Burnout To Balance: My Survival and Recovery of Recent Burnout

076. Ever found yourself feeling overwhelmed and depleted of energy, wondering if you're on the brink of burnout? In a time where many of us are juggling multiple tasks and responsibilities, it can be all too easy to lose track of our own well-being.

I've been there...recently... grappling with the aftermath of a particularly busy season that left me feeling drained.

Join me as I revisit that intense period of my life, discussing the pressures that contributed to my burnout and how it manifested for me.

As we go through my narrative of recovery, we'll explore the personal coping mechanisms that helped me regain control of my well-being.

 Hear about how simple actions like taking naps and reducing social activities, along with practices like journaling and imposing tech-time limits became instrumental in my recuperation. I hope that my experience inspires you to devise your own strategies when the pressure starts to build.

But it's not just about surviving burnout, it's also about learning to prevent it. So, in closing of the show, I share valuable tips and insights that have worked for me and that come highly recommended.

I also touch upon the 'because I can' syndrome, a common trap that needs careful handling during times of stress and pressure.  Mostly I hope that as I reflect on the invaluable lessons learned from my summer 2023  that you feel encouraged to know the importance of recognizing burnout symptoms, how to manage them effectively, and ways you can practice self-care to prevent burnout in your own life.

00:00:01 Intro 00:01:24 Coping Is Personal 00:04:00 I was in a Pressure Cooker 00:07:24 Not Denying It 00:12:00 back off of production 00:14:00 talking to my doctor 00:18:00 on the other side of the worst 00:18:27 Recognize the signs 00:21:00 No Shame in Burnout 00:24:00 Closing

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Transcript

Marijanel: 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the Marijanel show. It's a little bit different today. I've changed it up. I am out here on a beautiful walk and I brought you on a walk today with me because walking has been part of my recovery from burnout. This summer I have had a burnout like I haven't had in a really long time and I wanted to share with you about it. If you've been going through a burnout yourself, if you've been there before and you're trying to avoid it, if you know someone who's going through burnout, then today's episode is more than likely for you. So settle in, because I want to share with you my recent experience with burnout, what I've been doing to recover and what that really looks like for my self-care.

Marijanel: 0:50

Keeping in mind that burnout is a really personal thing. It happens to all of us. None of us are exempt, but the way it affects us is so personal because each of us are unique. We have our own personalities, we have our own ways of coping, we have self-care that's personalized to us, and so how I've had to adapt and recover is not necessarily how you'll need to approach burnout if and when it ever happens to you. But I think that my sharing of my own personal story. In it you'll find probably just some encouragement that all of us we go through this.

Marijanel: 1:32

We go through this time when we hit the wall, we have no more fuel, we experience exhaustion and for me, my burnout often manifests as a mild depression, which is unusual for me to go through in the summer, because generally I go through that in about January or February I've talked about that on the podcast before, too where around November, I'm always taking a lot of steps to ensure that my winter is as healthy as possible, including upping my vitamins and exercise and getting on a mindset to get through the winter blues. I didn't expect to go through the summer blues, which also, for me, equates to burnout. The thing is that I saw burnout coming and I knew it was inevitable, because I had an accumulation of a very busy season of life and a lot of circumstances out of my control. That happened between the time of March and June mid-June 2023. And some of it was amazing stuff it wasn't necessarily bad stuff that led me to burnout. Some of it was moments of a lifetime that I am so thankful for, including my son getting married, family coming in from all over North America to have a family reunion at the wedding. It was so incredible.

Marijanel: 3:02

So leading up to that date, I had massive shifts and changes in almost every realm of my life, including you know the story where I had to move out of my studio very quickly, make some really big business decisions. I also invested in it, started you'll hear our local train going by here invested in and started another business with our son, and all of that took incredible amounts of energy. Not only was I focused on those things, but I also have my regular day job. I am self-employed, but I have one particular contract that's very important to me and takes up the majority of my time, and it in itself is a lot of responsibility. I help to manage teams and production and get the job done. It requires me meeting deadlines, which you know is pressure.

Marijanel: 3:59

So between March and mid-June I had all of those things accumulating at once like a very what do you call it? Pressure cooker, like a pressure cooker on a stove. It was just getting hotter and hotter and I knew it and there was nothing I was willing to give up at that point. I wasn't willing to wait to move out of the studio until after the wedding because I pretty much figured I'd crash after the wedding. I wasn't willing to let go of starting the business when I needed to and mentoring our son at that point because he needed it. It was really important. And I also wasn't willing to let up on any of the commitments to my main contract and I was going to pour every single ounce and fiber of my being into our son's wedding. So it was just inevitable.

