Burnout and recovery

By Nimue Brown on June 30, 2024

(Nimue)

You can't push your way through and out of burnout. You can't work your way out of it or overcome it by trying harder. On reflection this should all have been blindingly obvious to me, but it wasn't.

There's a lot of wider, cultural stuff around striving, pushing and overcoming. Burnout is the consequence of doing far too much of that with far too little respite. Obviously you can't heal from that by continuing to do the things that cause it. And yet, that deadly siren song in my head repeats the refrain that I would do better if only I tried that bit harder…

These days I can't run for long before I falter. I can't do much pushing hard before I get into difficulty. This suggests to me that I've not really dealt with the burnout legacy, and that I am going to have to ease up and learn how to be gentler with myself. If I want an option on pushing hard sometimes, I can't do it all of the time.

We are mammals. Nature exists in our bodies. Mammals are designed to rest, and all other mammals do as much lounging about as they can. We are not supposed to be busy little bees. The life expectancy of busy bees is short. So much goes wrong for us when we try to function like machines, or to ignore our own natural limits. Honouring nature has to include honouring nature as it manifests in our own bodies, and I've not been good on that score. I think most of us aren't.

I've been burnt out for years. I had my first massive crash something like ten years ago, exhausted and bursting into tears all the time. I don't think I've ever recovered from that, and there were a lot of years when serious burnout happened every four to six weeks. I'd have a couple of days of being totally unable to function, but as soon as I got on top of it a bit I'd crawl back into action and go another round. Healing and recovery call for more time than that. Little wonder that my physical health deteriorated so much.

I'm learning about healing. Some of that involves learning about resting, and feeling safe enough to stop pushing all the time.