“Is this burnout or…? So many of us are asking this question and wondering if what we’re feeling is burnout. Is it burnout or exhaustion? Burnout or anxiety? Burnout or worker exploitation? Burnout or unreasonable expectations? Burnout or toxic workspace? Burnout or I’m 100% in caregiver mode? Burnout or over-capacity? Burnout or the world is on fire? Burnout or a breaking point? Burnout or …?”
This is the opening inquiry of a collaborative article that Candace Epps-Robertson and I have newly out. It’s titled “Is This Burnout? You Aren’t Alone in Asking the Question.” It appears in EON, Editorial Office News, the publication of the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE), a primary professional association for people involved in academic publishing.
The article reflects on how many of us are experiencing burnout and how burnout is both personal and shared, always related to larger collective conditions and systemic injustice. From there, we offer three moves: (1) providing glimpses into our own experiences with burnout; (2) sharing our guiding beliefs about burnout; (3) closing with contemplative practices and resources—a guided meditation, reflection questions, and book recommendations—which we hope provide next steps.
If you are similarly asking “is this burnout?” or if you’ve already answered “it is!” then check out the piece.
And if you’d like to connect with others similarly navigating burnout, we invite you to upcoming workshops on practices for navigating burnout. In each 90-minute workshop, small groups come together to play, plan, and practice. We begin with a welcome and introductions. Then we share three practices for navigating burnout: (1) a somatic/grounding practice, (2) a ritual/art practice, and (3) a contemplative writing practice. We close with time for group conversation and Q&A.
Both the article and workshops, we hope, are building to a first cohort of Pathways Through Burnout for fall 2024. We are planning this offering to include 12 weeks of intensive support, 8 small-group coaching sessions, 2 one-with-one coaching sessions, plus guided practices, curriculum, and a resource library—all guided by 2 experienced facilitators (who have both experienced burnout as well).
We are accepting applications to the cohort. We are seeking sponsors to reduce registration costs and provide scholarship options. And, for the next few months, we are offering to run one of our workshops for organizations who sponsor a participant in the fall workshop.
So, we hope you might be interested in connecting around this article, around the workshops, and around the cohort. Please reach out anytime.
And thanks to EON editors, including Caitlyn Trautwein, for the invitation to share this article on burnout. As we write in the piece, we know that even the word is tender. We hope that by asking “is this burnout?” we hold space for various answers to unfold. Because rarely is it only burnout. Or is it about being “burned out” so much as burned and “burned up.” May we rekindle what keeps us burning brightly. And may we keep reframing “burnout” in ways that instead honor ourselves and each other.
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This post is written by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice. Related blog posts include:
- “Intervening into Burnout, Building a Sense of What’s Possible”
- “Reframing Burnout and Recognizing the Collective Experience”
- “It’s More than End-of-the-Year Exhaustion: Semester Rhythms and Recurring Burnout”
- “Interrupting Writer’s Block: Writing (and Pausing) Through Resistance”
- “Disrupting the Mind-Body Split”
- “Exploring Exhaustion and Energy Loss”
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