There's no smooth sailing.
The hard truth about overwhelm & burnout.
I want to talk about overwhelm, the inevitable burnout it often leads to, AND the wake up call I desperately needed - which might make me sound like a lunatic.
We see the words overwhelm and burnout all over the place, but we don't often see what they actually mean for people. We don't hear what it feels like, what the physical symptoms are, or how it literally affects people's lives, let alone how it starts & how it snowballs. To no surprise, people are reluctant to share the load because they don't want to seem like they're complaining or attention seeking.
I'm the same way! Like many people, I am not a fan of sympathy, or unsolicited advice, and have a complicated relationship with being comforted (hello firstborn daughter, recovering people pleaser, etc). Which leads us to white knuckling it and stuffing it down until it's unbearable, and we have a mental breakdown. ALL BECAUSE we don't want to seem desperate, or annoying, even though So. Many. People. are going through the exact same shit.
Of course, everyone has different experiences, but what I found in my personal experience to be a significant game changer, was not to focus on getting through it, but being in it.
Hear me out. The point of being overwhelmed and burnt out is not getting over the burnout. The point of it is to BE overwhelmed, and to BE burnt out. We spend the majority of our time trying to avoid, at all costs, what we are experiencing, instead of experiencing it (evidenced by countless multibillion dollar industries that only exist because we want to escape the scarcity of aging, declining health, time, MONEY, to name a few). Avoiding the reality of the situation usually makes it worse and more overwhelming, or guarantees that it sticks around longer, or just comes right back when we thought we were through with it.
We create this never ending cycle of existential doom, and eventually hit rock bottom.
We cannot create lasting change without first accepting and leveraging our reality.
I can recount first hand that what you find at the bottom of the barrel, is nothing but brutal honesty. When it gets to be unavoidable, too much, this is how it is - you are forced to BE overwhelmed and burnt out. You are forced to be in the present moment. You hardly notice the anxiety for what's to come, or the regret of what you could have done better. It's just you, in this moment, doing whatever you can to get to the next moment - doing one. thing. at. a. time. There is simply nothing else down there, and zero capacity to do anything more.
Because when the overwhelm is all consuming, as in there is nothing else but the feeling of overwhelm, you feel like you've lost it. You can't sleep, you don't want to eat, your to-do list is miles long, people are emailing three times a day wondering what's taking so long and you have no idea because you're working 12-16 hours every single day, and dread every minute of it. But you also cannot enjoy time away from work with your friends & family because the only thing you can think about is how behind and overwhelmed you are. Crying feels good, but it's not productive. Eventually, you are an empty shell on auto pilot, hardly alive. Everything feels like a waste of time, especially taking care of yourself. You become vividly aware the things that are valuable to you are being sacrificed with no end in sight. It seems like this state will never end. You've been so overwhelmed for such an extended period of time, it's actually become the norm and you cannot avoid it. It's been accumulating this whole time and it's not going anywhere.
So you accept it. You accept the overwhelm. You accept how you feel, and you freaking feel it. That's the switch.
You think, "This is it, this is my new life." This is the bottom.
When I was there last fall, I knew nothing was going to change. For months I had been making promises I knew I wouldn't keep. I did not care about the quality of my work, or my interactions with other people. I was spread so thin I felt like I didn't exist. I was going through the motions completely uninterested, detached and disengaged from every single thing I was doing. I was numb.
The turning point,
for me was when I gave in and felt it, the depth of numbness, the regret. When I accepted it and really leaned in, I knew if I wanted my life to change, I needed to change. Not my choices, but myself. I realized the things I thought were valuable and important, are actually invaluable and the only things that matter.
As terrible as it felt to get to that point, I had never been there before. Obviously I had been stressed and overwhelmed, but never in a way that mattered as much as this did. We all have skeletons, trauma, and regret. No one is untouched by the depths of the human experience. But, as unpleasant as the overwhelm was, when I did feel it and how mentally overstimulating it was, and just let it happen - I thought I was crazy. There was legitimately a point where I thought I lost my mind, because I was hysterical. Like, uncontrollable sobs and laughter. I felt this surge of energy when I realized I had never been more clear than I was in that moment about what I want, and what I don't. It completely reframed my non-negotiables. My sense of self was unrecognizable, but I found it again, at the bottom of the crusty ass barrel, where there was absolutely nothing, but brutal honesty about where I was headed.
That is the takeaway.
The more familiar we are with these really overwhelming emotions, and the more we lean into them, the more we learn - about ourselves. The things we try to avoid (overwhelm, burn out, insecurities) are actually the things we need to lean into and learn from. They're tools, and they're here to teach us about our own capacity to make deeply meaningful decisions. Life changing, intentional choices.
As cliche as it is - the obstacle is the way. Arguably the hardest lesson to learn, but one we inevitably relearn over and over until we get it. There is no smooth sailing, we just become better sailors. The limitation of our capacity to overcome is defined by self imposed barriers.
You know that imaginary line? Cross it.