Burnout…
If you are feeling down, tired and have no energy, you might be burnt out.
Why does this happen?
Lots of reasons…but I want to highlight one that needs more attention drawn to it.
We all have feelings. They are God given feelings. Fear, sadness…you name it. Those feelings are important to listen to. They are there for a reason.
But those feelings can also overwhelm us. And that doesn’t feel good either. And most of us have never been taught to regulate these feelings so that they can be felt (which is good) but not overwhelm the system (flooding – which is bad).
People get burned out when they don’t know how to regulate, so the feelings get pushed down over and over. The feelings are still in there, trying to communicate…trying to come to the surface. But we push them down. We numb (addictions). We do all kinds of things to not let them surface because we know if we let them come out, we will get overwhelmed by them.
Burnout happens when you get in a persistent cycle where your feelings aren’t allowed to be felt.
If your job stirs all of this up, if seems like work is burning you out. But the reality is, work is stirring up things that are burning you out.
You have to learn to let the feelings get felt.
I heard a quote the other day from a former Delta Force operator who was talking about past missions. He said that your stomach is like a butterfly cage…I thought he was going to say that you have to push the butterflies down and move on. Instead he said something profound. He said, “Let em fly!” Feel the feelings. Then he said, if you ignore this…you will burn out. This jives perfectly with what I am explaining above, which comes from the field of Internal Family Systems (IFS).
So what do you do?
Try spending some time in silence. Pick out something not too heavy but heavy enough. Let it come to the surface. This maybe a hard conversation you had with your dad last week or 10 years ago. Replay it…feel it. If it starts to flood/overwhelm…politely ask the feelings to dial back just a bit. Then try feeling it again. Let the feelings tell you what is really going on. You may find out that you felt powerless in talking with your dad and that has happened so many times with him that you feel powerless in other relationships. And that powerlessness has developed resentment and anger deep inside you. We will all have different things. We need to practice finding the right distance for our feelings where they can be heard but they aren’t screaming in our ear so that we can’t do anything with it.
Does this make sense?
