Do you ever feel overwhelmed by a barrage of demands for your time? I know I have and I often shout to no one in particular, but to the universe, “could you please just give me a break!”
Having just read a scientific article about self-compassion, I learned that giving yourself a break is the least likely act of compassion you will offer to anyone. So, give yourself a break too.
We’re living in a world that presses hard against us to keep up, to produce perfect products and services, and to look good doing it. I’m thinking we need a break to avoid a breakdown.
I believe it’s workplace law that employees are given a break, maybe two in the course of their work day. So, if you’re self-employed, break free from the grinding demands of your work, and take a break or two throughout your day. Retired folks, too, live in a culture that expects everyone to keep busy and work at something, even if it’s not an official job, and need a break every now and then.
School children are given a break during the course of their studies, for play as in recess, or at least for quiet, as in study hall. Everyone needs to be cut a break sometime.
After having a break, we often feel able to go about our tasks with renewed vitality. Studies have proven that mid-day naps are revitalizing to workers. They come back to work as if it were a new day. The same can be said for exercise which is both relaxing and energizing.
Separating yourself, even for a moment, from stressful events, the ongoing pressure of work, relationship-keeping, staying on top of the stuff of life, etc. is a remedy to day-time fatigue. A walk around the block, a visit to a park, even walking down your driveway can lighten your burden. It’s called breathing space when you interrupt the building chain of events toward burnout.
So, before you crack up, take a break. A bit of trivia about “cracking up” – we of a certain generation had heard in some form, “she cracked up and went to the funny farm.” That was well before making such comments landed you in social prison. At any rate, we grew up saying that hilarious things “cracked me up.”
I found some roots for the phrase, “cracked me up.” Apparently, 17th century makeup applied to a woman’s face thickly would break or crack when she laughed. So, laughter became associated with having a breakdown, supposedly a funny one.
And fortunately, we’ve “come a long way baby,” since attributing all breakdowns to hysterical women, labeled such, because untrained male doctors in antiquity thought any anomaly in women was directly attributed to her having a uterus (Greek/hystera). Thus, all women were considered broken and prone to hysteria, cracking up, and potentially destined for the funny farm. A sad lesson in history which has been remedied a million times over, thank God.
On the contrary, I’m delighted to know of the Japanese Kintsukuroi tradition which in a sense celebrates brokenness. I was reminded of this tradition when in a dream, I preserved a bowl I had broken, in the freezer. You may have seen Kintsukuroi bowls in works of art. They repair broken bowls by filling in the cracks (I think of them as faces with wrinkles) with gold, creating a work of art.
And Jesus promises in Luke 4 to have fulfilled the Isaiah 61 prophecy, to lovingly “bind up and heal the broken-hearted.” In fact, he was known to give preferential attention to broken creatures over the arrogant, self-serving ones who fix themselves, thank you.
I will conclude this tome with the phrase of good tidings offered liberally in the performing arts, break a leg. Essentially reverse psychology, to appease the spirits of fate, I prefer it with the Yiddish definition of “success & blessing” or Godspeed which offers a break from the universe in the form of success, prosperity, good fortune, advancement, or even generosity. So, break a leg, ya’ll.