Spinning Burnout
I am on a chatline on which someone is asking all the typical burnout questions. Why am I doing this? Do I really want to help people? Are the financial rewards sufficient reason to do something I don't love anymore? Did I ever love it? The questions go on and on. Bottom line was she didn't find joy in her work and she couldn't be a real therapist until she found that. Until then she was just working.
I have been somewhere like that recently when I was struggling to accomplish specific goals. Turned out that they weren't really my goals but rather ones that great copywriters lured me into seeking. In my reflection process I re-membered that joy is what I bring to something not what I get from something. Happiness is a choice. Happiness is not based on reasons. Someting does not make me happy or unhappy. Happy is the color of my glasses, the color of my world view point.
Back when I went to school, Occupational Therapy talked about "therapeutic use of self". It meant that who I was and how I related to a patient was as much a part of treatment as the exercises or activities we were doing. Maybe it was the real treatment. So the quality of me that I bring to my clients or to my job is the joy not the job. I have had sales clerks or even strangers change the course of my day. I am remembering the crosswalk guard whose smile and wave made my day and caused me to alter my day just to drive by that location at that time.
The more I am realizing that I am part of the great human family and participating in that family, the more I perceive just how much my being effects others.
This lone wolf has found herself in a pack. There are different assumptions and certainly a different spin. Burnout has little to do with job or resposibilities and lots to do with trying to run solo in a team sport called life. Questions about my beingness may be more important than questions about my doingness. Burnout comes from seeking answers outside instead of inside. Asking why do I love my life so much has let me see my insides reflected back to me from the outside.
I have been somewhere like that recently when I was struggling to accomplish specific goals. Turned out that they weren't really my goals but rather ones that great copywriters lured me into seeking. In my reflection process I re-membered that joy is what I bring to something not what I get from something. Happiness is a choice. Happiness is not based on reasons. Someting does not make me happy or unhappy. Happy is the color of my glasses, the color of my world view point.
Back when I went to school, Occupational Therapy talked about "therapeutic use of self". It meant that who I was and how I related to a patient was as much a part of treatment as the exercises or activities we were doing. Maybe it was the real treatment. So the quality of me that I bring to my clients or to my job is the joy not the job. I have had sales clerks or even strangers change the course of my day. I am remembering the crosswalk guard whose smile and wave made my day and caused me to alter my day just to drive by that location at that time.
The more I am realizing that I am part of the great human family and participating in that family, the more I perceive just how much my being effects others.
This lone wolf has found herself in a pack. There are different assumptions and certainly a different spin. Burnout has little to do with job or resposibilities and lots to do with trying to run solo in a team sport called life. Questions about my beingness may be more important than questions about my doingness. Burnout comes from seeking answers outside instead of inside. Asking why do I love my life so much has let me see my insides reflected back to me from the outside.
posted by Patricia @ 8:05 PM
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