I’ve returned to blogging and publishing after a 3-year hiatus. My break was unexpected. In December 2018, I completed a weekly, year-long online project devoted to recovery from sexual trauma. I began 2019 diligently turning this material into a book. I was progressing; everything was fine.
I even had extra time. I started spending more energy on activities that brought me joy – making art, writing poetry, and gardening/creating a wildlife habitat. I saw friends and family more frequently. As I spent more time doing things I enjoyed, I began to change deeply and irrevocably. It was as if a part of myself I had put on hold as I worked toward goals would no longer settle for being sidelined. Once unleashed, she no longer could be tethered.
Then the pandemic happened, which frequently left me feeling on edge, primarily because my husband is an emergency physician. I’m so glad I started kindling joy the prior year. Play and relationships saved my sanity.
I have been following news about the great resignation and read of others wanting to regain feelings of joy and aliveness (not to mention livable wages and humane working conditions). Some are also listening to the dreams of their lighthearted selves, the parts that know life’s too precious to make work an outsized priority.
Did you know mammals have an entire affective system devoted solely to the emotions and mental schemata associated with play? There’s no emotional system for avoiding burnout, but if there were, surely play would be part of the antidote.
The topic of burnout, like the word trauma, is getting lots of attention in the media. Hopefully, this will increase awareness of the full spectrum of emotional needs that cannot be shut off just because we are working. While burnout frequently arises in response to organizational practices and conditions, it’s also inseparable from the expectations we place on ourselves.
Burnout can be a response to the burden of an ideal self we feel we must live up to at the expense of our emotional needs. Then work can feel like “too much” regardless of the amount of time spent on the job. Historically, those who burnout are highly devoted to their jobs and work very hard. They habitually deny their emotional needs in their quest to do what they believe is right and good. Unfortunately, well-meaning intentions aren’t reliable protections from burnout.
If you are looking for a book on recovery from burnout, I recommend Dina Glouberman’s The Joy of Burnout: How the End of the World Can Be a New Beginning. She writes:
Burning out could almost be defined as joylessness. We have lost contact with the Divine Comedy, that ability to laugh compassionately at the terrible and wonderful ways in which life works itself out. Yet burnout forces us to take a step towards joy. We won’t stop, so burnout stops us. We won’t make a space for ourselves, so we burnout and all we have is space. And it is out of that space that the joy eventually comes.
Recovery from burnout involves getting in touch with lost parts of ourselves and unrequited dreams, along with committing to joy-filled pursuits. You don’t necessarily need to leave a once-beloved profession (although a sabbatical may help). But you likely will have to go through a period of reckoning during which you reimagine forgotten dreams if not also grieve unattended losses (and often both). I don’t believe we can fully recover from burnout without emotional honestly about our deepest desires and our greatest fears. Yet the reward for this self-reflection and recalibration is the capacity to commit passionately to life, regardless of the type of work you end up doing.
The great resignation is often discussed in terms of shifting economic conditions and the toll of the pandemic. I also think of how powerful loss is for shaping society and attitudes. Perhaps like me, you are feeling the precariousness and fragility of life, for which pursuing what brings joy is an honorable response and healing salve.
Below are two poems, one I wrote about my journey beyond burnout and the other I dedicate to the great resignation.
Wishing you joy,
Laura
How She Regained Her Soul
The heart was the last to go but left a clue where to find her: a smooth river rock heavy in my chest I knew long before— an image had relayed the nature of her plea— a vision of us together feeling the wind breathe the trees For so long I resisted the urge slapped it away like a mosquito fat and slow after gorging on blood I was busy Then another vision, equally impractical – an image of myself hiking in a blue silk blouse a knapsack across my body filled only with water, paper, pen The visions came when tears couldn’t as the veneer of a confident face tried to hide a weighty heart of stone When emotions upwelled I composed reasons to resist – Can one really hike in silk? Can one really survive on water, paper, and pen? Heart and head had been apart so long everything was literal Like breadcrumbs on a trail the visions led to a canyon where a pool of cool water sat motionless in the desert sun By now insane with loss of heart I tried to become the beckoning vision flew to the desert to scout a trail in a box canyon I took more than water, paper, pen wore microfiber instead of silk followed the path to its end a pond of murky water I lingered but heart was not there only a small spotted trout I laughed at myself for trying so hard Heart is a gentle trickster — the way she manipulated my desire for reason and proof left me curious and wanting more I’ll let you think you’re right I heard heart whisper when you say I just needed a change in scenery Though just in case I joined a poetry class took up painting spent more time with friends Now she says to us— Yes, I was quite stressed back then as we put on a blue blouse head out early to breathe the trees.
Road Closed: You’re Excused from Work Today
When you encounter a sign that says Road Closed decide you have been excused from work. Take a U-turn, go back home. Pour yourself a tall glass. Take a book of poetry to the porch or balcony. If anyone asks, the road was closed. Next day take the same road, encounter the same sign, excuse yourself again. But this time pour several glasses take out several books of poetry. Shout The road is closed! Tell everyone they’re excused from work, convince them there’s no reason to try another road, find a detour or a bus, or even to walk. Together ponder the meaning of closed. The next day start a movement maybe even create a website, perhaps call it Road Closed, include links to critical theorists such as Derrida and Foucault, invent a discourse about the discursive practices that result in closures. Become a biopowerless collective in pursuit of porch time to deconstruct the meanings of road signs— a mind consuming endeavor for which understandably we all should be excused from work.
Originally published 2022/02/03
© Laura K Kerr, PhD. All rights reserved (applies to writing and photography).
