I’ve been getting nowhere for a while but I’m somehow still sitting at my desk and trying for a writing career. It’s pretty painful lately.
Yesterday I had chest pains and a numb foot. I googled: Normal loss of feeling in foot. Because it’s normal, right?
I called my mom because that’s how I handle things.
She told me it was anxiety and that I should take a long break.
But, break from what? Part of my problem with taking breaks is that I never feel like I’m doing enough. I don’t know how to tackle that problem. I’ve started doing weird affirmations in the mirror before bed: “I did work today. I can sleep.” Loss of sleep is an embarrassing byproduct of my understanding that I am just another under-productive under-earning millennial. Which might be true. But still, I’m always writing and creating, partly for my day job and partly for my own platform-building. None of it pays off that quickly and so, at night, I can’t take a break. I have to worry about failure, just like every other second of the day.
This month I’m trying to take real breaks. Not just pauses in literal work flow but actual breaks from trying to learn more, make more, earn more, be more than I am.
I still work to suppress self-doubt but I try to allow myself level of pride when it feels like I’ve achieved something. Then, I try to take a break. I hope my break includes fresh air. Sometimes it just includes sitting back in my chair with the door closed.
How do you take breaks?
Rachel Ganz 