Marijanel: 4:51

I didn't have enough energy for all of that but I did it. I put my everything in. Everyone around me who knows me and loves me saw me just pour out it was a great big pouring out of Marijanel Energy. And you know, when I moved from that studio I gave it my everything. I even cleaned it and just moved as fast and furious and organized as I possibly could. And then taking on the wedding, it wasn't just handing it over to a wedding planner, I was very much involved. Actually it was the time of my life really. I helped to plan a luncheon and we had what I call pretzel towers. My husband and I built these towers that we had a baker bake us 300 pretzels that hung from the pretzel towers for the luncheon. It was so much fun, but in it all. It was a great big pouring of energy. All this you're listening to me, you're like girl, you're crazy, and yeah, yeah, sometimes I am because I put everything in and then all of that leading up to my family began to fly in and I just so dearly wanted to spend time with everyone and invest in every single relationship which, as you know, for introverts, being social and pouring into relationships, it's precious and important. But it's not how we refuel, it's how we pour out.

Marijanel: 6:25

So at the end of all of March, april, may, june, pouring out in energy and socially, I was left mid June just depleted. I had no words left, I had no energy left. I felt like a bit let down that the wedding was over and at the end of it all I was just pretty much so depleted that I knew it would take quite a recovery period. So what did I do about it? Well, all of us, as I mentioned, are very personal at how we would deal with burnout. But the first thing I did and I want to say this I feel like I've handled it as healthy as I could, and I feel like I've handled it healthier than other times in my life, and one of the reasons I say that is because, number one, I decided to not deny it.

Marijanel: 7:24

I decided to not try to hide the fact I was burned out. So amongst my inner circle of family, friends and loved ones, I've pretty much made an announcement and said everyone I'm burned out and I'm going to be in recovery mode, and I don't know what that looks like yet, but it probably means saying no to social things and a lot of sleep. And those were the first steps I took. I pretty much went to bed and so over the last eight weeks I've given myself the time and space to rest and nap whenever I needed to. Okay, that's very for .

Marijanel: 8:10

The only other time in my life that I ever remember being in a habit of napping was when I was pregnant and my youngest just turned 19 years old. So you know, maybe I've had the periodic little rest on the couch once in a while, but I don't take naps. And I found that the only way I could cope and recover from this burnout was to get up in the morning and do what I needed to do and then, right after lunch, take a nap. And even if I didn't fall asleep which a lot of times I did. I just laid there and like tried to tune out and rest, and I also tried to soak up all the good memories of the time between March and mid-June when the burnout was occurring. I was in such a go mode and such a get it done, like the executor in me, the one who can do that to-do list I was in full blast that entire time that maybe I didn't relish and soak in as much as I wished. So I would take naps and like just think about all the good things and the memories and really just film myself with gratitude.

Marijanel: 9:22

There's a few other ways that I handled it. Besides letting myself sleep which, by the way, I was sleeping like sometimes 11 hours a night, and I'm still doing that going to bed very early and sleeping, and I let myself do this I also caught back on all unnecessary social activity, which for an extrovert wouldn't be the way to handle a burnout, but for an introvert it's pretty important, because introverts refuel alone and I don't mean, you know, that I needed to cut myself off from my husband or kids or like inner circle, which sometimes I did. I needed a long time in that way too, but more so anything extra, extra dinners out or barbecues at the beaches. I was declining invitations. I was, I'm sure, disappointing people because it's like the funnest season in our area. I mean, I actually want to take you on a B-roll walk and just show you where I am and let you see the beauty. I live in the Shoe Shop Valley and it's just of British Columbia and it's just so incredible here in the summer, which makes me a little bit sad that I've been sleeping most of it away. But I had to free myself to recover and one of the ways I had to do that is pretty much to sleep and rest, cut back on unnecessary social activity. I have journaled a lot more and had way more quiet time than I normally do in a summer, and, of course, you all know that I'm working on my journaling resources, which is essentially an online class that I call a discovery. It's going to be part of marriage and elementary and I filmed it about four weeks ago. I got filmed professionally and the whole project is moving forward.

