Burnout doesn't happen because you aren't trying.

I really, really like to read.

I always dreamed of having my own library, with wall after wall of books, and one of those sliding ladders so that you can reach the tall shelves...

Swoon.

When it comes to my reading habits, I'm the kind of person who usually has more than one non-fiction book on the go — and I like to jump between them, depending on what's piqued my curiosity that particular day.

A lot of what I learn from this dabbling ends up making its way into my coaching practice.

In yesterday's dabbling, I started to read "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle," and I found myself nodding along and highlighting like crazy. So for today's email, I'm going to share a few tidbits that I'm ruminating on from this book.

AKA The Sones' Notes:

First of all, if you're looking for an official definition of "burnout", it's a term that was coined by Herbert Freudenberger in 1975 and consists of three things:

emotional exhaustion — the fatigue that comes with caring too much for too long
depersonalization — the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion
decreased sense of accomplishment — an unconquerable sense of futility; feeling that nothing you do makes a difference

(You can see how the current landscape lends itself to an epidemic of burnt out humans.)

One of the things that really stood out for me when the authors talked about emotional exhaustion is the idea that the emotions we feel can be like tunnels — and sometimes, we get stuck in them.

The most difficult tunnels that we have to navigate are:

Rage. Grief. Despair. Helplessness.

(I want to add loneliness to that list.)

When we get stuck in emotions, especially those really hard ones, we struggle because nothing in our being wants to be in those crap feelings. They suck.

Then it sucks even more when it feels like we aren't making progress or "getting better" — especially because we want to — because the external stressors that are outside of our control create a perpetual experience of stress in the body; one that compromises are ability to process that stress and recover.

When that happens (like, hashtag, pandemic life) and our expectations around accomplishment and progress aren't being met...we get really, really frustrated.

So we try harder. And harder. And that doesn't always get us unstuck. Because this whole burnout problem has nothing to do with a lack of trying.

We're trying all the forking time.

That's kind of the problem.

What's the solution?

To be completely honest, I'm only a third of the way into this book so I haven't actually gotten to the authors' solution yet, and I'm not going to try and distill all of the awesomeness of the first few chapters into this email because that's too much work for a Friday afternoon.

Plus, their solution is rooted in examining societal conditioning and expectations and the way that the systems are rigged (which I am SO here for) — and I can't do all of that justice in one email. That's why they wrote an entire book about this shit.

Instead, I'm going to give you my answers, i.e. The Things I tell myself when I get stuck in The Feels:

I want to share one more excerpt from the book, and then I'm going to wrap this up:

To be "well" is not to live in a state of perpetual safety and calm, but to move fluidly from a state of adversity, risk, adventure, or excitement, back to safety and calm, and out again.

Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.

You can be well, even during the times when you don't feel good.

Your feelings are not a pathology, and wellness isn't about feeling good all the time.

An important component of wellness is being able to recognize and name what's going on, so that you can take the necessary steps to meet your needs. It's not a one-and-done process, it's a constantly evolving state of action.

And remember — when you're challenging systems and conditioning that demand your Self-sacrifice and martyrdom along the way: