Hello Reader

I personally believe that health is not a privilege. It's not something you are granted or born into.

I believe that health is a responsibility.

I recently shared with you that I labeled my experience as burn out, years after the fact. It was this great talk by Dr. Jacinta Jimenez : "Buffering against burn out" that illuminated me.

In it, she shared that there are 6 common mismatches that can lead to burn out:

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• Values: When your core personal values are not in alignment with the values of your team or the company culture
• Fairness: When the opportunities to get promoted are not available
• Workload: When the expectations from the job exceed your ability to work, or you are asked to perform tasks tahat are beyond your job description
• Reward: When your work is not recognized, acknowledged, or when you don't get credit for your contribution
• Community: When you have little social support or lack belonging
• Control: When you are not in charge of your schedule and have no control over your time

This shed a new light on my experience in the lab because I checked 5 out of 6.
Among these mismatches, 3 were due to my work place.

At some point, I was prospecting for jobs to transition to at the end of my post doc. But I was then told by my boss that I could expect to be promoted if I stayed. I loved the project I was working on and was very involved, so I decided to stick with it.

But this was an empty promise. In fact, I sort of got demoted. Then things went down hill in the following months. In part because of those 3 mismatches.

But also in part due to my own doing:
- I was terrible at managing my work load. I was saying yes to too many things. I had no system to prioritize tasks or projects. I also spent long days at the bench, just being the perfect example of the Parkinson's law (work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion). I was in the lab every day of the week, not taking weekends or much time off.
- I was incredibly lonely. Having moved from a different continent, I didn't have the social support I had back home. I also had been such a workaholic that I had not invested any time in making new friends and building meaningful relationships here.

Beyond this list, my life-depleting habits were contributing to depression, anxiety, and an incredibly negative outlook on life. In particular my drinking habits, poor sleep and absolutely no management of stress. I was not able to cope with the burn out.

I ended up with no work opportunity, at the end of my rope with academia and research.
I was overwhelmed with the devastating feeling of waste (all my work, years of training, had been for nothing).

This was one of the most challenging times of my life.

What saved me and allowed me to crawl out of the hole of despair I was finding myself in, was the decision to take responsibility for the parts of my burn out that were my own doing.

Every time I thought about the parts of my work environment that led me there, I found myself slipping in blaming others, resentment and bitterness. I was angry. I wanted revenge. I felt powerless.

Thinking this way kept me stuck in the negative hole of despair. Worst: resentment and anger was the equivalent of digging the hole deeper.

However, tapping into the sense of responsibility was empowering.

Because when taking responsibility, I could stop drinking. As I quit drinking, I had control over depression and anxiety was not as crippling anymore.
Because when taking responsibility, I could make my mindfulness practice more consistent. As I did, managing my emotions and my stress were possible.
Because when taking responsibility, I could make changes in my diet and sleep that gave me energy all day and incredible focus.
Because when taking responsibility, I could give more time to relationships and self care. As I did, I came back to life.

Taking responsibility was the one shift that changed everything.

The one shift that gave me a path. It allowed me to become the optimistic, positive, balanced and relaxed person that I am today.

The way I see it, we have two major responsibilities:

Responsibility to self

Responsibility to people we love and who love us

(I have talked about the latter in my email last week).

We don't want to put a burden on our life. And we don't want to be a burden on the people we're close to.

For this, we have to take responsibility of our health. We have to let go of life-depleting habits and invest in life-giving habits to create a richer, longer life

To your richer & longer life,
with love,
Jihane

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PS: When you're ready to take full responsibility, you don't have to go on your own. My program Timeless captures the 3 transformative steps I took to feel and look 10 years younger. I am taking applications.