Marijanel: 11:13

But because I had some production on the go, I had to back off of any production that was unnecessary, and one of those things that I deemed unnecessary was weekly podcasts. It was so hard for me. But I sat down and really considered how much energy I pour into this podcast and it's not monetized in the sense that it's not a business product for me or it's not something that I know. Many of you generously use the buy me a coffee link and you'll often donate to the production of the podcast, which is so appreciated. But when I really roll it out on paper, it isn't something that I do for my job.

Marijanel: 11:56

And I had to decide to back off the podcast production during burnout and that meant I went every other week instead of every week and you know what. It made an incredible difference, I think, sometimes just like cutting our load in half and allowing ourselves the space to stop the doing and just being. And I said, Marijanel, accept you're burnt out, you need to rest and back off of production. That's not necessary. Anything that is extra I had to let go of.

Marijanel: 12:32

And, of course, then it took a while into the burnout, like first of all I want to say this that for me I felt like if I could almost liken it to a hospital stay where it's like my first two weeks were in critical care and then it was like I just needed general care to go to like just the general ward of self-compassion and care. And so for the first two weeks I was like flat out pajamas, sleeping, doing minimal and just letting my brain and body recover from the amount that I put out. And then I began to feel a little more human again, but I realized I wasn't totally through it. We can all jeopardize burning out again if we don't fully let ourselves recover, and so at that point I entered just like monitoring mode where I just carefully watched myself yeah, you need a nap today. And then some days I didn't, and then other days I didn't have it. I needed to go to bed early and I needed to put my phone away and have less distractions, minimize my tech, wake up and set one goal for the day.

Marijanel: 13:44

Cause I do find that some of my symptoms when I'm burnt out is not only, like I mentioned, a feeling depression and sadness and lack of motivation, but I sometimes just don't finish things. It's like it enhances my distraction, attention issues. I want to call it ADHD, but I've never been fully diagnosed and I only see it rise up and crop up when I'm under intense stress, like a burnout, and so I began to see myself having those little issues where I didn't finish tasks and I'd leave laundry undone or half done, and I just realized that I needed to bring my mindset back into focus and give myself manageable to do is manageable tasks every day. I also did talk to my doctor and I didn't necessarily need to bring up the fact I was burned out, but I talked to the doctor about my iron levels and a little bit of lack of energy because I realized that I think that my burnout was coinciding with low energy. My burnout was coinciding with low iron and interestingly, this has happened a couple of times in my life when I'm really busy, for example, the time that I described from May to mid June sorry, march to mid June. I was so busy that I don't pay as good of attention to my dietary needs or nutrition and it can really lead to the lack of iron, vitamins and all of that. So I really let it slip and I talked to the doctor about getting some blood work and checking into some things, which I think was just a really smart move. So I guess one thing that I would offer out there to anyone who thinks they're going through burnout is to make sure that if you need medical attention for the burnout itself or also just for the fact that it takes such a toll on your body to make sure you're reaching out to get the help that you need.

Marijanel: 15:54

And I also tried to give myself quick wins. This is an interesting one to describe, because for all of us it's gonna seem different. Quick wins in your life might look totally different than in mine, but part of the burnout that I was going through was that I had a lot of big decisions to make and I was needing to make them rapidly, and yet they were so big. I also needed time. We could call it time to overthink them or just simply time to think about it. Either way, I spent some time journaling and really sorted out all my decisions that I needed to make and picked the ones that could be the biggest, quickest wins, get some decisions off my plate, and that helped a lot. There were two or three key decisions that I needed to make towards the end of burning out, before I realized fully that I was in burnout mode. I needed to make some big decisions, and when I made them I felt an incredible amount of relief One of the things I'm gonna be teaching in my upcoming journaling class Journal Yourself Whole is how to make decisions through a process of journaling. I think that it is like so transformational to be able to sit down with your journal and sort out your decisions and then choose the biggest, quickest wins that you can give yourself, because the relief is I think I just messed up my mic the relief is huge, and so that's something that I did for myself was just gave myself some big win decisions and let myself relish in the relief.

Marijanel: 17:42

I also read about burnout. I know it's funny, but I knew right away okay, you hit a wall, you are so burnout. Let's study this a little bit. Let's understand what others recommend that you do to get through it. So I've shared with you some tips that I've personally used to help myself recover and I'm not fully recovered, I've got a little ways to go, but I'm definitely on the other side of the worst. I've shared with you some of my own tips, but in the research and reading, here's some that I'll just like list off for you that could help you or somebody else that you know going through burnout, that are really important to keep in mind. So when you're burnout and I'll list them here.

