One of my biggest ‘soapbox’ issues is the increasing incidence of Burnout, which I witnessed regularly in my previous profession without knowing what it was. In the legal profession, it has been considered ‘weak’ to admit that you have a problem – especially when your job is to be invincible advocating on your client’s behalf. The bigger problem that I discovered, however, is that ‘burnout doesn’t look like what you think it does’! It happens gradually, so you think you have changed (and the way your mind works has – but the solutions can be simple)!
It happens in silence, and the people it happens to feel ashamed and guilty, think it’s their fault, and don’t talk about it. WE NEED TO START TALKING ABOUT THIS, BECAUSE IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERMANENT! Are you or someone you know spiralling into chronic fatigue, being pessimistic all the time, procrastinating and getting to work later and later (wishing it would just go away), and losing motivation, which then leads to feeling guilty, inadequate, and undeserving of respect and ashamed.
Your body has spent so long in survival mode, it can’t access the ‘good judgment’ or the ‘calm connected’ parts of your brain, which can make you feel better and joyful again. Talk about it, and try coming to acupuncture with someone who has a special interest in treating stress, trauma, burnout and the associated mental/emotional and physical conditions that ride along with burnout.
I recently presented a workshop to a wonderful group of Collaborative family practitioners and mediators as part of the combined OAFM/OACP Family Peacemaker’s Conference in 2022. The title of the presentation was ‘Peacemaker Burnout: Pay Attention to Your Body’. Doing my research for the presentation, I came across a fabulous and hard-hitting graphic which I think needs to be reproduced here:
I knew, as a lawyer, that I was surrounded by a group of energetic, optimistic and talented people who were gradually becoming ground down, demotivated and sick. I had many colleagues on high blood pressure medication, with autoimmune diseases, and several with cancer who didn’t survive. Since everyone was self-employed, without benefits, of course, in this crazy profession, there was no such thing as a day off. Not an option. We ‘joked’ (?) about what we would do when we left law (not if)… but what would we do?
Several of my close colleagues gradually became silent, morose, and left the profession. I did too, really. You would see others who were gripped with addictions, became angry and combative (even for lawyers!) or so anxious they couldn’t enjoy life.
All of us had worked so hard, struggled, invested time and money and our souls into reaching the top of our profession… and once we got there, we couldn’t enjoy it, and were on a slippery slope to ill health and crushed dreams. I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else who wants to do good in the world!
This was heartbreaking, given the huge level of effort and commitment to do a really important, fulfilling job. What was happening? I saw the same pattern in the social workers that came in contact with us, as well, although some of them were employed and had unions, benefits, and sick leave (although not much more awareness of the issue of burnout, in my opinion).
I was delighted to find the level of interest in my (admittedly uneven) presentation. My 2200+ hours of acupuncture training (along with over 500+hours of breathwork and yoga teacher training) has given me a deep and exciting practical, hands-on toolkit to help people override their brains.
I will leave my passionate ‘brain override’ talk for another time, but besides acupuncture, I have so many self-care practices to share to help you start to become aware of your body and where it is holding your stress that you don’t even know. Chronic stress and overwhelm, when unrelieved properly, can lead to burnout. WE CAN STOP THIS! Come try some acupuncture to first of all ‘meet your body’ if this is news to you… you really don’t know what you don’t know!!
Read on another day to the next blog for a deeper discussion about VICARIOUS TRAUMA…. and look at other blogs as well to learn more about you and how acupuncture can help you heal
(C) copyright (except for the image above, with its credits) Sue Paterson 2022 A Curious Calm, all rights asserted
A Curious Calm: Acupuncture with Sue 