Exhausted & Over It: Understanding Burnout & How Counselling Can Help

What is Burnout?

Burnout is defined as a state of mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion caused by repeated or prolonged stress. At its core, burnout arises when the demands of one’s life outweigh the ability to cope with the stress that comes from those demands.

It can feel frustrating and defeating when our bodies don’t have the ability to meet the demands of our life. We also live in a society that glorifies and celebrates exhaustion and over-working of all kinds.

Most reports name “challenges at work” as the main culprit, however, burnout can also arise in other areas of life, such as caretaking, parenting, or intimate relationships. Often, we dismiss our body’s needs to prioritize our to-do lists. When asked, many of us don’t know what our bodies need because we haven’t learned how to listen and respond to the body’s warning signals (also known as “symptoms”). Instead, we’ve learned to stifle these messages so we can go on meeting the demands of our lives.

How to Recognize Burnout

Burnout symptoms vary based on the individual, the level of burnout they are feeling, and how stress manifests in their body. The specific kind of stress that accompanies burnout can impair a person on many levels. It can interrupt a person’s cognitive abilities and overwhelm the neuroendocrine systems, leading to changes in both the anatomy and functioning of the brain.

In my experience, it is hard to put into words the feelings and sensations associated with burnout. We use words like “exhaustion” and “defeat”, “hopelessness” and “helplessness” which are accurate. However, there is a certain texture to burnout that is unlike any other exhaustion or stress I’ve experienced - I know that it hit me differently.

I went through a repetitive cycle of work-crash-rest-work that lasted about a decade until I finally learned to identify my experience as burnout and manage it with greater ease. While I was getting support to recover, I discovered my burnout was not only about how much energy I was expending, but also about not being in alignment with my values and life purpose.

Thankfully, I don’t hit lows like I used to because I know the signs of when I’m headed for a crash. Now, I know how to look after myself before that happens. The more you get to know your body and its signals, the easier it is to catch the signs of potential burnout.

Common signs of burnout include:

→ Dulled emotions or ‘emptiness’

→ Feeling ‘low’ or depressed

→ Deep exhaustion or fatigue

→ Feelings of meaninglessness, hopelessness and dread- Difficulty with regulating emotions – i.e. emotional outbursts or shutdown

→ Becoming withdrawn (from work, family, personal life, etc.)

→ Struggling to concentrate

→ Lack of motivation

→ Cynicism and irritability

→ Anxiety

→ Headaches

Ways to Heal Burnout & What Gets in the Way

Feelings of shame (feeling there is something wrong with us) or guilt (that we’ve done something wrong) are common when experiencing burnout. These feelings can also stop you from getting the help you need to heal and recover. This is where counselling can be a safe space to explore your burnout – particularly the root cause of it.

Counselling can be of great support with the following:

→ Assessing your burnout and creating a recovery plan

→ Learning how to understand, feel and regulate your emotions

→ Addressing unhelpful thinking patterns that contribute to stress

→ Learning how to set and hold healthy boundaries

→ Having someone hold you accountable - with kindness!

→ Addressing your belief systems

→ Discovering your values

Additional areas a counsellor might work on with a client experiencing burnout:

→ Establishing a good support system

→ Movement practices & mindfulness

When I’ve experienced burnout in the past, counselling was (and still is) an essential part of my journey. Healthy eating, getting good rest, and having an emotional support system were essential pieces to my recovery as well.

The most profound shift happened for me when I started prioritizing pleasure and joy. If I’m honest, I didn’t realize how deprived of joy I’d been. I was so focused on caring for others that making time for things that brought me personal pleasure did not feel as important – in fact, there was a voice inside telling me I am being selfish and indulgent.

But counselling is where this all shifted. I will never forget what my therapist said to me one day: “Allowing yourself to experience pleasure and joy is just as important for healing trauma as processing your trauma.”

In other words…

You can only heal so much until you teach yourself how to experience (and prioritize) pleasure and joy.

Making this one seemingly small shift changed my life. My days became brighter, my chronic pain lessened, and my exhaustion changed shape into something that feels far more manageable. This profound insight (along with countless others) may not have landed for me without the help and support of my therapist.

The following were (and still are) important aspects of my recovery and maintenance:

→ Discovering my core values and living a life in alignment with them

→ Finding things that bring me pleasure and joy (and prioritizing them)

→ Walking every day (movement, fresh air, connection to breath, being in nature, all essentials to health and wellbeing)

→ Eating proper meals at consistent times & staying hydrated

→ Getting plenty of sleep each night (I shoot for 8-10 hours, this will vary depending on your individual needs)

Suggested Areas for Exploration in Counselling

Boundaries:

Setting boundaries is essential to a feeling of well-being, especially during burnout. Boundaries include building skills like learning to say no to others (and yes to yourself!), how to express feelings and needs, and identifying what is important to you in living a life that’s in alignment with your values.

Some questions you can ask yourself, or that you can work on with a counsellor:

→ What is meaningful and important to you? (What do you value?)

→ Do you say yes when you really want to say no?

→ Do you over-extend yourself/ push yourself past your body’s capacity?

→ What kind of people/ environment/ experiences do you allow into your life?

→ Are these people/ environment/ experiences in alignment with your values?

Incorporating Healthy Self-Care:

This one can prove difficult for those facing burnout because caring for ourselves requires energy! Energy is not easily accessed when experiencing burnout. Having compassion for ourselves and others when one’s cup is near empty (or past empty!) is essential to recovery.

I would like to offer a reframe on self-care here:

Perhaps taking care of yourself means…

→ Offering yourself plenty of gentleness and compassion

→ Remembering that you are doing the best you can with what you have

→ Reminding yourself that this kinder mindset is an act of self-care

Reframing our inner narratives and perspectives can be of great help when it comes to our healing. Sometimes we aren’t aware of our inner narratives and we believe them to be true (consciously or unconsciously). A counsellor can be a support in exploring these narratives and bringing awareness to how they shape our perspective. This kind of awareness can make all the difference in how we feel about ourselves, our lives and our healing.

As someone who has experienced burnout many times, I am grateful to support people on their journey to (and maintaining) recovery. If you are in interested in working together, please reach out here.

Written by Victoria Mercedes Rose & Edited by Nasreen Gulamhusein