Marijanel: 18:27

Recognize the signs. It's really important. Recognize the signs and accept it. Set your boundaries between your work life, your personal life, your social life. Learn to say no. So set your boundaries. I have other episodes all about setting boundaries.

Marijanel: 18:43

If you check in the past lineup of YouTube or audio shows, prioritize your self care. For all of us that will look different, but prioritize taking care of you. For me at was sleep, this stress management. So keep your stress at a minimal and try not to take on more things that will lead you to stressful situations. Seek social support, connecting with your friends and family, talking through your feelings For me that was journaling and I actually felt like I needed a back off of a lot of social situations. But sitting on a patio with a friend was totally fine. It was over stimulus, it was loud places that really drained me and break your tasks into manageable steps so that you're not overwhelmed. Take a little break. Have a mini vacation or staycation Although I have to say that for me that doesn't work because I find I get a little bit stressed out about vacations, especially like packing and making sure you have everything. So that isn't something that really works for me personally, but a lot of people do find themselves like really relaxed, to take a vacation, seek professional help when you need it. Make sure that you remember that there's professionals out there waiting to help us, waiting to listen and be there and practice that self compassion.

Marijanel: 20:13

Try to guess which was the hardest for me? The self compassion one it really was. I wanted to like what my butt and get myself back in gear and just say get on with it, girl, like it wasn't that bad. You had the time of your life, you had this amazing wedding, you had a family and friends and drinks and food and fun, and prior to that, I mean, hey, you made a big change. Yeah, you moved studios and you started a business and you made a bunch of decisions. It can't be that bad, right. Well, the accumulation of the stress was just too much for one person to handle in such a short amount of time and it took a toll and that's okay.

Marijanel: 20:51

I don't need to be ashamed of that. You don't need to be ashamed of your burnout. I think that's one thing that we all especially those of us who are task orientated people who work really hard we're self-motivators. We're just always on the go when we experience burnout or setbacks of any kind. We get down on ourselves, feel ashamed. Ashamed of it and this time because I didn't go into denial and I pretty much straight up announced it to everyone I'm in burnout mode. I just owned the fact that I needed to rest. I owned the fact I needed to say no to extra things.

Marijanel: 21:34

I also have this other little syndrome that I call the because I can syndrome. I've never talked about it yet on the podcast and I love to dedicate a whole talk to it. But I do things because I can. I'll take on an extra project because I can. I'll do it. You know, art because I can, or this because I can, or I love to do things because I can. In fact, I saw on the documentary called my Octopus Teacher that the octopus, the main star of the show, she walked on the bottom of the ocean with her eight legs because she can, and there's footage Like this is real, this is true, this octopus. There's film of it in the octopus, my octopus teacher, where she's like walking with her eight legs on the bottom of the ocean and the commentator said simply because she can. I felt like that's me.

Marijanel: 22:33

I do things because I can and during burnout mode I had to go into very, very strict mindset that I'm not allowed to do anything because I can. I only do the things that are right in front of me, that are completely necessary, and that really helped me. After I'm fully recovered, when I'm on the other side, I will start doing all the adventures and wonderful creative things that I do because I can. But right now it's necessary work, and one of those things that I deemed necessary during the burnout that I would continue doing is developing the mentorship programs I've been working on, including journal yourself whole. So stay tuned because it's in the editor's hands right now. It's getting worked on and I'm going. I'm not even calling it a launch. During burnout mode I decided to call it embarking. I am embarking on the journey of having this program. I'm not launching anything because that speaks of fast, furious, high pressure type of activity and I am taking the route of peaceful, calculated, intentional activity, such as embarking on a voyage with you.

Marijanel: 23:48

So check out all my links below. You know where to find me marijanel. com. I'm working on my mentoring side. I can't wait to announce when it's ready. You can find me on Instagram at marijanel. I also have an art account at marijanelart.

Marijanel: 24:03

All of the links are down below and on YouTube, I would love it if you give me some love with some like button, subscribe button, hit the bell you know all that good stuff. And then over on audio apps, it really helps if you leave a review and a stars and there's also a link below to support the show. If that's of interest to you, to buy me a copy, not a literal copy. It supports the show, although, who knows, maybe I will get a literal copy because in burnout mode I might as well treat myself to a coffee. I really appreciate you all being here on my journey and hearing me out today about the reality of my summer, summer 2023, burnout mode and what it's been like, what I've learned. Hopefully there's some takeaways and some encouragement for you there. Until next time, keep on in the full potential, descending the colors, colors, colors around, the colors, colors, colors around.