Are you feeling swamped and starting to wonder if burnout is creeping into your life? In today’s episode titled "Are You Burning Out?", we're going to break down the slow, often unrecognized progression of burnout, which too many of us might write off as just part of 'adulting.'
I’ll share compelling insights from a recent workshop with professional women in higher education, where we tackled the myths around burnout. It’s not just an abrupt breakdown; it’s a gradual process that starts quietly but can overwhelm us if left unchecked.
We’ll explore the different stages of burnout together. Starting with the 'surviving' stage—does life feel like a never-ending roller coaster to you? If you're barely getting by, you might be there. We'll talk about how to notice when you're moving into the 'overwhelmed' stage, where emotional and physical exhaustion begin to take a heavy toll.
This episode is your wake-up call, affirming your feelings and urging you to engage in the HeartWork needed not just to survive, but to truly thrive.
We also dive deep into the specific challenges of burnout among women, sharing personal stories and actionable steps towards recovery. Plus, you'll hear about the resources available through our book and the HeartWork community (www.heartworkcommunity.com), where professional women of faith find support in overcoming burnout.
Remember, recovery isn’t just a possibility—it’s your right. You are powerful, significant, and brilliant. Join us on this journey to reclaim the vibrant, promising future you deserve.
Looking forward to exploring these paths together and helping each other move toward a life full of promise and vitality.
Are you feeling swamped and starting to wonder if burnout is creeping into your life? In today’s episode titled "Are You Burning Out?", we're going to break down the slow, often unrecognized progression of burnout, which too many of us might write off as just part of 'adulting.'
I’ll share compelling insights from a recent workshop with professional women in higher education, where we tackled the myths around burnout. It’s not just an abrupt breakdown; it’s a gradual process that starts quietly but can overwhelm us if left unchecked.
We’ll explore the different stages of burnout together. Starting with the 'surviving' stage—does life feel like a never-ending roller coaster to you? If you're barely getting by, you might be there. We'll talk about how to notice when you're moving into the 'overwhelmed' stage, where emotional and physical exhaustion begin to take a heavy toll.
This episode is your wake-up call, affirming your feelings and urging you to engage in the HeartWork needed not just to survive, but to truly thrive.
We also dive deep into the specific challenges of burnout among women, sharing personal stories and actionable steps towards recovery. Plus, you'll hear about the resources available through our book and the HeartWork community (www.heartworkcommunity.com), where professional women of faith find support in overcoming burnout.
Remember, recovery isn’t just a possibility—it’s your right. You are powerful, significant, and brilliant. Join us on this journey to reclaim the vibrant, promising future you deserve.
Looking forward to exploring these paths together and helping each other move toward a life full of promise and vitality.
Friend, are you burning out? I know, I know there's a lot going on, but you got it. You don't need intervention, you're handling it. You are a responsible adult, you're carrying all the things, doing all the things and everybody around you. They're tired too. They're busy as well. But I want you to stop and pay attention, because burnout doesn't just show up, but burnout happens through a progression. You may not say, hey, pbj, I'm burned out, but you may be burning out.
Speaker 1:
When one of the participants in a workshop recently gave me a different perspective of the cycle of burnout and I want to share that with you I was facilitating a workshop with a group of professional women in higher education and we were walking through the conversation of disrupting burnout and I got to the moment where I explained what I call the cycle of burnout. If you've read the book, if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you've heard me talking about the cycle of burnout, where we go from surviving to overwhelmed, to burnout. And one particular participant in this room really, really got stuck there on the cycle of burnout, to the point that she asked me to go back to the slide so that we could walk through it, and I could tell that she was trying to find herself in that cycle and she shared a few questions and wasn't really sure if it made sense or if she could kind of put the pieces together the way that I was explaining it, and at some point we continued to move forward. But then after lunch she came to me. She said I got it. She said you're talking about burning out and I said, oh friend, you hit the nail on the head. In the book on this podcast I have called it the cycle of burnout and I'll still call it that, but she perfectly described it when she called it burning out.
Speaker 1:
What I need you to understand is burnout doesn't just pop up on your doorstep one day. You don't just wake up one day completely overwhelmed. And in burnout, burnout is progressive and the challenge is we don't often recognize the signs and symptoms of our own burnout before it's too late. And there are many reasons why we don't recognize these signs and symptoms. For one, we have been indoctrinated and cultured to believe that this is just life. Like everybody is tired, this is just adulting, this is what it means to be responsible Like. This is how life works. You grow up, you take care of a lot of things and then, at some point, hopefully, somebody starts taking care of you. And I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be that life and that doesn't have to be your truth. I'm here to tell you, if you are living, not just feeling, if you are living in overwhelm, you are normalizing something that is not normal and you have accepted something that is unacceptable. It should not be your everyday.
Speaker 1:
Now, keep in mind, as I always say, this discussion of disrupting burnout is not about creating some perfect utopian world where everything is perfect and you never get stressed out and nothing bad ever happens. Friend, if you find that place, I would love to be invited. Please invite me, because I would love to check it out. This is about living a real life with real responsibilities, and acknowledging where we need to change our pace, acknowledging where there's too much going on, acknowledging where our mind, our body and our spirits are saying, hey, this is not working out, we need something different, we need something new. Let's pivot here, let's change something here.
Speaker 1:
So I want to walk through the cycle of burnout, or the phases of burning out. Man, she hit the nail on the head the phases of burning out. I want to walk through those phases in hopes that you might find yourself. If you are in these phases, I want you to be able to clearly articulate where you are. But I also want you to recognize, friend, you are not making this up. You are not making this up. It's not for lack of experience, it's not for lack of degree. It's not for lack of degree, knowledge, intelligence, strength. What you are feeling and what you are experiencing is a real challenge. It's real life, and you are not the only one and you don't have to stay there. So let's walk through these phases of burnout. All right, friend, I'm just popping in really quick because I need your help. Would you go over to Amazon right now and leave a quick review for Disrupting Burnout? You don't have to finish the whole book to leave a review and it doesn't have to be long or fancy, just your honest take on the book. I know that there's some algorithm fairies out there. If you leave enough reviews, they will share this book with other readers who need it. So would you help me out? Would you help our friends out who haven't heard about Disrupting Burnout yet? Go over to Amazon and leave your honest review for disrupting burnout. I appreciate you. All right, let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 1:
So the first phase of burning out we call surviving. And in surviving, you know your load is too much, know your load is too much. In surviving, you are go, go, go, go, go, go, go to at some point collapse into some form of sleep, hopefully, and then just to wake up and do it all over again. In surviving, it feels like you're living groundhog day. We don't even think or intentionally plan in surviving. In surviving, you're literally just trying to make it to the next day. We don't even think or intentionally plan in surviving. In surviving, you're literally just trying to make it to the next day. You're trying to check off as many things or as many boxes as you can. You're trying to accomplish as many things as you can. You're trying to get it all done without any regard to joy, without any regard to peace, without any regard to enjoying yourself. It's just a I have to get it done. I have to get it done.
Speaker 1:
In surviving, you feel like I can't stop, I can't slow down, I don't have time to chill out, I don't have time to just take a break, put my feet up. Rest feels like a waste of time in surviving because you have so many responsibilities and you have so much going on. In surviving, I always say you feel like you're on the roller coaster and you really wish somebody would stop the ride for a moment, just so that you can catch your breath. In surviving, you can feel that it's too much going on, you know it, but you just don't know how to stop. The reason why I call it surviving is because it's a lack of thriving, it's not living, it is literally. I'm just trying to make it. I'm just trying to make it.
Speaker 1:
I've walked into spaces or taught in spaces where when you say hello to someone, how are you? I'm here, I'm just trying to make it. I showed up. And that is so telling to me of the environment, it's so telling to me of the condition of the people for your response to be I'm here. I'm here and that's your response every day. That's surviving Somewhere.
Speaker 1:
We've been taught that that's good enough, that that is the expectation, that that is how life should be. And I'm here to shake you back to reality, gently friend, just a gentle shake, but to shake you back to reality to say why are we normalizing trauma? You back to reality to say why are we normalizing trauma? Why are we normalizing a surviving behavior when there's more available to you In? Surviving is where you know everything's just fine. Work is fine, home is fine, kids are fine, family's fine, it's just fine, it's fine. And we've talked about how fine is a mask word. We don't have to go back to that. You can go back a couple episodes and hear all about that.
Speaker 1:
Right, in surviving, you're literally just trying to make it. You just trying to make it. You know, when I have the opportunity to share in person, as I'm sharing my story and as I'm walking through this cycle of burnout, I can look around the room and I can see and I can feel the weight on the people in the space. I can look around the room and I can tell those folks who are saying, gosh, this is my life. You're telling my story, friend. I'm here to tell you you don't have to just survive. You were created to thrive, not just survive. You were created to thrive, not just survive.
Speaker 1:
If we continue in the phases of burning out, if you don't do something different, then you end up in overwhelm. Overwhelm is the place where your nervous system starts to respond and try to get your attention. Overwhelm is the place where you start to physically experience migraine, headaches or tension in your muscles or system issues respiratory system, digestive system issues. Or maybe your mind speaks to you when you're trying to rest at night, trying to sleep at night, and you can't sleep because of racing thoughts. Or maybe your emotions speak to you. You feel like your emotions are all over the place, maybe on a roller coaster and not as controlled as they normally are.
