Hi, Phoenix here.
While working towards my recovery from serious burnout, I realized I needed some time to reflect deeply and seriously about my life. It’s been difficult to meet the demands of my amazing yet challenging full-time job, the homestead, and my personal relationships. As I expected, the burnout got worse after the physically intensive 3-week-long fieldwork and returning to office work without any kind of restful break. I requested and received two weeks off from my demanding day job to recuperate and renew my spirit.
During the first week, I took the opportunity to attend a 3-day retreat to recharge my body, mind, and spirit. I had a powerful experience which I believe will help me navigate through life. First, I set intentions for the retreat: an important one for me was to establish both self-sufficiency and safety for myself. I want to make sure I am defining and meeting my own needs, and not just reactively trying to meet the expectations of others. This was followed by a labyrinth walk allowing me to do some deeper reflection on my life. I took care of myself during the retreat by having at least one massage a day.
On the second day, I worked one on one with a guide capable of doing inner child work with me. For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, inner child work often involves figuring out what one learned and internalized, perhaps subconsciously, as a young child (pre-puberty) and altering any learned behaviors detrimental to the adult self.
I reconnected with my inner child, becoming more aware of what she needed to be safe. In my life to date, I haven’t yet fully understood and taken care of the needs of the inner child, my own younger self. As a child, I was often overwhelmed while navigating through relationships with my parents and extended family. I did not understand the full context and underlying issues causing the adults around me to react the way they did. I was expected to be an adult long before I was even capable of it. Only as I grew into adulthood did I begin to understand the emotional trauma I internalized by trying to meet that expectation. To top it off, I also experienced abuse by an extended family member. It’s been difficult to sort all this out for myself.
Feelings of being overwhelmed led to a desire to escape my life and this planet. Driven by a sense this world was unsafe for me, I wanted to go back home to my higher power. Although the emotional charge of these escapist thoughts have lessened, I still battle them today. Doing intense breathwork with another guide during the retreat (to increase the oxygen to my brain and settle into a fully meditative state) helped me realize my higher power is not just outside of me; it is also within me. It always has been and always will be. I don’t need to escape or to go anywhere to connect to it.
I felt compelled to transcribe this vision into something tangible (despite my utter lack of artistic ability) and created the painting shown in this post’s featured image.
When I am undistracted and doing my work as a climate scientist and homesteader without feeling stressed, I can connect to my higher power fairly easily. Right now I’m trying to find tools to help me connect more quickly with the higher power within, like meditation, breathwork, and prayer, especially in times of stress. Being able to put some emotional distance between the immediate surroundings by tapping into my own higher power is a useful spiritual practice for me. My hope is as I learn to use these tools more effectively, I will no longer feel the need to escape.
As the retreat drew to a close, I started to reconnect with the intelligence of my own heart. I began to understand my need to define and honor my boundaries, including taking up the space and resources I need to feel safe in the world. I am now experimenting with techniques to help me get more in touch with my own body and connect it to my heart. There is still a lot more to be done, but the retreat provided me with tools to use during the process.
Meeting other homesteaders, I’ve realized they also have had traumatic experiences in their lives, and trouble processing these traumas. When in society, K and I find we are forced to conform to society’s expectations and only when we are by ourselves do we realize who we truly are, unconstrained by those expectations (like a child going off to college or a young codependent couple going their separate ways). Homesteading provides the opportunity to be removed from distractions and discover who we are. We can then address these traumas and alter our inner childhood behaviors to become healthier adults at our own pace, while in a safe space. Although it is tempting to hide from our traumas, even out here we have interactions and situations which will invoke our trauma responses (as K realized). We need to face them to fully become our true selves.
Tomorrow I return back to work and intend to do it with patience and grace toward myself. More on this in the next post.
Next Blog Post: Part 3: Burnout–a relaxed return to my day job (by Phoenix)