Can I really believe that today is the start of May? Four months of the year are already behind us. And it's been a very busy month for my chaplaincy work here. I've just looked at my personal data collection for the last month and they're almost double the previous one. No wonder I'm feeling a little drained.
I'm feeling that exhaustion today, not helped, I suppose, in the fact that I've had a couple of meetings to fulfill in my diary. It takes a different type of energy and a mindset shift to move to meetings from the more ‘on the beat’ kind of chaplaincy. Treading the boards. I've had a sprinkling of that today, although I also found quite a number of patients were a little sleepier than usual as well. Maybe there's something in the air? Or, perhaps the rather gradual but nonetheless changing of the seasons, is having an impact too?
Whatever the reason, and there's always a number of contributing factors, I'm tired and I need to navigate being on call tonight as well.
One of my meetings earlier, was with my line manager and we talked about navigating my own personal challenges at the moment. Challenges, that are themselves, dynamic and shifting. Day to day and week to week. Like a pyramid of playing cards it makes for a rather fragile time. Teetering and tottering. It's at times like these that you need a solid foundation and I'm finding that mine is a little waivering as well. Not a brilliant combination.
There's a story in the bible that speaks very much into this.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Matthew 7:24-27 NIV
You can have all the head knowledge and know all the words but unless you put them into practice, you're on shaky ground. This is particularly exposed, not when things are going well, but when the storms hit. Flood defences are only tested when the water levels rise.
Establishing daily, weekly and monthly self-care and spiritual practices develops this resilience and forfeiting them, is what leads you to potential collapse and, at the very least, an uphill battle. Made all the more difficult because of the storms that are now active.
In my discussion with my manager I used part of the biblical story of Jacob to describe what I was feeling like in my wrestling at the moment.
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:31 NIV
Imagine my amazement, as I later read another chapter of Brené Brown’s, ‘Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone’, and saw this quote from Jen Hatmaker,
I hope the limp shows my fellow wilderness dwellers that I'm acquainted with pain and didn't make it out here unscathed either.
So, I've got things to rebuild and practices to re-establish and I’ll limp towards them. I do so, alongside the people in the hospital who are limping and rebuilding themselves as well.
One of the practices that I've not kept up, is to walk to the beachfront near where I live. A place where houses are, ironically, built on the sand. Perhaps I'll walk there this evening.
How will you practice self-care?