Burnout is Toxic for Your Relationships - Here is what to do about that....

When I look back on the ups and downs of my relationships - with my husband, with my friends, with my family members - I notice a common theme quickly. When I'm not doing well, neither are my relationships. The truth is, it's nearly impossible to be there for someone else when you aren't even there for yourself. And this is especially true in our romantic relationships because of the nature of romance and long-term relationships is already challenging due to the inherently contradictory nature of those ideas (for a great read on that, check out Esther Perel's book 'Mating in Captivity').

These days when I ask my friends, colleagues, and my family members how they are doing, I notice its not uncommon to hear people talk about burnout. It seems to be especially ubiquitous in the age of inflation, rising house prices and mortgage payments, and late-stage capitalism values that seem to be etched into every workplace policies' fine print. It's a problem that everyone seems to have but that nobody seems to be doing anything about. And in the meantime it's genuinely harming people's health and their ability to be present in their relationships with their spouses, their kids, and their friends. When is the last time you tried to make plans with someone but couldn't find the time between work commitments and life maintenance or maybe you have the time but can't find the energy?

When it comes to burnout there are two fatal flaws I see people making. The first is not knowing how to treat it; we take a 'mental health day' and spend it lying in bed binging netflix then go to work the next day feeling somehow worse than before.... or we wait until our vacation promising ourselves that will be enough to feel rejuvenated but then spend the first 3 days catching up on sleep and can't even enjoy the last few days of it because we are dreading going back to 'real life'. The second is that we underestimate the seriousness of how it affects us and how it's affecting our relationships. We normalizing constant fatigue, numbing behavior, checking out on our relationships (and our lives), we normalize life feeling like a chore instead of a joy. We don't address the pain we are feeling because it is so overwhelming and out of our control that it feels impossible to tackle.

And what even is burnout? It's more than tired, 'tired' doesn't make us want to escape our own lives (just maybe makes us want to take a nap). Burnout is a feeling of being dehumanized; of being reduced to one aspect of your identity and cut off from experiencing life as a whole person. Often experienced with a profound sense of meaninglessness and unappreciation. When we think of how we experience burnout, it becomes clear that the antidote cannot be as simple as rest or vacation. If burnout is felt as a loss of humanity, we must turn to ways of living that restore our personhood, give meaning to day-to-day life, and validate the human experience. And our relationships are a vital place to start that journey.

It could be argued that the primary function of connection is to give meaning to our lives. It's the difference to watching a beautiful sunset on your own versus with a loved one; on our own it is still beautiful of course, but the moment lives and dies with you. When you experience a life full of connection, it is also full of shared memories and meaning. Moments become more than fleeting, they live on in the story of your relationships.

So when we consider how to treat burnout and how to save ourselves and our relationships from the toxicity of a culture which cares more about what we do than who we are, we need to do more than treat the symptoms, we need to get to the cause. If burnout is reducing us to one aspect of our personalities, then the approach to overcoming it needs to help us with getting back into touch with the other aspects of our identities. Yes that means some typical self-care items, but it also means digging deep and doing things that require effort but that also bring us joy. In fact, the effort makes the activity more effective (it gives us a better dopamine hit) and despite what it might feel like before you get started, it will result in more energy and motivation. The key isn't to wait until you 'feel like' doing things, it's to do them anyways (and especially when you don't feel like it). You deserve good things, and good things take effort - you deserve -at the bare minimum- at least the amount of effort you give to a job. So, as a therapist (who has dealt with her fair share of burnout) here is some inspiration that I might start with for incorporating some new goals into my weekly routine:

If you are feeling stuck, and things keep getting in the way of taking care of yourself, don't struggle alone! Reach out for support from a professional to start healing and get some help in getting 'unstuck' from self-sabotage and self-destructive patterns. Therapy can be successful in helping you and when it is, you get to rediscover your identity outside of burnout, you have habits for daily joy, your relationships with yourself and with others are stronger, your understanding of yourself is deeper and you have more power to influence your own life, and you have improved your self-advocacy and work-life balance boundaries. When therapy is successful, you are not just more able to show up for yourself and better able to show up for your relationships, you are a model for your loved ones in how to live joyfully. You get to be the inspiration for your friends, your family, and your children so that they can see what it is to live a happy life, they can know it's possible and see from you how to do it. That is a powerful gift, for yourself and others.

If you are interested in working with me on your journey to healing, reach out through my link to connect on my site :)