From Burnout to Balance: How Yoga Helped Me Let Go of the Pressure to Be Perfect
- plantinemma
- Aug 17
- 9 min read
Updated: Aug 18
This is the third article in my series
Here, I explore a theme that deeply shifted my daily life: my relationship with time, urgency, and productivity.
My hope? To offer you a small space to breathe, reflect, and listen to yourself differently.
Thank you for being here 🙏
🏃♀️ Always Running
For a long time, I lived on fast-forward.
A “good” day was a day that was full, productive, optimized.
Even as a child, an empty weekend made me anxious — as if time only had value when it was packed. I had to “use my time properly.”
At school, I was the one who finished exercises early —which left me time to daydream, draw… or overthink everything.
I was in sprint mode. All the time.
As I grew up, this drive for efficiency became the norm: move fast, deliver fast, switch fast to the next thing. Tick the boxes. Succeed. And if possible — with honors.
I remember turning in my French literature exam two hours early.I didn’t rush it (I even got 19/20 — I was so proud 🥲).I had just aligned everything very quickly.
At university, classmates loved working with me becausewe’d always finish lab reports before anyone else.
But moving too fast left me drained.
Eventually, I started missing obvious details → it turned into rushing.
That pattern showed up in my professional life:
sending a PDF to print without noticing the formatting was off,
messing up a leather stitch (unlike fabric, leather has no second chances!),
mixing up patient IDs when running lab tests (thankfully, I caught it early).
None of these mistakes ever ruined my professional credibility…
but inside, I felt crushed.
I would replay the scene over and over, unable to sleep —
as if my brain was desperate to rewrite the past.
Physiologically, this way of living keeps the body in a state of constant alert.We operate in sympathetic mode — the stress system.The result: fatigue, mental restlessness, and eventually… burnout.Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score, explainsthat when the body never finds a safe space to relax,it ends up trapped in hypervigilance.
Honestly, I’m not exactly sure — or not yet —
what wound or lack made me jump into this race.
But I have a few clues…
🎯 Why This Constant Rush?
Overproduction, perfectionism, control, rushing…
I’m still not sure I have all the answers (we evolve our whole life 😇), but when I reflect on it, one simple truth keeps coming up:
I believed I had to overdo everything to be worthy of love.
Behind that sentence lies a story —
a complex web I’ve been slowly untangling. 👇
🌀 Instability as a Starting Point
As a child, I grew up in a shifting environment.
My parents were the kind to start from scratch whenever they felt like it.
New house, new job, new life.
A harsh winter in the Auvergne? Boom — off to Guadeloupe.
(I actually took my final high school exams there — yep!)
In this whirlwind, I was conditioned very early to believe that nothing truly lasts.
And above all:
If what you’re living no longer suits you → you leave.
I even once said to my parents:
“We’ve been in Six-Fours for five years now…When are we moving again? My best friend is being mean to me.”
I had internalized this reflex: flee discomfort rather than face it.
This pattern led me to make impulsive decisions, to change paths abruptly,
to feel incapable of settling anywhere.
I wasn’t living.
I was surviving.
🧠 Control as a Coping Strategy
But instability wasn’t just external.
Inside, things were boiling.
Highly emotional and hypersensitive
I quickly associated failure or criticism with deep pain.
A bad grade, a hurtful comment, a long silence… and I’d burst into tears.
So another strategy took hold: Control. Anticipate. Perfect.
“If I succeed, I’ll be loved.”“If I do everything right, I won’t suffer.”“If I’m flawless, I’ll be safe in the chaos.”
And it worked.
When I shined, I felt pride and recognition in my loved ones’ eyes.
When I controlled, I believed the world couldn’t hurt me anymore.
But what I received in return wasn’t love.
It was validation.
And I became addicted…
🔁 Overproduction: The Vicious Cycle
These inner commands — productivity, efficiency, urgency — protected me…
while also disconnecting me from myself.
They helped me avoid discomfort, emptiness, the unseen.
They kept me from feeling the real need underneath it all:
to be loved as I am.
I thought I was listening to myself.
But in reality, I was responding to fear.
My emotions?
I only heard them when they were screaming.
It had to shout, burn, or break for me to finally stop.
🌎 Latin America (Again!) and the Art of Letting Go
Let it go (sorry in advance if this song gets stuck in your head)
A little clarity came to me during my solo trip to Latin America.
While this journey was deeply healing on a family level (see previous article),
it also played a key role in my ability to… stop giving a f*ck.
When I decided to leave alone, I planned everything to the tiniest detail.
Four months of preparation.
A perfectly structured itinerary.
A ridiculously complex Excel file with automated formulas
(yes… I was that kind of person 😉).
Then, three weeks after landing…
… everything went off the rails :)
And honestly?
That’s what I loved the most.
Unpredictable bus schedules. Missed connections. Random encounters.
They became my compass.
I learned to trust, to slow down, to go with what is…
And without realizing it, my breath slowed. My gaze softened.
I was finally living — for the first time in a long while.
I was letting go.
Some of the most meaningful encounters of my life happened in those completely unplanned moments:
A precious friend I met at a remote bus stop in Patagonia
My partner, who crossed my path during a free walking tour in Buenos Aires —
and who’s still by my side today
None of it was on my to-do list.
