You may have recovered, but have you healed?

To fully recover from a burn out I think it’s important to accept that you are having a burnout and to accept that you have to be willing to change things in your life. Because if you just take time to recover and then go back to how you used to do things, you may have recovered, but you haven’t healed.

A therapist explained to me once that you have a baseline of your energy level. When you are under your baseline, you are in your reserved energy. And when you are burnt out, you are far below your baseline. You might use our reserved energy, but there is also not much left in there. For your recovery I think you need to get back to that baseline, but when you are there you need to start healing.

Getting back into that baseline of energy after a burnout

“You can start to think about your lifestyle, about (bad) habits that you might not even be aware of, about renewing your way of thinking”

What I’m trying to say is that I think that first of all you need to take your time to recover and to be able to feel that your body and brain is working again. To feel like a whole person again. The first weeks I have only been watching netflix and sleeping, mostly falling asleep while netflix was on.

When you are slowly getting to that baseline you can think more clearly. And from there you can start to think about your lifestyle, about (bad) habits that you might not even be aware of, about renewing your way of thinking.

Letting go of certain things in your life

I don’t think that work overload or pressure is always the cause of a burnout. The problem may lie deeper, in character traits that you have developed over the years. Maybe you are a perfectionist, double checking everything, always helpful towards colleagues and thinking ahead of things. I’m not saying that there is something wrong with these traits, but if these traits were developed (subconsciously) as a coping mechanism and they are now holding you back from a peaceful life, it would be good to take them under the loop. To think about if there are things in your life that you have to let go now. 

“We sometimes tend to blame the job or a person for why the relationship is not working. But I think it’s also good to see that sometimes it’s just not a fit and there is no blame needed”

I remember that when I was younger a manager told me that I needed to get out of the shade and get on stage with them. And I thought; ‘I don’t like being on stage and who says I’m in the shade? What if I just have a nice and quiet spot in the son’. It made me feel really uncomfortable and I knew that I had to let go of this job. It wasn’t just that this job was not right for me, but I was also not right for the job. We sometimes tend to blame the job or a person for why the relationship is not working. But I think it’s also good to see that sometimes it’s just not a fit and there is no blame needed.

“I’m putting a process in a few sentences that can take months or even years and I know that it’s everything but easy”

I’m putting a process in a few sentences that can take months or even years and I know that it’s everything but easy. Healing goes through a process with ups and down, highs and lows in your mood. It’s not something easy to fix. But I know it is possible! With the right mindset, the right people, persistence and hope and faith it is possible.

We think about what the meaning of life is. And I think it’s not complicated. I think the meaning of life is to live it, to live your life. Don’t put your life on hold until you feel you are getting somewhere. Live in that process.