The Remedy for Exhaustion

How a Poem Offers Us the Antidote We Need

Photo by Barnabas Davoti on Unsplash

When I ask people “How are you doing these days?” The number one response I get is “exhausted.”

I get it.

I, too am tired—tired of “it” all.

Having just experienced what is now called, a “Thousand Year Flood” in our home town in the mountains, one sees the devastation and exhaustion of the aftermath. There’s just so much to do to recover— recovery feels like a very, very, very long way off on the horizon.

It’s the same with this election and the aftermath that is going to hit. How can election feel like a “Thousand Year Flood—or worse?”

It’s exhausting.

Navigating who you can talk to—who you can say this to—then, that to. The inner whirlwind, the mis-information, the existential angst of it all drains my inner battery until the light within is dim and flickering. Feeling alienated from people you love; family you use to do life with—now, only division of a flooding river of chaos seems to have claimed so many of us.

I see few folks doing well. Everything has taken it’s toil on us.

A weariness has invaded our souls.

It’s concerning. It’s alarming.

When we feel this way—exhausted, razor thin in our emotions and tired of it all, it’s time for some John O’Donohue and in particular his magnificent poem titled, “For the One Who is Exhausted.” In this remarkable poem, John gives us our collective diagnosis. But he also prescribes the antidote—the healing from this exhaustion. And it is his antidote that I feel we must all—with no exceptions, pledged an allegiance to do just as he says:

Be excessively gentle with ourselves.

Stay away from those “vexed” in spirit.

Linger.

Mimic those who appear to be at ease with themselves and in themselves.

Take refuge in your senses.

Respect your heart.

Let calmness claim you.

As you read his poem, choose the line you want to heed for yourself and type it in the comments. What sticks out to you as you sit with this poem? Let’s see what happens.

I read this poem to a group I’m in these days. As I read it, I heard soft moans, groans and sighing in the room. It was as if THIS one poem gave us some kind of solidarity to us. It was as if we felt seen. We felt heard. We did not feel as alone in it all. We were bonded in all feeling exhausted and somehow, it helped to just know this.

For the one who is exhausted 

by John O’Donohue 



When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.

Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.

Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.

There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.

The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.

Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.