11/23/2022
For wellness practitioners, therapists and coaches of all walks, burnout is quickly becoming one of the most common challenges clients arrive with.
Even if recovering from burnout isn't the primary goal of a person's healing process, it's often lurking around it.
Deep states of burnout can feel like the joy has been sucked out of life. It can feel like not having the energy for any of the things we used to love. It can make us socially reclusive, losing contact with friends or family. And it can sometimes be mistaken for depression or anxiety.
From a somatic perspective, burnout is nervous system dysregulation caused by chronic stress.
It is an imbalance whereby our output has far surpassed our inputs. We are giving away much more than we are taking in.
**A Focalizing Informed Way of Addressing Burnout**
When Focalizing Practitioners work with trauma, we start by understanding a person's level of resource. Does this person have the capacity to even be with the parts of them that are dysregulated, emotional or overwhelmed?
If not, it's time to focus on building up resources. The same is true for burnout.
**Step #1 - Examine Your Resources**
What are you presently using to rest and recover? Are they truly allowing you to recharge? Next time you engage with them, bring some curiosity in. At the end of watching a TV show, calling up a friend, or scrolling on your phone ask yourself, was that stress reducing, stress neutral or stress increasing? What's your nervous system telling you? Reduce what isn't helping you regulate wherever possible.
**Step #2 - Consider Bringing In New Resources**
Because burnout is a form of nervous system dysregulation, some of the most helpful resources are going to be ones that bring your body into experiences of safety, playfulness and presence.
If burnout is causing high activation (buzziness, anxiety, racing thoughts, trouble sleeping), look for down-regulating resources:
Examples: baths, yoga, massage, acupuncture, Reiki, creating art.
If burnout has you collapsed (joyless, no energy, no passion) look for up-regulating resources:
Examples: singing/chanting, intuitive movement and dance, light exercise, Qigong, cold plunges/showers.
Healing often looks like running a series of experiments and seeing what fits. In Focalizing for burnout recovery, we're looking for the resources that help bring more regulation to the nervous system.
What allows you to feel more yourself? What allows you to enjoy the present moment? What helps you have the energy to be social again? These are signs you're on the right track.
**Step #3 - Engage In Self Inquiry Around What Got You Here**
It is also helpful to take some time with a journal, a therapist or a coach to examine what got you here. For many, burnout is the end of a long road that started with feeling a deep sense of unworthiness.
In this instance, hard work becomes a strategy to attempt to overcome feeling unworthy. In essence, giving us a way to try to 'earn our place' in the world as if we didn't have one already.
This inquiry process deserves plenty of gentle compassion as it goes right to the core of our earliest experiences in the world. And at the same time, it sets us up to make better decisions when faced with the prospect of over extending ourselves in the future.
**One Last Thing: An Often Overlooked Opportunity For Resource...**
One of our favorite resources is utilizing our sense of smell as a playground for re-regulating our nervous system. For many, certain scents are enormously resourcing. A flower essence, a candle, an incense, or a favorite soap can all ground us in our senses and recalibrate our system.
This is important because deep states of burnout are essentially dissociative states. We dissociate from our senses and the world around us. Mindfully engaging with pleasant smells can be a shortcut to re-association, reconnecting with the present moment.
You likely know the saying to "stop and smell the roses" as a metaphor for appreciating life. There's a reciprocal effect to this that we witness in our nervous systems. Stopping to smell the roses also sends a signal back to our system that we're safe enough to be playful, connect with our surroundings, appreciate a moment free of hyper vigilance.
Next time you're feeling dysregulated and disconnected, consider a conscious pause to take in a resourceful scent. Notice what it does to your state and let it guide you back to yourself.
Thanks for reading. If you're a therapist, coach, wellness practitioner or bodyworker, there's an opportunity to get trained in Focalizing practices in the new year. The Focalizing Practitioner program is a 10-week certification course in using trauma informed embodiment tools to help clients get unstuck, heal unprocessed trauma, and connect with life in a more purposeful manner. Starts in February and more information can be found here: https://www.theinstitute.org/the-practitioner-course
- The Focalizing Institute Team