💥 Burnout Decoded: Beyond Exhaustion, Toward Real Rest ✨

Welcome to The Growing Pains Collective. Written by licensed therapists and real people, off the algorithm. Driven by creativity, connection, and community.

We live in a world that glorifies the grind, where exhaustion is worn like a badge of honour. But what if we didn’t have to crash and burn to earn rest? Let’s talk about stress, burnout, and most importantly, how we reclaim the kind of ease we dream about and deserve.

Burnout isn’t just feeling drained - it’s a system overload.

It’s chronic, unmanaged stress manifesting as:

• Total depletion: mentally, physically, spiritually.

• Detachment: feeling distant from your work, relationships, or passions.

• Brain fog & inefficacy: tasks that once felt simple now feel like climbing a mountain.

Here’s the thing: stress compounds and grows exponentially. One trigger leads to another. Maybe you’ve had one too many anxiety ridden or sleepless nights. One bad day starts to feel like a bad life. Frustration and exhaustion grow at a breakneck pace.

Welcome to the land of burnout.

When stressors are left unchecked and dismissed it quickly snowballs into burnout, where even answering a text suddenly feels like too much. When you don’t know how to stop the snowball from getting bigger and bigger, what does one actually do? Where do we start?

Life keeps moving. And moving 🌧

As therapists, we find ourselves talking about burnout on a near daily basis. It’s just part of the job. That also means the following short list of stressors isn’t just insight from our own lives, but is a mini reflection 🪞 of the real situations that we see in practice on a regular basis:

• Does balance actually exist? Between managing (and keeping 😩) jobs, the responsibility pull toward caregiving aging family members/ kids/ pets, holding down our romantic relationships, and somehow also having a social life, there’s a constant demand for a piece of you.

• The weight of expectations is too much. Whether it’s family, friends, work life or our own inner critic, the pressure to succeed is intense. The stories we’ve told ourselves and the intergenerational wounds that rear their heads (more on that in a previous newsletter here) is a special combo that feels like a bad joke on most days 🙃.

• Was someone talking about comparison culture? It seems like everyone else except us is thriving. The question of “am I the only one that feels like this?” is louder than ever. Why does it feel like there’s always a push to “do it all,” with never enough time to do the things? To be honest, the truth is closer to being too tired to even deal 😭

• An intersectional layer cake of trauma. The added layers of systemic discrimination, racism (from institutional to interpersonal), and politically fuelled violence serve as the icing on the inescapable exhaustion-cake of being BIPOC in this world. Throw in a sprinkle of productivity mindsets, media-highlighted insecurities that are then marketed back to us as if nothing ever happened, and it’s enough to push the average person into an inevitable state of burnout.

The Burnout Litmus Test

Not sure if you’re just stressed or fully burnt out? Here’s a quick vibe check:

🛑 Body says no: Trouble sleeping, headaches, always feeling run-down.

😵‍💫 Emotions on edge: Irritability, disconnection, or feeling like you’re running on fumes.

🌀 Mind in loops: Struggling to focus, procrastinating, or trapped in negative thought spirals.

If this feels too real, let’s get into some solutions.

How to Recover from Burnout Without the Hustle Mindset Sneaking In

🔎 Reflect & Ground

If stress is creeping up, don’t gaslight yourself into pushing through, or avoiding even your most basic of needs in service of your anxiety. Take a sec, pause (let’s try it together) and ask yourself: How am I really feeling? What’s triggering this stressful moment for me right now? What small need can I meet in the next 30 seconds? What grounds me?  

If you’re feeling unsafe or shaken up beyond your typical stress, there’s always room to lean into help. It’s not a failure to need things or let people in to your struggles. You can journal, move your body, make art, call a friend, or let it out to your therapist or care provider. Whatever helps untangle the overwhelm is a valid place to start.

