Normalized Burnout

As always, I delicately present these topics as an opportunity to share perspective.

When we open ourselves to this, possibilities become endless. A small shift in perspective can be the catalyst to big personal and professional shifts.

Let’s roll our sleeves up and get into this tender topic.

How does our modern-day culture define things like :

HEALTH, SUCCESS, and HAPPINESS?

The foundation of our modern culture is deeply imbedded in the language of performance.  The more I thought about it, the more I wondered, “So what ISN’T based on performance.”

For starters, we all know our jobs are performance based, and so is education.  As if that wasn’t challenging enough, performance has leaked into all the little nuances of our lives, including the bedroom. 

With a performance-based society, comes a transactional human experience.

We will dissect performance in every sliver of our culture, but for now, let’s take a look at our modern-day work environments. 

They promise reward for productivity.  This has created “THE PUSH THROUGH” mentality, normalized as DRIVE.  We admire the ones who continually operate under pressure to deliver “valuable” results.  This is what we label, as Admirable.  We are told, we should ALL be like these people, and if we aren’t, we just aren’t good enough.  They are the ones working around the clock and remain constantly available.  They seem to have endless capacity and they seem to be functioning just fine.  From the outside looking in, this is impressive. 

The picture of a disciplined worker, committed to get the job done, determined to succeed, climb the corporate ladder. 

Again, so admirable. 

So resilient.

A “True” representation of a Go-Getter.

This is what our culture strives for. 

Perfection! 

What is perfection anyway?

Another “MAN MADE” ideology that causing massive mental confusion.  

We will talk about PERFECTIONISM another time, but for now let’s continue.

Beneath this image of High Achievers, lies an important question:

What’s happening on the inside? 

What’s happening emotionally, that these people dare NOT communicate to anyone?  The outside looks picture perfect, but does it really?

Look Closer. 👀

High performance doesn’t always equal sustainability. 

Endurance doesn’t always equal strength. 

Movement does always equal progress.

The message is, harder, faster, do more, push through, take care of yourself later.

This may often lead to promotions, bonuses, monetary rewards, more opportunity and recognition for achievements. 

WOW! Some might say, this is like a dream come true!

Sometimes what appears to be supreme, is just normalized burnout. 

The outer achievement, always comes with an inner cost.  Many high achievers are driven by reward.  It’s a transactional equation looks like this….

THE MORE YOU DO, THE BIGGER THE REWARD. 

Is this true? 

Well, we sure hope so because, we’ve been promised a reward for all of our hard work. 

We chase that promise. 

Keep in mind, this brain wiring trickles down into everything. 

Life starts to drift into a transactional experience.

Here’s what many of us are missing.

The body and mind communicate differently.

They don’t have conversations in words; they have conversations through nerve impulses and body signals.

The body speaks in signals like Irritability, lack of focus, mental fatigue, anxiety, depression, weight gain, hypertension, sleepless nights, body pain, loss of joy and meaning. These body signals continue to fire, but the mind says:

Ignore it. 

Deal with it later. 

Who cares. 

You aren’t the only one feeling like this. 

I have no choice; I have to go on. 

The mind that becomes obsessed with this idea of success, says to the body,

YOU CAN’T FAIL ME NOW.  I’ve started this mission and I have to see it through.

The body is ALWAYS a slave to the mind. 

So, the body pushes through, per the request of its master. 

UNTIL…the body CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE.

So round and round we go, in a vicious cycle of pushing through the body screaming at us.  After all, we are supposed to endure it all, aren’t we?

The person remains productive on the outside, but internally they feel their capacity declining.  They feel it, and normalize it within themselves. 

A long-time performer, is a master of performance. 

They can hide dysfunction beautifully. 

In fact, this is the biggest reason why burnout can be confusing to detect. 

We see burnout as some sort of defeat or self-failure. 

Normalizing it may can be the only way to cope, so that we don't feel "Bad" about ourselves.  Most people accept this as “Fate” and work years and years and years with severe burnout.  They may know it and not care, or they honestly think this is a normal feeling.

They still attend meetings, produce results and meet deadlines.  From the outside everything appears “Normal.” On the inside, the body is feeling the long-term strain from all the demands the mind has put on it.  Moods become unstable, irritability increases, the person starts to appear numb, or like a ticking time-bomb.

There’s a lack of luster for anything and everything. 

Homelife is suffering. 

Life is officially DULL.

So, as time goes on the person has adapted to living like this.  They learn how to manage their own depleted internal resources.  They have figured out how to outwardly present as “On Point,” while internally they have accepted the body’s depleting energy sources.  The person CANNOT bare to detach from the identity they have created, and they will internally suffer to keep this all hidden from everyone, including loved ones.

This unrecognized internal conflict, can be CATASTROPHIC.

What role can self-awareness play in this conundrum?  

First, let’s make a clear distinction between self-awareness and introspection. 

Both concepts interconnect; however, self-awareness is a broader state of recognizing how you fit into the world. Introspection is a process of examining your thoughts, feelings and emotions. In other words, why you act the way you act, and why you feel the way you feel.  Self-awareness, is understanding how your internal self, and your actions impact others in the external world.  

Developing skills of Self-Awareness and Introspection can literally be LIFESAVING.

In this case, self-awareness is the ability to notice how fatigue is influencing your ability to communicate properly, and the ability to discern clearly. 

