Burnout

Sometimes it’s too late to prevent burnout – you’re already past the breaking point. If that’s the case, it’s important to take your burnout very seriously. Trying to push through the exhaustion and continue as you have been will only cause further emotional and physical damage.

While the tips for preventing burnout are still helpful at this stage, recovery requires additional steps.

Burnout recovery strategy #1: Slow down

When you’ve reached the end stage of burnout, adjusting your attitude or looking after your health isn’t going to solve the problem. You need to force yourself to slow down or take a break. Cut back whatever commitments and activities you can. Give yourself time to rest, reflect, and heal.

Burnout recovery strategy #2: Get support

When you’re burned out, the natural tendency is to protect what little energy you have left by isolating yourself. But your friends and family are more important than ever during difficult times. Turn to your loved ones for support. Simply sharing your feelings with another person can relieve some of the burden.

Burnout recovery strategy #3: Reevaluate your goals and priorities

Burnout is an undeniable sign that something important in your life is not working. Take time to think about your hopes, goals, and dreams. Are you neglecting something that is truly important to you? Burnout can be an opportunity to rediscover what really makes you happy and to change course accordingly.

Recovering from burnout: Acknowledge your losses

Burnout brings with it many losses, which can often go unrecognized. Unrecognized losses trap a lot of your energy. It takes a tremendous amount of emotional control to keep yourself from feeling the pain of these losses. When you recognize these losses and allow yourself to grieve them, you release that trapped energy and open yourself to healing.

Acknowledging one's losses when recovering from burnout really got my attention, because the last few sentences speak directly to what I have been doing. I spent an unbelievable amount of energy trying to avoid the pain I felt deep inside and kept pushing forward as though this alone would remove the intense emotional pain deep within. Now as I sit in the burnout stage of my life, I recognize how much energy I wasted on things I have no control over. Today, I feel the pain in its entirety as I refuse to medicate or work it away. I have come to a place where it is time to feel and grieve with the hope that I can let it all go. The feelings are unbearable at times especially in the wee hours of the night when I cannot sleep. Right now, I am doing what I can to move forward. I have reached out to friends and family. As a matter of fact, the posse (friends I have known since high school) are all coming over Saturday. I have been in touch with other friends from work. Most importantly, the therapist cannot heal thy self, so I see one myself. I also come from a behavioral background and I have been more in tune to the behaviors around me. I have removed the rose-colored glasses and come to realize that while some others think I am the fool, I am not the fool. I just chose to not act on the behavior that is presented, because I either do not care anymore, or I do not have the energy to waste. I have a plan as suggested by my mother and a good friend and I will proceed with that plan when I feel stronger. First things first.