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Profile and Situation: Those of us prone to burnout tend to start out as high-energy, ambitious and capable achievers. Whatever our calling in life, we manage to be the people who are enthusiastic, work hard and do whatever needs doing no matter what the cost. We often perceive ourselves as holding together situations which would fall apart with­out us. Sometimes this is true. Many of us think of ourselves as unlimited in our energy, even as 'Supermen' or 'Superwomen'. This is less a matter of pride than a statement of how our life requires us to be.

We are generally very driven and have a high need to be needed or approved of, or special. We often show a pattern of overdoing and overgiving without regard for ourselves. In extreme form, such a pattern has been referred to as 'workaholism' at work and as 'co­dependence' or 'loving too much' in intimate relationships. These patterns of over-responsibility are usually rewarded in the situation we are in, but may have begun when we were children in our families and felt loved for what we achieved or gave. As Jerry, a psychothera­pist in the throes of burnout, put it: 'I started doing therapy at the age of ve and started being paid twenty-five years later.'

The area in which we eventually burn out, whether at work, with our children or parents, in an intimate partnership, in a social or political group or elsewhere, has two defining characteristics. It is where:

	We invest our creativity, our passion, our heart and/or our ability to contribute.
	We earn a sense of identity, value, belonging, purpose and/or meaning.

It is more common for women to sink vast amounts of energy and creativity into an intimate relationship, whilst both men and women do so at work. Of course, these are generalizations and may be becoming less true as gender roles and expectations change.

At some point, something changes either in us or in our situation or in the relationship between the two. Our heart goes out of our situation. There is a dawning awareness, often hardly conscious, that there must be another way, that it can't be right to continue as we are. Some of us listen to this feeling and make significant changes in our lives - a new job, a new relationship, or a new approach to our old job or relationship. In this way, we stop ourselves from continuing on the burnout trail.

But those of us who keep going, denying everything that contradicts the path we are on, are likely to head for a major burnout. Driven by fear of losing what we had rather than positive intention, we are no longer in a flow with ourselves or with our lives. We cut off from our bodies, our feelings, sometimes our friends and family. We become divided against ourselves. Our head, heart and soul are not in alignment. We operate like a car with the accelerator and the brake working at the same time and the tank down to empty.

At some point we start experiencing the range of physical mental and emotional symptoms described elsewhere in this section. If we don't take notice, these tend to get more and more serious. Here is a typical catalogue of classic burnout symptoms:

“The person sitting there wasn't me. I wasn't really there. I wasn't enjoying anything. I felt like I didn't fit my life. I was in the wrong position, doing the wrong thing, and I shouldn't be there. I was definitely losing it at work. I started to feel more indifferent to clients. I felt angry at colleagues. I had a combination of anger, cynicism, hate and disillusionment. I was furious - hating myself and hating them at the same time. An impotent rage. I was also terribly exhausted, and started getting physical symptoms. I also began to get more addicted to things, one minute chocolate, then drinking, then a phase of casual sex.

“I woke up one day and thought: 'I don't know why, but I need to go to the doctor.' The doctor said, 'You're not going back - I'm signing you out.' He thought it was burnout and depression. My thyroid had gone wrong. That's to do with energy. I was so exhausted I couldn't get up or do anything.”

Once things get this serious, we are well and truly unable to keep it all going. We may not even be able to get out of bed. Burning out may literally save our lives by stopping us before we suffer a more serious or fatal illness. It operates like a circuit breaker that keeps the whole system from blowing. On another level, burning out saves our life by showing us how and when our life lost its old meaning and by forcing us to do something about it. We may not save our old life, but we can free ourselves to be more fully alive.

Finally: The abyss: Anyone who wants to be truly free inside needs to acknowledge where their identity is falsely trapped and slowly bring their energy and power back into their actual selves. But when we are burning out or burnt out we have no choice in the matter because our energy, our health, even our lives are at risk when we hold on to something we need to let go of and are driven by fear rather than love.

To reverse this process, we need to break rules that have kept us driving forward. Those rules are embedded in our culture and in our families but they are also deeply embedded within us. We are having to let go of whatever it is that feels like life itself, so that we can find out where our real joy will emerge from.

We may find terror: if we lose our investments will we fall into some fearful abyss? What is the abyss? Only those feelings that we have refused to allow ourselves to know. The identities that we have created are there to protect us from an old place inside which is nameless, terrifyingly boundaryless, perhaps because we experienced it before we had words for what we are feeling.

If we look closely at the abyss, we will find a part of ourselves is crying and screaming: devastated or enraged by the way life has failed to meet us. We are terrified because, if we acknowledge that part of us, we may hurt too much or feel too powerless or hopeless or abandoned. And anyway, we are adults and are supposed to know better.

Yet if we faced our fears and stayed with the feelings, we would find that that part of us knows a lot better. That part of us knows we have a right to love, nourishment and the joy of being alive.

Recognising the impact of health on performance, Dianna holds qualifications in nutritional and health fields that enable her to identify and resolve health issues affecting business and personal goals. 

 For the Tops Tips on what to do for burnout send an email to  bs@futurevisions.org
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