Sunday Morning Coffee Musings: The Nerve!

Do you remember when I talked/blogged about being in burn out? How I thought the entire time I was “almost” burning out? Almost on the ledge? I was actually burned out? Before then I got the warning signs from who I call “Spirit”. You may know this as the Holy Spirit, gut, intuition, Higher Self. Well, twice before my brother passed away last year, I heard, “If you don’t stop, if you don’t breathe. You’re going to have a stroke.” The next time Spirit spoke to me and said, “If you don’t breathe. You are going to have a heart attack.” Each time after that when things were piling up, when things were tense and it felt like the room was closing in on me, I remembered to breathe. I remembered to not answer the phone. I remembered to tell people, “Please, stop calling me. Please, leave me alone. I need space.”

I am in burn out. I am on “high alert”. Each time my phone rings (getting better with this) I think something is wrong. I think, “What now?” When I see certain names, my eyes roll. And when things are quiet or going well, I anticipate something happening. I am often relieved when it doesn’t but, it’s always in the back of my head. I think about how my dad may call me in the middle of the night with an hallucination. I seem to be one annoyance away from anger. My moods are swinging from the chandelier. And I am sometimes on a merry go round with depression and anxiety. I posted in a group that I was in burn out and I was determined to recover. A guy in the group asked me, “How do you recover from burnout?” I told him, “I don’t know but I’m going to find out.”

So, I am on a quest to find out about the nervous system and how it can be disrupted, dysregulated, damaged, and traumatized. But more importantly, how can the nervous system be repaired and healed. I can tell you something I believe is true; the body is intelligent. The nervous system, if rested, can heal itself. It can regulate itself if given the space. Let’s say you are in a stressful work environment or you are going through a stressful situation. If you can turn off your phone for 10 minutes and lie down on the floor and do nothing. It will help your nervous system. If you can call the people that call you 100 times a day and say, I will be unavailable for 30 minutes, take a walk, your nervous system can regulate itself. If they ask you why? Tell them the truth! I need time to myself. I need time to breathe! Teach other people that it is your right to take time for yourself and they should do the same.

~Nikki