For the past three weeks, I've been tired.
Not the ‘I got 4 hours of sleep’ tired, or the ‘I’m so stressed I’m about to cry’ tired. It’s more of the ‘I want to sleep all day, and when I wake up I’m still tired’ variety.
And well, now that there’s not much else to do, sleeping is how I keep busy. I sleep. All day. I wake up incredibly tired, so I go right back to it. Yes, I have things I should be doing, but I just say, ‘tomorrow will be the day,’ and resume my slumber. I do nothing except play the piano an hour a day and maybe Animal Crossing if I’m feeling really ambitious. I might go for a twenty minute run before I give up and return to my bed.
Then I read Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. It was for an assignment for college, and yes, something I had put off by napping. However, I became hooked as I read. I felt as if it were written just for me. Most importantly, the book helped me come to a realization.
In the book, there is a part where Brené includes writing from one of her role models, Colonel DeDe Halfhill. She is the director of innovation, analysis and leadership development for Air Force Global Strike Command. In this section, Colonel Halfhill referenced a Harvard Business Review article about how exhaustion can stem from loneliness. When she asked her group of 40 people, who claimed they were tired, whether they were lonely as well, about a third raised their hand.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. I’ve been quarantined for three months now, actually following social distancing protocol. I don’t leave my house unless it’s to go for a run around the neighborhood. I'm tired because I'm lonely.
But the reason this loneliness is taking over my life, the reason I can’t do anything besides sleep, is because I’m not living my values.
Later in the book, Brené talks about how values are the cornerstone of each person, our driving force. They’re what we live by. In her book, she challenged me to pick two, providing a list for reference.
Two values. Not twenty, not ten, not even five. Two. More than two, she explained, and we might as well have no values at all. It took a lot of introspection, but I landed on the values of faith and connection.
Having faith as a value kind of feels like cheating. The way I strive to live out my faith, Catholicism, encompasses so many other values on her list: love, respect, understanding, equality, patience, family, gratitude--I could go on. All my fundamental beliefs and who I want to be, wrapped up in a single value.
The other value is connection. I hate just being someone’s ‘coworker’ or ‘classmate’: I strive to be their friend. Learn what makes them tick. Listen to their story. Feel welcomed to share my own. That’s connection.
Brené goes on to say that we should be able to identify not only when we are living our values, but when we aren’t. She provided three questions to help me do this, and I was stuck on one in particular: “What are three slippery behaviors that are outside your value[s]?” (Brown 193). To be honest, at first I skipped through this question. I couldn’t think of a concrete behavior, much less three, that was outside my values.
Now, all of this seems tangential to my original topic, which is constantly being tired. But as I woke up today at 9pm from my two hour ‘nap’, (after waking up at noon on the same day, mind you) I finally knew the answer to Brené’s question.
My slippery behaviors are the choices I’m making right now.
For a while now, I have been living outside my value of faith. I haven’t been engaging with my youth group. We’ve had many Zoom prayers that I haven’t attended. I don’t pay much attention in church, which is now live streamed to my living room. I pray when I remember to, which isn’t often. And when I do pray, I always ask for something. I’m drifting away from God, and therefore, my values. Here, the loneliness begins to set in.
Not the ‘I got 4 hours of sleep’ tired, or the ‘I’m so stressed I’m about to cry’ tired. It’s more of the ‘I want to sleep all day, and when I wake up I’m still tired’ variety.
And well, now that there’s not much else to do, sleeping is how I keep busy. I sleep. All day. I wake up incredibly tired, so I go right back to it. Yes, I have things I should be doing, but I just say, ‘tomorrow will be the day,’ and resume my slumber. I do nothing except play the piano an hour a day and maybe Animal Crossing if I’m feeling really ambitious. I might go for a twenty minute run before I give up and return to my bed.
Then I read Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. It was for an assignment for college, and yes, something I had put off by napping. However, I became hooked as I read. I felt as if it were written just for me. Most importantly, the book helped me come to a realization.
In the book, there is a part where Brené includes writing from one of her role models, Colonel DeDe Halfhill. She is the director of innovation, analysis and leadership development for Air Force Global Strike Command. In this section, Colonel Halfhill referenced a Harvard Business Review article about how exhaustion can stem from loneliness. When she asked her group of 40 people, who claimed they were tired, whether they were lonely as well, about a third raised their hand.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. I’ve been quarantined for three months now, actually following social distancing protocol. I don’t leave my house unless it’s to go for a run around the neighborhood. I'm tired because I'm lonely.
But the reason this loneliness is taking over my life, the reason I can’t do anything besides sleep, is because I’m not living my values.
Later in the book, Brené talks about how values are the cornerstone of each person, our driving force. They’re what we live by. In her book, she challenged me to pick two, providing a list for reference.
Two values. Not twenty, not ten, not even five. Two. More than two, she explained, and we might as well have no values at all. It took a lot of introspection, but I landed on the values of faith and connection.
Having faith as a value kind of feels like cheating. The way I strive to live out my faith, Catholicism, encompasses so many other values on her list: love, respect, understanding, equality, patience, family, gratitude--I could go on. All my fundamental beliefs and who I want to be, wrapped up in a single value.
The other value is connection. I hate just being someone’s ‘coworker’ or ‘classmate’: I strive to be their friend. Learn what makes them tick. Listen to their story. Feel welcomed to share my own. That’s connection.
Brené goes on to say that we should be able to identify not only when we are living our values, but when we aren’t. She provided three questions to help me do this, and I was stuck on one in particular: “What are three slippery behaviors that are outside your value[s]?” (Brown 193). To be honest, at first I skipped through this question. I couldn’t think of a concrete behavior, much less three, that was outside my values.
Now, all of this seems tangential to my original topic, which is constantly being tired. But as I woke up today at 9pm from my two hour ‘nap’, (after waking up at noon on the same day, mind you) I finally knew the answer to Brené’s question.
My slippery behaviors are the choices I’m making right now.
For a while now, I have been living outside my value of faith. I haven’t been engaging with my youth group. We’ve had many Zoom prayers that I haven’t attended. I don’t pay much attention in church, which is now live streamed to my living room. I pray when I remember to, which isn’t often. And when I do pray, I always ask for something. I’m drifting away from God, and therefore, my values. Here, the loneliness begins to set in.
As for connection--I’ve been talking regularly to the same one, maybe two people the entire quarantine. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking to these people. I am open with them about what I’m feeling; I form stronger connections with them every day. When they’re not available, however, I feel useless. Instead of reaching out to new people, or rekindling old friendships, I wallow in boredom. In those moments, it seems as though no one is there for me.
Of course I’m lonely. Of course I’m tired. Instead of leaning into my values, instead of being who I am, I gave up. For the past few weeks, I haven’t been myself. I was a shell, going through the motions. Because of my choices and actions, I became exhausted. And instead of confronting this, I chose to sleep through it.
Brené’s book gave me an insight I never asked for, yet desperately needed. Our values are not just an important part of us, they are us. I implore you to find yours. And when you just don’t feel right, try thinking about how you’re living your values--or if you’re living them at all. I certainly wasn’t.
But tomorrow is a new day. And hopefully, a day that I don’t sleep my values away.
Find your own values:
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown: https://www.amazon.com/Dare-to-Lead-Brene-Brown-audiobook/dp/B07DJYFLX8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2FACEZKFVF21Z&dchild=1&keywords=dare+to+lead+brene+brown&qid=1591416420&sprefix=dare+to+lead%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1
Works Cited
Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead. Random House, 2018, New York.
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