Dear Reader,
My trustee fan is doing her best to keep my body temperature regulated as the third heatwave of the year envelops the UK. Now my heritage is Greek but it’s clear that I didn’t get that sun-loving gene. If it’s even mildly above room temperature I want to melt into a giant blob of tantrum-ing man. My poor dog who also can’t handle the heat has decided to protest against it by peeing all around the house. Still, as well as becoming a black belt in cleaning up dog wee Ive managed to stay more or less on course with all of my uploading, art and writing targets and social media schedule. Of course, you may have noticed that I have taken my foot off the gas for a few weeks. Things have been a little intense here and, to be honest, I started to show a few signs of burnout.
I’m OK, don’t fret, but, I was starting to get all the signs that I wasn’t going to be OK. Panic attacks in my sleep, weird appetite, mood and energy began plummeting and I started to become lacklustre about pretty much everything. It was in such contrast to how I generally feel that I knew something was up and Im grateful that I recognised the signs quickly. I’ve asked a lot of myself this year with music and art and all the books I’m writing. I’m also rebranding my business and creating a new content strategy, new books to share and Im even looking into courses and possibly coaching some clients. Experimenting with all of these ideas has been incredible but, I slipped into an old energy template and started putting pressure on myself again. No sooner had I done it I started to veer off. I went from targets and goals to severe deadlines and treating everything as a non negotiable. Silly, silly Ryan.
I need goals. I need to choose my own goals but I also need the ability to abandon them when I need to in order to look after myself. Right now I’m choosing new goals, building new ideas, playing, learning out loud and of course growing my life to the level of love that I feel. My life is beautiful and I want it to continue on in that thread. Even when I slip into old ideas of success, internalised capitalism and even some very restrictive ideas around masculinity they are in such contrast to the life that I’ve chosen to live that they surface quite quickly. There’s a mercury retrograde around the corner which is beautiful time for a spiritual deep clean. I think it’s going to be a healing one too. Maybe I’ve started it early? I tend to feel the pull of it before it starts.
I took last week off work and I pretty much slept for all of it and I’m planning another week off too so that I can enjoy some of this rest time. The more I sleep, the more I zone out and watch movies and relax my body, the more coffee I have with friends, the more art I doodle, the more playtime I give myself with hobbies the more restored I am beginning to feel. I’m grateful that I caught this before it become something. I’ve had to deal with deep burnout before and it was awful so these days when the beginnings of over work show up I know enough to know when to stop and when to realign.
It’s only a quick blog this week to let you know I’m doing really good and if you’re in the UK in this heat I hope you have a better night sleep that the last few nights!
Look after yourselves,
Big love
Ryan x