Coping with Mental Exhaustion or Burnout

How do you recognize the signs of mental exhaustion or sometimes what we may call ‘burnout’?  For me, I’ve always been someone who pushes through everything.  For much of my life I was very disciplined and consistent in many areas of my life.  I’d set an alarm, get up early, go for a run, lift some weights, create my meals for the day, teach my fitness classes, homeschool my children, do house chores, and so-on.  NEVER was I perfect, but living a disciplined life was very natural for me, and I had fought through a lot to be that person.  I was happy, content, found time to push and time to rest.  I believe part of my ease in doing this was that I truly loved my life, and any difficulties I faced, I faced with a mindset of discipline, determination, contentment, and love…love for the beautiful life I had been given.

When Your World Shifts Around You…

But what happens when you’ve been this way your entire life and then a wrench gets thrown into the gears of your life and breaks apart everything you had ever been or ever known?  How do you cope with that?  How do you recognize that mental exhaustion has taken over causing the sudden loss of discipline, lack of motivation, loss of joy, lack of contentment, and general loss of love for this life has vanished. How in the WORLD do you cope with such loss, and how in the world do you work to either get back what you’ve lost or find some kind of contentment with the new person you’ve become?

Shifting the Narrative

When you find yourself in this place, you have to make the effort to shift the narrative going on inside your head!  And that can be difficult for sure!  I found it to be very hard to do and fought against it for a long time!  But over time I began to recognize that I was going to stay stuck if I didn’t make some kind of mental shift.  I was going to stay stuck in the negative space that felt like I wasn’t good enough, the negative space that felt like I was a failure, and the negative space that caused me to beat myself up all the time.  Because I had been so disciplined most of my life to ‘get in my workout’, ‘eat my healthy food’, or ‘have a positive mindset about everything’, I would beat myself up when this new shift occurred within me.  When I lacked motivation, or couldn’t bring myself to be disciplined, or when I would dwell on negative thoughts, I’d then start beating myself up & talking to myself negatively…talking to myself about how WEAK I was, and how I needed to just suck it up.  I was hard on myself.

But…the reality was…I was struggling.  It wasn’t just an ‘I’m lazy’ so I’m not gonna do all ‘the things’ mentality, it was a legitimate mental struggle, and I had to figure out how I was going to cope with this NEW me.

• • was I going to keep beating myself up?
  • was I going to keep calling myself ‘weak’?
  • was I going to keep being mad at myself for this shift?
  • was I going to keep ‘poo-pooing’ that it was a real thing?
  • was I going to keep being angry at the person who was at the root of what caused this shift in me?
  • was I going to ever find myself again?
  • was I going to always hate this new me?
  • was I going to keep spinning?
  • was I going to stay stuck?

OR…

• • was I going to give myself grace?
  • was I going to call myself ‘strong’?
  • was I going to find contentment in this new shift?
  • was I going to STOP ignoring that this was a REAL struggle I was in and it was a REAL THING?
  • was I going to stop being angry at the person who caused this in me, and just move myself forward?
  • was I going to just accept this NEW me instead of looking for the old one?
  • was I going to LOVE who I was instead of hating her?
  • was I going to find calm?
  • was I going to get un-stuck?

Coping Instead of Crapping

I finally determined to figure out how to COPE.  I was tired of crapping all over myself and calling myself weak.  I was tired of the mental chaos I found myself in because I couldn’t accept the shift.  I was tired of the burnout I ended up in because I was attempting to do all the same things the ‘old’ self did, and yet at the same time FAILING at it!  I had to do something to figure it out because I couldn’t live like this.  It was miserable, and I was overwhelmed and NOT at peace.

So…I started small — it’s how it worked for me.  BECAUSE I had been the epitome of discipline and suddenly I was FAR from disciplined, I had to start small in my coping mechanisms.  So, for starters, I decided to willfully choose grace.  I chose grace when I decided to take a bath instead of doing a workout.  I chose grace when I skipped a meal.  I chose grace when I ate cake instead of chicken. 🙂 I chose grace when I chose to sit on the couch instead of going for a run.  I chose grace when I stayed in bed.  I chose grace when I just could NOT bring myself to do the disciplined things I USED to do in my ‘former self’.  That was where I started.

I’m not great at it all the time.  I still want to beat myself up, and do at times.  But I exercise a practice of giving myself grace more often than not.  As I make that a practice, it becomes easier and easier to make it more of a habit to allow myself the space to give grace.

I’m learning how to cope with the mental exhaustion I was experiencing from trying to be who I used to be while facing the current challenges: lack of motivation, lack of discipline, loss of passion, & the overwhelm and burnout that comes from trying to be that person I couldn’t find anymore.  I’m finally recognizing that there ARE real and valid things we deal with that cause us to lose ourselves for a time, and we have to learn how to acknowledge that and cope with those changes by allowing ourselves to have GRACE on this new person we’re getting to know.  And I am learning to cope with that.  And I am learning how to LOVE this new person even though she is different than who she used to be.  THAT has started the ball rolling on helping me heal from the burnout that was created when I tried to keep being the person I used to be and was spinning my wheels and frankly EXHAUSTED from the fight.

Learning How to Cope Brought Back a Piece of Me

What I found interesting is that once I took those steps of GRACE and started learning how to cope with the shifts that had happened within me, I started to notice that a little spark of the ‘old me’ was also emerging.  Not the entire part of the ‘old me’, but a piece of her.  I noticed that I’d have a spark of desire within me to pursue something I had once been passionate about in my ‘old life’, but had completely LOST passion for in this new space of mental exhaustion and burnout (brought on in MY case by betrayal trauma).  I had lost passion and desire for EVERYTHING I once held so dear, and as I focused on just learning how to cope, and accepting the shifts that had happened inside of me, giving myself grace for them, and learning how to rest and recover, I’ve notice over time that a tiny spark of passion has ignited.  It has almost felt foreign, yet oh so familiar at the same time.  I’m a different person now, so feeling a spark of that ‘old me’ was strange…yet also a bit comforting.

I’ve learned to savor the sparks.  Sometimes I watch the spark, enjoy its illumination, and then watch it float away.  I appreciate it…then let it fly away.  Sometimes I watch the spark, and it fascinates me for longer…I not only want to enjoy its illumination, but I want to do something with it…I want to capture it and create light and not let it fly away and fizzle.  THIS was something I had grown to accept would NEVER come back from the ‘old me’.  I had accepted that I was a different person and that I would do different things in life than before.  I had accepted that those passions and disciplines and motivations I had in my ‘former self’ were gone and that I was just going to live differently in this new life.  That’s a GOOD thing!  The fact that we CAN learn how to cope and shift to where we can accept that circumstances have changed us into different beings, it allows us to be able to move forward and create a new and good life moving forward.

BUT…as I have watched these sparks ignite, and I have found myself savoring them rather than mourning that they had once fizzled and died and the fire had COMPLETELY gone out, I have begun to appreciate more and more the girl that once was and the girl who now is.  I have begun to find gratitude that the fact there is a spark, an ember…this means that there must be hot coals or a fire of some kind.  It means that the once cold and ashen base of my life has now begun to warm and though it will NEVER be the exact same fire again, there are signs of a fire…and I can stoke that fire, baby it, and cause it to become within me a warmth of a new life where new passions and even some old passions have and are being ignited and staying lit.  This is AMAZING to me, and I am filled with gratitude that God can take the once broken, cold, dead, and burnt-out pieces of us, and can re-ignite them with new and burning flames.

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