Pandemic Burnout Compassion

Hi friends,

Welcome.

These are some incredibly difficult times that we're living through.

I don't know exactly where you are in the world,

But most of us have been in some degree of lockdown for over a year now.

That's a long time for a species wired for social connection to be cut off,

To be separated and isolated.

So finding ourselves in a place of struggle right now is a normal and adaptive response to abnormal demands.

It makes so much sense.

How could we not be struggling,

Right?

And when we meet pressure or a challenge from the outside,

Our beautiful self-protective systems do what they can and what they need to do in order for us to feel safe and to feel some degree of connection.

And the reality is,

This isn't always going to be through ways that our society recognizes us healthy,

So we might have the ability and capacity to self-sue through meditation and exercise and all those other good things,

And we might not.

Maybe we're eating or drinking or scrolling or raging our way through this pandemic in a desperate attempt to manage the emotional overwhelm.

When we can do better,

We do.

So if you're struggling with keeping up habits and practices that you know are beneficial to you,

I'm asking you to please not add to your suffering by going hard on yourself.

By self-attacking with judgment and criticism,

There's enough pain already here.

Okay?

There's enough pain already here.

We don't need to add to it.

Shaming yourself about how you're coping is not the way.

It serves no purpose.

And now,

If you feel open and available to it,

I invite you to join me for just a few moments of nourishment,

To pause and breathe together,

Giving yourself permission to take a little step away from the chaos and to know that for the next short while,

It's okay to be fully here.

That just for now,

Even just for these few moments,

There's nothing else to do,

To fix,

To plan.

It's okay to be here.

If it feels right for you today,

Closing over the eyes or else lowering the gaze,

Checking in with yourself,

Take a little scan of the body head to toe,

Moving slowly down from top to bottom and back up again.

Meeting any tension or pain,

Physical,

Mental or emotional,

With compassion and softness,

Things are really hard right now.

You're doing the best you can and that's enough.

Just sitting here is enough.

However much you have to offer the world right now,

It's enough,

No more,

No less.

Noticing your breath now,

This incredible life-giving gift,

Each new breath bringing with it an offering of a new beginning,

Of starting over.

A moment in time that has never before existed and doesn't need to be defined by the past.

As you breathe in,

See if it's possible to connect with the hope that this new moment,

This new breath,

This new beginning brings.

Drawing deeper into the breath and sending it down to the base of the belly,

Feeling the muscle expand,

Filling like a balloon and then deflating again.

Each breath a little deeper,

The air inviting in new life,

New hope to every cell of the body.

See now if it's possible to bring a quality of softness to the breath.

As though your breath has the ability to loosen and unclench any areas of tightness it meets,

Anywhere in your being.

Physical body,

Emotional body,

The mental landscape,

Anywhere we sense the resisting,

Clenching,

Holding on.

Seeing the breath arriving there and loosening the grip,

Like clearing out a densely cluttered space.

Allowing the breath to clear what is no longer needed,

Take it away and release it through the out-breath.

Seeing or feeling space opening up within your being.

And of course the mind may still dangle streams of thoughts and stories in front of you demanding your attention.

Allow it all.

We don't need to make any of it wrong.

The mind can do what it needs and for now we can sit and watch.

Calling awareness into the heart space now,

The area around your chest.

A place that holds so much of our deep emotional experience,

Where our unexpressed stories gather longing for validation,

For expression.

Tend to your heart space now.

If you feel open to it,

Placing a hand gently on your heart and feeling.

Feeling the fullness of whatever is here now to be met and held.

What lives within these chambers that needs the gift of your loving presence right now?

Feeling the life that is living through you,

Allowing it to flow as it is,

Resisting the pull to govern or manage your emotional landscape.

Surrender to it all.

Allow.

Soften.

Meet yourself with grace and compassion.

As you stay with this experience calling on your highest,

Wisest,

Most loving self to be here with you.

To hold all the fragments of your human self that may be struggling through this difficult time.

Like a wounded child being held by its loving caregiver,

Allowing all the parts and patterns you may be struggling with through this pandemic to be embraced with pure love,

Acceptance,

Non-judgment.

You are doing the best you can right now and that is enough.

Going into old coping habits is not a sign of failure but a sign of a system in need of deep soothing.

A perfectly beautiful flawed human doing their best in an often harsh world and through unsettling times.

Allowing the presence of compassion to reassure you that you don't need to excel at this time.

You don't need to be excellent or at the top of your game.

Showing up each day and offering whatever you have to offer at that particular point in time is enough.

This has been hard but it won't last forever.

The brighter days are ahead.

Keep going.

One gentle,

Loving,

Compassionate breath at a time.

That's all you have to do.

And that's enough.