Hiatus is defined in the dictionary, as a temporary gap, pause, break, or absence — not forever, just for a little while.
Sometimes a hiatus is inevitable, even if the activity it suspends involves what one lives for!
I live for translating science and my lessons from burnout into practical guideposts to help others prevent and heal from burnout.
However, my friends, at this juncture in my life’s journey, I have to take a hiatus from my passion to have spinal surgery, which is what I define as a “Burnout induced hiatus!”
If you have followed my articles over the last year or so, you are probably aware that I had to pay a lofty price for success. I failed to respond to my body’s notifications that I had exceeded my capacity to meet life’s demands without harming my well-being. This led to significant consequences to my physical health, including damage to my spine.
Living with a spinal condition at a young age has not been easy.
But this injury has also been my greatest teacher and one of the most transformative experiences of my lifetime. It is because of it that I have chosen to dedicate the rest of my life helping others overcome and avoid the negative consequences of chronic stress and burnout, and shield themselves from what I have experienced.
Myndzen was my response to the insidious impact of stress on our health and happiness.
Through Myndzen, I systematically organize the great body of knowledge in the science of stress into practical strategies we can all incorporate in our lives to safeguard our wellbeing and be healthier, happier, and more productive.
I feel a great sense of joy and pride witnessing the efficacy of my burnout and compassion fatigue “treatment plan” every day. As a certified integrative wellness practitioner, there is nothing more rewarding than to watch my clients overcome burnout and return to optimal health in a matter of months. I am grateful to my burnout adventure for all it has taught me.
But as a human being, my biggest goal is to ensure that my fellow human beings avoid experiencing what I did!
So on the eve of an intimidating surgery to reverse the negative impact of stress on my body, I wanted to leave you with my favorite stress resilience tips. These tips come right from my heart, not as a stress resilience speaker and coach, but as a fellow human being who suffered the ultimate negative consequence of stress. You could say these are the biggest lessons I learned from the latest research in neuroscience, integrative medicine and my own healing journey towards sustainable stress resilience and optimal health.
May they give you comfort and love and inspire you to take good care of you, today and always.
1. I wish you more self-compassion and less self-criticism.
Contrary to our conditioned way of thinking, your approval is the only approval you need. Strive for excellence, but avoid perfectionism. Be kind to yourself, and practice self-compassion toward any negative traits, limiting beliefs, and automatic responses you have inherited. But be accountable in embracing your power to change what does not serve you.
You are built for greatness and you are amazing just the way you are.
You are enough.
You already possess all the inner resources you need to succeed in every aspect of your life. Challenge yourself with acts of love and kindness toward yourself every day. Master the art of saying no and resist antiquated notions that self-care is selfish.
After all, you cannot love anyone or anything truly until you love yourself.
2. I wish you the kind of happiness that can only be found in the present moment.
Happiness can only be found in the present moment.
Research shows that 47% of the time we are thinking something other than what we are doing in the present moment.
Learn from the past and cultivate the traits that have the power to help you design the future that is aligned with your values.
A simple mindfulness practice is enough to become the master and not the slave of your thoughts, so that you maintain optimal balance in your body systems and the major areas of your life. Here is one that I created especially for you: https://youtu.be/zAavQ4aSzko
The most critical element to true happiness is mastering the practice of directing our attention to elements of life that help us work with and not against the incredible power of our neurobiology.
3. I wish you energy efficiency.
We are energetic beings and we only have so much energy per day. Just like balancing your bank account with more deposits than withdrawals, prudence is required to expend our energy on people, things, and activities that give you a high return on your energy investment. Life is too short to spend with people who are not here for us, managers who treat us like disposable napkins, and activities that do not nurture our spirit. Spending time with negative people and activities creates an energy deficit, which ends up costing us imbalances in either the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects of ourselves.
Be prudent in how and where you invest your energy.
4. I wish you emotional acceptance and resilience.
All emotions are valuable, as long as we make intelligent use of our emotions.
Beware of not letting fear drive your actions.
Rejection, adversity, loss, and failure are all part of life. We all suffer, we all fail, we all make mistakes, but we can choose our response to all of those emotions and events.
Accepting them without exaggerating them or catastrophizing them will build our tolerance for gleaning important lessons from them and using them as stepping stones to get closer to our higher self. We need simply to seek a shift in focus. For example, when you fail, don’t focus on all the things you lost. Focus on all the things you learned. After all, failure and its accompanying negative emotions are simply invaluable feedback on the path to success.
Learning to work with all of your emotions, both positive and negative, can have a significant impact on your sense of happiness and well-being.
5. I wish you the incredible contentment that can be found by focusing on what you can control.
No matter how many external elements we may attribute our current quality of life to, ultimately, you and I my friends, are the creators of our reality.
Granted, not all of us were raised with a silver spoon in our mouths. Yet regardless of where and how we were raised or what tools we were handed or not, every moment of every day we have the opportunity to re-write our story to be a story that is meaningful to us and is aligned with our values.
We cannot control the economy, our manager’s leadership skills, or how others may choose to relate to us or not relate to us. But we can absolutely control how we respond to life situations so that we maintain our balance, our access to our valuable thinking brain, and our well-being. Cultivating self-compassion, self-awareness, and self-accountability are incredible gateways to optimal health and happiness and are 100% within our control.
With that my friends, I will leave you for now and go on a little burnout induced hiatus to have spinal surgery.
I will be staying in touch with my community members during my recovery, so please feel free to join my community to receive updates. http://bit.ly/JoinMyndZen
Keep me in your thoughts and send me positive energy for a speedy recovery.
Much love,
❤️
Tzeli