Women and Burn Out – I See It Every Day kathryns-blog.com /women-and-burn-out/ Kathryn
Women and Burn Out – I See It Every Day I do see it every day. I have worked in Remedial Massage for nearly four years now and so you can imagine why. I always get my general ache and pain clients, but a lot of people, particularly women, come in and they are as stiff as a board – head to toe. I have some people who just got back from holidays at the end of January and by the end of March they are in need of another one. I watch the stress in their lives affecting every part of their bodies, giving them headaches, trouble sleeping, a lowered immune system and so forth. From what I read online it’s getting worse too with more children being diagnosed with Anxiety. So what’s going on and what can we do about it?
The Evil Word SHOULD It’s a bad word that we use instinctively without even thinking about it. What’s so bad about it? It’s a guilt word about how we are not measuring up in our lives, how we are being too lazy or not good enough. “I should exercise more often” “I should have been smarter than that” “I should lose more weight” “I should study harder”. Okay so sometimes we procrastinate and that’s not great, but did you stop and think that maybe you are actually giving life your best right now and you just are lacking perhaps the tools and support to get you to the next level? I’m not trying to let you off the hook here and pat you on the head and say it’s okay not to push yourself to the next level, but have a think about maybe what is holding you back from doing things you feel are important. You SHOULDN’T have to do anything! Maybe you COULD instead? Say “could” instead of “should” and see how that feels. “I could exercise more often”. Doesn’t that sound more empowering? You have options! The guilt that comes from not being good enough because you “should” do something definitely causes stress and anxiety.
Are your standards beyond your means? High standards are a good thing absolutely, but we can take it too far. For example, I use to try to eat organic all the time, buy the best quality products and I wasn’t being real. I just couldn’t afford that stuff. I want to give my daughter the best of the best as we all do, but goodness isn’t black and white – it’s a scale.
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