Have you ever felt soul tired? Man, this is different than being physically tired. Soul tired brings to mind the word…weary. This is an emotional and mental exhaustion. And it takes different things to heal and balance from being soul tired than physically tired. You can not just sleep it away, sleep does not fill the exhaustion. There are some warning signs that you are soul tired, and need to rejuvenate. If sleep does not seem to be able to help your tiredness, then this information is for you. Try some of these ideas and rest your soul and see if your exhaustion dissipates.
Here are 8 Warning Signs You’re Mentally and Emotionally Exhausted
- You’re easily irritated.
- You feel completely unmotivated- even to do things you normally enjoy.
- You’re experiencing anxiety or panic attacks.
- You’re having trouble sleeping. Either it takes you hours to fall asleep or your sleep is broken all through the night.
- You have almost no patience and you find yourself being short with colleagues and family.
- You’re experiencing indigestion. You have a low-grade stomach ache all the time or feel like there’s butterflies in your stomach.
- Start crying unexpectedly.
- You feel detached from reality- you go through your days without really emotionally responding or connecting to anything. You feel empty.
These ideas are from this article from The Hearty Soul. I have found the impatience, easily crying, and irritated at everything, comes from being overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with life, the daily tasks, the mundane and schedules. I am weary of people needing things from me- anything. There is too much to do. This makes me overwhelmed and thus I am impatient and irritated. This can lasts for weeks and months at a time. You get soul tired when you have not given yourself a break. This happens when we let:
Life run us, instead of us running our own life.
We have to choose to say “No”. No is a positive answer, it is a good thing to say no. We can not do it all and we need to realize there are always more tomorrows, so do not push yourself to hard day in and day out. A wise person once told me: There is a difference between service and servitude. The difference is that true service is when it is good for you and the other person- the balance of giving and receiving is stable. Servitude is when you say yes to everything out of obligation, it is not good for you, your hearts intent is off and you say yes for the praise, glory, because others are watching, or because you feel as though you have to. Learn to say no 🙂
Say YES to yourself
The only way to treat the soul being tired, is to say yes to yourself. What do you need? Ask your heart what you want to do? What do you feel like eating? Taking NO time for self care, personal care is the reason we landed ourselves here in the first place. Take time to be quiet and do something for you. For me just taking time to drive through the canyon, take a hike and walk in nature really balances me. Take a bath, shave your legs, whatever you need to take care of you! Yoga, or doing a project that you love to do but have not given yourself time to do- like paint, write in your journal, or read a book!
Self Care for a Tired Soul
We get ourselves in this place because the balance of giving and receiving is off. We have not been giving to ourselves. Now, if
this question come to your mind: “that is selfish, only to think of myself and say NO”. Well, here are some thoughts I have about that…why when you are flying and they are going through the protocols, when they talk about when the oxygen drops down to first place the mask on yourself and then help others? Because if you help others first and keep going and going and going you eventually will faint and then others will have to come to your aid. You end up becoming a burden.
How can you be the mother, wife, sister, daughter, co worker, friend that you want to be if you are sick and tired in bed because you will never say YES to yourself? Our bodies will eventually shut down and we will not be able to take care of anyone, if we do not take care of ourselves.
We are dimensional beings, by that I mean we are: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual beings.
We have needs in each of these categories! If you need to eat and drink for your physical category, and that is NOT selfish, then how is taking 2 hours or all day to read a book for your mental health? Whatever your needs are for the rest of the categories, those are just as necessary as eating and drinking. Do not think yourself as selfish when you are taking care of yourself in the rest of what makes up you.
I challenge you to get some paper, write down these in columns- PHYSICAL/MENTAL/EMOTIONAL/SPIRITUAL.
Then take time to fill out what you need in each. You will then see which one is out of balance and lacking. This is why you are soul tired, this is why you do not fill alive and fulfilled in life! If you need to say No to something because you need to take care of yourself, do not feel guilty. You can only serve from a place of health, from a place of strength.
When does self care, if ever, cross over into selfishness? What I have come up with is: if you get to a point where all you think about, notice, or do is yourself without regard to others…then you might want to reevaluate. You can do something each day to care for yourself, and something to care for another each day. In this way it stays balanced and you will not cross over into selfishness.
So what do you want to do for yourself today?! Or do you simply need to say no today to something you usually would say yes to? Remember you are saying no if it puts you in servitude, and to help stay in balance.