I am always very loud about the importance of mental health. About how, when you are burned out, it is the real deal and should be taken seriously. I always support people when they share about this.
And now, when I am self-employed, I noticed a terrible thing.
When I see someone showing signs of burnout, I don’t just think about how they are doing. I start assessing whether they are still someone I can work with. Whether they have the capacity to follow through. Whether I can rely on them. Whether this partnership makes sense for me.
And, subconsciously, I thought: “They don’t have what it takes. This partnership is dead.”
And I was disgusted with myself.
Because in theory, I am all goody-goody about mental health. But in reality, when it’s about my time and money invested in a partnership where I am not financially backed? No thank you.
And I sat with it.
Because there is a legitimate question underneath this: I am self-employed. I have to protect my time, my money and my energy. I cannot build a business around partnerships where the other person simply cannot deliver.
But at what point does a healthy business boundary turn into the exact kind of judgement I would normally call out?
And I realised that I was holding up a mirror.
I pushed through burnout and a serious depression in my twenties and took tons of sick leave while employed. Never for a burnout or mental health reason, always some lame excuse.
Retrospectively, I should have sought help. But it wasn’t part of my culture and I didn’t have any self-compassion towards myself.
Things started shifting when I quit drinking and started building a more or less loving relationship with myself. Which is still very much a work in progress, don’t get me started.
And now, when I see myself being a hypocrite around this, I realise how brutal I am to myself. I hold myself to such high standards that my nervous system switches into survival mode more often than I’d wish.
So this “They don’t have what it takes because they are already burned out” is just a painful mirror.
Of me pushing myself. Of me thinking that I should deliver 50% more to even dare. Of me having learned, somewhere along the way, that struggling is evidence that you are not doing enough.
And now, being self-employed, that belief shows up in a different and very painful light.
Am I judging others because they are not operating at the completely unreasonable level of capacity I have come to expect from myself?
So why am I sharing this?
Sometimes the uncomfortable thing we see in other people is holding up a mirror to something we have normalised in ourselves.
Because sometimes we say things to look good, but the old system is screaming louder.
And I’m happy to say that…. I am lucky to be building on a sober and happy basis. Now it is time to stop pushing and start being more attentive and loving towards my own body.
And dang, I still have some work to do.
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