I am exhausted.
Today I was asked to give a verbal reference for a person who used to work for me back in my corporate days. Just digging into those archived memory banks was insightful. In those days I fuelled by coffee, cigarettes and chocolate. I was addicted to cortisol - the hormone released in response to stress. I thrived on the stress (or so I told myself). I loved my obsession with work - I would be so focussed on getting the results, and delivering above and beyond that I would forget to eat, forget to sleep. It took me a long time after leaving that environment for me to realise how out of control and unbalanced I was ... but highly functioning addicts can fool anyone - even themselves. My apparent ease at jumping from one organisational crisis to another and fixing the problems was in retrospect chronic disease.
The feeling in my body today is that same as it was all those years ago - so it was rather poignant that this opportunity to give a reference today was an opportunity for me to take stock of my feeling of un-wellness. I have unconsciously stepped back into that madness, pushing myself to the brink of utter exhaustion.
So before I crash (literally) I am ending on a note of gratitude. Gratitude for all of the gifts of direct support that have come my way these past days, and gratitude for the more obscure gifts like having to give a reference to bring me to a state of awareness so I can learn to support myself in healthy ways.
Flying Solo Tip 011365 : Between flights, remember to rest.