The Essential Guide to Burnout by Andrew Procter

Author:Andrew Procter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson UK
Published: 2013-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

The practice of pausing

This exercise is designed to combat the state of permanent rush we feel if we have suffered burnout. Society as a whole expects rapid responses, with its instant information technology and much else. We feel under pressure to do things immediately. This is OK up to a point, but we will have long ago passed that point if we are in burnout. It’s time to stop and “stand and stare” as the well-known poem has it.

I (Andrew) was once fortunate enough to have a month’s sabbatical, which I spent walking the Yorkshire Dales. It was a lovely and spiritually profound time. One rule I had was that I would stop and sit down for five minutes on any bench I passed as I was walking. It proved a good rule but very hard to do. Even when I had no real time deadlines, when the whole day was my own, I still resisted stopping and having five minutes’ pause on the relatively infrequent country benches. I wanted to get on. I had a plan. I had mapped a progress chart of the day in my head and wanted to stick to it. But it was good to make myself pause, and, looking back, it was those times of sitting reflectively on the benches that furnished me with some of my most emotionally nourishing memories.

So we recommend building pauses into life. Start by noticing when something in your day has touched you in some way. It might be anything – a view, a kind word, an amusing thought, a happy memory. If you can, as it is happening, pause to drink it in properly. If you are walking the dog early one winter’s morning and notice the sunrise, pause there, drinking in that lovely thing. Don’t be tempted to rush on. Inner voices will be pulling you away from the spot, telling you that time is short. Ignore them and take time appreciating the wonder of the sunrise. Only move on when all its goodness has been exhausted. It will be surprising how short a time it takes, probably only a couple of minutes, but it will have felt longer. And it will have slowed your pace.

Dina Glouberman says, “Joy emerges in the spaces rather than in the content of our lives. It is what happens when, even for a moment, we feel totally free, with a sense of space around us and inside us.”5 This is the importance of pausing. It allows space for life’s joys to touch us.

Another useful time to pause is when something unexpectedly good happens. Again, it may only be something small – the receptionist at the doctor’s is pleasant and your appointment can be fitted in conveniently. When you leave the surgery, pause and let the fortunate circumstances have their effect. We tend to expect things to go wrong, especially so when we are depressed, overstressed, and burnt out. But life is not all bad. There are blessings all along the way if we will but look for them and then take the proper time to appreciate them.

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