Facing Burnout

By Jo-Ann Svennson

Lately I have been contemplating death. Not a brooding, depressive contemplation but a curious, strangely passive one. I do so from a comfortable perch with full knowledge that it is my decision to live or die. And don't get me wrong, I will survive regardless of my decision. What will live or die is the part of me that keeps me in burnout.

My perch is a narrow ridge, so in actuality, not so comfortable. On the right side of me is an abyss where whirling eddies of fear seek to suck me in, buffeting my soul and bruising me deeply. I am a frequent visitor to this canyon and know its cracks and crannies well. Each has a creed to live by, beseeching me to try harder, be smarter, grow stronger.

The message that I am not good enough fuels my striving until those moments when, immobilized by the relentless pressure, the stillness of burnout is forced upon me. On the other side of the ridge lies calmness and another type of stillness resides. During the times when I allow myself to sink into this space my cells slowly cease their eternal metabolizing and I lie in a state of blessed nothingness. I would lie here forever yet my perception of life demands me to move and I gingerly crawl back to my perch. And it is here that I find myself contemplating death. Why is it that I cannot let go the part of me that lives in fear and struggle? Why can't I let that part die?

On the outside, this dilemma seems rootless- who wouldn't want to let go of struggle? But it involves a more complex answer than that. The fear to my right is familiar, hence safe in its distorted way and has served me immensely. Fear has kept me moving and I have achieved many successes, physical and mental, with fear as my motivator. Calmness, on the other hand, is foreign and, however pleasing, I distrust the vulnerability of its stillness. So I stay on my philosophical perch with its façade of power, quietly debating my fate.

Burnout is a very human disease - a disease of progress. No other animal spends its time striving to be stronger, smarter or faster. Our four legged siblings intrinsically have these qualities, or they do not, and suffer or excel because if it. We, as humans, have put ourselves in a whole different category with all levels of society encouraging the individual to always do better. (Children are especially vulnerable to this message, as they tend to internalize early on messages of worth). And although striving to do better is not a bad thing in itself - many positive social benefits are derived from motivated and ambitious people-its driving force may be causing us to burnout.

I have striven all my life to be better than who I am and it's finally caught up to me. In these final stages of burnout, death is a recurrent theme and I find myself facing, for the first time, my fears around it. My "comfortable" perch, where I passively viewed survival, no longer serves me, nor my dualistic view of life as a struggle between chaos and calm. I can no longer be an unwilling participant. Life is a choice; burnout is the abstention of choice. To abstain is to live in limbo. Like the comatose patient - neither alive nor dead - whose soul lies trapped in a body controlled by others, so too the burnt-out individual, whose path is governed by external perceptions. To choose life is to co-create with Spirit, understanding the balance between Free Will and Surrender.

Choosing means letting go a part of myself that I've clung to for many years, that which fights to be something "better". It means creating space for my physical limitations, my fears and my struggles and knowing they are part of the continuum of life. Choosing is about accepting the vagaries of life and, above all, accepting myself, in any given moment of time, as one who is perfect as is.

Jo-Ann Svensson worked for three years as an ARC Energy Bodyworker and Reflexologist in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside under contract with Vancouver Coastal Health. She currently has a private practice in both Nanaimo (Mid-Island Healing Centre )and Vancouver. Please call (250) 753-5656 or (604) 619-3904 for more information. www.thearcinstitute.com.