And yet… it was exactly what I needed.
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”— John Lennon
Of course, I knew I couldn’t spend my whole life traveling just to learn how to let go.
Some people do — but I sensed that many are also running away as much as they’re searching.
And like I said earlier: fleeing isn’t always the solution.
I knew I needed to find another way.
But unlearning such deeply wired patterns is anything but easy.
🏃♀️ Back Into the Whirlwind
When I came back from my trip, guess what — the cycle started again.
The company I had worked for before offered me a full-time position.
I was flattered they reached out.
And even though I remembered how misaligned I had felt during my first contract, I told myself:
“This time will be different.I’ll give it my all.And I won’t run away this time.”
But what I didn’t know was that I was stepping into something much deeper…
a dimension I explore more in Yoga and Multipotentiality: How to Build an Aligned Life.
The same stress. The same pressure.
The same inner exhaustion. It all came back.
But this time, I stayed.
For too long.
Thinking that leaving would mean failing. Again.
Until my body said stop — once more.
And I ended up running away. Again.
We moved to Amsterdam.
My partner had lived there before we met, so it felt like the natural next step.
We had a strong community there, and dreams of building a life in that city.
I applied to more than 70 jobs.
No luck.
Discouraged, guess what I did?
Right → I ran again.
We jumped on a housing opportunity in Lanzarote for 6 months.
That’s when I turned to drawing…
I poured all my energy into my online presence — Instagram, my newsletter…
And when the numbers dropped, I felt crushed. Invisible. Useless.
So what did I do?
→ I ran… again.
See the pattern?
I had fallen right back into my two false equations:
Produce + Succeed + Control = Be loved
Failure ⇒ Escape (true 100% of the time)
Two strategies:
I pushed myself to exist, to earn recognition.
I wanted to prove I had value →
But chasing visibility without results…
left me feeling like an addict going through withdrawal.
I ran away from anything that hurt,
including what didn’t meet my need for validation →
But it made me unhappy and unstable.
Now, as I tell this story with some distance,
I feel deep tenderness — and a touch of sadness — for that version of me.
She tried so hard.
Just… not in the right direction.
🧘♀️ The Mat as a Sanctuary
It took time, but eventually I understood:
That I needed to unlearn the habit of chasing love.
That I had to relearn how to feel loved without conditions, and love myself without expectations.
That I couldn’t see running away as my only coping strategy anymore.
That I should no longer do things to be loved, but rather out of love.
And that I wasn’t meant to live to do, but to be.
Because all of this had stolen something precious from me: presence.
And reclaiming it meant I had to slow down, and start noticing the subtle signs.
So when I turned to yoga and meditation, I saw in them a healthy alternative.
A practice I once dismissed as “too slow” (remember my first article?)
became my sanctuary.
A space to breathe, feel, and gently ask myself:
“How am I, right now?”“Is it really useful to stress over this thing?”“Would it be that bad if I just… did nothing today?”
Little by little, I stopped living for my to-do list.
I began to live in the moment.
And… I started learning the subtle art of not giving a damn.
Yoga didn’t erase my drive (I’m still a multipassionate soul with a thousand projects on the go!) —
but it gave me a space where I could do absolutely nothing,
without guilt.
Even just five minutes. Even three.
Today, I try to bring that same energy and gentleness into my drawings.
I enjoy taking my time… and even enjoy not getting it “right” the first time.
It’s okay, I’m learning.
In my writing, too — this article?
It took me dozens of versions (and I’m being kind!).
I rewrote, deleted, started over. And I loved the process.
Because now, I’m no longer trying to get it right on the first try or rush to publish.
I don’t feel the need to prove anything anymore.
The urgency has softened.
I’m learning to create from love.
To do things that bring me joy, first and foremost.
And I hope to share that mindset in my future yoga teaching :)
🌸 And Now? My Takeaway
I don’t have all the answers for this chapter yet, nor all the tools:
it’s a lifelong learning process I’ve only just begun.
Besides, the patterns I’ve mentioned — and the ways I’m working through them — will probably keep evolving.
It’s all shifting… at my own rhythm.
Which is great — it gives me more things to write about :)
But one thing is certain:
That alone… is already huge.
I still feel guilty sometimes when I rest.
I still carry this strange reflex: believing that I have to earn peace.
But I’m learning.
Slowing down is not giving up.It’s coming home.
So if you too struggle to pause, to stop, to just be…
I want you to know this:
You’re not lazy.You’re not broken.You’re human.
And rest isn’t a reward.
It’s a right.
💛 A Few Final Words for You
Yoga offered me a space to slow down.
But your space might look entirely different.
Maybe for you, it’s dancing in your kitchen with music blasting.
Or bouldering at the climbing gym.
Or crocheting for hours on end.
Whatever it is — give yourself permission to reclaim it.
Even if you’re a parent.
Even if your job is exhausting.
Even if you have a thousand things to manage.
That moment of peace? It belongs to you.
No one has the right to take it away — not even your own limiting beliefs. :)
Thank you so much for reading.
I hope this article inspired you to breathe a little deeper,
and maybe… to give yourself five sacred minutes, just for you.
You deserve them. Truly.
💛
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