Week days or weak daze?
Inspired by Prince EA & the article Sunday scaries
Do you have the feeling to live only 5/7 of your life?
This is what most people experience. Grinding 5 days, expecting 2 days to live. Unfortunately, these 2 days are not as fulfilling as they should because you switch to the grind even before the bells of grind ring again right?
Sunday Blues…. Have you already heard this little music of depression, sadness, hopelessness, or dissatisfaction often coming on Sunday evenings?
Have you experienced yet these following symptoms :
Headaches
Panic attacks
An upset stomach
Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Sweating and/or a rapid heartbeat
Unfortunately you are not alone, I also knew this situation without being able to name it, without even knowing that this was not an isolated personal issue but a bigger phenomenon.
According to a survey of The American Academy of Sleep Medicin in 2022, 79% of Americans, particularly Gen Z (32%) and millennials (34%), have trouble falling asleep on Sundays.
This phenomenon is called the Sunday Blues or the Sunday Scaries. This is not just an issue for working people who are not engaged in what they do, this is also know for unemployed people who see the new week as a new source of stress and personal trauma. In reality this is not about what you do, this is all about your vision of your life, how you create it, who you are being.
When you imagine that sleeping is one the most important source of fuel and energy in our existence, I let you imagine the disastrous effects the Sunday scaries have on your life, all along your lifetime, 1/3 of this precious time allowed.
I spent the first chapter of my professional life living with it, thinking that I was weird, not normal. So, I isolated myself, not talking about, not asking for help, until the stomach crisis became unbearable. At this time I was with my best friend from 15 years, he could not believe it until he witnessed it. I vomited all the Sunday night long, arriving physically, mentally and emotionally empty on Monday mornings, with large dark circles under the eyes. I was a real zombie, crossing my life like a ghost.
Socrates said, a long long time ago yet that “The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles”
Some common root causes of the Sunday scaries are :
Worries about work and tasks ahead
Planning for upcoming responsibilities
Worries about unfinished work from the previous week
Licensed psychotherapist Terri Cole explains that “From a psychological point of view, that transitioning from weekend mode right to work or responsibility mode, even if you like what you do, can create anxious thoughts”
So, what is the key to overcome that and to live a really fun and fulfilling life?
First idea : Why crafting your life according to your work? Why not crafting your work according to your life, your big picture, your purpose? Changing the way we see the world changes our whole world. Remember Anais Nin’s quote “We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are”
Second idea : Who are you? Have you ever reflected on that question? If yes, when was the last time?
We use to define ourselves according to the society’s labels. In reality, you are not your job, you are not your social status, you are not what you do or what you have. YOU ARE WHO YOU ARE. As a possibility this could be a good starting point to define who you are? We are full of blind spots and we never know what we never know so, why not challenging your vision of the world to craft the life you want to create and ask for help?
Third idea : Change the direction of your life. If you feel exhausted to repeat the same tasks, day after day, repeating the same habits, day after day, expecting different results, you walk in the wrong direction. Walking on the wrong direction leads to the wrong destination. When I say “wrong”, I mean following the path that is not yours. Maybe you have followed a path designed by others (your parents, or somebody else) which should have led you to the success. In spite of achieving great things and ticking all the boxes of the “common manual to happiness”, you feel empty, maybe miserable, in the worst cases not loving you neither who you are in this world. If this sounds familiar you may have moved forward like a zombie, stuck in the gigantic race to the top of the pyramid, sacrificing too much, and now you realize that the price to pay is too high and you do not want to play this game anymore. Are you a people pleaser? This is a question you could ask to yourself? If you followed a path that cause more troubles than joys, maybe yes. What about you. Who ever asked you what YOU really wanted to create in this life? Who ever asked you if you were happy and fulfilled? Who ever let you the space to speak (without being judged), to open your heart (without feeling weak by being vulnerable), to listen to you really and deeply (from a place of love and service)? Who’s got your back?
The good news is that it’s never too late to change the direction, the sense, of your life. The key is to stop rushing and start slowing down. Don’t fear to deal with the discomfort and have the courage to face and overcome your fears. They are just creation of the ego, your past experiences, and you can learn how to detach from it. The past is done, the future doesn’t exist, the only truth is in the present moment, here and now. The question is : Do you have the courage to honestly look at yourself in the mirror of your soul and commit to do the job to transform by challenging the status-quo?
Imagine just one second if all the time you sacrifice for doing things that do not fulfill you was invested in creating what is best for you? Your life, your rules, your decisions, your regrets or satisfaction. Remember Carl Jung’s quote “I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become”. You are one decision left to transform your life. Not choosing is also your decision. Be assured that your are not alone in this quest, it’s just up to you to ask for help (even if you were never taught how to ask for it). Courage is not showing-up, courage is embracing and embodying your wholeness, doing what has to be done despite the fear.
