When you are burned-out you feel caught between being totally overwhelmed by life as it exists and the intense desire to change absolutely everything. When the desire to change wins out there is no stopping a Burnout Queen. I was reminded of this by a client who, a year post-burnout, was looking at shaking up her life big time and asking herself an important question, “Am I up to it?” However, it was her second question that really rumbled the heavens for me,
“Am I ready to handle the chaos of change again?”
I know that sometime over the next year I’m going to have to make some big changes and frankly I’m right there with her. It’s been many years since I put my burnout lifestyle behind me for good, but there are times, like when facing another life overhaul, that my energy droops. My client nailed it…
It’s not the change that zaps my energy, it’s the inevitable chaos.
I dread the tension that accompanies chaos. I dread the mess, the decisions, the starting point; did I mention the mess! It’s like changing your clothes over from winter to summer; the piles, the choices, the tangle of hangers, giving up the comfort of knowing what’s what. Total chaos (in the small scheme of things) but enough to make me put off doing it and hoping for rain just one more week!
Chaos makes me nervous, even downright anxious. It’s what comes with the chaos that makes me want to avoid another big change: the discomfort, the uncertainty, the learning curve. Of course, I am also met by all of the emotions associated with the chaos of change; self-doubt, fear, anger, and of course, overwhelm.
I should welcome these harbingers of change, they may be the very things that push me into the chaos and out the other side where I get to reap the benefits of my hard work and courage. Anger can become my strength, overwhelm can demand focus, and the dreaded fear, well it can herald adventure.
It’s that breathless pause between chaos and change, comfort and chaos that is ripe with possibility.
Creativity happens in the impasse, somewhere between comfort and chaos, chaos and comfort. This is the hard bit, we have to trust ourselves to sit in the impasse, tolerate the chaos until a solution, a change, becomes visible. Not the easiest thing to do in a culture that worships decisions, ultimate decisions, fast decisions, flat-out black and white decisions.
But I sit, straddling the wall, pondering my ability to once more jump into the unknown. Trusting that I will know, I will sense, when I am ready to plunge into the chaos.
The very nature of life is constant movement, constant flux, constant change! So I don’t think I will ever get extremely comfortable in chaos, not with my highly sensitive nature, but I understand it and tolerate chaos more post-burnout. I reassure myself that it is an alright state of being, for a time. I mean I wouldn’t want to live there, but maybe a little chaos is just the thing I need to get me going!
There is renewal waiting in chaos.
I can’t live life the way I want if I don’t embrace change. I guess that means that from time to time, chaos is going to be my companion. So I’m going to treat it like a welcomed friend, but one who knows when it is time to leave! So if you hear yourself saying, “I don’t like change or I’m not good at change” , ask yourself, “Is it the change or is it the chaos?”
But My Darlings, even with the chaos, you’ve got to love change because change changes everything!
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