Sometimes I Can’t Handle Everything … And That’s Okay

Sometimes I can’t handle everything, I can’t do it anymore, I don’t have the strength anymore,  not enough hands, eyes and time for everyone and for everything … but that doesn’t matter . Actually, it doesn’t matter because knowing where my limits lie and where my cravings end is good for me. Understanding that I also need myself and that I have the right to say “I can’t take it anymore” responds to the vital need to keep moving forward.

It may sound ironic, but  if there is one state that we all end up in, it is that of “feeling tired of being tired”. This is an amazing life experience, there is no shadow of a doubt, as we are trapped in a body that feels exhausted and, at the same time, two nervous voices screaming in unison are fighting in our mind. The first just repeats the same sentence “ don’t give up now, you have a lot of things to do”,  while the second insists by repeating “ but what if I can’t take it anymore?”.

“What are we tired of when we can’t take it anymore? Of life itself. Boredom. The fatigue you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. ”

-Henning Mankell-

During these situations, there is no point in singing the “ Let It Go ” of Frozen, drawing mandalas, taking an afternoon off or disconnecting from it all for hours imagining that we are the only inhabitants. -es on Earth, that we are alone and that nothing and no one requires our immediate attention. They are temporary dressings applied to a much deeper wound, anesthetics that reduce bleeding… but certainly not healers that heal or repair.

Believe it or not,  we can be fatigued from underlying issues or from extremely weakening stress and anxiety processes. We then find ourselves in places where we face the arid impossibility of thinking with clarity or of mounting adequate strategies to face a state of mind that can destroy our vitality and make us fall ill.

I feel “tired of being tired”, exhausted of no longer being able to face my responsibilities

To fully understand the complexity of these situations, we are going to give you a sobering example. Caroline works every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. When she leaves work, she takes care of her mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s. Every month, she puts money aside so that she can pay her little sister a master’s degree, something her currently unemployed husband is totally unaware of. Caroline wants only the best for everyone, she wants to take care of her mother, allow her sister to have a good future and appear normal in the eyes of her partner.

The level of physical and mental exhaustion that she gradually reached became extreme. Our protagonist sometimes thinks of other options, like paying someone to help with their mother, but she knows that means not being able to save for her sister’s education.

His brain searches for alternatives and it is the frontal lobes that carry out this difficult task of planning, thinking and analyzing. However, when the right solutions aren’t found when we need them, our primitive brain kicks in.

This is when we become totally still, our brain chemistry changes,  and the mind turns into a dead end maze. We get stuck in the  “no matter what I do, in the end everything is going to be bad”. Our heart beats faster, our hormones lose their balance and the demon of fear dominates us. This internal cyclone which tears away everything in its path plunges our mind and our body into a state of over-activation so intense that fatigue sets in in every atom, in every fiber, in every tendon and every bone of our being.

Sometimes you won’t be able to handle everything, but it won’t be SERIOUS

“I have so many things to do that I don’t even know where to start… But if I don’t do it now, it will be even worse”, “my boss will fire me if I don’t finish this job” , “My parents are going to be disappointed if I don’t go see them tonight”… If we think about all these sentences that we happen to say, we realize that we live totally rooted in the inflection of the ‘eternal conditional:  if I don’t do this, it is possible that … 

“The mind has no limits, fatigue does.”

-Syd Barrett-

Living by assumptions most often associated with catastrophic thoughts ends up draining the mind and simply annihilating us. Firmly assuming that we can’t handle everything in this life is a matter of health, emotional hygiene, because the one who carries all the weight of the world on his shoulders sooner or later collapses. We therefore suggest that you reflect for a moment on the following dimensions, hoping that they will be able to help you.

Tired of being tired? It’s time to change your point of view

Even though it’s hard to admit it, sometimes we fall into our own traps. Thinking that we “can take care of everything” is a very dangerous bias,  a mistake that must be adequately corrected by incorporating more self-respecting thought patterns. Here are a few :

• Every day when you wake up, remember this simple sentence:  “I am doing the best I can with the resources I have and the condition I am in”.
• Avoid those traps that we frequently fall into with our language or our thoughts. Instead of telling you “I’m not doing this well enough, I have to work a lot harder”, replace it with “I will give the best of myself, every day and every moment, but without forgetting me. -same ”.
• As soon as you feel exhausted, realize that your body cannot take it anymore after you have rested, analyze your thoughts. Sometimes, our demotivation is what wears out the most alongside the thoughts that we ruminate ,  “I’m not going to get there”, “it is useless because it is always the same result”.

Finally, and it shouldn’t be neglected, you need to take care of your circadian rhythms and your routine. Having moments of rest, having a few hours for yourself does not mean that you are going to do less or that you are hurting someone: on the contrary, it is a sign of health, balance and well-being. .

So  having the courage to say out loud that you have limits, that you can no longer or that you refuse to take on more responsibilities will not lead to any disaster:  it will not be the end of the world, the stars. will not fall from the sky and the flowers will not suddenly fade …

If you try, if you dare to put this into practice, you will realize that everything will be fine …