Finally I graduated and I’m not burnt out!

Until now, work-life balance felt like a myth. I struggled through four years of undergrad before learning how to respect myself, my time and my health. Now I can finally look back and see how far I've come.

Yesterday, we graduated! I’m not going to dwell on how underwhelming virtual graduation was, because it’s actually okay. I’d rather be underwhelmed than overwhelmed. 

Last year when I graduated with my bachelor’s we did the full shebang: my family came up to California to celebrate with me, we had all the ceremonies - black grad, grad mass, commencement ceremony in the stadium and the department ceremony under a huge tent on the main quad. I walked across the stage and got my diploma and introduced my family to my friends and we took hella pictures and I said goodbye to my friends and packed up my room and finished my final assignments and took down all our dorm decorations and played my last pan gig all in the span of one week. And that was all well and good but I’d be lying to you if I said it wasn’t utterly overwhelming. 

snapshots from graduation 2019

Senior year had been my most stressful year of university, which made sense. I'd push through hard times, burn out at the end, then try to sleep it off and come back stronger after a period of rest.

The thing is that time to rest isn’t always enough. I could journal and self care and sleep and talk to my parents about how the next year would be different, but at the end of the day I couldn't do it on my own and I didn't get the help I needed until things started literally falling apart.

It broke my heart when I searched old chats a couple weeks ago and found that since my very first quarter at Stanford, I'd talked about going to counseling. But it took me years to make that appointment. I don’t believe in dwelling on regret, but there is a part of me that wonders how much easier my university experience could have been had I made that call early on, way back in November 2015.

2015 conversation

Fast forward to October 2019. I’m in a one-year master’s program and starting to spiral hard. I will not dwell on that either but I will say it was a dark time. We’ve all had them. I think for me, it was inevitable. 

I’d like to say that I made that counseling appointment last year because I finally saw the light and got the courage to make the call but that’s not true. It’s only because I went to the doctor for some physical symptoms - some of which were stress-related - and she told me to make an appointment upstairs with the counseling services.

So I did. 

A week later I had my first ever one on one appointment with a therapist and it changed my life. 

I’ve talked about this in other posts and I will keep saying it because therapy taught me self-respect and gave me tools for coping. I felt validated and empowered in a way I hadn't before.

Side note before I continue: This is not to say that I haven't been surrounded by extremely support family, friends, teachers and mentors. I have and I am so grateful for that. But therapists are therapists for a reason. They are trained professionals. This is their specialty. Friends and family can be amazingly supportive but they aren't therapists, and they shouldn't have to be. 

And another side note: I know I have immense privilege in having access to therapy and in finding an amazing therapist the first time around. A lot of people don't have access, or can't afford, or have long-wait times, or have to try different therapists before finding someone they can vibe with. For many, the system sucks. Maybe things are changing, or maybe I'm still one of the very lucky ones. That's another discussion. Okay, back with the program.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that now that I’m an adult, it’s up to me to parent myself, console myself, take care of myself, respect myself and hold space for myself. It meant setting boundaries in my personal relationships. It meant pushing through present discomfort to save my future self from even more discomfort. It meant going to bed when I was tired instead of falling asleep with the lights on because I was trying to work even as my eyes were drooping. It meant eating proper meals, on time, instead of working without food and using food as a reward.

Another big element was the idea of holding space for myself, physically and emotionally. Accommodating my needs above other people’s needs. Seeing myself as someone worthy of expressing and owning my feelings without feeling like I’m taking up too much space.

In short, therapy empowered me. At least once during our sessions, I thank my therapist for helping me through and she always says, "Thank yourself. You're the one going back and implementing what we talk about." She says this every time and it got me thinking, huh, I guess I really am doing the work. I'm making the changes.

Here’s what that looked like in real life. 

This quarter, when the pandemic turned all of our worlds upside down, I decided to prioritize work-life balance. When we were ordered to stay home mid-March, my roommate and I started cooking meals on evenings and watching shows and movies at night. It was a great routine, and easy to keep up during spring break. But when classes started back in April, I was worried that schoolwork would take over. 

photo (& food) cred to my roommate David

Then I thought: why do things have to change? Why can’t I work during the day, and be free on evenings? So said, so done. In the past, before therapy, I always felt I knew exactly what I needed to do to get back on track but couldn't figure out how to do it. That changed. Therapy helped me bridge the gap between talk and action.

I’m not going to pretend that working from home didn’t make things easier. I can’t say that any of this would have happened had this year been pandemic-free and business as usual.

working from home sometimes looked
like this LOL (also isn't she the
CUTEST!)

Because I was working from home, I didn’t have to worry about waking up 2 hours before my classes to get ready and catch the bus. Instead, I could roll out of bed 5 minutes before class time, and log onto Zoom, no problem. That meant 2 extra hours of sleep!

I didn’t have to worry about packing lunch everyday or finding spots to work on campus. I could lay down during the day to restore energy between tasks. I could do mac & cheese on the spot if I was hungry.

Still, I’m really proud of myself for protecting my evenings and  valuing that cooking and tv-time with my roommate. I didn't blow it all off for work. I feel like that’s such a norm in university: at any given time or day, you could be working. Work is always hanging over your head. Even when I was relaxing or tired, I felt pressured to work and exhaust every last bit of energy I had because the assignment had to get done at all costs. 

That didn’t happen this time.  I confined my work to “work-hours” as much as I could. I did what I could and whatever I didn’t finish by 5 or 6pm I’d save for the next day.

It was frustrating because my work pace was slower than it’s ever been (plus we're in a global pandemic, so I cut myself some slack there). I had to adjust to the fact that I could only do so much.

Of course, there were some days I had to work for longer. But that was no longer the norm, and over time, I found that I couldn’t work after a certain hour even if I tried. I am better off because of it. 

This is the first time I’ve finished a school year not feeling utterly burnt out and unable to function. Looking back, it’s because I was not working until I had nothing left to give. I slept, rested, cooked, relaxed. And guess what? The work still got done! I still graduated. And I am proud of where I’m at. 

lil grad 2020 selfie
(taken from my bed)

Before this year, I would have been rattled and repulsed by the thought of doing any ounce of work after the end of the school year. I usually cannot function for a while after school ends. Now, I feel normal. I have the energy to tie up loose ends (ie my thesis).

I know that not everyone has the luxury of work-life balance. I feel lucky that I do. There’s a part of me that wonders if this will all change when I’m working for real and feel a new sense of pressure to excel at my job.  And I'm still figuring out how to balance and maintain personal relationships while prioritizing my own wellbeing. But there’s a bigger part of me that knows that I’ll be okay. 

I'll be okay because I've learned to respect myself, and that's something no job or person can ever take away.