What Covert Exhaustion Taught Me

Image by Jess Minckley

Lately I’ve been combatting deep exhaustion. Until yesterday, I was stuck in the too-familiar thought loop: “Why am I so tired lately? I just wanna be get on with living my life!” The problem is, I want life to be like a cartoon.

I want to wake up to a happy, animated sun streaming light into my open window,

do an all-body stretch, hop in a steaming hot shower & suds my toothbrush into a cloud of foam, eat 2 eggs, a perfect piece of toast, and a smiling glass of orange juice. Then, I’d run out the door for work with my coffee mug & briefcase, wearing a suit and a toothy smile. Oh yeah… my life looks nothing like that!

We can get down on ourselves when life falls short of this idealized version of what it’s “supposed to be like”, especially if you’ve spent any time on social media lately. The last 6 weeks of the year is a push for raking in donations or selling gift-worthy items, making the home a festive place full of wonder, appreciating crisp walks in mittens with a latte, and soon, thinking about our new year’s resolutions.

So, when it gets so dark at 4 o’clock, and 7pm feels like midnight, my body gets confused. The grey sky in Seattle makes me want to stay in bed in the morning, and I cross things off my TO DO list, so I can avoid scraping ice off my windshield. And I’m tired because I have been practicing something that is pretty difficult. I have been exercising my entitlement to anarchistic rest.

For many years, I have been doing a medium-okay job at developing a mindful presence with my less-than-desirable emotional states (resentment, overwhelm, rage, self-pity, betrayal), and devoting mental energy toward creating radical compassion for myself and others. I started this journey because chronic illnesses gave me no choice. It’s like the scene in a movie when a Camaro speeds over a tack strip on the road and goes from 60 to zero.

But, I am still prey to the white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal notion that I need to get up and do more of something. Anything but what my body is screaming for: sleep, staying put, no decision-making, a dark room, texting stupid memes to my friends, watching TV baking competitions from bed, an ice cold La Croix, and ear plugs. Because, why am I so goddamn tired?! Have I been tired for a year? Two years?

In my mind, I was mulling over why this ideal life isn’t happening now. I’ve checked off a butt-load of tasks, it should all be coming together! What was wrong with my calculations? (And, just- what the hell?!)

Beware: this line of questioning can easily morph into “what’s wrong with me?!”

Yesterday it hit me as I was sitting in an intentional community on Zoom. We were doing a reflective practice using writing. It’s the end of the year and we were asked to think about what’s changed in the last year, what we have accomplished. I saw an image of a moon at the top of a staircase. I made an intention to think about goals, and I was thinking about all of the goals I actually have already accomplished this year. That’s when it struck me.

It’s not that I’m just tired lately, it’s not [just] the never-ending bummer of the pandemic. It’s that I’ve already done so much changing. I’ve achieved a ton of my goals! (In your face, COVID!) That change took a lot of hard intellectual and spiritual work and I burned emotional energy reserves to do it. This year, there have been massive shifts in my life. It’s usually hard to remember this when I am stuck on my present circumstances. So, reflecting backward was super useful.

Think about the big changes you have made this year. Think about changes that have happened around you too, like inflation. What’s different than it was in January? May? What have you lost along the way? What relationships have you had to say goodbye to? What people left this plane of existence? How much did they shape your life, even if they weren’t family, but adventurers, authors, musicians, or history-makers? Have you moved around (even the furniture or decor in your home)? Have you acquired new gadgets or plants or pets that have altered your routines? Have you moved some things around in your schedule? Have you adapted your bedtime to the daylight savings?

Plenty of changes can be totally positive, beautiful things. Even grief is a testament to how deeply we love and believe in things. In the midst of a prolonged, collective trauma, people are all trying to get on with the business of life: people who had wanted to travel are buying plane tickets. Maybe you’ve started to go back to your long-term TO DO list and check things off regarding your health or your investments. But these pivots are all changes too.

Have you noticed being quit to upset? I have. Rage jumps up my throat when someone threatens to tow my truck. It’s a 9 when it used to be a 6. It comes on three seconds faster than it used to. I get frustrated more easily when the pharmacy messes up my prescription (and the staff member gets annoyed with me for being another frustrated customer. That’s because my nervous system is fried. The part that used to take a deep breath is fried to a crisp.

How do you deal with change at a body level? At an animal level? How do you cope with uncertainty and leaps of faith? How did you intellectually fuel the rocket launch? How did you emotionally fund the projects or recover from the losses? In changing, even for the better, where have I become depleted? What needs of mine may be going unfulfilled now? How do we get back to our equilibrium?

By stopping. Everything.

We must recuperate from newness, from difference, and from adapting on the fly. We need to pause to contemplate in silence. A client of mine cried in my office a couple weeks ago and said “I just want to be in a sensory deprivation tank!” That’s exactly right. Some mammals hibernate for months during this time of year. They go without food and they sleep in little nests of fluff and leaves to stay warm.

Do not forget we are animals. We need time. We need space. We need silence. We need to be alone. We need to recover. We need to do these things so we can keep being teachers who don’t fly off the handle, and fathers who don’t threaten their children, to remain humane housemates and inspirational mentors, to feel encouraged as students, to feel empowered as flight attendants who are daughters, to continue being nurses to patients who fight the solution, and pharmacy staff members who are the accidental recipient of others annoyance. So we can all human better. Rest is necessary. Exhaustion is the red gasoline light coming on. It’s not your shortcoming, it’s a smart, divinely-designed warning bell. Heed it with me.