Burnout has become a buzzword
My dear fellow overer,
If you’re like me, you gloss over the many conversations about burnout.
Burnout has become a buzzword.
We all know to avoid it, yet we live a lifestyle that reflects anxiety, overwhelm, and frustration. We may even accept that stress and anxiety are just realities of adulting.
I get it. Been there, done that.
We are here to (un)(re)learn how to live a slowed-down life so that you can make intentional, embodied choices that lead to empowered cultural and communal changes in your life and work.
What I think the mainstream nature of burnout now does is highlight how common it actually is. Stats show a wide range of employee burnout - over 80% of corporate workers feeling it and over 60% of higher ed faculty. My guess is those are conservative numbers with much underreporting. That data do show that burnout rates are higher for women, folks of color, and millennial and Gen Z managers. And that makes sense, given the inherent racism, sexism, and patriarchy in our systems as well as living under epic economic, climate, and health crises.
The term and diagnosis of burnout highlight what for many overers is chronic overworking and over-functioning in our personal and professional lives within oppressive systems and cultures.
I see burnout as the outcome and result when your relationship to living and working is out of alignment and balance. The cause is BOTH/AND - it’s our choices (even when they don’t feel like choices) and it’s the system of toxic capitalism (and all that comes with that).
You can move past limiting self-care lists and into shifts that nudge you back into connection and community.
I’ve done it for myself (the long and hard way because I had no one around me at the time who could offer more than sympathy and platitudes). I’ve done it alongside clients as they reinvent their lives in ways just right for them and how they want to be in the world.
From my own previous chronic burnout lifestyle and years of working with others through this, here’s what I know:
Right now: We crave real freedom from other’s demands and expectations but get stuck in self-defeating mindsets and self-destructive behaviors.
What's possible: We can experience freedom - of our time, attention, and energy - when we embody genuine worthiness in our humanity and learn to live a life we love in community.
Right now: We live in a toxic world of extraction - of taking and demanding - of our energy and life to work and of Earth’s to serve production for other’s profits.
What's possible: We shift out of our overing and into regeneration, where we regularly reconnect to our bodies, our purpose, our communities, and Nature.
Remember: Change is not about taking a vacation or using your leave time only.
Change requires a shift within our internal landscapes as well as work and life.
What I know right now is: It’s not just you. It’s not just work. It’s something bigger. It’s about shifting into an anti-capitalist mindset within a capitalistic workplace and society (and yes, higher ed also is and has been a site of academic capitalism).
What I mean by anti-capitalistic as educators, leaders, and professionals is this: to gain mind-body-soul aligned clarity of purpose, to disconnect with work and career as your main or sole identity, to be socially just and oriented, to build community and connection over individualism and separation, and to value collaboration and reciprocal growth.
So we’re not going full-on anarchy (yet). Instead, we will burn down what needs clearing so that you can grow what is healthy and reciprocal. We are going to learn from Wildfires and their beautiful ability to regenerate stronger.
I’m deep-diving into all the burnout-related books and research so I can extract the goodness for you because there’s a lot of toxic pull-yourself-up bullshitery out there.
Would you answer one of these questions for me? Just click on the one that resonates most and send over a few sentences.