The arrival of burnout a number of years ago was a ticking time-bomb ready to explode in my life. The daily gauntlet as a social worker of supporting people with complex problems with scarce resources eventually took its toll on me.
Each consecutive year felt like stretching a blanket to cover an increasing number of needy people, yet the kicker was that each year the blanket was shrinking as funding reduced. Add to this a twenty-year roller coaster ride with depression, anxiety and low self-esteem which had accompanied me since I was a teenager.
When the bomb detonated it almost took me under. Some mornings after having risen early with insomnia, I would sit slumped in the shower with tears flowing down my cheeks. I drove to work accompanied by a critical inner voice that told me I was useless, pathetic, a failure and a disappointment. I eventually left social work to look after my one-year-old daughter whilst my wife returned to work. Naively, I thought leaving social work would be the solution, the silver bullet. No longer would I have to respond to impossible situations, make life-changing decisions about people whilst under pressure, spend hours behind a computer completing form after form. I would have a spacious life with no stress and time for myself and my family.
However, life doesn’t work out that way. Woody Allen is credited with saying 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.' My plans for a serene monk-like existence didn’t come to fruition. What surprised me most was the sudden loss of identity. Who was I now? – my job had been so much of my persona and how I defined myself. Although difficult at times, I had a vocation. It shaped "who I was" and "what I stood for". Although stressful it brought purpose. I now felt redundant, on a scrap heap with no future. The inner critic got to work on me. The black dog hung around me. I could see no way forward and I felt stuck in endless anxiety and hopelessness.
Rumination took over. A constant repeating of the same negative thoughts and views about myself. Over and over again on a continual loop, I rehashed and repeated the mantra that I was a failure and had no prospect of hope in the future.
My CPN taught me the dangers of rumination, how it only served to send me on a negative spiral where the only place to go was down or round in circles. I felt inadequate and worthless. But how was I to find a way out of this harsh terrain with no discernable clear path?
I’m a hiker and it was there I found my inspiration. Rarely do you start a trek with the final destination in your field of vision? There are paths to be navigated, mountains to be climbed, valleys to be descended, elements to be overcome. I had no idea of the final destination, where I would end up but I figured I had enough resilience to traverse the terrain that was just before me.
The continual rumination reminded me of someone trying to hike who constantly had their eye on the compass needle, continually checking its direction whilst failing to look at the landscape. This is a disastrous way to hike, guaranteed to end in failure or catastrophe. It gets you nowhere and the most likely thing that will happen is that you will trip over a bolder and break your leg. My belief in loving God and ongoing spiritual direction had helped me identify and begin to use my own inner compass. I had faith that if I paid attention, the Holy Spirit would guide and help me identify the path that I should follow for a short distance ahead.
I remembered my times in the mountains and how I would discern the direction of travel by lining up the arrow on my compass with a distinctive landmark on the horizon: a tree, rock outcrop, fence post.
I would walk towards the landmark and when I got there repeat the process, take another bearing and find another landmark to walk towards. This way the long journey could be broken into small navigation-able chunks. What if I was to use this technique and plot my course through the hardship of life by making a series of small walks. Instead of constantly ruminating about where I was heading to, I would set my course and follow it for a short time, maybe three months and then take stock again.
Although I still had existential fears and worries about the bigger picture of my life, I had faith enough to walk this small journey. I reduced the big picture of my life down to a more scaleable detail with boundaries within which I could commit to living fully with a particular purpose and direction. It provided an alternative to the crippling daily rumination – I could walk a small distance and then review. If I went off course it could be corrected.
It took trust, at times midway through a segment, the bearing felt wrong or a path seemed impassable or reckless. Sometimes exhaustion and doubts crept in. I learnt to trust the compass. Eventually, I found my way through the landscape an into new territories I hadn’t imagined. I learnt to trust the Holy Spirit as my guide.
Comments