Post-Burnout Self-Care: What it's really about

Today's episode is about self care.

Not the exercise, meditation or smoothie kind, instead the kind of self care that might feel really difficult and uncomfortable, yet I would dare say absolutely necessary for your life Post Burnout now let me be honest and say upfront that I have my struggles with self care.

I usually don't feel successful at keeping to a habit.

I often feel shame for not being much into sports and particularly right before my own experience with burnout.

It was difficult to see others share their self care routines during the pandemic while I was barely keeping up with a one year old and the prospect of a job loss.

So I'm not here to tell you what to do or don't do.

Instead, I want to offer some thoughts about how we could think about self care differently so that you are in a stronger position to deal with some of the unique ups and downs that come with those early months back at work.

I often hear from returning employees say things like I thought I'd done the work.

Why does it feel like I'm taking a step back?

Or I didn't expect to feel so tired after just a few hours of work?

Or I said I'd stop people pleasing, but I'm finding it really hard to say no.

If this sounds similar to what you are experiencing, don't panic.

Remember that recovery is not linear.

Self care after burnout is not just about doing activities that are routine, enjoyable and what we typically consider as healthy habits.

They are important too, and should be very much part of your overall strategy.

But that's not enough.

If you're coming out of burnout, recovery and returning to work.

What's the difference?

The word integration comes to mind.

For me, self care post burnout is about integrating or applying what you've learned through recovery into your day to day.

It's about creating strategies to keep you steady while navigating what can sometimes feel like a bumpy road back at work.

It requires you to answer some deeper questions about what you want your post burnout life to feel like.

What drains my energy?

What gives me energy?

What do my values say I should be prioritizing?

How can I respond to the early warning signs?

As you think about these questions, consider that your post burnout self care has two pillars, if we can call it like that.

There's the preventive pillar and the responsive pillar.

Preventive strategies are things you build into your routines precisely to prevent stress or experiences that you know are not good for you.

It's like blocking your calendars for breaks or asking for a paced return back to work or regularly checking in with your healthcare professional or specific boundaries you want to put in place.

All of this to avoid the likelihood of you going through stress and feeling unwell.

Responsive strategies are things you do when you're starting to feel unwell, stressed or overwhelmed, which can very much happen.

It's more reactive but just as important that you can take quick actions to course correct.

This means you need to know what your early warning signs are, be able to notice when they start showing up, and identifying first actions you take so it doesn't worsen over time.

For example, you might say that your early warning signs are disrupted sleep for a week, starting to feel more irritable, skipping out on non work activities that you typically enjoy.

Then you might want to commit to yourself that when you notice these signs, your first steps might be to take a day off, talk to someone in your care team, or reassess your evening routine.

It's like a troubleshooting manual if you think about it, but this is not about being stringent about what actions to take.

But a checklist in your mind could be helpful because in the end it's about learning to trust yourself again, that your body knows you are paying attention and you have the ability to course correct.

Here's how a former client of mine implemented this let's call her Sarah.

Within a month of returning to work, she had the opportunity to travel for a conference.

Sarah was worried if she could handle it previously.

Such conferences, while enjoyable, would also be really draining for her.

She would usually participate in all day activities and overextend herself.

So as we talked about this conference, Sarah had very specific concerns like paying for flights and accommodations only to feel like she can't stay throughout, feeling like she would need to keep up with all the activities all day and not have time to rest and also wanting to avoid conversations about her absence and burnout.

Instead of avoiding the whole conference altogether, we focused on how it could be manageable for Sarah.

Here are some examples of strategies that we came up with.

First we checked are there reasonable flight and hotel costs where she can make some last minute changes without hurting the pocket?

We thought about finding a buddy and have an advanced conversation with this person, asking for the buddy's help to regularly check in during the day, looking at the conference agenda in advance and already committing which ones not to attend because it's always easier to say yes to all and use the remaining time for rest and also having a simple script ready to answer questions about her absence or to excuse herself from a conversation with all of these in place, Sarah felt better about traveling for the conference and was actually able to stick around the entire time.

Knowing she had a plan in place actually helped her relax and enjoy the experience.

So let's bring this together.

First, ask yourself what will help me stay steady when things are going well?

This falls under your preventive self care strategies.

Next, ask yourself what are my signs that I'm starting to slip and what will help me respond quickly?

This falls under your responsive self care strategies.

Now underneath all of this is a care team, a group of people around you who's going to help you through all of this.

To learn more about that, check out the link in the show notes.

Does self care always have to be this thorough?

Probably not.

As you progress with your recovery, your day to day experiences will start to feel easeful.

Your routines will start to fall into place.

You'll feel more confident knowing what to do when things get rough.

But in the beginning it might take a bit of time.

As you move from time off to time at work, having a good set of strategies in place will make your integration more sustainable over the long term.

So as we close, think about what's one strategy you want to carry forward from your Recovery and what's 1 or 2 early warning signs you want to respond to with more care next time?

Remember, recovery takes time and re engaging in your professional activities is an important part of that.

We just need to give ourselves a little bit of grace that we need more care and compassion as we do so and you deserve nothing less than that.