Ep 5: Is burnout real? Transforming busyness and exhaustion to nourishment and flow
Episode Summary
Busyness seems to be a badge of honor nowadays. There’s this constant need to do, achieve, perform, and succeed. While there is nothing wrong with accomplishing goals in healthy measures, when there’s an obsession with it, when the drive to accomplish stems from feeling insecure about ourselves, then that could be a recipe for burnout.
In this episode, we discuss the burning (pun intended) question: "Is burnout real?" We will dive into the definition of burnout, what leads to burnout, and my own personal story of how I burnt out 3 times (and probably still counting) and how I regained my inner strength by nurturing myself.
Topics discussed in this episode:
1:43 - The culture of busyness and how it pervades us all
3:34 - Desire to stay busy and to achieve is a fiery trait, which when not maintained, keeps burning through
6:48 - What is burnout, and what are physical and more subtle signs of burnout?
9:19 - Burnout stemming from our own insecurities and feelings of “not-enoughness”
9:51 - Personal story of how I went from living in constant states of busyness, into states of nourishment and flow
18:35 - Burnout as a signal from the body to look within — what is the fundamental drive behind what we’re doing?
20:05 - Restorative yoga as my preferred ways to heal from burnout
22:43 - Importance of pausing to evaluate our motives so that we don’t fall into burnout
23:20 - Self-nurture practices as anchors to keep us from drifting too far into the hamster wheel of busyness
The culture of busyness
Have you noticed that oftentimes when asked: “how are you?”, many reply by saying: “oh, I’ve been super busy.”
Note that it actually doesn’t describe how that person is, but only describes what that person have been doing. It’s as if that person has become so busy that they don’t even know how they feel anymore, or choose to neglect how they feel so that they can keep pushing forward in the hustle.
Busyness seems to be a badge of honor nowadays. There’s this constant need to do, achieve, perform, and succeed. While there is nothing wrong with accomplishing goals in healthy measures, when there’s an obsession with it, when the drive to accomplish stems from feeling insecure about ourselves, then that could be a recipe for burnout (which I’ll talk more about later on).
This desire to accomplish is fiery. In Sanskrit, the term agni refers to “fire,” but not the literal fire, but “fire” that helps digest food in our body into nourishment, fire that helps digest information we absorb on a daily basis into knowledge, fire that drives our ideas and passions into manifestations and realities. Fire is ultimately transformative, but only at the right balance.
Fire is conducive and transformative, but it can also be destructive. Fire, when used the right way and well-managed, provide us warmth, light, and the means to cook food. When not managed the right way and uncontrolled, it destroys. Similarly, the fire that keeps us going forward in our duties, responsibilities, and jobs need to be maintained just right. Too much, and you risk “burning out” — your physical body and mental and emotional wellbeing, until there is nothing else of you to burn except for your spirit and your soul.
In today’s world, we do not balance this fire. In fact, we have too much! We live in a culture that celebrates fiery personas — ambitious, driven, and persistent. We don’t talk about how to balance that fire so that it doesn’t rage and destruct.
This leads us to burnout.
What is burnout?
What is it, exactly?
According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, burnout is defined as “physical, emotional or mental exhaustion, accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance and negative attitudes towards oneself and others.”
Burnout stems from being under prolong, constant states of stress, with very little to no reliefs or breaks. It can affect your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.
Symptoms:
Fatigue and exhaustion
Lack of motivation
Feeling dissatisfied
Hard to concentrate, handle responsibilities
Decrease in creativity
Changes in sleep — insomnia
Changes in appetite — loss or increase in appetite
Digestive issues
Knowing this definition, most of us have, at some point, probably felt burnt-out, and perhaps some are in chronic states of burnout.
We’ve burnt everything in our paths voraciously — never satisfied and content because the need to DO something is driven by our own insecurities. If we don’t succeed in this, then I am less than, then I am not enough.
Going from a place of burnout to a well of nourishment
Here’s where I’m going to step in with a personal story, of how I went from busyness + exhaustion, into states of nourishment + flow. Before we dive in, I do want to say this: the act to choose nourishment over busyness is a constant practice. Even being able to recognize burnout in me and having embodied practices of self-nurture, I still find myself cornered into burnout.
This is because our society, our culture, our system are wired to function in this linear, machine-like, result-oriented pattern. It is hard to completely escape that unless you live off the grid.
Growing up in Taiwan, I lived in a very typical Chinese culture of parenting where one must excel academically. An A minus was just not enough — why not a why not A+? Everything we did during our childhood years and school years was to study, memorize, and excel in school so that we could get into good colleges and hired into good, stable careers.
I carried this pressure to excel into my early adulthood, and it escalated after graduating college. After obtaining a degree in biology, instead of continuing on with higher education as I was expected to, I turned my attention to yoga. Even though I had first encountered yoga in high school, my yoga practice was such an anchor for me to manage the stress and challenges of a competitive college.
By the time senior year rolled around, I was having doubts about my decision on continuing on to graduate school. At that point, I had started to really immerse myself into the studies of yoga and had actually applied for a yoga teacher training that would begin a month after graduation.
So then there I was, while my peers were off to their fancy engineering jobs and graduate schools, I was on my way to Thailand for my yoga teacher training. I never looked back on biology and academics, and chose to pursue teaching yoga as my career. That was a very unconventional path and decision within my family, where everyone had obtained at least a master’s degree in maths and/or sciences.
