Lessons from Burnout:
What Allows Us to Manifest Our Dreams Consistently and Enjoy the Journey
I have been on a healing journey after experiencing some major burnout and distress in the spring. It has been a great learning experience that I am grateful for and have been generously sharing with our Life Mapping community.
In April, while participating in a national pitch competition, I let go of my beneficial life-sustaining practices and fell into an old habit of working night and day. As a result, I didn’t get the renewing benefits of my favorite vacation and when I started detoxing afterwards, I got sick. It has taken me all summer to climb out of that hole. And while I was down there, I started to really rethink everything I was doing and how. It wasn’t just my age that made it unsustainable, it was my humanness. And I was reminded of what it really takes to manifest what we want. Working harder doesn’t make anything manifest faster.
What allows us to manifest our dreams is…
- Holding fast to our vision and keeping it in front of us.
- Managing our thoughts, staying away from judgment and doubt and empowering ourselves by reframing our fears in ways that allow us to pay more attention to what we do want than what we don’t want.
- Being self-aware and scanning our inner and outer environments. I wasn’t paying attention to my body, energy, or heart this spring. I was running on the adrenaline of fear as I stepped out into a world that I hadn’t visited before. In hindsight, I needed to give myself more space, take something off my plate and ask for help. And I did the exact opposite and held on tight trying to control myself and my environment while stepping out into new territory.
- Maintaining our strategies for moving forward. I had laid out strategies that I started to ignore like keeping a spacious calendar. I forgot and started lining up back-to-back meetings every day, leaving me working late into the night to deal with emails, follow up, desk work and planning.
- Being in consistent action – it’s the consistency of my self-care and spiritual work that I put on the back burner that did me in.
- Listening and obeying our instincts, that little voice that speaks without words, like a whisper, to give us wise advice that I was ignoring and postponing until later. OMG!
To my detriment, I abandoned my own practices that have sustained me over the years . I received the lesson. Now I am reaping the blessings of that challenging reminder. It’s the consistency of our practices that sustains us and allows us to be successful and manifest our dreams. Although those practices may need to be revisited and adjusted as our lives and our worlds change over time, we should never abandon them. We have the opportunity to recommit and move in an effective way every day allowing us to accomplish the goals and do it in a way that allows us to enjoy the journey. What are your practices for self-care and manifesting your dreams and goals? How are you also enjoying the journey?