Major Milestone

This week started with a huge mountain of stress.

Monday afternoon brought to fruition a huge milestone event. 2 hours that were seven years in the making. And it went well, and I was happy... for about an hour or so. Then - I felt exhausted. I took a nap, and ended up sleeping for hours. I took the rest of the day off.

The next morning - I woke up with no energy, and no will to do anything. And an overwhelming feeling of just wanting to go home, crawl into bed and cry.

The letdown effect. I had felt it before, but nothing of this magnitude. I carried on and just added in the things that usually help me when I'm feeling low on energy - extra sleep, getting to the gym, coffee, taking a walk in the sunshine [if Portland weather allows], eating enough, coffee, etc. But for several days - I have had trouble even getting out of bed. It wasn't working. My charger was broken.

Partially, I think that it's because when you imagine a huge milestone - it can never live up to your expectations. But also - it likely took so long to get there, that it's not even your final destination anymore.

If you're anything like me, you've seen the next mountain in the distance, the new shiny mountain - full of promise. Maybe you've set your sights on it so firmly, that you might even walk past that without a second thought. That milestone was so 7 years ago. You've outgrown it.

The danger with being called to pursue ever further and ever steeper hikes, is that one might forget what a toll these adventures have on our bodies. Sometimes, we forget that just keeping it all together takes up all of our cognitive and physical capacity, and we may be running on empty and just turning off our emergency indicator light, thinking "It's OK - I am strong enough to keep going".

But I think, sometimes one just needs to fall apart for a bit, and just accept it.

A while ago, I went to a short presentation from a leadership coach who illustrated how we should deal with change through the butterfly metamorphosis metaphor. When caterpillar goes into its cocoon - it releases digestive juices that break down its tissues. Some of its body parts literally dissolve, turns to sludge and then it rebuilds from scratch into a butterfly. Her point was - sometimes we need to allow ourselves to just be sludge. Allow ourselves the time to dissolve and re-emerge anew.

Well this week I had that opportunity - and it was harder than I imagined.

I fight with many inner demons - you met several of them in the very first edition of Nevertheless - but I think the guilt of not being productive may be my arch nemesis. Quickly followed by the fear of disappointing others.

Sure, the past 2 weeks have been a bit busy - working 12 hour days with 6-7 meetings a day and no weekends, then doing a 7 day build sprint, attending 5 networking events, and then defending my PhD dissertation. But my to do list is still a mile high and people are waiting on me to both do things and make Big Vision decisions. I can't just stop.

But I had to - because the longer you run on empty, the longer it takes to bounce back.

So today, I took aphukenbrake and didn't do anything at all productive. And I still feel guilty, but I am working through it. Today, I slept in, I took a walk, and painted.

Time resting is not time wasted, and sometimes rest can't be perfectly timed or planned. Sometimes it happens on a Wednesday.

Do it with me -

Inhale -----------------

Exhale -----------------------

Repeat

It'll be OK.

?? What do you do when you just want a break from everything for a bit?