Secrets to avoid burnouts
Times Ascent | 30 September 2010 | Purnima
Burnout has not much to do with the physical condition of an individual. It is the result of the emotional state a person is going through.
How did I first come to know about “the phenomenon of burnouts”? Once I was leading a group of people from Europe. It was a long retreat spread over three weeks. We had quite a few opportunities to interact with the participants personally to throw more light on the program they were going through and its relevance to real life. After greeting them it was customary for me to enquire about the nature of their work. I was astonished to hear six or seven people out of 10 complaining to me about burnouts and that they were recovering from it. That was when I understood how this problem was consuming a lot of working population especially in developed countries with competitive markets.
What do you think are the factors causing a burnout? Burnout has not much to do with the physical condition of an individual. It is the result of the emotional state a person is going through. If constant stress has you feeling disillusioned, helpless and completely worn out, you may be suffering from burnout. When you’re burned out, problems seem insurmountable, everything looks bleak, and it’s difficult to muster up the energy to care—let alone do something about your situation. When emotions seem overwhelming for a person and he/she is incapable of handling them then such a condition could lead someone to a burnout. That is why you find some people speaking of a burnout not when the workload is more but when they go through a separation.
A burnout could also happen when people do a work that they hate doing. Imagine a teacher doing the work of a sales man or a sales person being a manager or a counselor being a software programmer or a technician doing PR. People feel lonely and estranged when they do a work that does not match their personality. When you do not identify yourself with the work you do, you neither can draw out the best in you nor can you feel at home doing that. Researches have shown how people must feel at home while they work; only then can they function at reduced stress levels and maximum efficiency. Many people I have come across have become “burned out” because they did a job they hate doing and that did not hold a creative life force nourishing and enlivening them.
How can we best help a person who has had a burn out? We could take a three-pronged approach to address this problem.
1. Understanding
2. Recognition
3. Intelligent observation
Understanding: One common factor we could observe in the behavior of people who have had a burnout is a feeling of being victimized. Any empathy or concern shown towards them has an immediate response of self-pity, the “poor me” feeling and a spontaneous blame on work systems, government or the family condition that is forcing them to slog out. The emotional stress is also arising because they feel they alone are subjected to such harsh conditions while the rest of humanity is having a great time and how else would they be if not get burned out after going through such an ordeal in life. If we could help them make a shift in their understanding that any work be it domestic, professional, service oriented involves a considerable amount of stress. As long as we blame the systems and circumstances, we are only aggravating the stress levels and keeping ourselves emotionally charged. We are getting ourselves caught in a vicious cycle. So the first shift would be to move from blame to a place of responsibility. Responsibility is to take charge of one’s own happiness and well being and not throwing it on others.
Recognition: Once they make this shift and take responsibility for their happiness, the next step would be to recognize the emotional charges that are causing this stress. Work pressure, impossible targets, peer pressure or competition could trigger stress. Leaving aside the cause let us see what repercussions it has on the emotional front. “What am I feeling in these situations?” With this question you shift their attention from the outside to the inside. This is a very major transition in the journey. They need to recognize the emotions, be it hurt, anger, a feeling of rejection, abandonment, guilt or self-condemnation.
Intelligent Observation: Knowing an emotion is not labeling it and putting it into a basket saying “I know it all, this is how I have always felt”. Rather it is to observe and recognize the thought structures that constitute it. When thoughts repeat over a period of time, it results in stress. So identify the predominant thoughts causing and sustaining these emotions. Help them see how often they have been caught in the same thought patterns. It is like someone holding a pillar tightly and shouting, “I am stuck”. In intelligent observation it becomes evident to them that support and help can come from outside sources but the actual solution rests in their hands. The moment you see that people or situations are not victimizing you but your own thoughts, you declutch from them automatically. You suddenly see what succumbing to them anymore would mean to your life. You realize the consequences of wallowing in them; the imminent danger strikes you. This observation is Intelligence; it is Freedom.
Only through self-empowerment by owning up responsibility for their happiness can people avoid and heal themselves of the ramifications of faulty systems.
Author:
Purnima
Faculty, One World Academy
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