Out of Gas, Not Out of Worth: Decoding the Three Dimensions of Burnout

Renae: Hi there. This is Renae, and I'm here on day two of the Becoming TraumaWise Summit, and I'm here to talk to you about Decoding Three Dimensions of Burnout. I know I just said a bad word, burnout. We're going to unpack it a little bit today and talk about what the purpose of burnout is and what it actually does for us. So, I'm really glad that you said yes to this presentation, to this day, to this summit for whatever reason that you have for saying yes to it. I'm really glad that you're here.

And I'd like to introduce you to a little bit into my life and why I'm talking to you about this. So, I want to get a little close. Hi. One of the things that's really weird about doing this virtual thing is I don't get to see you as much. And so instead of me just being a tiny little face in the corner of the screen, sometimes I'd like you to be able to look into my eyes every once in a while. So here you are looking into my eyes, and I just want to tell you that I'm really glad that you're here.

I'm really glad that you said yes to this and to today. I don't know what it was about, what you read or saw or heard or what somebody told you about why you might want to be here today for this. But I'm really glad that you said yes to hear. That you said yes to regaining hope and community and sustainability and that you said yes to practical tools. So that's what we're going to get into. So, let me, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

We're having an inception moment here, with little me next to big me. But here's a list of things that I have done, stuff I know. So I’ve done some stuff, I know some things. Cool. That's actually not the most important thing. This right here, this group of people.

This is where I learned all of my stuff, really. I mean, I knew things that I went to school, I learned stuff and all of that. But as far as it comes to understanding the impact of trauma, to understanding toxic stress, to understanding how systems break down, to having the experience of being a caregiver that had lost compassion. This is where I learned it. And that's why we're here, right? Is that somewhere along the line, we have noticed that when we care about people, when we're meeting the need of the person in front of us and we're carrying that, it has a cost, that there's a weight to it.

And so with that in mind, here's my family, but I got my Ph.D. of ‘How to Do all of This’ with this group of people. Those are my two kiddos, my husband, and, well, I'm not going to tell our stories, but what I am going to do is tell you about how they, my babies, in the picture, moving in at ages six and seven, who are now 18 and 19 years old, have taught me all the things. It's because of who we have grown together and learned together. And when they came into their into my home with their complex developmental trauma, did you know that they actually triggered mine as well? So I learned an awful lot.

I didn't, I did not know what I did not know. And I'm so grateful for the lessons that I did learn. And also, we had no idea. And I'm pretty sure that as humans in general, it's going to be very difficult for people to prepare us for what the cost is to care so much. And that's actually okay, because if we knew, we might not do it right. And so it's okay.

But there's there is a cost to care and there's a cost to putting your needs to the side. That's, I'll talk a little bit about more of that in session one in felt safety. But we know that it comes at a cost and so let's talk about why, why we're here. Why do we want to talk about burnout, and understand it? Well, partially because, I don't know, why are you here? So take a second and look in your notes and are in your guide or your workbook or your note taking or whatever it is that you're doing to kind of reflect on and think about this and ask yourself, what is it about this particular topic?

What is it that you're hoping to hear or hoping that you don't hear in this particular presentation? Are you looking for, to understand why are you looking for something to help validate something you think might be? These are all, maybe you're just looking for someone to tell you, but it's okay. These are all valid things. Anything that you're going to write down here. But taking a moment to reflect on what is it that you need, what is it that you're hoping for?

We will have practical tools and applications at the end of this. All of our presentations look at that. But also part of it is the practice of reflecting. That it's okay for you to take 20 or 25 minutes out of your day to really look inside of yourself, and connect with yourself and notice what you're feeling and how you are engaging with the world and the challenges you have with engaging and functioning. And take note of that. That's actually really important.

So taking a moment while you're here, I hope that you're here to explore burnout because that's what we're about to talk about. So when I bring up the term burnout, what comes up? What do you feel in your body? What does, what words come into your mind? What things do you visualize generally? What do you think about burnout?

It's that we have to tell someone that we can't do something or that we're feeling, like worn out, right? These are the things I heard. I'm burnt out. I can't do it. I'm crispy from, from a number of years ago. Stick a fork in me.

I'm done. All of these things, I'm done. I don't have any more right now. Unfortunately, burnout has such a negative connotation in our commercial world, in our in our world that really focuses on production and consumption, because it means that you're no longer effective in your role of producing something. And so it becomes this dirty word that says that there's something that's wrong with you if you're burnt out. So is that true?

Is that actually true? Well, let's look at the definition Now. Here's a couple of really fantastic technical definitions of burnout. It's a stress response to interpersonal stressors that are chronic. It's a state of mental or physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. I'm burnt out.

I have a different way that I talk about it. This is how I talk about it. I'm burnt out. All right. So, this is not quite the right light, because those of you who know what it's like to have that light flash at you, the light comes on and starts flashing at you. And then I feel like there's kind of two groups of people in the world.

There's the group of people for whom that means I have another 20 miles. And then there's a group of people that are like, no, we're about to have a very serious issue, or they've never seen the light because they always fill it before it even gets to this place, right? I'm not that person. I can't tell you how many times I have just run on fumes into the gas station, hoping, white knuckling it, hoping that I was going to make it to that place. But what was happening is that light came on and said, you're out of fuel. You don't have any more to do.

You do have what you need to keep going in this way and you're not going to be able to continue to go it this way. It's not going to work. And the difference, I think, between humans and cars, is for some reason we think that if a person's like, Hey, I can't tell them, well, you just need to think positively or, you know, be the engine that could I think I can and all of that. There is no world in which telling a car that is out of gas to drive is reasonable. That is unreasonable. And it's the same for humans too.

It what, it, what our burnout is telling us is I just don't have any more, and something needs to be replenished in my system. Something needs to change or it's going to go very badly. So here what the three dimensions start with, we've exhausted our resource is right. I have no more empathy. Compassion, you know, right, right there with me. Like I still have compassion for human beings.

But at the moment I don't have enough. Right? So it could be I am stressed and I'm not sleeping well, and so I don't have a sense of humor when I'm, when I'm engaging with people. And it could be that I've had to answer the same question over and over and over and over and over again, because of a certain circumstance. And I and I'm really tired of telling the story because it was, it's a really hard story, but it's yet another service provider, that is asking the story yet again. And it's exhausting me because I'm reliving it as I tell the story.

Right? It could be that I am the in-charge adult, and I need to stay emotionally regulated and, in a place, where other people are not. And even though I might be triggered, I have to, have this responsibility to pull on all of my resources so that I stay calm and don't make things worse and I can run out of those things that feel that for me. So I'm exhausted. I don't have any more. I've exhausted my resources.

I'm out of gas. Okay. That's pretty reasonable to think that we might be out of gas at some point. So here's what happens. As people who care as helpers, that does not fit with our identity, right? We are known as people who are helpers, people who will solve problems, people who will meet needs, people who could be called on.

It is just a deep part of who we are. And when we are out of resources and we're not able to function in that way, we are out of alignment, and that feels really terrible. It doesn't feel good at all and in fact it becomes untenable. And so, to protect us from all kinds of other things that could happen, our brain does this really interesting thing. It gets to go with our body, and it shuts down part of our connection. It starts depersonalizing the need of the person in front of us.

It desensitizes us a little bit. It distances us and all of a sudden, it doesn't have the same weight for us. We know the technical things that we need to do to provide instrumental care to meet that need instrumentally, but we don't have the capacity for being present. And because I feel so terrible for our brains and bodies, because of who we are, our brains and bodies protect us. It shut down and say, Hold on, what can we do to make sure that this person does not feel this terrible feeling of misalignment? And we disconnect.

We become a little more cynical. It's their problem. We become numb to it. It's a survival strategy. It is not a cognitive process where we sit down and think, Well, which people on my list am I going to stop thinking about caring about today? It's a survival mechanism in our brains, okay?

We don't just connect. We don't just disconnect from other people. We actually disconnect from ourselves as well. So the difficulty with this comes because, if we are not able to notice our own needs, our own physical cues, what we need emotionally, what we need for regulation, because we have disconnected, we're going to be in that downstairs part of our brain, that part of our brain, that's the survival brain. That brain may make great, critical, responsive, or reactive choices. It just is like; how do I not die?

How do I, how do I get to safety? It does not do so well when it comes to creative problem solving, to great decision making, to compassion, to patients, to empathy, that there's no room for that in downstairs brain. And so we are not able to access that as much because our brains and bodies are saying, listen, if a person comes and they need something from me, I don't have it to give and I need this resource for myself. So I'm disconnecting and we move further and further into this downstairs brain. That unfortunately has an impact on our whole person because, it makes it so that we can't effectively reach those parts of ourselves that do the critical thinking, that do the problem solving.It impacts our work and it impacts our ability to regulate. It impacts how we feel effective in being a human with other people, especially if we have that role of helper.

