I began to realise that my sense of belonging was tied to things that were outside of me.

And that my experiences of dissociation were a cry from my self to come back.

It’s interesting how these experiences have extended over the years for me from feelings of depression and the repression of my soul. To now being expressed as hypervigilance and dissociation post-partum.

My deepest wish for love and acceptance was being denied from my greatest person who can offer that to me. Me. Or more specifically my not self. 

The evidence my not self presented was clear – namely that all the ways that worked before had kept me alive.

Learning new ways was great for moment for me but making it stick meant movement. I needed to allow change within my body. It needed to happen. Feel the lessons land. Feel the feelings. Feel how it felt to 

Feel the energy in motion whether it was stuck and I could offer it space to stay. Or it was on the move and I go watch it play.

I haven’t found it easy, or natural to begin with.

But then I started to see the way it changed what was going on. It brought me to being able to love what’s there, without feeling chased to change anything. From that place I felt I was finally moving toward what I now knew was possible for me.

This has been –

• thanks to Mel Ryan I felt that my simple cup of tea moment was me beginning my change.
• I was finally able to re-establish our investment portfolio and begin to build our impact with the advice of Marianna Agostino.
• With the tools offered by Bronte Spicer I was finally able to feel I could be open to receiving support.
• With the inspiration of Natasha Bray I began to have confidence to share my work and offer it for sale.
• I went from emulating to imagineering and with the assistance of my husband built what you can see here with Enlightenly. 
• I was able to welcome some much wanted in-home assistance to support our family with care for our son, giving us space to be more present with him when we spend time together.
• And after 10 months of stumbling I was finally able to welcome a new team member to help support our vision and our expansion! 🙌

I’m all set for a spacious holiday season and a simply joyous 2022 🥳

~L

x