De-stressing with Bente (#5)

Learning to relax again: how do you manage to do that? Bente (23) is a freelance journalist and works as an online editor at Flow. Having experienced a near-burn-out, she’s finding her way to a life with less stress. And every Friday, she takes us with her on her journey to get there.

After my first session with the therapist, I believed that my recovery would be an upward curve. ‘A little better every week’: that was my motto. But after this horror of a week, I’ve had to rethink that.

I had my first yoga class at the gym booked in for Monday evening. “It’ll be good for you,” my therapist said. But come Monday morning, I already felt that I wouldn’t be going to class that night. I didn’t even make it across the threshold of the gym. I didn’t want to have to think about putting myself into a pair of yoga pants, and then sitting in awkward postures for an hour. I was afraid that I would breathe incorrectly and that the lesson would end up being a huge fiasco.

And the rest of the week was exactly as I had imagined the lesson to be: a huge fiasco. I refused to lie on my rug and connect with myself; I didn’t want to ask my body how it’s doing, how it feels. I was done with those cozy little tea parties. I didn’t feel like drawing, and those daily walks could, as far as I was concerned, take a hike themselves. It seems like I ended up in the adolescent phase of my recovery period.