Yet in those early years of teaching yoga, I felt very ashamed of what I did, especially during college reunions where everyone else was chatting about their latest research projects and their cool jobs with trendy companies.
Here I was, a yoga teacher, with “nothing” to show from my degree in biology (which I later realized is not true at all).
I felt judged all the time. I felt judged by my peers. I felt judged by my professors. I felt judged by my parents. Because of this shame and insecurity about what I did, I felt the constant need to prove them wrong — to prove that I could still make money despite not following the conventional path, that I could do it all on my own, that I too could be successful.
It wasn't until much, much later on during my yoga therapy training where I had the realization that this sense of judgment was actually projected. It was not real. Because, in fact, many of my peers had told me in person that they thought that I was so brave to pursue what I was passionate about, to teach yoga to very specific types of people for chronic pain, and to actually manage my own business. It took years for me to realize that this sense of judgement was from my own insecurities projected onto other people, thinking that they judged me where, in fact, I was the one judging myself.
Throughout these years before I came to the realization that I was the one projecting this judgment onto myself, I was constantly under this internal pressure of needing to succeed and to achieve. Yes, I was working really hard externally, but ultimately it was this internal pressure that led me to burnout.
I didn't burn out just once, not twice, but three times. Each time I burnt out, there were some sort of physical or emotional manifestation, whether that was complete exhaustion and depletion, that no matter what I did, I just never feel rested. I would muster enough energy to teach classes, to work with clients, but not have energy to do anything else. The burnout manifested into my body and my skin with all these rashes and acne, and my hormones going out of whack.
The burnout actually had led me to dislike what I did, to actually dread teaching and working with clients. That was when I knew that I was burning out, when something I was so passionate about became something I actually didn't care for anymore. I needed to do something about it.
“With burnout, it really asks of us to contemplate on what’s driving our own actions. Is there an insecurity or an unmet need that we need to address and we need to nurture? ”
Whenever I hit these walls of burnout, it required me to look within and to inquire, what was I doing that was leading me to these burnout? Was there an internal pressure somewhere? Was there an insecurity driving me to this burnout? Because it oftentimes is. If we are doing things for the sake of joy and passion, regardless of the result, we would be content. But if we are doing certain things driven by insecurity, no matter what we do, it will never be enough. Perfection and success is constantly a moving target.On the other hand, when you are doing something for joy and passion and from a sense of contentment, whatever you do, you feel successful, you feel content.
With burnout, it really asks of us to contemplate on what’s driving our own actions. Is there an insecurity or an unmet need that we need to address and we need to nurture?
The ways I heal myself from burnout is always through yoga. And not just hot yoga or power flows, but softer yoga such as restorative yoga and meditation. One of my teachers always said that if our lives are very demanding and fast paced, then our yoga practices should be the opposite. It should be soft and slow, quiet and introspective. So that was what I would always do when I find myself leading towards that state of burnout so that I don't actually get into burnout.
When I changed the way I practice yoga from one that was quite fiery and demanding of the body, to one that is much softer, quieter and contemplative, I changed the way I carried myself in my life and in work.
This doesn’t mean I have never encountered burnout since. My perfectionistic expectations of myself are quite ingrained within me, but I now have the means to balance that out with calmer, grounding practices to offset that fiery quality. I still find myself cornered into burnout, but it gets better every time with practice.
Be in the flow, rather than fight against the currents
As I mentioned before, this act of choosing to slow down, to work with the flow of currents rather than against it, is a constant work in progress. It is so easy to find ourselves all of a sudden on that hamster wheel — constantly going but going nowhere.
That’s when we must pause and give ourselves moments to nurture ourselves, to remind ourselves of who we are, why we’re doing what we’re doing, and whether what we’re doing actually is important. We all get caught up in urgency, but what is truly important to you?
Having self-nurture practices serves as anchors to keep us from drifting too far into the currents of busyness, and when we do, we can always find our way back to our grounded selves with these anchors.
You can refer to Ep 3 to learn more about what self-nurture is, and how to find one that is uniquely your own as your anchor.
Following this informational episode is an experiential episode where I’ll be taking you through a guided meditation practice to help you feel less of an urgency of busyness, and more present in who you are.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed sharing a bit of my personal story with you today, dear listeners, and if you resonate with anything I shared today, I’d love to hear what messages you’ll be taking with you.
Before I close out today’s episode, I’d like to share one of my all-time favorite quotes by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tze:
“Nature does not hurry; yet everything is accomplished. ”
If you enjoyed this episode, please share! We all know people in our lives who could use a bit more self-nurture.
Until next time, listen IN.
About
Elaine Oyang is an IAYT-certified yoga therapist and a self-nurture advocate. Throughout her 12+ year of teaching yoga in studios and private practice, she works to help others restore balance in their bodies from their over-busy lives. She's worked many years in private practice to help clients through their journeys of chronic pain, chronic illness, anxiety, insomnia, and loss of sense of self. With her podcast, Sacred Listening, Elaine shares with a wider audience on her personal experience, and that of her clients', on how to reclaim self-care and self-love.
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This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Information contained in this episode is not to be replaced with medical advice.