Consistency and Self-Compassion

How I recovered from burnout and emotional exhaustion — journal prompts, meditation, exposure therapy, and the small consistent choices that built a good life.

We create a good life through many small choices.

I am inordinately happy about being 41, maybe because I had such a great time leading up to April 2nd 2025. Not to jinx it, but 2025 has been my year so far. I’ve been pushing myself so much it's become a habit. Weird how my brain now registers anxious feelings that come with trying something new as excitement and not a signal to retreat. Odd how stagnation now rings alarm bells in my soul where once upon a time the familiarity that is intrinsic to being in the same spot year in year out was my idea of heaven. Comfort zone scares me now. It's really true that you can retrain your mind with enough practice and consistency. Alhamdulillah.

My journey is unending, but I remember promising to share how I recovered from burnout/emotional exhaustion/self-diagnosed PTSD. It didn’t happen overnight. I still remember the day I realised I was free from the claws of that constant sinking feeling of dread and heavy fog that didn’t let me enjoy anything. Too much had gone undone and ignored in my life. Emotions went unprocessed. Dreams unfulfilled. Hard conversations… they were never had. Slowly, I forced myself to work through the grief from the back-to-back losses of loved ones, the disappointment of not living up to my potential, the guilt of not showing up authentically in relationships, and, most importantly, I dropped the Superwoman cape and allowed myself to be human. Fallible.

First I got a journal. In it I planned my day purposefully using these prompts:

1. What item on my Anxiety List am I tackling today?
2. What am I most grateful for?
3. What quality am I bringing to the world today?
4. What am I struggling with?
5. What did I learn yesterday?
6. Cognitive Distortions
7. Screentime

Then I started a 30-Day anxiety management course, taking meticulous notes and integrating what I learnt into my daily habits and routines. One thing that was pivotal to my healing was facing my fears early. I realised that the more time passed the bigger the monster grew. Slay it in its infancy.

Meditation was next; Thubten’s method works best for me.

My journal became my accountability partner. I would write the same goal in my journal every day until I stepped forward and achieved it. On the 2nd of September 2024, I did a visualisation exercise where I vividly imagined my private practice. Here is what I wrote:

“WHAT MY PRIVATE PRACTICE WILL LOOK LIKE”

• A small cozy office that smells great
• warm and friendly receptionist
• professional assessment, treatment plan and schedule
• clients will have limited access to me between sessions

On the 6th of September 2024 I viewed the office space that is now home to my private practice. About a week after the visualisation exercise, I had an office. I love my office so much. It is everything I dreamt and more. I only viewed one other place before it, and once I saw it I was sold.

Just like that, this thing I had been so afraid of doing, put off for years, I did it. The best part was the experience of having my sister plan and decorate it for/with me. Amazing.

I learnt how to build a website with a template. Me. Zainab. The person who only learnt how to switch phones herself in 2022. I am so terribly tech-challenged, but I pushed myself and figured out how to link a booking app, payment portal etc to my website. I even overcame my aversion to photography and took photos myself. When my tech friend heard how much the template website cost ($300 a year) he was alarmed and sent me a professional who migrated everything for me to wordpress at a fraction of the cost. Sorted.

Next, I tackled unsubstantiated claims so oft-repeated they had become facts. Gardening. I have always believed I can’t grow anything so when I saw a flyer for Salmar’s Gardening Class, I was like… Why not? I had a great time and learnt ALOT. I also realised that gardening is not relaxing at all. The peace I was promised never came; anxiety galore instead. Moving seedlings from one spot to the other, redditing soil mixes, figuring out where morning sun was optimal etc. In the midst of all this, I was also trying to make compost. Kai. One day I just snapped. I threw out the seedlings, bought ugu seeds and started growing ugu in the shade. I made a soil mix of equal parts sand, topsoil and manure and just let nature do its thing.

In January, I conquered my fear of heights, pools and swimming in a few hours. Sunrise Waterpark. Altered my brain chemistry permanently. Exposure therapy really works. I’ll write a separate post on Sunrise cos… wow.

March I got an amazing opportunity to work in a space I’ve been afraid of. Most mental health professionals would be too, I guess. SGBV. I’ve been lucky with bosses in the last decade plus, field-experts willing to teach, and this time is no different. Prof is trying to make a researcher out of me. SMH. Let’s see.

April 1st I became a home-schooling mom. A maawwm. I still chuckle when I remember making fun of homeschooling just a few months prior. It seemed ridicuolous and unnecessarily super-parenty. Yet here I am almost four months in and loving the results. Not the process though. Not that.

Written May 2025