Will I Ever Recover From Burnout?
Truths & Misconceptions about Burnout #2
Welcome back to the subsection inside the Conquering Burnout publication called Truths and Misconceptions about Burnout.
Like the name implies, in this series I’m going to talk about general beliefs, opinions and misconceptions that make burnout such a misunderstood and taboo topic.
My goal with this series of articles is to illuminate the general “truths” and misconceptions about burnout, break them down, analyze them, and offer a new perspective on burnout, its related symptoms, causes and recovery.
This is the second article in the series: if you don’t want to miss any of the upcoming articles in the “Truths and Misconceptions about Burnout” series, make sure you subscribe to my channel. It’s totally free: once a week you’ll receive a new article in your email inbox right when it’s published.
Let’s get into it!
Burnout is one of those modern health problems and conditions that is on the rise.
Chronic stress, busy lifestyle, constant rush, overwhelm at work, working from home, internal and external pressures, constant availability and input of information, less time for self-care, etc.
All of these factors can contribute to creating a vicious cycle of burnout, from which it is very difficult to escape.
In the public, there are two groups of people: those who don’t believe that burnout is real and those who take burnout very seriously and believe that burnout is a very serious condition.
Some people in the second group believe that burnout is a permanent condition and that if we ever experience it, we can’t recover from it.
But is that true? Are we really unable to recover from burnout?
Let’s explore this!
Burnout is like a chronic injury
Like I talked in my previous article called Burnout as a “Chronic Injury”, while some individuals experience an episode of burnout and rise back up right away, for some burnout can become a chronic injury that will define the rest of their life.
Sometimes and in some cases, consequences caused by burnout can become long-lasting, ever-lasting and chronic.
It’s what I call a “Chronic Injury of Burnout”.
It’s just like with sports injuries: some injuries start out as acute and overtime become chronic due to complications and poor treatment and recovery.
The same can occur with health issues: acute problems can overtime become “chronic”. This can be applied to digestive problems, food sensitivities, problems with low energy, exhaustion and even problems with mental health and burnout.
But this doesn’t mean that you’ll be in a state of burnout your whole life — which leads us to the next point.
“I’ll never fully recover from a burnout and I’ll never be able to do ______ (fill in the blank) ever again…”
I call bullsh*t on that!
It’s true that after an intense, longer or multiple episodes of burnout you won’t be the same old you anymore.
But that might not be a bad thing!
You can view burnout as an opportunity: an opportunity to reinvent your life, to build a new and better you and to leave behind things that didn’t serve you.
A lot of people who experience burnout come out on the other side better and stronger: they report that their burnout has helped them gain and learn new insight about themselves and their life and has helped them become a better version of themselves.
At the same time I also strongly believe that we humans are able to do so much more than we think we’re capable of doing — that includes healing almost any health problem and disease.
Thinking contrary is just a false and limiting belief that is unabling us to accomplish important things.
Why do I believe this? There are a few reasons behind it.
1. Our mind is much more powerful than we realize
Our mind plays a much bigger role in our lives than we usually think.
It controls our physical, mental and emotional functioning and thus influences how we perceive the world and how we operate in it.
Our mind acts and works based on what we focus it on: if we focus on our problems and things that don’t work, we will unconsciously create more of them. But if we instead focus on solving problems and healing, our mind will dictate and make things move in that direction.
Once we realise the importance of the role our that our mind plays, we can start learning how to take control of it and become the master of it, instead of being its slave.
Mastering our mind is not an easy task and a quick fix, it often takes a lifetime — but it’s the one worth pursuing.
2. Our body has its own memory
Our body has its own cellular or epigenetic memory and remembers what it feels like to be healthy and in optimal health.
It’s similar to physical fitness: because our muscles have a kind of “memory” — cellular and epigenetic memory — it’s much easier to get back in shape after a period of non-training than to make brand new progress.
In order to harness this cellular and epigenetic memory, we have to direct our mind and focus on how it feels to be healthy and in perfect health, visualize it and believe it. Once we do that, our body will find a way to heal and become healthy once again.
3. Inner Healer and Inner Healing Power
We all have an Inner Healer and powerful healing power inside of us.
Don’t believe me?
Think about this: You cut yourself a bit, what do you do? You put a band-aid on the wound and let your body heal itself. The more you scratch it and not leave it alone, the worse the wound will heal and the bigger the scar will remain.
It’s the same with all types of healing. If you catch the flu, you have to give your body space and time and give it some help — eg. tea, supplements, sleep, etc — so it can heal and regenerate itself.
Traditional healers in the Amazon have a saying:
“We Can Heal Anything But Dead.”
They help people heal not by providing them something external but by allowing them to remove their internal interference and accessing their own inner healer and inner healing powers.
We just have to learn to tap into that inner healer and inner healing power and switch it on: more about the strategies below.
Note: Every person heals at his own pace, depending on their genetics, metabolic speed, predispositions, age and sex, etc … So while some people might take a day to recover and heal, others might take a few days to a few weeks. We have to accept that and adjust our lifestyle and expectations to this rate of recovery.
What stands between us and healing?
So, if we have our own healing power inside of us, what stops us from accessing it and healing ourselves?
The reasons for this are multiple.