🚪 Boundaries Are Love Letters to Yourself

If you wait for permission to rest, you’ll never get it. We hate to be the ones to say it, but it’s unlikely that someone is going to rescue us from burnout before we even take the first step ourselves. Block out actual break time like a meeting that you cannot miss. Say no without an essay-length justification. "I won’t be able to make it" is a full sentence.

😴 Rest > Hustle

Rest isn’t just sleep. According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, we need 7 different types of rest:

• 🦵🏾Physical (naps count, but so does acupuncture, stretching, or massage)

• 🧠 Mental (unplug from decision fatigue and problem solving)

• 🫀Emotional (permission to feel without performance)

• 👥 Social (curate your people)

• 🌳 Spiritual (whatever connects you to something bigger)

• 👣 Sensory (less screens, more deep breaths)

• 🪄 Creative (play, art, wonder)

Find what actually recharges you and own it unapologetically.

⏳ Break the Work Cycle (Gently)

Try the Pomodoro Technique: 25 minutes of deep work, 5-minute break. Reward yourself for the tiny wins. Checking off one task is still progress.

🫂 Lean Into Your People

Burnout thrives in isolation. Tap into your community, whether that’s group therapy, a deep trusting relationship with a friend or just people who get it. Let them help. Surround yourself with people who uplift, understand, and support your total wellness.

Rest as Rebellion

Capitalism will convince you that your worth lies in your productivity. It’s a scam. Rest is not a luxury. It’s survival.

PSA: As Tricia Hersey reminds us, “Rest is an ethos of reclaiming your body as your own.” Challenge the hustle narrative. Rest without guilt.

Reset Rituals (That Don’t Require a Wellness Budget)

If making space for rest feels impossible, start small:

✨ Set micro-goals: One or two essential tasks a day. That’s enough. If you over-plan and over-engineer your goals you run the risk of attaching to an outcome that might be completely out of your control. Goals that are too big can feel overwhelming to get started with. The key is to build your goals to match your personal energy, not your inner critic.

🍵 Romanticize the mundane: Small is big. Aka: see the little things as powerful places to start. Drink your tea slowly. Notice the quiet moments. Breathe deeply. Do that again. Find new ways to embrace the question: “Can this moment be simpler? Can it just be?”

🙅🏽‍♀️ Drop the pressure cooker: Rest isn’t something you need to earn. Try making your quiet time an attractive and meaningful place to expand into. Learning to slow down is not an overnight process.

🌿 Soft life, your way: Journalling, expressive art making, a no-phone hour, soundbaths, movement practices, meditation or mantras. Whatever works for you and sparks joy is a valuable exercise in showing up for you.

Burnout ≠ Strength

Resilience isn’t about surviving on fumes. It’s about recovery. And recovery requires rest. If you’ve been taught to "push through at all costs," here’s your reminder:

You are human. Your value isn’t tied to how much you produce.

Reflection Prompts 📝

Before diving back into the chaos, take a beat and ask yourself:

• What does rest mean to me today?

• What rest rituals make the biggest impact for me?

• What signs of burnout show up in my life? Am I aware and in tune with these feelings?

• Where can I be more intentional about how I face my stress and my need for rest?

Resources Worth Your Energy

• 📖 (Book): Rest Is Resistance – Tricia Hersey

• 🖊 (Syllabus): Deconstructing Ambition— A guide to redefining success and deconstructing ambition for the burnt-out overachiever curated by fellow burnt-out overachiever Kamsy Anyachebelu.

• 🏷 (Card Deck): Rest Deck —Tricia Hersey

• 📖 (Book): Pause, Rest, Be —Stillness Practices for Courage in Times of Change —Octavia Raheem

• 📖 (Book): Sacred Rest —Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

• 📖 (Book): Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle —Emily & Amelia Nagoski

• 🎙️ Podcast: Burnout and How to Avoid It —The Happiness Lab w/ Dr. Laurie Santos

The work will still be there tomorrow. Your well-being can’t wait.

Rest is radical. Rest is necessary. Rest is yours. Take it.

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