For the last nine months, I have been an 8th grade special education teacher. My experience has been another excursion into immense self-growth.
Exhaustion was my primary characteristic during this time. I was falling asleep while standing exhausted, not thinking clearly exhausted, forgetting things exhausted, and coming home and immediately lying down and going to sleep exhausted. When I work, I tend to put my all into it. I don’t have boundaries because I like to do good work. It’s like cleaning house or doing yardwork. Once I start, I see so much that needs to and can be accomplished. When administrators see that a worker bee is competent and reliable, more work is given. At the end of each 9+ hour day, for which I was not compensated over 6.5 hours, I had no energy or inclination to handle the affairs of my personal life.
I got caught up in the external. I didn’t have time to exercise, do yoga, meditate, or otherwise work on my inner and physical selves. Every single thought and action was focused on situations and circumstances beyond my personal being. I got carried away – again – and became upset when I felt unappreciated, unsupported, and disrespected. I began to feel resentful and trapped. My perceptions reflected this state of mind. I saw other staff members treated unfairly. Maybe their fates would be mine.
I began to live in fear, which caused me to relinquish my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual stability to a misguided belief that someone external to me controlled my life.
Maybe people like me who allow work to run over our lives are actually running from our lives. Maybe work is an excuse, an escape. I don’t want to accept this, because – truly – it’s not how I want to live. But why do I continue to repeat this pattern? How is it that others maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life? They don’t become hooked on the what ifs. What if I don’t meet my deadlines? What if I take a day off? For some reason, balanced people choose self and somehow manage to remain employed. Could it be that others pick up on their sense of self-worth and reflect it back to them?