Reverence: The Antidote to Burnout, Lethargy and Depression

Last night I watched the Oscar-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher on Netflix.

Last night I watched the Oscar-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher on Netflix.

A South African filmmaker suffering from burnout and disillusioned with his life and career rediscovers himself underneath the Atlantic ocean, when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with an octopus.

It is a beautifully shot and deeply moving piece of film that deals with themes of love transcending species, man being a part of nature, being willing to learn from unlikely teachers, and the tension between human intervention and letting nature take its course.

If you decide to watch this, I warn you - tissues at the ready my friend!

For me, the most important theme of this film was that human beings wilt and die without something to revere.

In striving for greatness, accomplishment and success as a filmmaker, our protagonist became detached from the magic of the world and lost his sense of reverence.

When he meets the octopus that becomes his teacher, the wonder of the world comes flooding back to him, and he returns to himself.

This particular insight brought tears to my own eyes. I wasn’t aware that I could relate to feeling an impoverishment of reverence. My spontaneous reaction made me ponder my own life.

I have never been one to sit home. But between Covid and recovering from certain losses, sitting home became both a necessity, and a habit.

I have also been working hard lately on creating, launching, and delivering, a raft of online mediumship courses. I love teaching, and it does energize me, but I don’t actually like to work hard. The self-inflicted workload left little time for present, unrushed, reverence.

To revere means to have deep admiration or respect for something.

Lately, I have been in the camp of consciously forcing myself to have admiration and respect for the things I’m doing, rather than making space and time for the things that naturally draw admiration and respect from me. Another habit left over from Covid times.

Inspired by the documentary, I have done things differently today.

Rather than writing to you from my office, which is five steps from my bedroom, and five steps from my kitchen, I’ve gotten out of the house.

I’m writing to you from the café of a museum and art gallery called The Burrell Collection. It’s nestled in a forest near where I live, and everything about it evokes my admiration and respect. From the wood and glass architecture, to the way the rain is dripping slowly down the windows while me and the other residents of Glasgow are snug and warm inside. And the lush, green, wet forest outside is just beautiful.

If you have been feeling tired lately - depressed, unmotivated, unfocused - it may not be that you need to try harder to ‘look on the bright side’ of what you’re doing.

It may be, instead, a symptom of detachment from what you revere. Maybe you need to stop what you’re doing and go in search of the actual bright side - that which genuinely evokes reverence from you.

Tiredness, depression, and lethargy, may be your soul calling out to be fed by magic and marvel.

See if you can find yourself an art gallery in the forest, an octopus, or whatever it is that naturally evokes your admiration and respect.

Now, I’d love to hear from you. What do you revere? What evokes your admiration and deep respect? Make a list of ten points in the comments and take action on one of them.