Break Out of Burnout
A guide to understanding burnout, calming your nervous system, and finding your way back to yourself.
It's not you. It's your nervous system.
If you're experiencing the signs of burnout, the first thing to understand is this: it's not you. It's your nervous system.
Your nervous system is your body's response mechanism, built up over your entire lifetime. It's shaped by your childhood, your relationship with your parents and siblings, your friendships, your romantic life, your finances, the state of the world around you, everything.
If your nervous system hasn't learned how to fully process a stressor and let it go before moving on to the next one, these stressors begin to compound. One stacks on top of another, never fully resolved, and you become easier to trigger. A rejection at work that shouldn't be a big deal suddenly feels enormous, not because the rejection itself is large, but because your body is still holding an old, unprocessed rejection from somewhere else. As the saying goes, the body keeps the score.
That heartache from years ago may not really be about the breakup. It might trace back to a moment as a toddler when a parent came home stressed, played with a sibling instead of you, and it registered as rejection before you were even old enough to think about it consciously. That old, unprocessed moment is often what makes the work assignment, or the heartbreak, or the missed promotion feel so much bigger than it is.
So when you find yourself thinking "I'm burnt out, I need a new job," it's worth pausing. What you may actually need is to start processing the old material your nervous system has been holding.
Therapy and counseling are wonderful for this work, and are worth pursuing if that resonates with you. But a lot of what we're holding is stored somatically, in the body itself, in the nervous system, not just in the mind. It's worth asking a therapist or counselor to help you find ways to release these things physically, not only talk through them.
This matters because your nervous system runs the automatic functions you don't consciously think about: your breathing, your heart rate, your digestion, your lymphatic system and immune function. When your nervous system is regularly under perceived threat, none of these systems run as efficiently or as healthily as they could.
If you're burnt out or heading there, it's worth checking in on the physical signs too. How is your digestion? Your sleep? Your skin? Do you notice heart palpitations, or a low hum of anxiety? These are often signs that old stress is still being held in the body, layering on top of whatever is happening today, until something breaks. That breaking point might show up as illness, depression, anxiety, or panic attacks.
Burnout is not a personal failing. It's what happens when a nervous system was never taught how to fully process and release stress.
You can learn to put stress down.
Our culture doesn't really teach this. In modern, fast-paced life, we rarely teach kids, or adults, how to process stress and release it from the body rather than carry it forward.
Think about how often you've heard, or said, "you've just got to let it go." The breakup was a year ago: let it go. The comment wasn't meant that way: let it go. The accident wasn't even that serious: let it go. But how? Has anyone ever actually shown you how?
If you asked the person telling you to let it go, chances are they wouldn't have a real answer either. They might suggest distraction, like dating again or throwing yourself into something new, but you likely already know that doesn't actually resolve it. The same old patterns tend to resurface, because the original stress was never fully processed, only set aside.
This isn't a reflection of you personally. It's about how we, collectively, move through the world without ever being taught these skills. But the good news is real: you can learn to let things go. You can learn to put stress down. It takes time, effort, and most importantly, practice. Practice until it becomes a natural part of how you move through life.
Practice, practice, practice.
One way to begin closing the loop on stress is a practice I call Embodied Mindfulness. It's five steps: easy to learn, harder to practice, but it has real capacity to help you build these skills directly.
- Pause the story. Bring to mind something that irked you recently and pause the story.
- Find the contraction in your body. Scan head to toe for where you're tightening.
- Describe the sensation to yourself. Its shape, color, texture, motion, and temperature.
- Observe the image. Watch it without changing or judging it.
- Unpause the story. Check in. The charge has usually softened.
Full practice with audio guide
Do it daily, starting with easier things before bigger ones. Regulation isn't about never experiencing stress or hardship. It's the difference between "that's stressful" and "that's stressful, but I can handle it."
It's not personal. It's business.
Once you're doing this work and moving toward a more regulated nervous system, it's time to look at the specific place you're feeling burnt out, often work, and recognize something important: it's not personal. It's business.
I once worked with a mentee who was an excellent employee: a high achiever, ambitious, and deeply invested in the success of the small company she worked for. But she was burning herself out, because her employers, the two men who owned the company and genuinely adored her as an employee, didn't share her level of ambition. They were happy where they were: good money, flexible hours, a business that let them pay her well and have some fun along the way. For her, it wasn't enough. She kept wanting more.
I had to say to her: why? It's not your business, it's theirs. You agreed to work for them. They've told you what they need. You're providing that. Let the rest go. If it's genuinely not enough for you, you're welcome to look for a role with more challenge or responsibility, but trying to force that onto this job, when it clearly isn't built for that, isn't personal. It's just how they've chosen to run their business.
By regularly acknowledging "it's not mine, it's theirs," she was able to care roughly 25% less at work, and it made her job significantly better. Her work improved, because her energy went toward what was actually being asked of her, instead of being spent on expectations no one had set.
Her relationship with her job changed. Her relationship with her employers changed. The job became just a job, no longer tied to her identity. Her hobbies and life outside of work started to grow and take center stage. She began enjoying life on her own terms, because she'd learned: it's not personal, it's business.
The most important thing is finding the most important thing.
To really live from that place of "it's not personal, it's business," it helps to get clear on the most important thing in your life. And I can guarantee you: it's not work.
So what is it for you? Your family, your partner, your pet? Your garden, your hobbies, your parents? Your community? When you can name what that is outside of work, it becomes much easier to see work for what it is: not personal, just business. The two tend to go hand in hand.
That most important thing usually isn't permanent. It will likely change as your life changes. Right now it might be your kids. As they grow up and start families of their own, it might shift to your grandkids, your partner, or your health. For some people it becomes personal growth: learning new things, expanding skills and knowledge, or spiritual growth.
Finding your most important thing, and revisiting it as your life evolves, makes it far easier to stop taking work personally, and to let go of the stressors that come from it. That's how we move further away from burnout: by knowing clearly what matters most, so work-related problems no longer carry more weight than they should.
Build a toolbox.
Once you're finding the most important thing, understanding that work isn't personal, and doing the work of letting go in your nervous system, body and mind together, the last piece is building a toolbox to support all of it.
This is where other practices come in, and they should be highly individualized to you, your life, and your current season. Your toolbox can and should be flexible, and it will change over time. Embodied Mindfulness is a practice I stand firmly behind, but there will be moments that call for something else.
Maybe that's learning a few breathing exercises you can fall back on in a high-stress moment. Maybe it's something physical after work: yoga, Qigong, running, a sport. Maybe it's through support: acupuncture, Shiatsu, energy work.
Whatever goes into your toolbox, the goal is the same as with Embodied Mindfulness: practice it and incorporate it until it becomes part of the natural fabric of your life, not something you have to remember to do.
That's how we work our way out of burnout, and how we stay out.
When you want help with this
Somatic Sessions
Hands-on Shiatsu and Reiki to help your body release what it's been holding, with Your Five Element Map after every 75-minute Somatic Session.
Learn moreThe Nervous System Reset
Six months of steady work to change your nervous system's baseline.
Learn moreTalks and Workshops
Keynotes, small group training, and executive coaching on burnout and nervous system regulation.
Learn more