Coming to the End of Myself

Well, I am trying to retreat and rest, but it's been difficult. I did my taxes today because you know, that's so relaxing and retreat-esque. Actually, doing taxes did relieve some stress!

But, overall, I am, as some have put it for me, "Coming to the end of myself."

Thus, I've prescribed myself to consider rest, burnout, and the like this week. During these past few days, I read a book entitled Watch Out for Burnout: A Look at Its Signs, Prevention, and Cure. This quote caught my eye:

Multiple causes account for dropout, but studies show acute fatigue one significant dynamic. The current duration-of-service norm for inner-city social workers and inner-city lawyers turns out to be only two years. One stateside psychiatrist says 50 percent of his clients are missionaries. A long-time missionary comments that a typical overseas worker lasts five to six years.

I found this very striking: half of a psychiatrist's clients were missionaries!

The book overall was not incredibly helpful, but I'd gotten it as a freebie about a year ago and hadn't read it straight through. Even reading an entire book on the subject of burnout was really helpful.

Perhaps the most fun and interesting chapter in the book was "The Healing Power of Humor." The author posits that having a sense of humor is a preventative and a healer of burnout, which is true, but I love that humor gets its own chapter! Here we go. This is good for me to read:

Humor allows us to live with the contradictions of life. The man who must always act rationally kills himself with intensity. He will embarrass himself by his own contradictory behavior. People laugh at his over-seriousness, but he cannot laugh at himself. To laugh at one's inconsistency reveals the deepest consistency...Humor allows us to live comfortably with ourselves...Perfectionism is the worst kind of seriousness, a poison that brings death to liberty and rigor mortis to the spirit. Humor is the antibiotic that heals the terribly perfect...

And another:

Work comes easier after side-splitting humor. Machinery moves more smoothly. Hope makes its reentry quickly, quietly, almost unawares. Possibilities grow luminous. Artifice and therefore stress disappear. When wheels squeak, apply the grease of humor.

So, yes, burnout. While I didn't find the book altogether that earth-shattering, I really liked the topics which were chosen for chapters:

God's Healing
The Healing Power of Humor
Genuine Spirituality
Stress and Distress
The Therapy of Creativity
God's Gift of Self-Esteem
Physical Fitness
Time
Family
Facing Fear
Converting Anger
Dealing with Guilt

What I liked about the table of contents is that the list is, I think a very creative, insightful and also Christian. But the book, on the whole, was a bit too psychologically-based; there was a particular emphasis on Jungian psychology. I would have liked to have seen the book more firmly and closely tied to Christian teaching and then been given practical suggestions on how to make changes in my life...

...Because here's the thing: knowing oneself, the basis of Jungian psychology, really only goes so far, but goes a decent distance, I think, in being the solution to caring for oneself and being a disciple. It's not self-knowledge that brings lasting freedom but that knowledge put into action, in real choices, and in Christ. If I simply know Lynne better, will I not burn out? That's part of it, sure.

But more fundamentally, I can trust that God knows me better than I could ever know myself, and my life is safe in His hands. Even when things look bad and I am at 'the end of myself,' He is there. Even when I don't understand something in my life or a reaction I have or an emotion I feel, He is there, and He alone is unchanging. Even when He is asking me to do something that "I" normally wouldn't do, He is there, still asking, still meaning to love me and others. For example, someone this year told me they thought I was quite the extrovert. And my reaction was "Huh? Heck no!" But through the Holy Spirit and over the past several years, I've been able to increase the amount of time and energy I can be around people and at some level, deny myself the luxury of only living out of who I am and what my preferences are, even if and especially if I know them. The essence of Polonius's stupid yet wise remark "To thine own self be true!" is and is not the answer to dealing with suffering and burnout.

Anyways. So the book wasn't stellar, but it provided good food for thought; it got some balls rolling in my head --not bad for a free book!