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Tired?!

Reflecting on Fatigue, Christmas 2021
Picture
Need a holiday?! It seems hard-wired into us Kiwis to go like crazy, rushing to the end of the year, then crash in a heap after Christmas. 
That certainly was my life as a parish minister. Far from being a gentle time of waiting, the season of Advent in ministry is a manic round of work, work and more work, while emitting a constant stream of Christmas cheer and goodwill to all. You’d better start November with a tank full of pre-planning and reserves of energy, for by Boxing Day you will be utterly spent.
This year, 2021, allowed no time for building up reserves, and threw bucketloads of extra work and extra stress in the form of pandemic planning and vaccine traffic lights. Not to mention lockdown restrictions for those up North. 
Everyone I know is exhausted. As a nation we are tuckered out. Every area of business, education and community has been stretched and pressured. Of course we are tired. 

Bone tired, flat tyre, can’t get up the hill tired
Nerve fried, buzz wired, cannot get to sleep tired
Tongue tied, numb, fuzz, can’t put 2 and 2 together 
Ache tired, what has died? can’t escape the pain tired

And now it is Christmas and suddenly we are supposed to be Happy! Somehow gifts and decorations and food and travel plans are supposed to magically appear out of the thin air of our fatigue.
I wear a few different hats these days. I wonder if I might try them on and ask each one for passing thoughts on the topic of tiredness. 

As a counsellor I am concerned for emotional, physical and relational health. “How do you feel? What are you aware of in your body?” Pause long enough to notice inner experience. Find words for it. Or maybe pictures, metaphors. Tell the story of the emptiness. 
Fatigue is chronic stimulation of the stress response: fight, flight or freeze, over and over, kept under wraps, adrenaline turned toxic. Counselling slows you down until you stand in the realness of the place you find yourself in. The power of seeing what you do, what you think, how you feel, clicks open more options. Are there other ways of reacting? What do I want? What do I need? 
Fatigue recovery requires the self-awareness to know what drains me and what energises me: solitude or company? Activity or blob? And to know the ways I stuff up my chance for recovery … because resting is not always enjoyable. It feels down right unpleasant to let myself feel properly tired, and there’s any number of things I could do instead. “How will you create the best conditions for a real decent rest this summer?”

As a supervisor I want to help identify patterns in systems that create stress. “What role are you playing? What role do you want to play?” What are the drivers that end inexorably at the rubbish dump of exhaustion? I have figured through the years that it is not hard work that burns us out, but being pulled in different directions, tangled by other people’s expectations, or our expectations of their expectations, our fears, our internal rules, our twisted images of God. I love the work of the Holy Spirit to release us into greater freedom. “What if you were totally free to be who God has made you to be?” Working hard from that place can be tiring but it is a clean tiredness, easily eased, quickly refreshed.

As a sustainability consultant I want to dodge around the edges of the mass of fatigue and grap hold of flagging shreds of energy. I want to shake things, to say, “Sorry, I know you’re over it, but still the planet is buckling, still we have to act or things will get much much worse!” It’s my job to inject positive possibility, shove a little momentum: “Come on, we can do it.” 

As a pastoral theologian I sit with my own fatigue and I watch the ebb and flow around me and I wonder. What is God up to, here and now, this crazy Christmas? I feel a vast aching heart, and I know it is our Father’s heart for a hurting world. I see the Light pushing in, looking for the cracks in our greyness to chink through with the glow of tender love and affection. I hear the Word continually speaking, inspiring us despite ourselves, calling us into being. And I lie down in the firm and mighty promise of God who is our Rock and Refugue, who leads us beside Still Waters, who is the Peace that passes all understanding.

As a mum and wife and daughter and sister and friend I treasure a complex web of relationships. I feel the energy of each one who is connected to me, these people I love and who love me. Reaching out, to communicate, even for a moment, energises me, even when I am almost too tired to bother. 
As a writer, I write. As a preacher, I preach. 
As a middle age woman I feel the shifts in my own body – it’s called menopause, I believe. As I struggle to climb a flight of stairs I try to dredge up patience with my body and not feed the frustration. I used to fight against fatigue, but not so much these days. I am not afraid of it. I know it can be my friend, a kindly wrap of insulation.
Tiredness is the invitation to rest. Exhaustion is the demand to rest. Fatigue is the call to untangle the cords that tug with others’ agendas, all the shoulds and oughts – and there’s no time like Christmas for all that lot! 
Let it go. Why stress? Who are you trying to please? 
It’s been a tough year. Go easy on yourself. Relax! 
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Written by Silvia Purdie 

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