For You Who Are Weary And Don’t Know Why

Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless?

E.T.A. Hoffmann

Hello, Lovely.

Many of my community have been asking me if there is something wrong with them, because they are exhausted. Sleep does not refresh them. Weekends do not refresh them. They are tired, and flat, and so they think there must be something wrong with them because this is not how they would usually feel.

I wanted to reach out to you today, to remind you to be gentle with yourself. Because we are all tired right now, and that is normal, given everything we have been facing.

2020 has been a savage year in so many ways. There has been so much to do, there is still so much to do, and you, my friend, have a great big heart that has stayed open and that has been greatly burdened because of your capacity to care. You’re weary from coping, and weary from holding up everyone around you, and weary with carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and with feeling everything so deeply and completely. You’re weary because it has been one thing after another, with no clear end in sight. Each day you show up. Each day looks the same. Or different, but still essentially the same, because one crisis is replaced with another. It would wear anyone down. It wears everyone down. You are not alone in this. There is a collective weariness that we all feel. It’s not just you.

On top of that, many of the things that might normally bring you comfort or joy have been limited.

And this is the way things will be for some time yet to come.

So, I am asking you to make your life, and your ability to cope, more sustainable. We need your big heart. We need your caring. We need you to keep showing up. This deep soul weariness is a sign that you need to get lost in some music for a while, or make art, or take the dog for a long walk, or escape to the beach. You need to phone a friend, to speak with your therapist, to swap fast food for slow food, and screens for sky. To unplug for a while, or to plug into the things that make you laugh and feel loved.

Take care of yourself. This is a long haul event. There is nothing wrong with you. This is coping in action. Coping doesn’t look like a well-groomed superhero from an action movie. Coping looks like you – when you look at yourself in the mirror each night – a little less sparkly, a little more crumpled, but upright, still showing up, and yeah, more than a little tired…

We are weary, but we will endure. Our big hearts will carry us through, like they always do.

I’m holding you in my prayers and meditations and sending you all my love and encouragement, Nicole xx