So in all of this, I think the most important thing to walk away with, with this three dimensions of burnout is to realize that this is your brain and body telling you, hey, something is wrong, something in your system is out of balance and you don't have what you need for resources. So we're going to have to pull over to a gas station and get those resources for you because it's time. Okay, There's something else to. I want you to hear me very clearly. See this and it's on the screen. It's going to be in notes and in different places to this.

I'm just going to read it. Burnout manifests in persons with no previous history of psychopathology. When we burn out, it is not a weakness. It is not that something is wrong with us. It is that our brains and bodies are doing the exact right thing to take care of us. Okay, let me say that again.

If you are burning out, there is nothing wrong with you. It is your brain and body protecting you so that you don't go further down this road into compassion fatigue, which we'll unpack in a second. But it's something that's right. When you are burning out, it's telling you your brain and body is saying, hey, I'm still functioning to keep you alive and something needs to change. Okay, So there's something in the system needs to change. But you are functioning to protect yourself.

Okay. Okay. Do you hear it? Good. Okay, so let's stop talk about let's talk about the warning signs. Okay.

I'm going to go quickly through these. This is not people's favorite thing to talk about. Here are the warning signs. You might see this in a list somewhere. Increased irritability, impatience with others, difficulty planning, implementing work responsibilities, decreased concentration, feeling numb or detached, intrusive feelings, or intrusive thoughts about others, sleep problems, changes in eating more and less, than the one everyone gets mad about.; Increased use of stimulants, alcohol, cigarettes, spending, Netflix, Target dollar spot, Dollar Tree, Ben Jerry's, Tik Tok to make it through the day or the week. Yeah, it's a little painful, here's the thing.

If you're looking at this list and you're recognizing that you currently are experiencing one or more of these, this is your fuel light saying you need to pull over and get some fuel, because right now these things are trying to protect you. These things are happening because we have to shut down different parts of your system that would normally be supporting you, and you're not functioning fully. You're not able to engage in these ways. Okay. So your fuel lights on, if you see one or more of these and you need to get some fuel if you don't and you continue to try to go without this fuel, something else is going to happen. There's this thing, there's this thing called compassion fatigue.

And it's not just a phrase that is meaning ‘I don't have any compassion’. The term compassion literally means to suffer with, right? So compassion fatigue means I can't be present with other people in their distress because I don't have any more. I like to think that I have this big reservoir of compassion, it helps me to remember that the person in front of me is a human, that they're not my enemy, that that there's nothing something's wrong with them. It's that something has happened that has made it so hard for them to be able to get their needs met by using their words. They're good words, right?

Yeah, I can. I can't see that anymore because I've given so much one way. That's compassion. Like when we're caring for people, caregiving is a one way street of no reciprocity, nor should there be not in the caregiving relationship. So we're giving care over and over and over again. And as we're giving it and as we're being present with people, at a certain point, if it's not replenished, it's going to run out.

Okay. Different than gas. This is more like the oil in a car, right? Or other important things. If you don't have compassion after a certain amount of time, your body starts to shut down because it says you're, you can't engage anymore. And we start to have secondary traumatic stress symptoms.

It becomes really serious. This is why. This becomes your check engine light compassion, compassion fatigue is telling you, hey, full stop, you got, you, there's people, you need help. And that's it. There's, It’s not like, you need help, there's something wrong with you. It is you need help, because if you continue to try to do this, you're there's going to be more of your body that's going to start shutting down, more of your brain that's not going to work, because it is: your check engine light is on.

Okay. That's not that something's wrong with you. That means you don't have any more. You really actually can't muscle through or pretend or any of those things. You can't. It's not working anymore.

Parts of you is, are starting to fall away and they're not functioning fully. Okay? And that's just part of what happens when we completely exhaust a resource, and our compassion is what keeps us in relationship and connected to each other and to ourselves. So when we are caring for people and we're giving over and over and over again with our physical and emotional energy, and when we are engaging with people who have experience trauma, we have a finite amount of resources before we need to have the heart replenished. So what do we do with all this? Thanks, Renae, for ruining my day and making me worry about my check engine light and my gas light coming on now.

What do I do? Well, I'm going to give you three things. One is to practice self-compassion. Another is to identify your stressors, and the third is to build your community. So let's go. So first of all, across the board, people do the best that they can with the tools that they have, across the board.

