Chaplain's Corner

Running out of steam – that’s right – it happened to me back in August about a week before I had some vacation time scheduled. You’ve experienced it, we all do; it is that feeling we get when we have pushed ourselves just a little farther than we should have, when our will power isn’t strong enough to pump up our motivation high enough to move us from lethargy to productivity. When this happens a number of things can result.

One thing is we aren’t very productive, we may go through the motions of our job or other responsibilities, but we certainly are not able to be as productive as we would be generally. With this lack of productivity guilt follows. We feel guilty for our lack of productivity, for letting the others we work with down, for not pulling our weight. But this starts a downward cycle, the guiltier we feel for running out of steam, the more energy that guilt consumes and the more out of steam we feel and the cycle spirals downward.

So…I guess the solution then is we need to know ourselves and live within the limitations of our own strength and ability. Knowing ourselves is more easily said than done though. Some believe self-examination is a dangerous thing, others believe it is the beginning of personal growth and development. I think it is essential for a healthy, balanced life.

It is fairly hard to be totally unaware of oneself. I’m not sure that this is even true of someone in a comatose condition or worse a “vegetative” condition. We just don’t know what awareness these folks may or may not have. We can however choose either to gaze so deeply into our soul that we lose perspective, or conversely we can chose to reject our self-awareness which is equally dangerous.

Comparing a person to a machine is rarely a helpful thing, but in this case we may be able to do it to make a point. I own a push lawnmower with a 3.5 horsepower motor. It is quite enough for my yard in the city. I have had it now for almost ten years and besides one tune up, it starts every time, cuts the crass quite well and is quite reliable. My son lives on 2.5 acres a mile past Fort Whyte Centre. At times his “grass” gets quite high (he’s much busier than I and not nearly as fastidious about his lawn as his dad is). Suppose I tried to use my mower to cut 2.5 acres of long grass. My mover would most likely breakdown – why? Because I would be expecting it to do more than it was designed to do.

That’s the point, we mustn’t push ourselves beyond what we are designed to do, for if we do, we will breakdown. The breakdown may be physically. I have known people who push their bodies beyond their physical capacity and they end up injured. I did this a few years back. I had 20 sidewalk blocks that weighted 125 pounds each. Now for some this wouldn’t be a problem. But I haven’t worked a manual labor job since I was in seminary backing the mid 70’s. I am not an athletic fellow and never have been and although I’m not particularly a little fellow, lifting these 125 lbs sidewalk blocks 20 times in a row into the trunk of my care and then 20 times again out of the trunk of my car pushed my back beyond it’s capacity. I had a sore back for a couple of months. You’ve done something similar I’m sure – you get it.

We can also push ourselves beyond our limits mentally. Mental stress can be a bit harder to discern. When I looked at the sidewalk blocks I knew in the back of my mind – “I’m going to hurt myself” but I did it anyway. I wanted them moved and the help I had asked for just took too long in coming so I did it, knowing there was a very good chance, almost a certainty that I would hurt myself. It is harder to discern whether a mental, emotional or spiritual challenge is too much – beyond our capacity.

Back in August I was close to doing that. It had been a long time since the end of March when I took my last break from work. In that time a lot had happened, none of the things were overwhelming in and of themselves, but some times it is the cumulative build-up that pushes us beyond our capacity. The spring and summer saw some significant changes at work with the amalgamation of the RHAs getting underway. Not radical changes it was more the uncertainty of what all the changes would mean, an uncertainty that persisted throughout the spring, summer and well into the fall. There were new staff members to get to know and adjust to, a new boss, ten deaths at Bethesda Place in ten weeks plus those that I was involved with at the hospital. There was a major project that I had been very involved with that wrapped up – but not without me pushing the others involved to get their material to me so that I could tie up all the lose ends. You get the picture. On top of that there was family stuff and personal stuff and my mental rubber bands were getting stitched close to breaking.

We need to be honest with ourselves and know our limits emotionally and spiritually, for when we have breakdowns in one of these areas, healing often takes a lot longer and can be complicated. An emotional breakdown comes when we attempt to carry an emotional load that is too heavy or spiritual overload may come because we refuse to deal with things like guilt and share surrounding a perceived or real moral failure in our lives. Feeling estranged from God is very exhausting and when that estrangement is related to a failure on our part, the alienation we feel can be overwhelming.

The spiritual stress we create when we are fighting against God is described by David in the Psalms. He described it in this way: “O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long?” (Ps  6:1-3). Or, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent (refused to confess the sin), my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD” – and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” Ps. 32:1-5). Many of us know all too well the terrible toll that must be paid when we are resisting God.

So, we need to know our limits and learn to live within them. Taking the time off we need to not push our bodies beyond their capacity. Being mindful of our mental health and guarding it when the stresses get too heavy. Reflecting on our emotional capacities and making choices to live within those limits and last but not least, realizing that in the same was we have spiritual limits that if we push beyond them will resulting something breaking.

There are no super men or women: physically, emotionally and spiritually we all have limits that we need to respect. We all having different capacities, but we also all have limits and we do ourselves, our families and friends, and our employers a favor when we feel ourselves reaching a limit and make a choice to do what is necessary to back away from the brink and take care of ourselves so that we can recover and regain our capacities so that we can live, work, care, love another day. If you are nearing one of your limits – please do what you need to do to back away from that edge and take care of yourself. God bless!