Burdened and Burned Out: Real Time Strategies For Stress Management
People often use the phrase, “God won’t put more on you than you can bear.” It isn’t a scripture, but it’s often quoted to console ourselves when inundated with life’s stressors. Sometimes, it isn’t God so much as it is us. We are the ones who heap more onto our plates than we can manage. We bite off more than we can chew and become overwhelmed by the mounting pressures faced in our most meaningful roles and significant responsibilities. Our attempts to keep up with the demands of other people, and commitments between family, work, and other areas can launch us into an anxious frenzy. Whether it is trying to meet everyone’s needs with an individually sized portion of strength, energy, and time, we can find ourselves worried and stressed. It is likely more taxing for us to compete with our own notions of what we think will satisfy the people in our lives than what they may actually want and truly need. It is the on-ramp to burnout. When we find our minds accelerating with our lives and heartbeats, it may be time to pump the brakes and pull over to rest and regroup. Stress has often been referred to as a silent killer. It stealthily slips in when good intentions and high expectations meet. We commit to a set of standards that outpace what we can reasonably manage with the time and other resources at our disposal. Sometimes, it emerges from others, but often we add or adopt them as our own responsibility. Overcommitted and overextended, our schedules burst with a calendar full of agreements that seem difficult to rescind. Stress and Shame If we have had a history of high performance or closeted perfectionism, canceling our commitment to our ideals and expectations can make us [...]
