Part 5: How can I prevent Burnout?

Empty your personal rain barrel as much as possible. Here are some simple things you can do which will help you to achieve this:

First steps for the prevention of burnout:

A daily walk in nature and taking in its beauty is the best remedy for burnout.

A daily walk in nature and taking in its beauty is the best remedy for burnout.

  • Take a vacation or sick leave – Do not dismiss the importance of your symptoms. They may be indicative of much more than a common cold or flu so don’t hesitate to call in sick for a week. Any physician could confirm just how severe burnout is and how essential it is to rest.
  • Take a long walk in nature part of your daily routine – Only nature can bring us back into balance. We are a part of nature and we draw our strength from it.
  • Make healthy dietary changes – less meat and carbohydrates, more vegetables, salads and fruit. Many doctors and most dieticians recommend the exclusion of pork, dairy, wheat, sugar and soft drinks.
  • Consult a good therapist – Support is always a good way forward.

For a discussion of this point, please see the section “What comes after burnout?” below.

Additional factors that contribute to burnout

Additional factors may also contribute to burnout. For example,  negative thoughts have a negative effect on your emotional and mental well-being and, ultimately, may even affect the way you feel physically. The negative emotions that accompany these thoughts amplify this effect. Everything is vibration and frequency. This is a hermetic law. Thoughts also have frequencies and affect your personal information field. The more you think a particular thought, the stronger its effect becomes. Just think about how differently you interact with someone who is negative about life versus someone who is positive, or how differently you react to someone who is angry on a regular basis. Yet, thoughts that lead to feelings of hatred and jealousy aren’t the only negative thoughts that affect us adversely. Often, negative thoughts manifest more subtly as beliefs that we internalize and repeat to ourselves silently even if we aren’t wholly aware of doing this. Because of the law of resonance, we then experience this repetition as a confirmation of those beliefs. Over time, they become increasingly difficult to eradicate and may cause physical sickness as well as emotional distress. Examples of such thoughts include:

  • I’m not good enough
  • Nobody loves me
  • Why always me?
  • I’ll never make it
  • I can’t take this any longer
  • What depressing weather
  • I look awful
  • I’m ugly
  • This is driving me nuts!
  • I’m mad!

Fear is another common and very destructive emotion. Fear can paralyze us and interfere with our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us. Often, we feel threatened even when we aren’t. Everyone is afraid of something and it is normal to experience fear. But when we ignore or deny our fears (or when we don’t question why we feel afraid), these fears affect us negatively. Thus, it is important to recognize and acknowledge these fears so that they don’t control us and we can respond appropriately when they arise.

Fear causes you to feel threatened, even when you aren’t. Subliminal feelings of fear accompany burnout.

Fear causes you to feel threatened, even when you aren’t. Subliminal feelings of fear accompany burnout.

Fear is another common and very destructive emotion. Fear can paralyze us and interfere with our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us. Often, we feel threatened even when we aren’t. Everyone is afraid of something and it is normal to experience fear. But when we ignore or deny our fears (or when we don’t question why we feel afraid), these fears affect us negatively. Thus, it is important to recognize and acknowledge these fears so that they don’t control us and we can respond appropriately when they arise.

Here are some forms of fear that may cause anxiety:

  • Fear of rejection
  • Fear of losing your job
  • Fear of difficulties
  • Fear of diseases
  • Fear of conflict
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear of…

Try continuing this list—if you dig deep and are honest with yourself, you’ll figure out what your personal fears are and be able to take control of them so that they don’t control you.

Feelings can be attributed to the surrounding energy field. In this respect, the energy field is crucial: it has the ability to energize your thoughts, thus strengthening their influence in our lives. But this applies to both negative and positive thoughts. Accordingly, feelings of fear and anxiety deplete our energy, resulting in imbalances. If this happens frequently, we become ill.

The most common forms of negative emotions are:

  • Fear
  • Jealousy
  • Envy
  • Resentment
  • Contempt
  • Anger
  • Hatred

Negative people promote burnout

Other people do affect our well-being . Most of us are not even aware of how others influence the way we feel. More often than not, however, we underestimate their impact on our lives.

Imagine getting on a bus full of people who have just learned that they are all about to be laid off from their jobs because of budget cuts. Now imagine that not one person on the bus is speaking. They are all staring into space silently, avoiding eye contact. How do you feel? Now get off the bus and catch another bus. This bus is also full, but this time it is full of smiling choir members returning from a joyous holiday celebration . Again, no one speaks a word. How do you feel now?

In these examples, you are neither approached nor addressed by anyone else, yet you cannot avoid adapting to the dominant mood of the people around you. This effect is amplified many times over when an exchange of words and ideas takes place. Emotions and energy are easily transferred as well.

People who regularly cry on your shoulder

Here the emphasis is on “regular.” Perhaps one person comes to you again and again to voice his/her suffering. Not only can this exhaust you—it can also reduce your own vibrational field significantly.

Interactions like this demoralize you and make it difficult for you to maintain a positive attitude. In turn, this may lead to depression. Maybe, however, you attract exactly those people who always cry on your shoulder. Perhaps, it isn’t always the same person but many people with whom you repeat the same scenario. If this is the case, you should contemplate and self-investigate. Could it be that you seek out such situations? Could it be that you always feel better when someone else is in pain?

Do you feel the need to be needed? Does the feeling of being needed by someone in distress strengthen your self-esteem? If this is the case, it is important to look for other ways to boost your self-esteem. There are methods for doing this that strengthen and increase your energy instead of depleting it.

People who constantly complain about everything

Other peoples problems are not your problems.

Don’t blame yourself for everything! Don’t let other people exert power over you! Surround yourself with people who influence you positively, whose company you enjoy, and who share your view of life.

Who doesn’t know someone who complains about everything all the time? Like people who lean on you constantly when they are in distress, complainers exhaust our energy supply. Whether or not they’re aimed at us directly, complaints and allegations mislead us and deplete our energy. They mislead because they support a false worldview. Spiritually and emotionally attuned people take responsibility for their actions and their path in life. They understand that the outer world is a reflection of their inner-self because the outside is always the result of their own resonance. Only that which can resonate with the frequency of their mind can influence them. In other words, there is nothing “out there.” Everything is simply a mirror of yourself. Some common sayings reflect this. For example:

– You make your own fortune.

– A person is known by the company he keeps

– It takes one to see one. (It takes another to recognize oneself)

People who often feel sorry for themselves

Another person who is full of self-pity also drains your energy drastically. Over time, living with someone like this can make you physically ill. In this situation, you need to think of your own well-being and, if necessary, leave. Do not indulge or encourage the person’s self-pity. Feel compassion for the person’s skewed experience of the world but don’t encourage or identify with his/her self-pity.

People who drain your energy

In addition to people who drain your energy by behaving in a particular way or by projecting their feelings, there are also people who drain your energy without engaging in any one particular behavior. Be aware of how you feel after interacting with people. If you often feel tired, annoyed, or depressed after spending time with or talking to a particular person, this might be because he/she has this affect on you.

Next: Part 6: Media promotes Burnout