I swear I burn myself out once every few months. Usually from work. But this time it’s a little different.
Our dog had a parasite and the treatment was 3 weeks. And during these 3 weeks, we had to quarantine him, wash laundry and clean consistently, and keep his paws and his body clean.
It was a lot. I swear it was like working 2 full time jobs.
During this time I didn’t do any art. I didn’t pick up my guitar. I didn’t write anything. I didn’t read. I didn’t work out.
I cleaned. I worked. I played video games. I doom scrolled on my phone. I watched YouTube videos and reality TV.
It was all my brain could handle but this down time wasn’t rejuvenating me. It wasn’t giving me any energy. It was just letting me sit in my pool of despair to try to recover.
But the thing about burnout is that you don’t start getting over it until you start doing the right things. Spending a week on the couch won’t heal my burnout. But spending a week playing music, collaging Magic cards, painting mushrooms, or any other creative endeavor will help heal my burnout.
So that’s what I’m starting to do.
As I’m writing this, my brain is complete and utter mush. I’ve misread a dozen things in the past few days. I’ve made completely nonsensical sentences. I can barely hold a conversation.
But I forced myself to sit down and write something, anything because I knew it would help me.
That’s kinda the weird thing about hobbies is that sometimes you have to force yourself to do them as if they were work. But eventually, you get into it and your brain remembers “oh yeah, I do enjoy this.”
And at this point in writing this post (am I getting too meta here?), I am enjoying it again, and could probably ramble forever but should probably wrap it up because I honestly don’t know how much sense I’m making.
Basically, this week, my goal is to do the work I need to but make time for hobbies. I’ve already been going on some walks and doing a little bit of art. But my major goal is to pick up and play my guitar at least once this week and get back to it.
One little step at a time to feeling better.
How do you recover from burnout? Any good tips or routines that work for you?
Thank you so much for reading In the Clouds! This is a personal outlet I created to nurture my own creativity and to connect with other artsy people out in the world.
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