My way of dealing with a burn out

Dear Bloggers,

My wife is suffering from a burn out and we are working slowly on her recovery. Let me tell you it is a long way but here I have some tips to make your life a bit easier. Whenever in doubt, humans all across this huge, people-filled planet resort to bending out of shape instead of empowering ourselves to get up and pick ourselves up! Although it is not very healthy for you, it's just what we do! Men and women all alike do this, too, so you have nothing to be ashamed of. Now, you have the power to conquer emotions and inner negativity! This guide will suggest ways in which you gain control of your life again. I got my life back in order, and you can get yours back too.

Steps

Get rid of the negativity in your life. Put family and friends which bring too much negativity toward you on freeze for now. Don't start any trouble with them, but be less reliant on them. Also, cut back on negativity yourself! Whenever you think something negative, say to yourself, "That's negative and unnecessary." Keep saying that to yourself until your brain stops completely.

Cut back on unnecessary activities to free up time. Any activity that does not produce a tangible result or lead you to success you can put on freeze. For example, cutting back on a movie or going on the computer to go on aim half as often would suffice. But be careful about choosing which things in your life are important to you and which are not. To avoid common errors, first make a list of things (on paper!) that you normally do on a daily and/or weekly basis and put how much time you spend on each activity. Then, take the items on that list and lightly cross off the things that are useless in your life and you spend too much time on. For example, if you watch TV for 5 hours a day, you're definitely wasting some time in your life. If it has something to do with another person, specifically family, do not cross it off as doing this could affect the other person badly. Next, look at all of the things you crossed off and then at the things you still have on your other list. Does this seem reasonable? Could you live without the things you crossed out? Our main goal is to get you to stop spending too much time on useless things.

Create a weekly goal list using three colors.

·      A black priority would be something that has to be done at a certain date and time, without any exceptions.

·      A red priority would be something that has to be done by the end of the day.

·      An orange priority would be something that has to be done within less than one-seven hours. Don't look past 7 days until the priorities are met.

Buy a few hundred index cards, or 2-3 packs. Keep at least a half of a pack with you at all times. They are valuable in social events and allow you to capture ideas onto paper, so you will never forget anything. Knowing that all of your problems are in your pocket will take away stress because you can stop thinking about them and start thinking about other important things.

Organize most of your computer files into 5-15 folders to make sure you have your digital priorities straight. Example folders: Work, School, Research/Reading, Personal Writings, Weekly Goals, Music, Photos, Reminders. Also important to get your mailbox in order there are a lot of unnecessary items in your inbox

Write down 10 strengths you have and how you can use them to your advantage. Write down 10 weaknesses you have and how you can improve them. Try to improve yourself a little bit everyday but at the same time keep this quote in mind: "Complete perfection is bliss, but when perfection is met with humanity, it's useless." Never use the word "perfect." Use "improved" instead. The process of improvement is slow, but if you try to improve yourself everyday, in 6 months, the next list you write will be very different.

Build self-esteem. Don't compare yourself to other people and do not limit yourself to the standards of the consensus. To a certain extent, forget judgmental strangers and give yourself enough room to grow.

Real Self Confidence and Esteem is based in emotion, not a self-image
to build self-confidence and overcome low self-esteem is to change how we feel emotionally about ourselves. To change our emotion requires changing two different core beliefs about self-image. The first core belief is obvious. It is the belief that we are not good enough. It may have a more specific association to how we look, how smart we are, money, or lack of confidence sexually. The second core belief to change is the image of success that we feel we should be. Changing this belief is contrary to logic, but is a must if we are to overcome insecurity and raise our self-esteem.  

False Self Image of Perfection Cause of Low Self Esteem and Lack of Confidence
When your mind has an image of success that you "should be" it associates happy emotions with that picture. I call that the image of perfection in our mind. The mind does a comparison between the image of perfection and how you see your self-image currently. The comparison results in judgment and self-rejection for not meeting the image of perfection. The self-rejection results in feeling unworthy and of low self esteem

While the image of perfection appears to be a way for us to feel good about ourselves, it is actually causing us to reject ourselves which creates feelings of "not being good enough." If you were to dissolve the belief that you should fit into the image of perfection you would eliminate the self-rejection and feelings of unworthiness that result.

Finding and breaking my own “I’m not good enough story.”

