Radical Self Compassion for Burnout Recovery

In this episode, we're looking at why your current stress is NOT the reason you're burned out. We have to look back at everything that came before - the build up is what causes the Burnout! So don't get mad at yourself for feeling the way you feel.

Radical self compassion is an approach that can dramatically shift the trajectory of your Burnout Recovery.

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Transcript

Hello! And Welcome back to your Supernova Moment, a podcast about Burnout.

Today I want to talk to you about RADICAL SELF COMPASSION. This is a really helpful approach for Burnout Recovery, and just life in general, in my humble opinion.

When we Burn Out, we can feel quite frustrated with ourselves. It IS a really frustrating thing to experience, especially when you’ve been a person who has been so CAPABLE in every possible way up until this point. When you burn out, your brain stops working properly, it stops remembering things and your head goes all fuzzy, and full of brain fog. Your body just kind of stops, the exhaustion takes over and you just can’t any more. And your emotions are out of control, you’re on the edge of floods of tears or a blazing rage and there’s just no in between.

We look around ourselves and we’re like, what is WRONG with me? I should be able to handle this! When I burned out, I’ve said this before, but I wasn’t working a million hours a week any more, I wasn’t travelling that much, I had an assistant, my workload had dramatically reduced, I’d even had some time off - but THEN, I burned out.

If I looked around myself then to find the thing that caused it, it didn’t make sense. I could find the thing that pushed me over the edge - but it SHOULDN’T have done in context with everything else. It shouldn’t have been enough to make me fall apart and walk away. 

But it was. BECAUSE, it isn’t about what’s going on when you burn out. It’s about everything that’s come before that. It’s the years of relentless stress, the years of pushing beyond your limits, the years of ignoring your own actual needs, the years of frying your nervous system and denying yourself rest and balance, THAT is what builds and builds and pushes you to the point of Burnout. It doesn’t matter if you’re just going through the motions now, the damage has already been done.

So when I talk about radical self compassion, it’s THIS that we need to remember. Instead of falling into that trap of going ‘oh my god, what is WRONG with me? I should be able to handle this. I’m awful, I’m a failure, whatever.’ Instead we need to step back - and really LOOK at our whole situation. How did you get here? When I actually stopped and looked back, and was HONEST with myself instead of lying to myself and pretending I was living my best life, like I had been doing for years, when I saw the truth of everything I’d been doing to myself - and everything I’d been letting other people do to me as well - I thought… well, shit.

In a Burnout Recovery coaching session the other day, my client told me that she had started feeling sorry for herself. I was DELIGHTED to hear this, because YES - that’s it. That’s the start of the shift. It’s really seeing all of the ways you’ve been hurting and instead of adding to that, it’s saying, wow, yeah, this has been a LOT. You’ve sufferent, you’ve struggled. You’ve been feeling horrible and I actually feel sorry for that. I feel sorry about that.

It might sound weird to you, the idea that feeling sorry for yourself is a good thing. Again, as usual, it’s about sort of adjusting your expectations and understanding of what these sort of known phrases have come to mean. “Feeling sorry for yourself’ is like, being a victim. Self pitying, being a downer - you know? That’s not what this is about. It’s not about centering yourself and your experience, and blaming your circumstances on everybody else and spending the rest of your life moping about that. It’s about recognising that the YOU that you’re feeling sorry for here is a deeper version of you, that true, sort of inner you, that isn’t the same as the surface you who’s been doing all of this, putting on all this pressure, ignoring all your needs. It’s about seeing the damage and being honest with yourself that it’s there. Instead of getting mad at yourself for feeling it.

If you struggle with this, I want you to imagine that it’s a different person. I want you to find that little inner you, that lives on the inside, your inner child, your soul, whatever, and I want you to take them OUT of your body and see them in front of you. I want you to have this new person sit with you and tell you how they’re feeling, how sad they are, how stressed they’ve been, how little they value themselves, how overwhelmed they are with all of the things that they’ve been dealing with and everything they’ve got to do, and then think about how you would feel toward that person. Imagine it’s a friend, a partner, a family member. You would feel SORRY for them. You would want to show them compassion. You would want them to rest, and recover, and never feel that way again. 

So DO THAT, for yourself.

The sorry is the sympathy. Understanding why someone is feeling the way they are feeling

The compassion is the empathy. Really connecting with those feelings, and taking steps to support the person and alleviate their pain. 

So DO THAT, for yourself.

Radical self compassion in Burnout Recovery, to me, is about making a decision to care about yourself, unconditionally, and actually delivering on that. It’s sometimes going to feel unnatural, you’ve got habits and thought patterns that are going to jar with this, but every single time you feel bad you’re going to let yourself feel that thing, and then you’re going to be NICE to yourself instead of beating yourself up about it.

When I started to recover from my Burnout, I had to come to terms with and work through a lot of big stuff about myself, things I’d done to myself, pressure I’d put on myself, and even like, things I’d done and said and actions I’d taken in the world that did not make me feel good. Did not actually align with my values and who I really am. I also had to come to terms with a lot of shit that had been done TO me. 

Radical compassion looks like not giving yourself a timeline to get better, not adding in conditions, it looks like giving yourself permission to take as long as you need to take. Reminding yourself that it’s okay that you feel this way, and look at everything you’ve dealt with that’s gotten you here. It looks like letting yourself rest, without judgement. Letting yourself do anything without judgement! Learning to listen to what you need, and giving that to yourself. It looks like letting yourself feel what you feel and being there for yourself, supporting yourself, through whatever those feelings are. 

So if you’re feeling burned out, and you’re stuck in this pattern of frustration, because you’ve made changes - maybe you’ve gotten some sleep, and you’ve started meditating and you’re TRYING to instigate boundaries - LOOK BACK. Step back, and look back. Look at all the stuff that got you to this place you’re in now and make that effort to show yourself some compassion. NO WONDER you feel the way you do. NO WONDER you’re exhausted. NO WONDER you’re not there yet. 

It’s okay.

If you are Burned Out and you don’t know where to even start when it comes to your recovery, remember you can come chat to me any time I have availability! Just head to my website, Maggie Supernova.com, and book in for a free 30 minute zoom call.

You can join my live yoga and meditation classes, and book in on my website. You can also get on my mailing list there, follow me on social media, and just generally read about all the stuff I do and hopefully find some more things that can help you on your own Burnout journey.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a new episode, so I look forward to talking to you again soon. Until then, BE KIND TO YOURSELVES! Byeeeee.