Mitigating Burnout
Sometimes the hardest part of being a leader is acknowledging that with collaboration comes conflict and with innovation comes failure. Once we’ve acknowledged the tough stuff, we can start to approach conflict and failure as beautiful journeys that teach us more about ourselves than success ever could.
People toss around the phrase “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” because there’s truth in it. We are first emotional beings that sometimes think, it is not the other way around. We feel and so we act. For those of us who have big feelings or who feel deeply, we are drawn to the movement, where our feelings, our passions, can be harnessed for change. We forget that with big feelings comes big emotional labor - that for ourselves, and that for our staff colleagues and peers.
Failure, conflict, hard feelings are not something to shy away from, but to explore with genuine curiosity.
“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 in the stress cycle is bad for you.” - Emily & Amelia Nagoski.
In Emily & Amelia Nagoski’s book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, they remind us that feelings have an end but we must complete the stress cycle. Burnout happens when we’re stuck in the tunnel of stress because we’ve either not given ourselves time to end the cycle or because we’re constantly revisiting the same tunnel. Turn toward your difficult feelings with kindness and compassion. Finish the feelings, complete the cycle. According to the Nagoski’s ending the stress cycle looks like:
✨ Physical activity - Develop an accessible movement practice (walking, dancing, yoga, etc.). This releases the chemicals that come with stress and transforms them
✨ Slow breathing - regulate your nervous system with a slow breath in and an even slower breath out for at least a minute and a half
✨ Positive social interaction - connect with people you feel safe with. Your body will start to regulate and co-regulate when it feels safe
✨ Laughter - explore deep belly laughter with your favorite comedy sketch artist, fail videos, or absurdity but make it authentic, not forced
✨ Affection - a good long 20 second warm hug with someone you feel safe with until you relax. Hold your center of gravity, breathe with your person, feel the shift in your body. It releases oxytocin!
✨ Cry big - although crying won’t solve the issue, it can release physical stress and prevent it from being trapped in your body
✨ Creative expression - intuit your way and take whatever you’re feeling inside of you and bring it outside of yourself via knitting, painting, dancing, poetry, music, whatever. Create your rage and turn it into art. Carry fissure outside of your heart
Your body will know when it’s out of the stress cycle. Trust your instincts.
Life will come with discomfort, we just need the right tools to move through it together.
