Total system reboot

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmT8fsvRTkb7maoqNGmCRmUTooSnRfjqDmnNypsBc3YXR7/overachiever.jpeg
Raise your hand if you're an overachiever like I am.

Or, as a former therapist used to call it, an excessive striver. She tried to warn me this could happen to me: severe burnout and chronic stress culminating in physical illness. She said to me once, "Alex, your constant striving for achievement and success is an addiction that will never satisfy you." In my head I thought, "What does she know? She's just a therapist. She's using spiritual bullshit to justify her mediocrity." Now I see what she meant. One of the main coping mechanisms I've developed in life can be characterized as excessive striving. Some people shut down when they hit I roadblock. I don't. I double down. I always thought this was a superior tactic, because look how far it's gotten me. I've got a long list of accolades - I was the editor-in-chief of my undergraduate student newspaper, earned my honours bachelor degree in psychology and English literature cum laude and was on the dean's honour roll, nabbed a $16,500 grad school scholarship, earned my master's degree in journalism at the country's top journalism school, completed internships and temporary contracts at some of the country's top newsrooms and now, finished the Canadian Securities Course diploma with top marks and landed a position as a staff reporter at the national newspaper - all before the age of 30.

I did all of that while maintaining friendships, romantic relationships and a very intense exercise regime, including becoming a fairly decent aerial silks artist. So it's easy to justify an approach to problems that goes something like, "if you hit a wall, just push through it." That's what I've always done. But sometimes you can't push through it - or you shouldn't. That's been the toughest - and probably the most valuable - lesson for me during this bout of illness. Often, excessive strivers like myself strive because we are hyper-sensitive to criticism, judgment and failure and because we wish to be beyond reproach. That strategy comes with a bunch of nice side effects, such as achievements, success and even the respect and admiration of others. But it also comes with one really disastrous side effect: Massive stress.

I suspect that stress has played a large contributing role in what is happening to me physically. Earlier today I wrote a list of all of the majorly stressful and emotionally traumatic things that have occurred to me just in the past nine months alone and it's a very long list - 22 items long, to be exact. I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say that I've been dealing with chronic stress for quite some time now so it's not surprising that my body is suffering. This means that my usual coping strategy isn't going to work here. I can't push through this with renewed energy and effort, because pushing too hard is exactly what got me into this pickle. Today, I need to learn how to be okay with doing less. With setting manageable goals and forgiving myself even when I don't achieve them. I've decided to call this phase of my life "back to basics." For a long time I've tried to do and be too much. I held myself to very high standards and berated myself every time I didn't meet them. And to be honest, most of the time I was totally knocking it out of the park - but at tremendous cost to myself. So right now I'm taking a massive step back. I've cut a lot out of my life. I'm on an uber-healthy detox diet that includes almost no processed foods, and I don't think my tummy has been this flat since before I hit puberty (for real!). I'm down to drinking one coffee a day. I'm not drinking any booze or taking any other mind-altering substances. I'm not training very much, since exercise is a trigger. I've even taken a bit of a step back at work. Most of this has been incredibly painful for me, as you can imagine. I love vigorous exercise, chasing hot stories at work, setting goals and aggressively pursuing them and eating and drinking all manner or delicious (and totally unhealthy) things. But for now I need to focus on just the very basics - my health, my sanity and implementing new habits. Clearing out my inbox. Updating my contacts list. Reading. Getting set up in my new home. Konmaring my possessions to get rid of the clutter and really pare down to just the essentials. I'm doing my best to honour where I'm at right now and to remind myself that this situation is temporary. To practice patience. To just surrender to the here and now, instead of constantly trying to battle the tide. As we often say about the Toronto's hockey team, the Maple Leafs: it's a rebuild year. Have you ever had to consciously hit the brakes on your life plans to take care of your health? Tell me about it. What are your strategies for embracing and honouring the here and now?
Originally posted here: https://steemit.com/life/@theexaminedlife/total-system-reboot