Dear Vywamus,
I have been diagnosed with “burn-out”. What will be the best and easiest way for me to recooperate and get back in balance again? Also I am very tired..no, uninterested and unhappay in my job situation. I work as a counselor/psychotherapist in a psychiatric outpatient clinic. I really can’t stand listening to their problems any more. I need some guidance to get my life on track again.
Thank you!
Lena
Dear Lena,
Because of your training and experience, there will be many things I say here that you already know. I will say them anyway to round out the picture for other readers. And hopefully as you read, you will be open to receiving my guiding energy and support, and perhaps find new insights even among these familiar concepts.
You are not alone. Burnout happens to many of you, whether on the job or in other situations. And as I will mention later, your burnout as an individual is also part of a larger collective experience that all of humanity is going through at this time.
I define burnout as psychological (and sometimes physical) exhaustion, brought on by being in a long term stressful situation where your resources are repeatedly drained without being sufficiently replenished. As you have noticed, it is marked by fatigue, loss of interest and enjoyment in life, sometimes a sense of helplessness or depression, and often by an underlying feeling of resentment.
To really understand burnout – what it means for you as an individual and what it means in the world — we will need to look at it on more than one level. First there is the level of finding practical remedies for you as an individual with burnout. One solution, of course, could be to leave the situation itself – in this case, to move to a different work setting, or to leave this type of work for a different kind of work altogether. This may eventually turn out to be the right thing to do. Yet it may not immediately be possible or practical. And even if it is easy to do, such a change may not keep you from getting burnt out again, if you carry old patterns with you into a new setting.
Another solution might be staying in the work place where you are and paying much more attention to self care of all kinds. That might mean taking more days off, more vacations, possibly a leave of absence. It would definitely mean balancing your work hours with a richer and more restful and enjoyable life outside of work, with more time for fun and pleasurable relationships, better care of your body (rest, enjoyable exercise, etc,), making time to meditate, and perhaps time to get lost in a creative activity which has nothing to do with work.
Self care also means that during your working hours you find ways to maximize the aspects of your work that feel rewarding, and find ways to set limits so that you don’t find yourself trying to live up to unreasonably high expectations of how much you can do. You may even have the opportunity to get involved in reorganizing or changing some things at work so that it feels better to you to be there. This approach of making changes while staying in place may not be easy, especially when it comes to setting limits. Others (and you) will have come to expect a great deal of you and are used to your performing above and beyond your normal limit. When you begin to make changes, they will not applaud!
To make this kind of turnaround while staying in your present setting, you need courage, perhaps a degree of desperation, and some good help. It is essential to find a wise and good friend, or a therapist you trust, who will simply be with you through it all, and who may help you see options where you don’t see them.
It will also be important at this time to do some inner work, to look at old beliefs and patterns you have, such as trying to be perfect, or always putting others’ needs ahead of your own. Look at how they arose earlier in your life, how they may have contributed to your burnout, and how they might be transformed into patterns that work better for you. This inner work will in the end be very rewarding whether you remain in your particular work and work setting or leave. It will greatly increase your sense of well being wherever you are, and make it far less likely that you will get burnt out again.
Now, the practical remedies I have just described may be all you need, and are worth trying. However, for many of you it will be necessary and very helpful to go further and look at the deeper and broader meanings of your burnout.
Start with your own experience. You may see this as a time when you and everything in your usual world seem to be falling apart. Many of the things that used to work for you don’t work any more. Ways you had of easily coping with challenges don’t work as well – or not at all. What gave you pleasure or energy or motivation no longer does it for you. Your customary way of being in the world seems to be breaking down. On a personal level, this can be frightening – and frustrating.
What you are going through may be the beginning stages of a very profound transition in your life. Every change, large or small, involves first a breakdown of the old system, a falling apart of a form that no longer works. This falling apart is not a sign that you have failed, or should be trying harder. It’s a signal that you have moved forward on your path, and have grown so that the old ways of being/feeling/dealing with your environment no longer fit.
Now of course, there is loss involved here. No change occurs without some loss, and some gain. And you may mourn the old way’s passing, and what was good and familiar about it. This is natural. You may wish it would all go back to the way it used to be, which seems to have been much simpler. But the chicken can’t go back into the egg, and neither can you. The only thing to do is to accept that the eggshell is broken, and you are out.
What happens next? Well, for a while you may not know. It may not be clear at first what new way of being should take the place of the old one that has broken down. This is a time of incubation, where you go into the Void and don’t know how you will come out. You may feel you simply cannot keep up with your old job or setting, and have to reduce your time there, or take a leave of absence, or temporarily take a less important and demanding job where you can “putter” – even if it means temporarily less income.
During this incubation time, your best approach will be to be as present as you can in your daily life, present with the “nothing important going on,” present with your sensations, your feelings if you have any, and so on. Notice what things are important to you – or not. Don’t try to force yourself into doing something just because doing what seems to you to be nothing makes you anxious or impatient. Be with where you are. You will not be able to genuinely and reliably move on until you do so. And, if you find a form of meditation that works well for you, that will be helpful at this time.
Finally, make the effort to reach out for someone who can know you and be with you in exactly this space of “nothing going on.” Here is where that good friend or wise therapist can be very important. Incubating does not mean you have to be alone, and without caring support.
After a while – sooner if you have followed my suggestions – you will begin to see a new form emerging – a new way of being which fits you better. Perhaps you will find a new setting, or a new way of being in the old setting. Or something else entirely. Be alert for the new form. It will emerge at the right time, and you will recognize it because your energy will begin to come back.
Here you will want to keep your balance. If you jump into a new form too fast, it may still be too small for you and you may be shutting off something much more fulfilling. If you wait too long, your impulse to move forward may dwindle. In general, let your body and your heart be your guides, with only basic input from your mind. And as the new form develops, you will move into a more beautiful and expansive space than before, where things work for you again, but in a different way. Perhaps at that time – if not before – you will actually thank your “burnout” for forcing you out of the old way of being and into this much richer one.
Now, as we speak about the burnout stage in you as an individual, you may have realized that there is a much broader application. In your individual burnout, you are also part of a great movement of humanity, and many others are going through similar experiences in company with you. At this time in your history all of humanity is going through the kind of changes I’ve been describing in this letter. At a collective level, societies, economies, political systems, institutions, families and other forms no longer work for you as they did in the past. Most of these structures are falling apart as you outgrow them.
Many of you are reacting to these changes with anxiety and distress, or perhaps with the numbness and lethargy of burnout. You may be mourning the loss of old familiar forms, and anxious about the fact that in this void time of incubation there is much turbulence, but no real progress seems to be happening. This is natural and normal in such a time of change. And my advice to you collectively is the same as I gave earlier: Be with what is happening, accept that this is a time of falling apart and incubation, and, since all these stages overlap to some degree, be alert to recognize and allow room for the experimental new forms that are already emerging as humanity shifts to a new level of consciousness.
In the midst of all this, please know that we guides and teachers well understand the demands of the tasks you have undertaken in your time on earth. We are always with you, whether on the dull and rocky parts of your path, or on the easier and more enjoyable stretches. You may call on us wherever you are, and we will keep you company and bring you our loving support when you need it.
Warmly,
Vywamus