Speaker 1:
What I often hear from folks when they're in overwhelm is that they find they start to do things that are out of their normal personality. I had a participant share a few meetings ago how they are normally a very extroverted person who desires to be around people, but when they're overwhelmed they start to withdraw, to be alone. They want to and again, I always say this if you are an introverted person and you get your energy from alone time, then you need to plan and be intentional about having that alone time. But withdrawing and isolating is different than alone time that refreshes and renews you. If you find that in that alone time you're becoming more overwhelmed, then that's not alone, that's isolation. If you find that you go to that place, that hiding place, and you don't want to come out. You don't feel refueled, you don't feel refreshed. You just want to go deeper into that alone place. That's isolation, that's not refreshing, that's not refueling. So we have to know the difference In overwhelm is where your most critical relationships start to suffer and show signs of suffering because of the weight that you are carrying.
Speaker 1:
I always say and you've heard me say, overwhelm feels like the water level of your life is rising and you are fighting to keep your head above water. Where, in surviving, you hide it pretty well, you can wear your professional mask, you can walk around like everything's okay, even though you're struggling. You are holding it together. And overwhelm, it starts to fall apart when I think back to the phase or phases, let's be honest, the phases where I was in overwhelm, I would be in professional meetings fighting back tears, and sometimes I didn't even know why I wanted to cry or needed to cry, but I couldn't. I couldn't stop it. I would have to walk out occasionally because the tears were just. It was like a. It was like a dam had broken and it was just flooding forth. My patience was short. I was short with family members, people that I loved. I isolated myself from friends, people who love me, people who I know love me. I would not return their calls or their texts. I would hide myself. I would hide myself because even accepting help felt overwhelming. Even having to try to explain to somebody how I was feeling or what was going on felt like too much. I didn't even have the capacity to explain or to share it with you. I just want to be alone. I just want to run away.
Speaker 1:
Several signs in my body. There were times I've shared this with you all there were times I couldn't even walk the dog because my lower back hurt so badly. And the reason why I know it was burnout is because, without changing anything else except disrupting this burnout, that pain just went away. It just went away. All the reasons that I thought I was in pain, all of those reasons are the same. But releasing burnout, releasing overwhelm, that pain, I don't even experience it anymore. So I know, I know it was burnout. I know it was my body crying out to me to say, hey, we've had enough, we can't keep carrying this burden, we can't keep carrying this heavy backpack. So I want you to consider if you are in the phase of overwhelm, if you are burning out.
Speaker 1:
Friend, burnout doesn't just show up. You don't just wake up one day and all of a sudden you're burnt out and things are broken and it's all falling apart. There's a progression. There's a progression. What tells T-E-L-L-S. What tells what symptoms are you missing? What is your body, your nervous system, your mind, your spirit, your most critical relationships? What are they trying to tell you that you're not paying attention to?
Speaker 1:
I always say in my workshops some of us walk around with full pharmacies in our purse. We've got a pill for everything. Because instead of stopping to do the heart work, we want a quick fix, we want the pain reliever, we want the thing that's going to make it go away temporarily. So I don't have to think about it. But I'm here to tell you until you stop to do the hard work, you will continue to experience the consequences of living an overwhelmed life. Friend, when you're overwhelmed, you can't even think clearly, you can't be wise, you can't be strategic.
Speaker 1:
Many times when I engage specifically with a woman, the folks who I coach primarily identify as women. And when I engage with a woman who can't tell me what she wants, what she needs, I know she's overwhelmed. You can't even know what you want when your mind and your heart are that cloudy. You haven't even stopped to consider what you need. You don't know how to sit with your own emotions. You don't know how to identify what you feel in your body. You are literally just holding on for dear life.
Speaker 1:
I've never used this metaphor before, but as I'm sitting here having this conversation with you all and I close my eyes to describe overwhelm, the picture that came to my mind was as you watch the movie Titanic, or recently I watched a documentary on the Titanic and the sinking of the Titanic and how, at the very end, those who didn't make it into one of the rescue boats were just holding on to wreckage from the ship. They were doing their best just to hold on for dear life, clinging, hoping that they could hold on long enough to be rescued. That's what overwhelm feels like. You're holding on to the pieces of whatever you can get your hands on, praying, hoping that someone will come to your rescue before you sink, that someone will notice you struggling before you drown. When I watched that documentary on the Titanic, it discussed how and I don't really know how they know all of this, but it discussed how the rescue boats were not even full. There were so many seats left for more people, but people were so panicked to save their own lives that they went with half full rescue boats and other people were just left to fight for their life.