1. Limiting beliefs
It’s usually our own limiting beliefs installed in us by others and our society that cause us to think that we can’t heal by ourselves.
Big Pharma benefits greatly from people who believe that there’s something permanently wrong with them and that doctors, medical experts and medications are the only way to fix and heal them.
While there’s always room and place for medications (more on this later), we must believe ourselves that we hold the power to heal ourselves — it’s just that we don’t allow ourselves this power.
Because of that we’re in disbelief: we don’t believe that we can conquer our condition and that we need external help — from medicine, doctors, nutritionists, function doctor practitioners, etc.
This can hold us back and prevent us from healing and recovering from burnout.
2. We’re unaware of the power that we hold in ourselves
This goes hand in hand with the reasons that we’re able to heal ourselves that I described above.
While sometimes we have limiting beliefs, other times we simply are not aware since we haven’t ever experienced it.
Mark Divine, ex Navy SEAL, author and founder of Navy SEAL training and courses, in his teaching talks that we as humans are able to do so much more, 20 times more, that we think we are able to.
So we have to believe that we hold the power and we can do almost anything. We might have to put ourselves under a big challenge so that we are forced to find out how much more we’re capable of do and be.
3. Fear and Trauma
Burnout doesn’t just leave physical damage, it can also leave some mental problems — such as fear and trauma of burnout.
Fear and Trauma can be very limiting factors: they often distort our perception of reality and force us to believe in something that is actually not true, which negatively affects our perception of reality, our thinking, choices and behaviors.
Most of the time, fear and trauma are rooted in memory of past traumatic and stressful events and triggers the amygdala to take over the control of our mind.
Fear and trauma can hold us back: If we give in to them, they will reinforce themselves and grow stronger.
Because of that we won’t believe that we can heal and we will deny ourselves the power to heal.
I’m nowhere near a master in the field of psychology, but I’m figuring out and trying to master and conquer my fear and trauma of burnout. At this point I can offer you my two article that I wrote on fear:
4. We’re not aware of the cures and medicines
Sometimes we can’t heal and recover because we simply don’t know how: we tried everything and nothing has helped.
Maybe it’s because some cures and medicine are not very known and not approved by the western medical system.
Maybe it’s because they are not very near to us because we don’t know about them or they‘re’ be considered “extreme”.
But just because they’re not very well known and are considered “extreme”, it doesn’t mean that they won’t help — sometimes it’s quite the opposite. Some of them have a huge and massive transformative effect for people.
Some of these cure and medicines include:
Diets: eg. Fasting, Elimination Diets, Carnivore Diet, etc…
Supplementation: eg. Peptides: BPC-157 for recovery and regeneration, chronic inflammation, joint pain and chronic digestive problems and diseases,
Lifestyle Practices: Cold exposure, Sleep Chronotypes, etc,
Biohacking Practices: Hormones replacement therapies, Bio- and Neurofeedback, Oxone therapy, Floatation, etc,
Breathwork: eg. Wim Hof practice, DMT breathing, Holotropic Breathwork (check out my experience with holotropic breathwork here),
Power of our Mind: Belief, Gratitude, Self-Love practice, Visualization, Manifestation, etc,
The Quantum and The Higher Power: the Power of God, Universe, Mother Nature, etc,
Psychedelic substances — psilocybin, ayahuasca, MDMA assisted psychotherapy — for healing trauma, PTSD, mental problems (anxiety and depression) and other diseases.
When to seek professional help?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not againsts external professional help in the form of doctors, medical practitioners and drug treatment.
Sometimes that’s necessary. If you find yourself stuck in a black place and can’t seem to get out, please seek professional medical or therapeutic help.
But if you feel stuck and professional help just doesn’t feel right for you, have a check with yourself.
Have you done and experimented with different things and practices that could help you improve and overcome your burnout?
Have you experimented with your diet and eliminated foods that don’t agree with you? Have you experimented with some of the lifestyle or biohacking practices — eg. doing cold showers a few times per week to help you regulate your HPA Axis? Have you tried some breathwork practices to relieve stress and release accumulated stress and emotions? Have ever tried to solve your fears and trauma that might be holding you back? Have you even harnessed the power of your mind and the Cosmos to your advantage? Have you ever considered a psychedelic treatment to heal your chronic health problems?
Remember: we are more powerful than we think! Take matters into your own hands and become the “master” of your health.
I’m working on an online course about how to prevent and recover from burnout. In the course I’ll teach you everything I learned from my burnout journey, including how to improve and elevate all four pillars of the body in much more detail.
The course is in the making, but you can join the waitlist and get updates on its progress and when it’s about to launch.
Members of the waitlist will get a limited special offer when the course launches, so make sure to secure your spot and grab that special offer!
I’m working on an online course about how to prevent and recover from burnout. In the course I’ll teach you everything I learned from my burnout journey, including how to improve and elevate all four pillars of the body in much more detail.
The course is in the making, but you can join the waitlist and get updates on its progress and when it’s about to launch.
Members of the waitlist will get a limited special offer when the course launches, so make sure to secure your spot and grab that special offer!
That’s it for this article. I would love to hear your opinions, questions or suggestions for the following articles.
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Love and take care of yourself, forget about worries and enjoy life! ✌
~ Jani ❤