Ellie Update || Avoiding Burnout

Friends, fam, countrymen - lend me your ears! ;)

It's been a while since I've blogged, much less updated the folks back home on what I've been up to here in the Sight & Sound Conservatory. I can hardly believe I'm in my eighth month of being here! There's been so many good days, some really bad days, a lot of challenging days, and several plain old "meh" days. It really took till about May to get into the routine of classes, shows, and working in the extraordinary! And though I know I've grown a lot since I've gotten here, part of what this year has shown me is how much more I have to learn! 

One of my biggest growth points thus far is probably my voice - I used to struggle just doing two weeks of rehearsals and shows at my old theatre (and honestly thought I'd have a lot more vocal strain here). But now, with voice lessons, and my voice growing stronger with the sheer fact of doing 7-9 shows a week, months on end, I hardly ever struggle with weary vocals anymore! Praise the Lord! 

I do have to be honest, though - the last two months have been really hard. About mid-June, I came to a point where I was beginning to feel burnt out. I've been struggling with sickness and exhaustion more lately, and whenever that happens, Satan's lies seem to penetrate easier - "You're not good enough. You're not worthy of love. No one likes you." etc, etc, etc. 

In the last couple weeks, through the advice of friends and family, I've started to see that a big part of my burnout is my own fault. I'm the kind of person that pushes myself to the breaking point, takes a deep breath, then pushes even harder. I've been working my butt off since getting here - working through breaks, on the weekend, trying my best to do my best all the time. Which is fine. Till I break.

Needless to say, I've learned that I HAVE to have rest. I have to have times when I leave something off for later, or don't give something 100% of my energy, or just sit and literally do nothing for a bit. And the best way I can describe this is through an analogy from my acting class!

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"You need to be more still!" - Jeff's passionate voice rings out. Jeff is the headmaster of the conservatory, the Acting teacher, and also a writer and director at Sight & Sound. 

I'd been working on a scene with one of the professional actors here, and it'd been going great, but it's the second week in a row where Jeff has pointed out that I'm moving too much.

"You have great energy, but you keep cluttering it up with unnecessary movement. You don't realize how powerful you are when you just plant your feet and stand still!"

Later, one of my classmates asks me about this - "Do you feel like you have to do all this movement to look good on stage?"

I thought about it for a moment and replied, "Honestly, I don't even realize I'm doing it!" The next couple weeks, I start trying to be more still and just stand, and it feels sooooooooooooo awkward!!! But next time I do the scene, everyone agrees that it looks so much better! 

And you know what I've come to realize? I think that when I first started acting, I probably consciously thought that it looked better to move more. That that was how someone showed good energy. And as the years went by, lots of movement became a bad habit and I didn't think about it anymore. When I had to force myself to be still, it felt so wrong...but just because it felt wrong doesn't mean it was wrong! 

It's the same with life.

For the past several years of my life, I've been pushing myself at a race-track speed, hardly ever having time to take a breath and really rest. And I don't really think about it. It's engrained in me. I don't consciously think, "This is what a good, responsible person looks like." And yet, I probably started out somewhere up the road thinking that. 

And when I pull back, don't push as hard, say "no", sit and do nothing - it feels wrong. It feels like I should be doing something. But that doesn't mean that I should be. 

The Bible talks equally about diligence & hard word AS WELL AS REST! We even see God making people rest on certain days, weeks, and months throughout the Old and New Testament!

And while this year at the conservatory is, by nature, going to be stressful and taxing and harder than "real life" - God still wants me to find literal and figurative rest in Him, and my body needs it!

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Love in Christ,

Ellie