Okay? If you're not able to do something and someone's expecting you to do something that you cannot do, that's an issue in the relationship and in the system. And there's nothing wrong with you, that you can't do it. You will do it when you're able to do it. Okay, maybe there is something you don't have enough knowledge. Maybe there are too many stressors.

Maybe there's a barrier that's in your way. Okay. These are all things that you can ask for help with. These are things that you can get creative and develop skills when you feel more regulated. And we'll get into that second. But remember that this is being, this is telling you that your brain and body are saying, hey, something needs to change.

This is, we're having a real reasonable response here, to all these stressors. And something needs to change. And you know what? You're a human. You're a human and you're pretty awesome. Did you know that?

I hope so. Another thing to do is to identify your stressors. So there's an opportunity here for you to really take a look at what's going on in your brain and body when you're feeling stress. What? Where are you feeling that you know what? Where, what are you feeling in different parts of your body?

What might you notice with your breathing, with your heart rate, with how your skin feels? Notice that. Think about that, and then start to look at when you feel those things the most. What's coming up? What kind of patterns can you find that you can look at and say, I noticed that when I have these particular environments or these particular people or these particular situations, my stress is flaring up and this is how I'm experiencing it. Okay.

And that starts to give you some clues as to where something might need to adjust in your system. Okay. Another way to figure out what's going on is what, what might you be avoiding. And this will give you a little bit of a clue as to what might be stressing you out, because it may not just be that you don't like to do something like I don't like to do dishes, right? But doing dishes is seldom a threat to my survival. However, at the end of the day, when I have been walking alongside community members and doing a lot of work of being present with them and giving my full, authentic self, over and over and over again, over a long space of time.

And I maybe haven't eaten because I don't, I lose my physical cues when I do that to on route and I come in and if I need to wash dishes there is a chance that my brain and body are going to read that as; you haven’t had a break. You haven't eaten and gone to the bathroom. And if that is being asked of me, it feels like a threat to my system, because I have all of these other needs. Okay, So it's not that the dishes are actually causing me the stress, it's the demand on my time or the fact that I'm not seen, that I've already been giving as much as I can give and that I need to recoup a little bit before I can give a little bit more. Okay. So understanding how our stressors are showing up is sometimes the thing that we're avoiding is not actually the thing that is stressing us out.

It's what it means to us. Okay, so what do we do? We build our community. First of all, I want you to know that you are not alone. How do I know this? Because hundreds of you signed up to gather in this time and say, Hey, I feel that way too, and I need some things too.

And so I want you to know that you are not alone, first of all. Okay? So that I hope that that brings you help. Actually, it does for me, to know that there are people who have gone before and the people who come after and that that we've had this situation. And so far we've done a really good job not dying because of it. So kudos to us.

But you have done that, too. So I want to applaud you for that and help you to remember that. And second is to take a look at who is in your support system right now. Okay. Who is in your team and you may have one. You may have many.

Either way, it is just taking a snapshot of who is currently in that support system. And as you're thinking through those people, are you having a stress response, thinking about any of them? And that might tell you that either you might need to adjust the relationship, you might need to provide additional support, supports around yourself when you're engaging with that person if you need to continue to engage with them. And it might tell you too, that if you're feeling stress when you think about the majority of people, maybe you need to invite somebody to leave, if possible, and maybe invite people who are not bringing you that stress into your support system. This support system could be made up of people that are professional support people, support groups, online communities. And of course, the TraumaWise community.

And if you've signed up for this summit, you've already been invited into the TraumaWise Welcome Community. And we are building this as a place for people to come and be seen, heard, and valued and know that they're not alone and that we all have internal wisdom to share with each other. So here's the end of this. I want you to know that if you've experienced these three dimensions of burnout, and have you experienced these warning signs that it's telling you that, hey, you're starting to disconnect from yourself, but and you're probably disconnecting from everyone else as well. And that's not a way that we can be a full and authentic human. So let's take a moment to notice what might be happening in our brain and body and take, just a snapshot, which is something that we can do.

And so you'll see that there are a couple of tools that are going to be down below for you to be able to continue this process. So one is going to be a wellness micro journey that you'll be able to identify some things just over the next five days and there'll be another selection of tools that'll be there for you as well to know there's nothing wrong with you. And so if no one has told you today that you are awesome and you're an amazing human, I want to tell you, and I'm so glad that you're here. Thanks for showing up and saying yes.