Feelings of confidence and security mean no self-rejection.
The approach of dissolving our image of perfection sounds contrary to our sense of logic about building confidence and esteem. This is because we have the belief that achieving the image of perfection will result in positive happy emotions and feeling confident with our success. Our mind has actually been programmed to have these emotional associations. We desire to feel these feelings and chase the image of perfection we have attached to them.

What we may not be aware of is that achieving our image of success doesn’t effectively change our emotional state. It doesn't do anything to permanently change the way the voice in our head speaks to us or what we believe about ourselves. Many times people have achieved their goals only to find themselves still unfulfilled. Your emotional state may briefly change in the euphoria if the immediate success. But the core belief of not being good enough and your long term habit of self-rejection in the mind hasn’t been altered. The critical voice in our head is more likely to put a higher goal in front of us to achieve. It’s okay to have high goals, but you don’t have to make your love and self-acceptance dependent on them.

Change What You Believe and You Change How You Feel Emotionally
The second belief to dissolve is that we are inadequate and somehow not good enough. These are the beliefs that create emotions of insecurity and fear. The emotions are not the problem they are just the resulting symptom of negative core beliefs. The "not good enough" image is a construct of our imagination. It is a belief about ourselves created by the mind concluding that we are "not good enough to meet the image of perfection." A step to changing this belief is to recognize that we the one observing the "self" image. We cannot be the “self” image we are looking at. We are the one doing the looking. This means the “self-image we create is really a “non self” image. With awareness we can decide to believe in the “non self” image or not believe in the “non self” image. Having this awareness helps shift our point of view and is a beginning step that will help us change a belief.

Changing the “not good enough” image is much easier once you have broken your belief in the image of perfection. Without the image of perfection you no longer have the comparison reinforcing the unworthy "self” image.

Make physical changes to remind yourself that you are a new person. A haircut and new clothing would suffice. Also, cleanse yourself spiritually and mentally to begin a lasting new lifestyle. Meditation is a good way to do this.

Breaking down The Elements: Setting Your Head Right

There are some general points to consider to set your expectations of change correctly.

1.                  I can get better at this.

2.                  The journey, not the destination.

3.                  Don’t pretend you have a different life.

4.                  Start now.

5.                  Expect disruption.

6.                  Expect failure.

7.                  Remove guilt.

8.                  Be patient.

9.                  Live through the seasons.

10.              You are Superman/ woman.

I can get better at this.

This is the fundamental belief you need to start changing. It’s not the same as thinking – “I can change” – which might actually work against you. It’s the mindset that whatever you’re going for, the goal is progress, not perfection.

The journey, not the destination.

When people think about change, they think about intervention.

You’ll eat less, lose 15 kilos, then that’s the end of it.

But it doesn’t happen like that, because change is a constant process. You’re always going to be changing something. And when you get done with changing one thing, there’s going to be something else that emerges, some other change that you’ll need to work on. Expecting this up front saves a lot of disappointment down the track.

Don’t pretend you have a different life.

This ties in to the earlier point – whatever you’re struggling with today – making a decision to change it doesn’t remove any of the elements in your life that make that thing a struggle today. You are always going to revert to the mean when it comes to motivation or optimism and you can’t expect that to change.

Picture yourself making changes in the course of normal life, not in some idealized world in which you have more time, energy and motivation. That place doesn’t exist.

As I would say: “Your future self doesn’t exist. As long as there is no future you. All that exists is a series of present selves, all shirking responsibility and assuming versions of themselves that don’t exist will solve their problems. “Start now.

Equally, the best time to start the process was yesterday. The next best time is now. It won’t be easier after your vacation, or when you move to the new house, or when you get the new job… it will be just as hard and you will have less time to make the change.

So start now, no matter how inconvenient the circumstances might be.

Expect disruption.

Every month, you should expect that 1 in every 4 days will be impacted by sickness, injury, travel for work, personal travel, or an intervening event like a hangover, a soccer championship, a wedding or a hen’s night.

The most under-rated change skill you can develop is the ability to plan in and around those constraints.

Expect failure.

You have to be ready to fail multiple times as you try to make something stick. Failing isn’t a sign to stop; it’s a sign to try again. This time with more information about what works and what doesn’t.

That’s not how it works when it comes to change. In changing, you will encounter so much ‘do not’ that the only thing that matters is ‘try’.

Remove guilt.

Remove the guilt from change. If you fail, start again. Guilt and shame are HUGE wastes of energy. Remove all your negative emotions around change, forget all past failures and just try again. Every other approach is inefficient.

