Could Burnout Be Your Friend? or How Burnout helps you to re-discover your resilience

Burnout is a much used term, and I've written extensively about it on this blog, in my posts about What Burnout Is, What it's telltale signs are, How to Avoid Job Burnout, and How to Bounce Forward from Burnout (Part 1 and Part 2), so I won't be repeating myself here. However, there is a common fundamental misunderstanding about burnout.

I hear you ask, "What is that?" It's the black and white notion, that Burnout is BAD. It sure doesn't seem like a GOOD thing, when you feel constantly exhausted, have trouble sleeping or switching off, when you feel irritable or even develop chronic health conditions, such as anxiety, depression. Some of us even have nightmares about work, or suffer from insomnia. We all want to increase our resilience, achieve more, do more in less time, and be successful, don't we? Isn't that what our predominant culture is all about? And success means - well, money, doesn't it? A great "title' or at least a "degree" that endorses our achievements. Burnout sure couldn't be our friend, or could it? So why this article then? Having experienced my own burnout several times over and having worked with so many clients who wanted to recover from severe burnout, I now can't help to see the POSITIVE message that burnout has for us. The message we didn't want to hear or understand. The messages our body, mind and emotions have been sending us many times over, but we couldn't hear them: WAIT. STOP. REFLECT. FEEL. RE-ORIENT. RE=BALANCE. RE-THINK. In our blind drive towards "success" we have forgotten about the very essence of why we originally set out on this trip - we wanted to create a life of happiness, of abundance for ourselves. We wanted more freedom. More JOY. And then... what happened? So this is the positive message of burnout - the OPPORTUNITY: To re-discover your true self. To remember who you truly are. To re-gain your resilience. Should you wish to have a burnout-buddy to support you with that - reach out and get in touch with me - today.