“Maybe it was that year, but maybe it was my whole life: survival, school, family, friendships, relationships. I’d always kind of suppressed it.” – The Weeknd
The Cost of Suppression
Suppression is one of the most common coping strategies humans use. We push difficult emotions, stress, and unprocessed experiences down so we can keep functioning. For example, crying on the train or in the toilet before wiping away the tears and coming out of the station or toilet as if nothing has happened. And in the short term, it works well.
The Weeknd performed through high fevers, breakups, deaths in the family. He always kept going.
But psychologist James Pennebaker’s research on emotional suppression shows that consistently pushing down feelings doesn’t make them disappear as it just increases the physiological load on your body. The stress has to go somewhere. For The Weeknd, it went to his voice.
This connects to somatic theory which is the idea that the body stores what the mind refuses to process. Unprocessed stress and trauma don’t just live in your thoughts. They live in your body and your nervous system.
“My voice has always been my secret weapon. My superpower, to get through whatever I need to get through. And in that moment, reality hit: Everything can change after this moment.”
The Rat Race That Never Ends
Instead of pushing through again, he sat down and looked at his life honestly.
“It never ends until you end it,” he said in an interview about the pursuit of more accolades, more success, more albums, more awards, more number ones.
Living in a ‘more is better’ culture, the feeling of burnout can become that much needed self-assurance that we are valuable, but being tired all the time isn’t the flex we all think it is. Challenging that perspective may take a while.
Start by telling yourself that being busy and always in a hurry does not make you more important, just more tired. It may take awhile to get used to the slower pace and “silence” but after a while you’ll find the lull periods of life wonderful.
Read more to manage burnout:
Managing emotions
Inside Out 2: Navigating teenage confusion
Gifs taken from Tenor
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