Speaker 1:
And as I look around, as I travel, as I speak, I see people who are holding on to wreckage for dear life Encounter, people who at the end of the speech can't even speak because they're trying not to break down in front of their colleagues. They're trying not to cry, to let other people know that they are the one. They are the one. They're the person in the room. I always say I'm good to just come for one. I don't have to come for everybody, but if I come for one, then that's good enough for me. There's always more than one, but one is good enough for me. It never fails. Several people at the end always come and say I was the one.
Speaker 1:
I had a comment in my feedback the other day where a woman I'm gonna see if I can find it so that I can read it to you all but she basically said that here it is. She said this session saved my life, it held a mirror up to my life and I'm burned out. Friend, I'm very careful in choosing my words and how I talk about this, because I don't want to catastrophize. I don't want to. Did I say that right? Y'all know what I mean. I don't want to create a scenario, but the number of times that I've heard particularly women say, if I don't do something different, it's going to cost me my life, or the number of times a woman has come up to me after a talk to say you just saved my life today and it's not about me, don't get it messed up. Don't get it messed up Because I did not save her life. I'm on a mission. Y'all already know I'm on a mission, I'm just being obedient.
Speaker 1:
But I shared that so that you will understand how critical it is for you to recognize where you are and when you need to do something different. I remember being in rock bottom, burnout and feeling like I think I'm going crazy, I think I'm losing my mind and I don't know what to do. So when they say it could cost me my life, I understand it. I know what that feels like and if you feel that way, I want you to know you don't have to stay there. I want you to know you don't have to stay there. If you don't do something different and overwhelm, then you go to burnout. So we went from burning out to burnout. Burnout is where something breaks. Burnout is where the evidence shows and you can't hide it. I've seen folks suffer in their health. I've seen folks suffer in their relationships, in their professional life, in their mental health, physical health. I've seen folks suffer through burnout in ways that they never thought they could recover from and I've also seen those folks recover.
Speaker 1:
So I want you to know, no matter where you are in these phases of burning out, it is not too late. It is not too late and you can disrupt the cycle so you don't continue existing this way. Friend, you were created to do more than just exist. You're too valuable just to survive. There's too much value, brilliance in you for you to be fighting through overwhelm every day. Listen to me it is not normal, it is not okay, it is not healthy and it does not turn itself around without you doing something different. It is not just going to go away one day, it is not just going to disappear one day. You have to do the heart work. You have to do the heart work. You have to value you. If you start valuing you, other people will follow your lead.
Speaker 1:
Listen, I didn't know what direction we were going in today. I wanted to present this idea of burning out, but as we come to the end of this conversation, I cannot leave you without what to do next. There's several things that you can do. One you can read the book. And it's not for me to sell books, friends, hear me please. You can get the audio book for even cheaper than the actual book, whatever works for you. But I'm here to tell you that I poured 20 years of lessons into that book, not to sell a certain number. I'm not impressed by that. But so, those who are hearing me speak today and knowing that I'm talking to you, you have what to do. Next, you have every lesson that I've learned, every activity that I've tried and perfected and worked on and served others with. You got it all in that book. So this is not about me selling books. This is about you having an answer. So you can get the book and read the book, and download the journal for free and work through the activities to start disrupting your burnout. You can do that right now.
Speaker 1:
You can also join us in the HeartWork community. We are a community of women, professional women of faith, who are disrupting burnout together and walking in brilliance together. The testimonies I'm going to have to bring on some of the women from the HeartWork community so that you all can hear for yourselves the testimonies that they have and what's happening in their lives and how they are moving forward in brilliance as they are disrupting burnout. I'm here to tell you it is a miraculous space. This is a space that God gave me to start to implement. I don't know. It's what he told me to do and when I tell you that I can see his hand all over it. So if you long for a community like that and you know you need it you need a space where people understand you and you don't have to explain yourself, where we will celebrate you and challenge you, where you can say all the things and it will never come up again and no one will think less of you. We will know you are phenomenal and accomplished and intelligent and all the things and more than one thing can be true.
Speaker 1:
If you long for a space where your faith and your purpose and your brilliance and community all come together, then you should consider joining us, heartworkcommunitycom. You can go check it out. If you have questions, let me know, but I can't have this conversation with you today without offering you what a next step might be. All right, friend, listen. Burning out means that burnout doesn't just show up one day. There's a progression and I don't want you to get all the way to burn out before you recognize it's happening to you. And if you are already there, you can recover. You don't have to stay there and we can help you do that. All right, friend, as always, you are powerful, you are significant, you are loved and you are brilliant. You are brilliant and I'm here to tell you that your latter days are greater than your former. What's to come is much better than what's been, but you have to do the hard work. It's time you ready. Let's do it together. All right, friend, as always, you know I love you. Love always PBJ.