A Short Guide Out of Exhaustion

Do we all have this exhaustion feeling flowing out of our minds and bodies, as lockdown is smoothly but surely heading into its final lap?

I don’t know about you, but I feel like quarantine has pulled all my worst triggers sneakily:

• No movement (or very little)
• Multi-tasking, which is not uncommon to me, but this was more than standard multi-tasking. It has been a time of agility in a hostile environment, including homeschooling, housekeeping, cooking 3 meals a day for us 4, while performing at work and lifting inhouse and relatives’ spirits through this.
• Fragmented time. As much as I love — and am proud of — my kids and husband, I struggle with interruptions or work disruptions. Mom, I can count until 254! Darling, what do you think about my latest Excel sheet? Really want to know? I am not reluctant to help, but I’d appreciate a one-hour meeting to tackle all questions at once, instead of this constant flow. Isn’t it awkward to set a conference with your own husband, though?
• Busy place. No matter how large our house is, it sounds like a beehive. Always someone around, no gaze solitude or hardly, very little room in my inner space.
• Too many screens
• Little silence, and so on, and so on.

This drove me somewhere I hate being stuck into. Intellectual fatigue, exasperation, and extreme sensitivity are my lot after 8 weeks of poor self-care. I don’t like myself much as a partner and as a Mom right now. I yell much too much, I explode when things go sideways. I have little patience. And I cry, much too much as well.

Quarantine is exhausting

I understand that. But this is a very diffuse mood I can’t grab accurately.

As I was wondering where this exhaustion came from, I took a 10-minutes personal exercise last night. And I can’t press you enough to do it as well.

Here is how it works:

1. Take a sheet of paper (maybe more to be fair) and a pen,
2. Retreat in a quiet environment, where you can’t / won’t be disturbed
3. Set a timer for 10 minutes
4. Write in a flow, starting each sentence with “I’m exhausted because…” or “It’s exhausting to…” There should be no thinking nor refraining. There should be no “it’s bad to write this” nor “it’s wrong to think that.” It’s a flow, accept it as it comes. Nobody will see it unless you decide so.
5. When the alarm gets off, have a look back at what you wrote and consider it.

I first felt relieved when my 10-minutes were over, and the sensation I had spat my guts on the paper. It was liberating, exhilarating, and cathartic. Having a second look, I began to understand there were a few strings I could pull and work on to fight my lassitude.

“Nobody will see what you wrote unless you decide to show it to someone.”

Well, I am going to break the rule, expose myself, and show you. Please bear in mind, while I do so, this was not supposed to go open. Some might seem (and is!) overly pretentious. Some, I feel ashamed to publish like that, since I would generally talk in a more sensitive way like a responsible adult. Anyway, here is my top 3 out of 16 sentences I wrote within my 10-minutes frame.

• #16 “It’s exhausting to not know where I go, what I want, how I get there, to not have clear priorities” (It’s the last one I wrote. Afterwards, it appears to be the most important.)
• #3 “It’s exhausting to be relied on, to be the hero of my family, the one who knows it all, the mom, the doctor, therapist, caregiver, the dream-fueler” (This one hurts to publish, I swear. On a deeper level of comprehension, I wanted to express the fact that my husband and kids ask me loads of questions throughout the day. We have a tacit policy within the house, “Mom knows better,” which I contributed to implementing, I guess. More on this later. This one came pretty early in the exercise and is related to my #2, which was “it’s exhausting to answer always the same questions.” There’s something to work on, don’t you think?)
• #5 “It’s exhausting to live in a noisy place, to be surrounded by people, objects at all times, have no solitude in the gaze.” (This came out #5 but relate to the first one, which was “it’s exhausting to have many objects in my view, on my way.” It is connected with my disability, I have difficulties to walk in a messy house. It also relates to a need for clarity and tidiness in my mind.)

I could go on. Each one of the 16 sentences I wrote was interesting, and saying something about me. They all expressed my exhaustion triggers, which I did know already, as does my husband. A reason for him to take our daughters away for a few days, as lockdown is easing a bit here in France — Thank you, Darling!

I thrive for clarity and solitude — not loneliness

This is a fact. These are vital needs for me. Now the question is, how do I provide myself with what I need? How can I make sure I act — and get the people around me to help me — so I can thrive for clarity and solitude?

Increasing self-awareness is a first and crucial step, as is implementing strategies to prioritize my own needs. That implies various possibilities, such as a better ability to say “no,” for example. But what is the point of improving my response capacities if I don’t understand why I should say “no” in the first place?

Here comes the Guide Out of Exhaustion

I reduced my Guide out of exhaustion to 3 pillars:

1. Create and defend an inner space.

A place where you can meet yourself, be there for yourself, trust yourself, and grow yourself.

No need for a separate room or a long trip all on your own, far away. You have to isolate a specific amount of time, which will be for you, because of you, around you.

Routines come handy. Mine include meditation and exercising, walking mostly, that I do early morning. I am not a masochist. I just do it before everybody wakes up in the house and starts invading my windpipes with their needs and questions.

Routines help me clear my surroundings and my mind. Doing it early relieves the guilt I would typically feel, to amputate time my family deserves.

Read more on routines here :

2. Build a solid plan

Your plan has to be reliable, something you can build on.

We all want to have time for ourselves, but then, there is the darkness of reality. We have kids’ homework, household necessities, jobs, commitments, friends, and relatives whom we love but feel sometimes overwhelmed with. When was the last time you had a bath or read a book?

My solid plan involves smart to-do lists.

Most people write to-do lists, an excellent way to take away the necessity to remember tiny things all day until task completion time has come. But, hey, what if we could go a bit further?

Let’s organize our lists in categories (work-related, family…) Don’t forget to add a box called “My Own Needs!”

Now, when you have your list well organized, please move on to ask a couple of questions for each task: a) am I the right person to do it, and b) am I the only person who can do it? This might be the time to delegate, ask for help, stop being the superhero nobody is asking you to be.

3. Reinvent your future

My worst exhaustion trigger is the lack of clarity about where to go and why to head there. Don’t we all feel the same?

Every time I have a clear view of my goals and priorities in life, in the short- or long-term, I feel better. Performing consumes less energy. I feel empowered. Know where you go and know how you should get there.

To help you with that, I have previously written an article about goal-setting using my sports career experience. If you want to have a look, it’s here:

There is no such thing that snap-change. Change requires time and patience.

Being more self-aware and committed to caring for yourself as well as you care for others lead to higher heights of fulfillment. I recently heard Georgie Hubbard (The Mind to Lead) saying there’s a reason in a plane for us to put our own oxygen masks first, before helping others. The idea is, staying alive, healthy, and clear-minded is indeed the only way to help others.

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Florence Gravellier is a writer, speaker, Paralympian, mother of twins, and constant dreamer. She earned bronze twice in Beijing 2008 in wheelchair tennis. Her many life struggles fostered a strong temper, a passion for self-awareness, and a desire to empower young women to live a great life. Reach out on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and on her website which features work in French and in English.

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