The ability to see how your DRIVE may be shutting out the screams for recovery. 

The ability to see how identity may be bound to the idea of Success.

Without this awareness, people often become reactive to their own patterns rather than responsive to them.  Even worse, they drown in their internal body collapse without any tools to navigate through it.  Without self-awareness everything can become confusing.  The ability to discern becomes fuzzy. 

The sense of urgency can be confused with importance. 

Any type of movement can be confused with forward progress. 

WITH awareness, signals from the body can be noticed.

We can start to open to new possibilities.

We can feel stress and recognize it within ourselves.

We can start to do things to sooth the pressure.

We start to schedule rest.

We realize that we don't have to neglect ourselves for the sake of achievement.

Without building deep self-awareness, many sacrifice their bodies and spirits for accomplishments.  Our culture doesn’t always teach or encourage self-awareness.

In fact, it can feed the normalization of unawareness. We are taught to ignore all of these body clues, emotional clues, and deteriorating home infostructure. 

If we look and listen to what’s going on around you, you’ll hear people saying,

“This is just life.”

Don’t misunderstand this.  Ambition is a wonderful thing, and an admirable quality when it’s in a BALANCED state.  However, ambition is powerful and can turn into obsession without even noticing it.

A healthy ambition, is able to see big picture, create momentum, be expansive and help drive growth.  An ambitious person wants to help, see what more can be done, and strive for more. These are healthy qualities, until we tip the scale into unhealthy states of it. Unhealthy ambition can become hyper-focused on outcomes and lose the ability to adapt and navigate and see big picture as things move.  

This all or nothing mentality starts to creep in.

When ambition crosses into obsession, it can become self-destructive. 

Why?

Ambition without self-awareness is like driving a car without enough gas. 

Sooner or later, it will STOP functioning, without understanding that EVERY gas tank (humans included) needs to be refueled.

A self-aware person has the bandwidth to reflect on questions like:

Do I really need to do this?

What state am I operating from?

Is this sustainable?  

How will this pace impact my health?

Does my future really depend on doing it this way, or is there another way?

Blending Ambition with self-awareness can be a great way to strike balance in all areas of life.  Ambition creates movement while self-awareness balances it with sustainability.  It is possible to have success without self-sacrifice.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The driving force behind what moves us is ALWAYS rooted in our nervous system.  These patterns have been established within us from childhood.  For example, Inspiration is a very different nervous system frequency that anxiety. 

Ask yourself, “What type of energy do I operate from?”

Inspirational energy

Anxious energy

Avoidance, escapism energy

Need for approval

Need to prove

Need to be right

Need to be powerful

On the outside, no one is going to question the driving force behind your energy.

Quite frankly, as long as its production based, that’s all that matters to the powers that be. It's a transactional equation.

However, the internal experience is completely different.

Achievement fueled by chronic stress often feels urgent, restless, and difficult to stop.

Achievement fueled by alignment feels focused, energized, and sustainable.

Recognizing the root of your fuel source is crucial.

Why?

The nervous system WILL eventually uncover the truth.

It ALWAYS does.

Some just close their eyes to it.

What is driven by fear cannot feel peaceful for the long haul. It's a very short lived feeling.

What is built through chronic strain and stress eventually seeks for replenishment.

We also need to re-define what strength looks like. 

We still believe that PUSH THROUGH = STRENGTH.

No one talks about the strength that is needed:

To set proper boundaries

To put self-care at the top of the list

To pause instead of react

To choose rest without guilt

To learn how to achieve without being obsessed

To face what we've stuffed down within ourselves for decades

Tackling these concepts takes a ton of strength.

Much more strength that the PUSH THROUGH mentality.

Our modern interpretation of strength is endless:

PUSH PUSH PUSH....IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE.

This is actually a form of slavery. 

The body enslaved by the mental obsession the mind creates.

The self-aware person makes decisions based on their internal landscape, as opposed to the external presentation.  Yes, these decisions may seem weak, or not as sexy as the more visible hustle type of decisions, but in many cases, they are self-preserving.

The hope is that we can slowly shift into a place where success and sustainability

can coexist.  

That self-aware people can help create self-aware environments.  

That success can be measured by WHO the person became WHILE they were striving.  That our achievements deepen our clarity and relationship with ourselves, as opposed to creating deeper fragmentation within.  

That our performance comes from a sense of purpose rather than patterns that were never uncovered. 

That accomplishments expand our human consciousness instead of depleting it.

How can we integrate these concepts into a more sustainable practice? 

Let's reflect on all of this....

Yes, we understand that everything has its place. 

Maybe we can shift our perspective of performance. 

Maybe it’s not about DOING MORE, maybe it’s about doing what is sustainable.

Maybe it’s about learning the driving force behind our DRIVE.

Maybe it's about understanding what truly INSPIRES us.

Maybe it's about facing our IMPOSTOR SYNDROME.

Maybe it’s about understanding the SELF.

The Performance PUSH without Self-awareness can create NORMALIZED BURNOUT.

Guess what...Ignored Normalized burnout is a form of self-abandonment.

Where does this "Performance" mindset show up in your life?

May this plant a seed for endless possibilities for all of us!

~ Leelah Lakshmi ~

A car without enough gas will eventually STOP functioning.