Inner Stillness Outer Chaos Avery Thatcher

When I first learned about burnout I heard it was a stress management problem. Essentially it was too much stress and not enough coping strategies to deal with all that stress.


But after my own epic burnout experience, I realized that way of perceiving burnout was wrong. 


The truth is, burnout is not a stress management problem. It’s an energy management problem.


 

I wish I could meet the person who first said that you need 30 minutes per day of self-care so that I could shake them and ask “why????”.


Finding a solid 30 minutes to dedicate to yourself is pretty difficult, especially in the lives of highly sensitive high achievers, am I right? Plus, not all self-care is made equal, and there are some things we think are self-care, but are actually not.


Let’s talk about it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the typical discussion around vulnerability isn’t actually trauma informed or inclusive, and I think that needs to change.

When you think of meditation, you likely think about someone sitting down on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed, hands resting on their knees, breathing deeply and looking calm and relaxed.


But what if meditation didn’t have to look that way? What if all of the typical self-care practices could be adapted to what works for you, not what everybody else seems to be doing?


 

Picture this: you muster up the courage to set a boundary, but instead of the smooth sailing you hoped for, it's like hitting a brick wall. The other person reacts with confusion, frustration, or even hostility. What went wrong?


The belief that we can’t change what someone feels in response to our boundary, well this can really mess up our relationships and our own well-being. It sets us up to feel defeated and helpless, like we're constantly walking on eggshells, afraid to assert ourselves for fear of rocking the boat especially for us highly sensitive humans with a tendency to people please. It can lead to resentment, which leaves us feeling disconnected and misunderstood.


I’m not saying we shouldn’t set boundaries - boundaries themselves are incredibly helpful and necessary if we want to create more calm in our life. 


But how we set the boundary is almost as important as the boundary itself.

I never used to be the kind of person that would get anxious or overwhelmed. I used to be proud of that and think it was a skill especially when I was working as an ICU Registered Nurse and things were going sideways that day.


Turns out it was dissociation, aka a coping mechanism from trauma.


What can I say, hindsight’s a jerk sometimes.


Now, the truth is I get very anxious, not just my OCD anxiety disorder, but also just generalized anxiety. I think it’s kind of wild sometimes how creative my anxious brain can be, and how clear it can make the most awful, worst-case what-if scenarios feel so possible and so real.


It’s really easy for the anxious part of me to start drumming up feelings of overwhelm because I can convince myself that I’m not able to cope with whatever my anxious brain or perfectionism have built up. But anxiety is just a friend of mine now, welcome to stay here as long as they need. 


Overwhelm, though, that’s a red-flag warning sign for me that I’m heading down the road to burnout.