Burn out. It seems it’s that time of year. As the light of day gets dimmer heading to the Solstice (my birthday, as chance would have it!), it seems like many in my midst have candles that have burned down to stubs. Including myself. I shared some initial thoughts about this in a recent post (see The Body’s Score from November 15) and since so many of my students seem to be presenting with similar symptoms, I thought I’d riff a little more on this.
My nerves are frayed, I find myself impatient and intolerant, and I often don’t have the energy or will to sing. In fact, I took at least 10 days off from practice, because I felt like I was beating my head against a brick wall, trying to will myself to do it even though I didn’t want to. And anyway, my voice didn’t want to respond. So…I’ve given myself some time over the last little while to regroup: writing more in my journal, doing some meditation and yoga, and spending time in my garden doing winter maintenance before the deep freeze comes. In the last two days, I’ve felt like I wanted to check in with my voice again, and it’s been a lot more friendly. Maybe I am being more friendly to it? So perhaps it is part of this season as autumn gives way to winter, that we give some time to ourselves to rest and reset. The candle has burned all the way to the bottom and we let ourselves start anew, with a gentler, kinder way of being with our voices. At least, that is my personal plan.