What do you do when you can’t give your best? When you can’t give your all? Sometimes it happens. What do you do when your tank is empty and you’re running on fumes? What then?
Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?
You’re coughing your guts out; you may even have hacked up a lung back there at lunch. Everyone around you started snottin’ and sneezin’ last week, so now you’re snottin’ and sneezin’. Your throat’s closed off it’s so sore. You can’t get anything down but hot chicken broth, but it’s all in your head so you’re still just as hungry as all get out. And the sinus headache hurts so bad you can’t think straight. Your ear just started in on all the mess and you really just want to curl up in your bed and sleep.
But you can’t go home because you need the money and you’d inconvenience all the co-workers on your hall, especially since they don’t feel any better than you. And even if they miraculously had the time to help you out, you probably wouldn’t get any sleep anyhow, seeing as you can’t breathe through all the snottin’ and sneezin’. You stayed up too late trying to make progress on the work you should have had done last week, so you aren’t getting enough sleep as it is. The Nyquil seems to help for a night or two, but since you’re staying up so late, you still feel drugged in the morning. And since you’re sleep deprived and drugged, you get up late and stress out the whole morning trying not to be late to work. And the cycle continues. Endlessly.
Eventually you get to a point where you either collapse or cry…or both!
So…what do you do when there is no more for you to give?
Well, first of all, know there’s grace. It’s okay to look up and realize you aren’t where you need to be. It’s okay to look up and realize you can’t do this. It’s okay to look up and realize you’re drowning.
It’s okay. Just breathe that in for a minute…It’s. Okay. Honest.
Grace means you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do it all, especially not on your own. Sometimes you just have to tread water to survive. Sometimes, you can’t be the same overachiever you’ve always been. And, sometimes, some things–even important ones, like life goals–have to take a backseat while you figure out how to navigate the next few days, or even hours of your life.
That means, if you’re ill, or if you’re in a transition; if you get some really bad news, or if you’re just hit with a really bad storm, it’s okay. You don’t have to figure it all out right now. Right now, you just need to eat, sleep, and breathe. Get up, go to work, survive. Tread water. If that’s all you do for the next two weeks, it’s okay. Give yourself the grace you need to heal and then get back up again and go to your A-game.
Second of all, know that you can’t do it all! That’s not what we were made for! We weren’t made to run ourselves into the ground like workhorses all our lives all just to turn over and die at the end! Sometimes life is hard. And sometimes life throws a curve ball. And, man, let me tell you, those curve balls come in all shapes and sizes!
Maybe your finances are falling apart. Maybe you just lost your job and you’re freaking out about paying bills, feeding kids, and alleviating fears. Maybe you just got a new job and you’re freaking out about how to do the job, be efficient and effective, and keep from causing a riot.
Maybe you just moved and you don’t know up from down right now. You don’t know which boxes are empty and which are collecting dust, awaiting opening, sorting, and reassignment. The dishwasher is only half-full because you still don’t know where that last kitchen box is and you weave through the living room like a maze. Every time you open the door, you spot that same stack of mail from the previous owner and your heart sinks when you realize it’s still growing cause you haven’t made it to the post office yet. Which reminds you, as you shut the door behind you and groan, you still haven’t put the water service in your name or found a new church to attend either. The new place doesn’t have curtains, so you struggle to sleep with the street lamp streaming through the blinds and the landlord still hasn’t fixed the broken window he promised he would.
Sometimes the laundry just piles up. When you finally run out of clothes, you throw in a load in a last ditch effort, then pull out what you need and toss the rest into a pile to be slowly pillaged until you realize you’re wearing the same pair of socks from yesterday and the drawer still hasn’t been restocked from the last time you ran out of clothes.
Regardless of empty cupboards and overflowing hampers, mislabeled mail and crowded rooms, sometimes it’s a struggle just to manage three meals a day and a shower every few days. Sometimes you just have to tread water. That takes grace and it takes someone strong enough to realize their limits.
We were made to reach out, to call for help, to lean on someone bigger than us. Who refuels you? Who restocks your shelves when they’re empty? How do you recharge? How do you make it through the times you can’t see past the next wave? Your eyes sting from the salt of the last one and your lungs burn from coughing through the water. Your body is weary and your soul isn’t far behind. So, how do you gas up? Do you know it’s okay to let life go and just heal? Do you know it’s okay to let life go and just survive?
Eventually, things will settle down. If they don’t, and it seems like it’s been forever, take the time to reorganize. Go back to the basics: food, sleep. Maybe throw in a shower and some clean clothes. Work. Keep the lights on. Keep things afloat long enough to stop and figure out how to add that recharging time back into your day.
And if your arms are sore from the repetitive motion and your legs are ready to give out in the large, dark ocean, look up. The sailors navigate by the stars. So can you.
Love always,
Coralie
Feed your soul: Check out Breathe by Johnny Diaz and Be Still by Hillary Scott