The past few days have seen me burnt out in the form of migraines and headaches. If you've never had a migraine before, feel lucky. They are like someone is inside your head and hammering your eye and head. It truly is an excruciating pain and I am always sick with them too. The day after is just as bad as I suffer from another headache and a very fuzzy head which hurts with every movement. But guess what... I still went to work.
Needless to say my past few days have been very tough and I know this is my body telling me to slow down. I have therefore spent the last two nights doing no school work while all the time feeling guilty about it. However, a thought hit me tonight:
The world has not ended, everyone of my kids is still learning and happy and I am not feeling so tired.So what was I worried about?
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| I am sure it didn't look like this when I went to bed... |
The older I am getting, the more I am realising I find it difficult to find a 'stop' point. If I stop;
Will something go wrong?
Will I be thought less of?
Will I appear incompetent?
Will I become a bad teacher?
Questions like these appear in my mind when I begin to slow down. I have such an internal battle and think that I will not be good enough.
Obviously, the hours I work are detrimental to my health. Never will anyone, in their final moments, ever say, "I wish I had worked more." This is something which I should keep in my mind when I am working away at 1am. I need to get working on myself and my own life. My kids at school are happy, the teaching is there and the work is being done. By making myself burnout I will not help anyone, let alone myself.
How do you cope when you can't find your 'stop' moment?
I also want to add a link to a fabulous 'link and mingle' over at Yellow Umbrella:
5 comments:
I totally understand where you are coming from. I have had those times where I physically get sick because of stress and working too much. It's hard to determine where your breaking point is, until you are at it. I hope you are feeling better though and your week is getting better :)
I never used to cope, that was the problem. I would wind up having a mini-mental breakdown, which has had long term detrimental effects, meaning now I deal with anxiety everyday. great eh? so now I have learnt to just not give a sh*t, which somedays I do better with than others, and try and balance out the work with the studying. And so far its working, and my grades haven't dropped too much.
It's hard, but good luck!
I'm glad you realized that you aren't super woman and that even without that extra hour or two at night you are a pretty fabulous teacher! Give yourself a break every once in a while!
Like @Little Missy Me, I end up having a breakdown and then realize I have to stop. Surprisingly, I can usually go a lot longer until that breakdown than I anticipate beforehand. These days, yoga gives me the breaks I need from life. I support you going back to class ;-) X
I'm glad you realized that you aren't super woman and that even without that extra hour or two at night you are a pretty fabulous teacher! Give yourself a break every once in a while!
Like @Little Missy Me, I end up having a breakdown and then realize I have to stop. Surprisingly, I can usually go a lot longer until that breakdown than I anticipate beforehand. These days, yoga gives me the breaks I need from life. I support you going back to class ;-) X
@Jen - Thanks Jen!
@ Little Missy Me - Well done to you for finding a way to cope!! I hope I can find that too.
@ Reb - Thanks.. I know I need to keep getting more sleep. Yoga is something I need to get in my life again!
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