On Burnout and Saving Yourself By Saying No
Doing What You Love Is Still Work! Yellow Brick Road.
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Are you feeling out of control with work/social stuff?
Stressed, pressed, and distressed?
Losing interest in your favorite activities/kind of everything?
Crying randomly/having to schedule meltdowns in your iCal?
Overwhelmed and irritated?
Busy? But accomplishing little? But feeling like you’re doing so much? But also like just scrolling on TikTok/IG/literally anything overstimulating all day?
You might be experiencing burnout bitch, and you know what? Me too.
If you are not sure what burnout really is, these cute white ladies wrote the literal book on it and this chat is entertaining and good! I also linked the book at the bottom for you cuties xx
“Do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life.”
Anyone who has fallen victim to this saying is entitled to financial compensation. FINANCIAL! COMPENSATION!
Whoever first said this was working for capitalism for free which is a level of irony I can barely digest. This is just repackaged pseudo-inspirational nonsense that implies we can transcend the confines of labor by making it ~ fun ~ so we actually work longer hours with higher risk and zero boundaries. What seems to be left out is that the coveted opportunity to turn your passions into a living is a slippery slope to burnout and subsequent guilt for being anything other than grateful. Doing what you love is still very much doing, my guy.
When I worked in restaurants years ago, I would daydream of being a full-time creative who could create on her own terms and in her own time - so the exhaustion would finally end. In theory, I wouldn’t be serving two masters - obligation in order to pay my bills and hope in the form of creating when I had a free moment. I wouldn’t have to collaborate, create, and feed myself during the day and hustle the tables at night. Spoiler: the exhaustion did not end. Obligation and hope became one, and play was the absolute least of my concerns in any situation. The pressure to sustain life increased, and there was no employment law or clock out to stop me from working myself into the ground.
Work is not play. Even when you love what you do, you are still doing it with the intention to perform, to produce, and for return in the form of a roof over your head. That’s a lot of pressure for something we’re claiming is play, but is in fact the definition of work. I was raised by blue collar folks whose worst nightmare was waking up one day and regretting not having worked hard enough. While I’ve been able to detach myself from that sentiment, sometimes it seems there aren’t enough hours in the day to execute every idea, whim, and desire and it makes me feel like I’m failing. Just a little bit. When I complete my task list, I could theoretically always be working on my next project, which could always be my life’s greatest achievement, and rest feels like a betrayal to growth. The definitions of what play, rest, and work are get lost in the jumbled mess, you feel me?
This week in therapy, I started my session by describing how exhausted I was, how little time I felt I had to care for myself to the standard of a full cup, to nurture my life and relationships, to just be. My therapist smirked, knowing she was about to fuck my shit up respectfully, and asked me simply:
Who are you proving yourself to?
Just an incredibly rude thing to ask someone who is obviously proving herself to ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE, but GO OFF, PAM!!! The truth, as I explained to her, is that I feel such overwhelming gratitude for the potential I’ve been granted in this lifetime and I feel like I’m in debt to that potential each day. I feel guilty for being tired, even if I work around the clock 7 days a week most weeks because it is hard to discern where the job ends and I begin. I feel ungrateful for somehow gathering a living doing weirdo shit online, making art, and being me, while sometimes having a really hard time mustering up the will to do anything at all without leaving much for…me.
As a Black woman, there is a persistent, sneaking suspicion I’m on a victory streak that will end. That my next no will be my last. I’ll be deemed lazy, ungrateful, self-indulgent - by myself if no one else. That the universe is just waiting on me to slip and stop my progress dead in its tracks. I grew up believing the opportunities offered to me regularly would simply only come once in a lifetime. I’m still learning how to operate in a reality like this one - when “once in a lifetime” comes every day.
Anyway, I’m having one of those weeks. Which come every few months when I’ve slipped out of my Daily “Hey Bitch, You’re A Human” practices that keep me tethered to self-care, acknowledgment of my limits, and guided by possibilities without the need to overfunction. Coincidentally, the same week that Naomi Osaka’s name was splashed across headlines for withdrawing from the French Open and prioritizing her mental health. I love how initially she did it without explanation, because we should be able to do our jobs and say no to anything more without ceremony. We should be able to call out sick without an excuse, and to be clear, sickness of fatigue, disassociation, anxiety, and panic are no less worthy of reprieve than a scratchy throat and runny nose.
