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The Benefits of Burnout An oxymoron?
Not according to psychologist Joan Borysenko. by Linda Sechrist
oan Borysenko, Ph.D., a pioneer in integrative medicine, is a renowned expert on the mind-body connec- tion. Her work has been foundational in an international health care revolution that recognizes the role of meaning and the spiritual dimension of life as integral aspects of health and healing. Most recently, the Harvard-trained biologist and psychologist explored the anatomy of burnout with Facebook friends in her latest book, Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive.
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What does it mean to physi- cally, emotionally and spiritu-
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ally burn out? When you’re stressed out, you keep chas- ing the same old carrot, whatever that may be for you. But when you’re burned out, you eventually give up the chase. The hope that you can create a meaning- ful life fizzles and you find yourself sitting in the ashes of your dreams. In a culture wedded to positive thinking, burnout and its first cousin, depression, are thought of as disorders in need of a fix. What if instead, we see them as losses of naïveté, false identities and faulty assumptions that are making way for a more authentic life? What if we viewed burnout as an invitation to come into alignment with a more elegant expression of our gifts, relationships and overall life energy? The late psychologist Herbert
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Freudenberger, Ph.D., who first popu- larized the concept in his 1980 book, Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement, believed the condition is a painful affliction of good people try- ing to give their very best. He defined it as “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devo-
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tion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.”
Why do we burn out even when we regularly use self-
care practices? Many people are shocked to learn that even though I’m a positive person, with a regular yoga and meditation practice, as well as healthy eating habits, I have burned out more than once. Ironically, but predictably, I was trying to do and be my best. For me, burnout means that my most loving, creative self goes miss- ing; I contract into the smallest, most negative version of myself, which is not a pretty picture.
I find that for many people that in- tellectualize a great portion of their lives, burnout doesn’t become real until they are not only physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted, but are also in pain. Knowing ourselves and our limita- tions is essential, because our tendency is to become complacent and think we’re too busy to tend to our well-being,
photo by Charles Bush
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