If You Are Feeling Flat Or Exhausted Right Now, Read This

 

It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do.
― Anne Lamott

Hey, Lovelies.

If you are feeling uncharacteristically flat right now, if you are dragging yourself through the days, if there’s no pep in your step, if you are struggling to muster your usual enthusiasm, there is something I want to remind you.

You didn’t start 2022 with a full tank. In fact, many of you went into 2020 – when the world was locked down with the beginning of the global pandemic – already exhausted from an onslaught of natural disasters in your part of the globe.

2020 was a year to survive, to get through any way that you could, and 2021 didn’t look much different. Finally 2022 came, with its promise of a ‘return to normal’ but still COVID has lingered and the world has changed, there is an ongoing war in Ukraine, the economic outlook is uncertain, inflation is rising and so is the cost of living, there is political unrest, and everyone is madly trying to ‘catch up’ on all of the living that was disrupted at the height of the pandemic.

No wonder you are tired.

No wonder that you are weary to your bones.

There has been so much trauma these past few years, so much stress, and almost everyone and everything that you would usually use to lift yourself out of a hard place has been in that same hard place too – so finding relief in the way you would have soothed or nurtured yourself previously has not been the same.

Still, I want to remind you of something important. You are here, and you have kept surviving and coping and managing the best you could (even when it did get a little or a lot messy). Yes, you are tired, but look at all that you have lived through. Look at all the ways your world has been turned upside down and inside out and yet you are still going.

Pause for a moment, and consider that.

You are still going.

One weary foot in front of the other.

You, my friend, are a marvel. You have adapted. You have managed. You have made do. You have found solutions. You have still managed to love and laugh and smile and have moments of sheer delight or gratitude even amid all the grind of the hard stuff.

Of course you are tired. Who wouldn’t be?

What is needed now is an understanding that you and most of the rest of the world are weary, careworn, bruised and battered, a little anxious or fragile. We’ve all just become accustomed to those feelings as our new baseline – our current normal.

So, be kind to yourself, and to everyone around you. Extend grace and compassion, be patient and do your best to be understanding. Be gentle.

Most of all, tune in and give your battle-weary soul what it most needs over the holiday season. Maybe that’s peace and quiet, maybe that’s your favourite tunes cranked loud and a drink in hand, maybe it’s snacks and naps, or a break from your everyday routine – quite possibly it will be all of those things (though obviously not at the same time).

We all need rest in order to recharge, and rest is definitely needed now.

I also encourage you to come join my free Facebook group The Journeymakers. I’ll be posting an invitation there later today, for you to attend a free Zoom webinar I will be running at 10am Brisbane time on Tuesday December 27 (which may be December 26 where you are). In that webinar I will be talking about the energies of 2023, and how to plan a year ahead that can refill your empty tank. I’d love for you to join me.

Love, hugs and restorative cups of tea, Nicole xx