Be patient.

You will grossly overestimate your ability to change. Really. You want to underestimate and then over deliver. Not the reverse.

That’s a really good proxy for how most change happens. It takes much longer than we want to admit.

Live through the seasons.

Your changes will come in seasons. It’s rare they’ll last for more than 3 months without starting to feel stale… So you’ll want to keep this in mind you’re not changing forever, just for a short time and then you will get focused on something else.

Note, this isn’t the case for the ones that are fully breaking down and who are too stubborn to change they will fall back into bad habits and old addictions like smoking and drinking.

\You are Superman or woman.

You are Superman. You have endless lives. You get reborn every time you decide to try again. So don’t be afraid to try and fail.

 The Old Sailor,

The Crash...

Dear Bloggers,

In the last few years, one of my close friends has dealt with the untimely loss of a spouse. I'd like to share this story and what we all have learned about dealing with grief and moving forward at the appropriate time.

My friend was the one who died suddenly of a massive car crash at age 32, leaving a wife and 2 children from 14 and 8. He could not go with them as he needed to finish things at work and he would come later that evening. While he had been feeling poorly that morning he had no easy answers on this feeling, he urged his wife and children to go on a family holiday out of town because they should not loose any of this precious time. Crazy how life can turn around so sudden. When his wife and family returned quickly when they learned of his death and dealt with the funeral, the estate and all the implications of losing their husband and father. 

It would have been very different circumstances if he would have been seriously ill with a sickness, for example cancer then there is most of the time some time left to say goodbye. even though the loss of any wife and mother or husband and father is tragic. The death of a father and husband which was sudden, unexpected and laden with guilt for his dying alone. 

Whatever the circumstances, dealing with the death of a spouse has to be one of the most difficult and traumatic experiences of life. Based on the experiences of others and lots of research, here are some ideas and perspectives that might help.
Try to understand the stages of grief.

• Denial: "This can’t be happening to me."
• Anger: "Why is this happening? Who is to blame?"
• Bargaining: "Make this not happen, and in return I will ____."
• Depression: "I’m too sad to do anything."
• Acceptance: "I’m at peace with what is going to happen/has happened."

Everyone who loses someone close to them moves through these stages, usually in this order. As a husband or wife who loses a spouse to death confronts the profound feelings of loss, it can help to recognize in which stage you are operating and to know that there can be personal peace at the end of the grieving process.
Recognize that time tends to heal wounds. When we are in the midst of feelings of loss or grief, it can truly seem like the feelings will last forever. But time's passage has a way of healing these feelings. Keeping a sense of hope through the feelings of grief can help a mother or father who has lost his or her spouse make it through each day. 

Lean on your support system. Fortunately for my friends, there were exceptional support systems. They both had large families on both sides on whom they could lean. They had friends also from work who were helpful through the transition.  Big plus they had was the community of faith on whom they leaned emotionally and physically. The ones who find themselves alone after the death of a spouse need to allow others who are close to them into their inner circle of feelings. People who care about you want to help, and you are in a time when you need it perhaps the most. 

Express your feelings. Don't bottle up emotions of grief and sorrow. Sometimes societal expectations make men particularly want to be strong and stoic. Especially if you have children that are grieving with you, you may feel a need to be their "rock." But you will need some time to express your feelings, insecurities and loneliness. Talk to friends, seek counseling, write, cry  whatever the outlet will be, let the feelings be expressed. Repressing them only brings greater challenges later. 

Take care of yourself physically. It will be important for you to eat well, get enough sleep, and exercise. Avoid self-defeating behaviors like turning to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. Just taking walks with a close friend or family member can make a world of difference in your mood. 

Take your time. Grieving works differently for different people. I cannot write a basic transcript for everyone as everyone experiences these emotions in his or her own way. Do not let others make you feel rushed to get on with your life or move ahead. Move at your pace. Don't make any major decisions that will have life-changing implications through the grief process. 

Today my friends are doing well and their life is moving forward. My friends wife is now back in the work force and busy raising her children. Not yet remarried and not really worried about it, she is again building a new life with new opportunities. All of them have worked through this important life transition, taking different approaches but main part is that it’s working. They gave me the permission on writing about their situation as others might learn something from it. I made the choice of not mentioning any names. I think that nobody gains anything here.

