How to Tell You Need a F%$#ing Break (and How to Take It!)
The apps are sending us our annual round ups, wrappeds, reports, and highlights. Our inboxes are full of holiday deals, travel tickets, extra shift assignments at work, and event invites from every list serv and maybe even a few friends. If your blood pressure is up, or it feels like the world is closing in - maybe you need a f$^#ing break. Let’s get into some strategies for identifying you’re past your limit and how to actually take that break when you need it.
So common it’s almost trite now, the holidays and end of year can be some of the hardest times. Whether it’s recession indicators, holiday maddened customers, or difficult family dynamics, it can pile up so quickly.
The gifts of the solstice season and year’s end celebrations can be sweetness, connection, comfort, and reflection. And to access those gifts, we need to cultivate the ability to recognize our overload signs and actually take breaks when we need to.
System overload
All of us will have different warning signs that we’re reaching our limit. Developing our self awareness (through meditation or other practices) will help us understand ourselves better. For the short term, here are some general signs to watch for
Body - pounding heart, light headedness, sudden and extreme fatigue, headaches
Mind - racing thoughts, sense of impending doom or danger, repetitive/near identical thoughts repeating on loop
Spirit - things you usually enjoy feel dull or distant, you can’t access your sense of humor, you snap more than usual at inconvenience or others’ mistakes, you feel far away from yourself
How to take the break
Breaks are hard to come by. For too many of us, work keeps us constantly hustling with real consequences for (even appearing to) pause. It also runs counter to anxiety’s logic that we need to fight, flee, fawn, or freeze. Here are strategies to try for more immediate relief:
Slow down - even a fraction, and even inside our own minds, can create more space. Breath in and out a couple seconds more than usual. Read your boss’s text but pause before beginning your reply. If you are able, change position or location for just a few minutes and do not expect yourself to make any decisions or find any revelations.
Communicate boundaries and needs - Boundaries are about what you will do, not about what other people will do or are allowed to do. Simplify explanations to the shortest version of the truth, “I will take my 15 minute break now, my coworker can cover me/the line is shorter now/I am legally entitled to take it.” “I am not going to talk about my body with you, relative. Let’s talk about the new ornaments on the tree this year” “I want to hang out with you, and I’d like to do something lower key. Would you like to come watch a movie with me?”
Offer yourself compassion - this one I have been leaning on this week. Simply say aloud or in your mind, “this is a lot for you right now. I care about you. I am here.” Speak to yourself like you would a sweet baby animal or beloved child.
You got this
Through applying these strategies, you may find enough space and time to successfully plan a longer and fuller break. The internal pause may be the moment the words to communicate the need or boundary arise. With compassion, you may identify more needs and solutions. Then you may be find there is time to step outside, change a plan, reach out to a friend, and so on.
Release yourself from perfection. A friend shared recently about losing their patience at a work event in the morning, but after connecting with a support person at lunch being able to return more calmly to a similar situation in the afternoon. You got this!
Folks at an actual Skip the Small Talk event