It's not the drop, it's the vase

Let me tell you the story of a girl named Lu... Clem.

As you might know, I recently moved back to France after 15 years in Germany. Had to shut down Yoga with Clem there and open it again here.

I bought a house. And if you've ever bought a house, you know how insane it is that you have to decide to pay hundreds of thousands of euros for a place you've seen for about 20 minutes. So it usually comes with a lot of surprises.

I also lost one of my pets to the heat wave. My darling chinchilla. It hurt. Still does.

But at the same time, a few of my videos became viral on social media, and at the time I'm writing this, I have over 50,000 people following me (against maybe 500 before?) I have finally managed to build a lovely community.

So that's a lot. And a lot of it is really good.

The reason I'm telling you all of this is because I've been struggling with my emotions regarding this whole thing.

I have been feeling SO STRESSED. And also guilty because I'm so lucky, and proud and feeling accomplished, so why am I stressed? I should just be happy.

But what I've realised, and this is where my story might become helpful to you, is... that I want you to picture a vase.

Every source of stress pours a little water into it: work, family, poor sleep, deadlines. But positive stress counts too! A new job, an exciting project... going viral on Instagram. Your nervous system doesn't sort stress into "good" and "bad". It all goes into the same vase.

Researchers call this cumulative cost of adapting to stress "allostatic load". It's hard to measure precisely and the research is still evolving, but the idea is simple: the load builds up over time, until one tiny drop makes it overflow.

The week you crash is rarely the week that caused it. It's not that you did do too much one particular week. You've just been doing (or carrying) too much for months.

So for me, my allostatic load has been... heavy. So I figured: I have to pour some water out of my vase. The last thing I need is to add a new routine, or an extra workout. When the vase is full, adding anything, even something healthy, just adds more water.

So I did the opposite, and I'd like you to try that too.

Choose one thing to take out. One commitment you can drop, one evening you can keep empty, one "should" you can let go of, one little thing that can definitely wait. I'm sure you can find one.

Something small maybe, but it makes room.

Let me know how it goes :)

Clem