In my case, I quitted my job 7 years ago, not knowing what I would do next. My relationship with my girlfriend had been awful and toxic for both for months but I refused to accept it, we separated. Like William Shakespeare said “If you lose someone, but find yourself, you won”. I wanted to travel, I travelled. I wanted to understand what was wrong with me, I started my spiritual journey (tons of books, hours of videos and invested in trainings). I asked for help and I consulted different practitioners, psychologist, shaman, spiritual guides, medium, bio-energetics, and more. I was exhausted to run and cross my life like a rat in a treadmill and I was lost, I made a pilgrimage (Camino de Santiago), 800km walking from the French border to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I experienced and discovered everything. Each day was a new adventure in uncertainty, unknown and minimalism. As less is more, I live a sort of enlightenment. I found on the inside all the answers I used to chase on the outside. I learnt to walk before running. “I confirm what Henry Davidd Thoreau said, because I experienced it “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves”. My life’s professional purpose was confirmed; I will help people to avoid the same traps as mine and live a fulfilling life with ease and flow.
Each one has to find and walk his/her own road to fulfillment, but if I did it, you can do it. Just keep that in mind “this is your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you but no one can walk it for you” – Rumi
Fourth idea : Focus on yourself. From self-care to self-nurturing. How do you create your happiness?
1/By seeking instant rewards based on pleasure and fleeting moments of well-being (and being a slave of the emotional rollercoaster when the higher you climb, the deeper you fall). Every time you need more and more dopamine to reach the same state of satisfaction, becoming addict to artificial pleasures, increasing the dosis to reach more and more intense pleasure and, at the end, the same level of satisfaction. Is it really worthy? Don’t you have the feeling to lie to yourself? You can deceive the outside world but deep down you know that something is wrong, that you deceive yourself. You are not in peace with yourself, I know that because I was like that.
2/By creating a vision of who you want to become and then engage and commit to play full out on the long-haul. Here happiness is not a reward but a conscious creation. You accept that ups and downs are part on the process. The process, this is one of the key words with patience, commitment, consistency. You don’t avoid the efforts, because you know that there are requirements to create a sustainable life of ease and flow. When you create your happiness, you focus on the process, trust in yourself, looking in the inside to find the solutions to your inner problems. This is what we call spirituality. Nobody will save you, and there is no need to find excuses. This is about YOUR life, and YOUR accountability. Do you have a bigger responsibility than that? Ok, you can reply “my job, my team, my kids” and that’s fine. Imagine the concept that you can only give and share what you got. What will you give and share if you are not able to create the best for yourself first?
Epictetus said : “you become what you give your attention to”
What do you give your attention to? How do you treat yourself? This question has to find answers from a holistic approach. “Mens sana in corpore sano”. How do you manage your 5 bodies (physical, psychological, emotional, energetic and spiritual)? How do you manage your energy?
Fifth idea : “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”. This quote by Viktor Frankl reminds us the importance of Being. Taking the leadership of our life first, above the situation itself. Situations are neutral, the difference is made by the way we handle them, the decisions we make, who we are BEING in these perpetual and infinite crossroads of life. When you consider that you cannot or better said, do not want to change the situation, reflect on who you are being when the painful situations happen. Write down your thoughts, your emotions, try to identify the roots of the pain. Pain in inevitable, suffering is. You decide. Remember this powerful quote by The Ultimate Coach Steve Hardison “Being always precedes doing”.
Most people follow a path called Do-Have-Be. Our Being is conditioned by our achievements, what we do, and possessions, what we have. We reduce ourselves to a label, often forgetting along the way the purpose and the meaning of our life. Money and status cannot buy sustainable happiness for example. They can buy temporary pleasures. Again, money and status are not bad from the moment they are a consequence and not a goal. Some quotes from Robert Lustig to explain it “When the reward becomes our first goal, it makes the bed of addiction, which is the exact opposite of happiness” and “Pleasure (reward) is the emotional state where your brain says, This feels good—I want more, while happiness (contentment) is the emotional state where your brain says, This feels good—I don’t want or need any more”. When you move forward in integrity with who are, aligning your thoughts and emotions, honoring your Word, and commit to play the long haul for that goal, walking your walk, one step at the time, you feel free and at peace. What better game to play than being fully yourself? And like Oscar Wilde said “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”
Sunday is just a day more in the week, a metric, a measuring element to locate in time, there is no reason for it to be a source of pain. The real question is how to you want to create your life, week days or weak daze?
“Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself. So live the life you imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau
Prince EA’s Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2NDQOgGycg
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