The most important thing for any grieving father or mother to remember is that through the grieving process, there is hope and that with time and effort, life can again be full of happiness and possibilities. All the roads you will take might look new, but most of them have been tried by someone. 

The Old Sailor,

What about 2009

Dear Bloggers,

This will be the last one for the year 2008, in the start of 2009 I will see you again.
I hope that I made your live a little bit more fun through reading my blogs.
Well here is the story.................

I crawled into bed late last night, I did not set my alarm at all, inhaled deeply, curled up with my pillow, and then...was “noiseless” (no engines running and that kind of stuff.) and quiet and snuggled up and wide awake.
I made all this room for a full night's sleep and instead, all I could do was think.
And think and think and think.



Stuck as I am to a daily rhythm I sneaked out of bed quietly, not to wake up anyone else.
I hate myself for this, as I am too impatient to stay in bed and waste my time.

Once thinking over my to do list and panic about how long it takes me to get a few little jobs done, one question lingered in my thoughts, in the dark, as the clock ticked on to the hours past midnight: What about next year?



It didn't feel like a frantic question in my mind.
Instead, it was soothing.
I felt like, once the other thoughts stopped running through my brain, I needed a solution to keep all those strange details quiet.
Maybe for good.
At least for the year.

So, what about next year?

My first thought was to come up with a list of resolutions.
The trouble with resolutions, though, is that they are just filled with pressure and so easy to break.
Then the little leftover guilt pokes at you for the next ten months until you blow it all up again.
Resolutions are not the answer (at least for me, at least this time).

Without resolutions, the question of next year was left hanging.
And then the thought came to me that maybe I just need to create a good intention for my year.
Maybe what would work better for me is to decide how I'd like to live this year and let all the tasks and goals fall under that as I have time and energy and inspiration.

My thoughts quieted for a moment and then the words "self-care" came to me. It's not a revolutionary phrase, not a big, new idea that will blow you or me or anyone else out of the water.
But it was enough.



I've had the kind of manic year that has made it pretty difficult to be good to myself and as it ends, everything in my life was stormy.
I am feeling the impact of putting myself second or fifth place or even dead last.
So I am setting my sights on self-care in 2009.

I'd like that intention to include more nights when I go to bed early, fewer racing thoughts, a return to yoga and meditation and fun kinds of fitness, maybe some time just to do artistic things like drawing and painting . The list could go on and on, and I am sure that every month I will think of new ways to tend to myself.



Will this work better than setting a goal weight or bedtime or number of cardio sessions to punch on my class card? I don't know. But last night, the stress left me and I really settled in when I thought about creating an intention rather than coming up with a resolution. So I choose to go with being inspired by the calm rather than motivated by more pressure this time around the calendar.

But why do these good intentions fail?
In a few days we stand at the beginning of a new year.
New rounds and new chances and of course not to forget new “good” intensions for the new year.

Approximately half of all the Dutch people starts the new year with good intentions.
Most of the time those are intentions that they’ve had before and most of the time those intentions will never become reality.



More than three-quarter of the above mentioned people have the “syndrome of false hope”. If an intention goes into fog, people simply find the intention too difficult or they say that they haven’t done their best. Eventually less than a quarter of those people realize their intentions.

But why in fact do good intentions fail?



1. Lack of knowledge:
People jump in the deep and have no idea what setbacks they will meet with or seductions they encounter and they have no idea how to handle this. The consequence is they rapidly will revert to the old pattern.

2. Too difficult to gain your aim.
To gain your aim means in fact: grow. Think about making smaller steps to attain your personal goal. By making a couple of small steps it will be easier to attain your final goal.

3. The all or nothing idea:
This is the common pitfall. Don’t expect you gain your aim faultless. From time to time there will be a lack of motivation or plenty of seductions. Therefore it is difficult to stay on the correct path. Don’t become demotivated as a result, and always try to continue the right track and always remember your aim. However if you are too far from your aim, you would be well-advised to adjust your aim.

4. I will do it tomorrow, however:
Action!! Some people are able to undertake action immediately and others always postpone everything. In the last case you certainly not come closer to your aim. Organisation and planning are super important!! Write weekly returning moments in you diary. You will aim to goal with less stress.



What about you?
Or would a good intention be good enough for you this New Year?

Well I stick to this phrase like always: “Live life as long it is there, pray for less fights, spend your last money on a drink and fuck if your life is depending on it.”

The Old Sailor,