In my previous entry I wrote about why I’m simplifying my life and getting rid of the fluff (things that don’t make sense or don’t work for me). I also wrote in this other entry about why I’m choosing purpose over money and career advancement. I’m currently exploring and experimenting with alternative ways of doing things but I don’t have it all figured out yet.

So far, this simple living project looks like decluttering my life and choosing meaningful work over ambition. But I have been thinking about a third very important element that this simple living project needs to take into account: my own nervous system. Not all nervous systems are the same. Our capacity to take on things like workload, daily stressors or sensory input without reaching the breaking point varies a great deal from person to person.

I personally have always had a sensitive nervous system. There are many things that overwhelm me like big crowds, loud and/or constant noise, strong smells, overload of information, the mysterious world of the unsaid, etc. I stop functioning when I push my nervous system too far so I need to look after it.

For many years I thought having a sensitive nervous system was a flaw and I tried to do and live as I saw other people were doing. That did not go well. At some point, my poor nervous system was so unwell I was having vertigo attacks almost every day and later on I had a bad burnout. That period of burnout made me realise two things: 1) I do not have to measure myself against other people and 2) we all have different nervous systems, some people can take on a lot more than others.

Since learning those two lessons I have been thinking about my nervous system capacity in terms of nervous system credits. The way I see it is like this: we are all born with a particular nervous system that has a predetermined number of credits. These credits inform us how much we can take on in terms of workload, daily stressors or sensory input without reaching the breaking point. Some people have a lot of nervous system credits and some have much less. The nervous system credits also let us know what our threshold is and that if we cross that threshold our nervous system can burn out. The degree of burnout will depend on how far we went beyond the threshold and for how long.

Another thing that I learnt about my nervous system capacity is that it is flexible within reason. I can stretch my nervous system capacity a little bit by gently going beyond that threshold for a reasonable amount of time and then giving myself plenty of rest. But I can never try to substantially change the nature of my nervous system by going too far beyond that threshold for too long because that can have pretty serious consequences.

I’m learning to look after myself and have been making a few life changes so that my life feels mine and not someone else’s version of perfect. I reduced my work hours to 20 hrs a week, work from home most days, my outings and social time are less frequent, I have plenty of quiet time every week and reduced my interests and projects to only a couple at a time. My income got reduced too but it’s worth it. I have been feeling so much better and my creativity is back too.

This whole thing of measuring my life against my own capacity, values and abilities is a relatively new development. I’m still working on it but the few changes I’ve made so far have improved my quality of life enormously. This hasn’t been my own doing, of course, my workplace has been amazing at providing plenty of flexibility and my whānau has been wonderfully supportive. I am grateful for this and aware of how big a privilege it is. I want to keep that in mind because being well is never a product of our effort alone.