Contemplating Life’s Choices

** Heads up, I have a lot I want to discuss and share around my experience with burnout so this will end up being a series of posts. For ease, I will label the posts in the title like you see here. Welcome to season 1, episode 5. You can find all of my posts related to my burnout experience here.

When I think about how I felt through burnout it was like slipping into the murky depths of the ocean. Leaving the sunlight zone where everything is bright and colorful, filled with life, and shining beautifully. This was when I could remember times I felt good about my job, my life, and things that were going on. Life had hard and dark moments but nothing that couldn’t be managed for the most part.

Sliding into burnout felt like moving through the twilight zone where though it’s getting dark there are still bits of light and some life around you. This was like when I sunk deeper into self doubt and that nothing would ever get better. The job market sucked, things at work weren’t getting better, and despite my best efforts it felt like I was not going to ever feel better.

The pit of despair feels like the midnight zone. Completely dark with the occasional terrifying creature that comes out of no where. Cold and alone and not knowing if you’ve really hit rock bottom of the abyss or if you’re about to fall deeper into the trenches. This was burnout. I couldn’t figure out how to do the most basic tasks at work. I hit a point where I felt I must be truly incompetent, that there was no hope for me to do anything worthwhile, and that even if I tried life would still feel pointless.

I guess I want to share this analogy in case someone else is going through this. Perhaps your experience feels different than mine, maybe better or worse. When you’re burning out it may feel like everything is beyond our control and despite our best efforts to manage our personal needs, ask for help, and take breaks it may not be enough.

I want you to know if you’re down in the midnight zone, staring into the abyss, you can come back from that. I still have days that feel dark and cold and other days feel hopeful and promising. If you’re here my top three recommendations are:

1. Get the professional and emotional help you need. This could be therapy, yoga, reiki/energy work, massage, a nutritionist, or anything else. Solve for things you may be experiencing like high blood pressure, anxiety, etc. Sometimes that means going to a medical professional other times it might be getting out in nature or tuning into your chakras. Only you will be able to decide what you need for your circumstance.
2. Start to figure out what you need and want for your life going forward. One of the things that has helped me was looking at what I truly wanted for my life. This meant taking the time to sit with what I thought I wanted to see if it was true or just me trying to fill the “next level” of success. This meant looking at where work fits into my life. This meant looking at the type of work I want to do and if I was in the right place to do it. Sometimes you might find you want to step back in or move up and focus your energy on being more at work. For others you might find you want to scale back and do less. Again, only you will know what’s right for you.
3. Prepare to support yourself in case you feel burnout creeping up again. For me it meant figuring out what really triggered me the first time and if I would need to make dramatic changes in my life or if there were existing opportunities to make small changes that would help. This also meant looking at cutting back on spending to start building our savings. I was lucky to be able to take paid time off but I know too many people who couldn’t. I also looked at what helped me to cope in the last weeks before I officially took my burnout break. It will take time to work through this but knowing what triggers you and what supports you will help.

What I’ve found in my experience is that even though I’m back to work and overall doing a lot better it’s not like taking a long break and suddenly everything was unicorns and glitter. I have had some really dark days and really bright days and from the research I did during my break, and my personal experience, we should acknowledge that burning out likely took years to really set in so it may take years to find a way forward.

If you’re in the darkness staring into the abyss and screaming into the void, please know you’re not alone. Even if you are a high performer, this isn’t a reflection on you. There are a lot of things that can add up to burning out and there are ways to work through it and float back up to the sunlight zone. In fact, just like if you were diving, you wouldn’t just zoom to the surface without potentially causing major or catastrophic damage to your body. If you’re a people pleaser, perfectionist, or over thinker like I am, give yourself the space and grace to gently float back to the sunlight zone. Build the skills you need, get the help and support that matters to you, and know that you’ll still have some hard days and that it’s ok.

If you’ve burned out I’d love to hear if anything has worked for you or how you’re coping if you’re still working through things.