While we, the audience, may love to see Idris Elba consistently on our screens, the Hijack star recently revealed that his tendency to always want to be booked and busy had led to some “unhealthy habits” which prompted him to go to therapy.
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He said as much during a new interview on the Changes with Annie Macmanus podcast, where he shared that he’d been in therapy for about a year trying to find more of a work-life balance. Describing himself as a workaholic, the Beast actor recognized that due to the industry he’s in, working so hard and so much was often rewarded. But now he’s in a place where he wants to find the middle ground between work, play, and family.
“In my therapy, I’ve been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuropaths [sic] being changed and shifting,” he said. “It’s not because I don’t like myself or anything like that, it’s just because I have some unhealthy habits that have really formed. And I work in an industry that I’m rewarded for those unhealthy habits.”
He continued: “Nothing that’s too extreme is good, everything needs balance, but I’m rewarded massively to be a workaholic [compared] to someone that’s like ‘Eh, I’m not going to see my family for six months’ and I’m in there grinding and making a new family and leave them,” he explained. “Those are pathways that I had to be like, ‘I’ve got to adjust.’
He late went on to explain that while he’s getting the help he needs, he’s in a slight conundrum due to the fact that the things that would relax him often look and feel like work, too. But he resolves that he’s going to learn how to normalize what actually makes him feel relaxed and do more of it moving forward.
“This is the part where I’ve got to normalize what makes me relaxed, it can’t be all work,” he said.
I’ve got to say, while this is hella relatable, you can’t help but wonder: If celebs like Idris can experience burnout and a non-work-life-balance, what hope do the rest of us have? Maybe therapy and other forms of getting our lives back on track is the move and the mood going into 2024.
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