When was your last hangover?

I’m going to ask… when was your last hangover? Well, it's been a very long time for me. While I do love a quality glass of red, there hasn't really been a social setting lately where a lot of consumption was on the cards, plus waking up to a toddler in the morning is just.not.worth.it. 

But I definitely have a Vulnerability Hangover MUCH more frequently.

A vulnerability hangover comes the day after a big event - it usually means you’ve been “on show”. It’s probably been a long day that you’re hosting or facilitating, or you’re being “seen intensely” in some way by people you don’t know well, such as running a class or being on stage (or both!). You’ve run on adrenalin and juggled multiple things - maybe you’ve even had to smile more than usual, and have physical contact! 

The next day however, you feel wiped out.

Well guess what? You’re not sick. And you’re not broken. You’re in recovery and it’s normal!

Understanding not only your natural biorhythms but also your personality type, is SO important when running a business.

Personally I’m an introvert (I know, you wouldn’t tell by the way I run a class or dance on Reels!) but interacting with groups is totally draining for me and I often avoid it. However when it comes to something I’m passionate about (ie. my business) then I can “switch on” my extroversion, almost like a performance.

How do you know if you’re extroverted or introverted? Well the big sign is how you recover. My husband is an extrovert; he feels invigorated and inspired by gathering with large groups of people and hosting big parties. Me on the other hand; I feel exhausted after events and I love intimate dinners.

For the longest time I thought I was getting sick after every event, until I read Quiet, by Susan Cain.
Absolute 
Game
Changer
If you think you’re an introvert, know you’re an introvert, or love an introvert - you have to read this book.

So what I (and most of us) need after a day (or days) where we give so much of ourselves, is a hangover.

Last Saturday I ran my Studio Open Day. 14 classes, hundreds of people through the doors, i taught 3 of the classes and then ran a meditation, mantra, and community gathering in the evening. I also had both my small children and then dog in tow. My face hurt from smiling, my legs hurt from standing, and my patience with my kids was whisper thin.

On the Sunday, I was wiped out. I wandered aimlessly around my house. Cuddled the dog. Scrolled the internet. And oscillated between my bed and my kitchen. I felt so exhausted that I took 2 RATs to test for Covid. I had planned to do laundry and clean my house. Instead I ate food and sat in the sunlight filtering through my window. If I HAD been drinking at all the day before, I would have deduced that it was a hangover. Yet I was simply just drained from too much “peopleing”.

I feel the same after running a large scale public yoga class, hosting a wellness retreat, or running a Yoga Teacher Training weekend. I have an intense need to withdraw & recalibrate. The hangover is my little white flag. It waves in the air and says “ok I’m done”. The hangover is my body saying “yo, you’re cooked”. I know the hangover so well now, that the hangover is built into my schedule.

If I’m running a YTT weekend, I don’t hold space for anyone on the Monday or Tuesday, because I have nothing left to give. If I’m running a retreat, I book an extra night away at the retreat location so I can decompress. If I’m hosting an event, I clear my social calendar the next day.

Granted it’s not perfection. I still need to parent, obviously. I still have to pay wages. But I let go of all the shoulds. I get my classes covered. We eat takeaway, the kids watch movies, I skip Elodie’s homeschooling, and any work I do on my laptop is things that don’t require my creativity or innovation. 

I learned very early on that if I forced myself to return to the status quo after an event, I am literally useless. It would be like going into your day job with a real hangover! Fatigue, brain fog, and even nausea or digestive upset, are all real effects of giving too much of yourself (or having too much Prosecco). When I don’t give myself time to languish, I make mistakes, my fuse is shorter, and my work just isn’t as good. 

So here’s my challenge to you over the next few days.

Take a look at your calendar. Note the work and social obligations coming in the next few months that might generate a vulnerability hangover. Look at the scale of the event and how much you need to be “on display” and schedule in some hangover time.

If you’re going to a kids birthday party and it’s going to be chaos and you don’t know the parents that well? You might just need the afternoon to be a potato.

But if you’re running a full day workshop, you might need to reduce your workload the following day to just the repetitive and mundane, outsource the food or the cleaning, or make time to potter aimlessly in the garden (and utilise flight mode on your phone).

Whether it’s a tech-free stroll in nature, or a staycation somewhere, consider what YOU need to recalibrate so that you’re bringing the best version of yourself back to work or life. It doesn’t mean forgoing all human contact - and frankly that’s often not possible (hello, small children) - but if we can do what the author Greg McKeown calls Essentialism, we are streamlining our life or business admin to the bare minimum. Don’t worry, it’s just for a day or two ;) And then life can go back to being wild, I promise.

Try it for me and let me know how you go.

So pick an event (personal or work related), pretend you’re gonna hit the Midori Illusion Shakers hard at that event (am I showing my age?!) and then plan for a hangover. It might just be the best hangover of your life.

x K