Allow yourself to be
By: Neha Khandekar
Tags: Awareness, Mental Health, 2020, Burnout, To Be

A few weeks back when I was expressing myself over here or with my colleagues/ peer group about solving personal problems, I really didn’t think I will end up here myself. I started getting signals when a few weeks back I could not find the strength to get up and get out of my bed. When a few chain mails/ whatsapp messages over my project group chat started to act as a trigger. When I started to fall apart in my volunteering, my project coordination but more importantly, my PhD researcher role. Slowly words, sentences and everything related to work started to stop making any sense. I somehow carried on thinking it will become alright in a few days. It always does. This continued until one day, I had a breakdown with a friend over a call and then next with my advisor. I was in such a vulnerable spot that I could not even articulate what was wrong with me. Words were just coming out of my mouth. Through them I trying very hard but failing to express my issue mixed with feelings of guilt for experiencing it. Thankfully, those two women I spoke to during that time were perceptive and while one asked me to take a break for some time from work, the other gave a piece of valuable advice — “just allow yourself to be…”

Thankfully for me, I took both the advice. I went on an almost 15-day break. No work, no looking at the computer screen. I had no mental space to do so. Sometimes, the thoughts become so messy in the mind that it takes time to articulate the problems properly to express them in front of well wishers and seek solutions.

During the break, while initially it took some time to just recover, I made sure to hang, even if it is by a very thin thread. I made sure to pick myself up to engage in lots of early morning walks, exercise in the park, soaking in the morning sun, meditation, yoga, mindful journal maintaining, and reading, learning to set healthy boundaries, staying offline…whatever worked for each day but slowly to learn cultivating these to become a part of myself as supportive friends when I return back to work...So what I did was spending a lot of time with myself to process what went wrong, fully embracing my own unique journey, and allowing myself to just be. My friend says all flowers in the forest are different and beautiful, diversity is beautiful. Maybe you are a wild kind, you know, maybe what works for others does not work for you, maybe you were born this way as the creation of the universe as something new has to emerge through you…if you block those energies to flow through you, you are blocking life force and that is not good.

Sunlit park early morning

Early morning, when sunlight hits this spot on the balcony wall, where I painted this motif

While what went wrong is personal and perhaps not appropriate for me to share, I loved to share what helped. Not as preaching but perhaps to say to whoever is reading this and can relate a little bit that you are not alone.

And so is the commitment to staying authentic, responsible, perceptive, and kind in our conduct…

A few days afterward, as I returned back to work, I learnt the beautiful lesson to slow down. Because I realized that my love for research is a long-term affair, and I don’t want to tire myself so quickly to the point of giving it all up! And I also realised how much I value those meaningful, authentic, slow conversations, however less, with whoever I get on a call with or exchange a message/ email/ in-person conversation. And how much I would love to maintain this.