Now’s the time for compassion

Last night I watched the latest episode of a young couple of Australians who document their travels on Youtube (Jack & Megan). They were announcing that they are stopping their presence on social media for a while because they have burnt themselves mentally and physically by filming and editing non-stop over the past 3 years.

I want to talk about this today because 1) no matter what we say, in 2023 it still takes a lot of courage to admit publicly that you stop Youtube - or any work - because of your mental and physical health; and 2) when are we going to stop normalising and glamourising burnout?

Gabor Mate talks about how the myth of normal is getting people sick.

I would adapt this to the world of work and talk about: the myth of resilience, which leads people to quite literally kill themselves more or less slowly at work.

You know what I'm talking about, for example LinkedIn is full of these "happy sad posts". The narrative is pretty much always the same: here's how to be more resilient and "make stress your friend".

Every day over the past month I have been telling myself that it's time to go back to social media, to my website, to starting my blog, to doing some marketing to put myself out there.

And every day, I have not done that, because I am carrying the heavy weight of what my September trip back to France did to me - putting all my childhood traumas right back in my face.

But on top of that, every day, I feel that I fail.

In the video I watched, Megan admits that she feels they failed on what they had set out to do. Jack immediately corrects her and says it's not their fault, they have been sick.

But I relate to this feeling of failure and I am sure many business people and entrepreneurs reading this will feel the kick in the gut I felt when I heard Megan said they failed.

This feeling of failing to show up, to do more is all the more painful in a world that rewards "pushing through" - no matter how much messaging tries to make up for this pressure by also adding something else to our to-do list, to be healthy physically and mentally.

The reality is that it's not good enough to be healthy if we're not productive.

And I think this narrative won't change until we acknowledge how prevalent and insidious it is.

If this resonates with you and you think counselling can help you in your situation, you can contact me for a free, no-obligation call to discuss how I could help.