Attune to Your Body - My Experience with Burnout

I have another blog post about improving your Mind-Body connection here which offers some tangible ways to connect with your body. In this post, I will talk about my experience of NOT listening to my body.

For years, I worked too much. I was a manager, and had trouble delegating. In believing I was responsible for the results of the team, I felt I was also responsible for the work of getting the results. When we were short-handed, I would do my own job and the job of the missing position. I was proud that I could work harder and longer than anyone else. I thought my suffering and exhaustion were the price of success. I thought overworking and overperforming were the only ways to not fail. After working many months of weekends, holidays, and 12-hour+ days, I fell asleep while driving. Luckily, I was not in an accident and no one was hurt. A policewoman pulled me over and had compassion for me. She stayed with me, asked me to walk around and drink water until I felt awake enough to drive. Was this a wake-up call for me? No, I kept pushing. I missed an appointment with my doctor for work and cried in the CVS parking lot when my doctor told me he would no longer refill my medication that I desperately needed. I went to the ER once and was answering work phone calls that afternoon. I didn’t go to the dentist for a year and a half. When I finally went, I almost had a panic attack because I was afraid of being away from work for an hour.

You may be thinking “you worked so hard and sacrificed so much – surely your work performance was exceptional and you were rewarded at your career.” Nope. The harder I worked, the more my performance suffered. I constantly made mistakes. I lost customers, and my employees hated me. I was difficult to work with. At one company I was fired and at another company I was written up in a final warning. What on earth was I doing?!?

In 2019, a personal development book was recommended to me by a friend who was watching me struggle year after year. This book set me on a path of no longer centering work and, instead, centering my own health, growth, and development. I learned in order to  be successful at work, I need to treat my brain and body well. My brain works better, makes smarter decisions, and is more strategic when I am respecting my body’s need for sleep, rest, healthy fuel, water, and exercise. Now I work less than 40 hours per week and am much more successful then when I was a work-aholic. I have been promoted twice and make more money than when I was creating my own suffering. Most importantly, I’m happier and healthier.

Photo on the left is 2018 with dark circles under my eyes. Photo on the right is 2026, fully rested - 8 years later.