Of course, whiteness and its constructs don’t know how to operate when Black women refuse. They glitch, they lash out, they protest like a toddler. The blacklash - yes, blacklash - Naomi received by refusing labor beyond what she actually gets paid to do is a fierce reminder to all of us why it’s so terrifying to put your foot down. I don’t really want to put any greater onus on that girl’s shoulders than she’s already carrying, but the impact of witnessing a young Black woman have enough respect for her craft, her health, and her peace to assert boundaries and accept the consequences of being a Black woman with boundaries, is invaluable. I think what I’m touched by most is the lack of scarcity in her decision. She certainly feared what she would lose externally - money, respectability, reputation - while putting her mental health first, but chose the internal reward of self-trust and abundance, and it was returned with support of astronomical proportion. Wise beyond her years. We love to see it.
Naturally, not everyone is in the position to turn down a check or pay huge consequences for creating boundaries. Although, even when you are in the position to say no to a check in order to take care of you, the child who only knows financial stress, staying in a cycle of needing, and delayed gratification begs to be fed. As I stated previously, Black folks and people who don’t come from generational wealth are challenged in shaking the belief that we have to grasp and cling to opportunity rather than let it flow freely without unnecessary expectation that we’ll fumble our big break or once in a lifetime chance to have access. It’s an adjustment of healing work to view excellence, opportunity, and growth as a given of being a dedicated master and student of our talents, rather than an insurmountable debt to be paid or crushed by. For this reason, it seems that burnout is not simply created by being overworked, underpaid, or highly motivated, but by being a bit traumatized and that is…whew!
Burnout has been a big boss of lessons for me recently. The pandemic facilitated time and distance to create boundaries with others in a way I never have before and allowed me to witness my capacity for social interaction, work, and utter distraction when I’m not people pleasing. Distance from others served as a spotlight to the way my very own misuse of energy and time betrays my greatest contentment (and restfulness). As some who is programmed toward “achievement,” feeling like I am in debt to my potential is a constant state. Every day is trial and error to understand the active difference between capacity and capability. Just because I am capable doesn’t mean what I think I should/could/would be doing in my “free time” is within my capacity. My free time is supposed to be just that - free. It is not personal failure to say no in order to make space for it.
I’m gonna say that again, for me - IT IS NOT PERSONAL FAILURE TO SAY NO!
For many of us, genuine rest - like taking days/weeks off from work and high volume socializing - is not always an option. Motherfuckers have to work and have to pay bills. So what the hell are we supposed to do???
I have established a few quick practices that seem like another chore on days when I’m denying myself care (if I’m honest) but always make me feel like I have a soft landing place and stillness when I feel tapped out.
Don’t play about your sleep. No all-nighters, no staying up scrolling the feed all night because you’re afraid of waking up and having a to-do list. Yeah, I see you bitch!
Write a priority list the night before your next busy day and follow it, especially if you are neurodivergent or anxious. This helps me out a lot - especially if I stick post-it notes on the wall or something that’s super visible.
Replace escapism with habits which are less stimulating, grounding, nourishing, and fulfilling enough to inject more energy into your day instead of less. Go on a fucking walk, babe.
If you can’t have big rest, create small rest and start your day with it. Make a morning routine the cornerstone of daily self-care and stillness. Meditative practice is not just sitting on the floor with your eyes closed. It can be making breakfast while listening to Stevie Wonder, a quick yoga flow, a journal session, a few minutes sipping tea and watching the sun come up. All of this can be done in the first hour of your day.
Set a time limit on apps on your phone. My screen time goes up when I’m burned out because I’m seeking mindlessness desperately instead of managing the 5 minute task I’ve been avoiding for 3 weeks. Yeah, I’m calling myself OUT today.
Create another fun space. If you make money off something you love, you have to find another fun space. I recently got into pottery and ordered a literal bass guitar because I am desperately to be creatively fed again, and it’s making me really happy.
Of course, none of this is a remedy for conversations we’re avoiding because we don’t want to disappoint or don’t want to face the fact that we have limitations. Write that email to your boss, send a note to your client, be clear about what your role is on your team at work. I did it a few times this week and feel a lot better going into the weekend. We should also have conversations that aren’t a challenge, but true ooey gooey love and connection. If you’re like me, isolation is really easy when I already feel stretched, but it may only affirm the belief that you are on an island in a hamster wheel. Love your people.
Also, I just wanted to check in and make sure we’re all okay because each day that we inch closer to being “fully” out of this pandemic, I’m worried for us! I’m worried about a population of folks who spent the last year processing hundreds of thousands of deaths that could’ve been us, extreme amounts loss of every other kind, constant lifestyle shifts, decision fatigue, and a literal race war being expected to go back to full capacity at work like everything is everything. Some of us are have already reached burnout and may feel a bit silly mentioning how tired we are for fear of sounding like we’re in an exhaustion battle. But I think we should talk about it. I think we should talk about it a lot in case literally anyone has an answer we may need to hear that day.
None of us have the tools, but we have each other.
