Burnout happens when you avoid being honest with yourself that you are human, for too long

There are different ways to define, measure and build resilience.

The most common approach is to look at how “fast one gets back up” when one has fallen, failed, or burnt. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines resilience as the ability to become strong, healthy or successful again after something bad happens; the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, bent, etc.; an ability to recover from or adjust daily to misfortune or change.

But … maybe it is not about how fast one gets up in having fallen or failed or burnt? Maybe it is not about coming back to the original shape? Maybe it is not about the recovery?

Let’s paint a picture — there is a rider on a horse.

The rider is you, is me, is any one of us who has experienced the pain, fatigue, and bruise of a fall or failure. The horse is the situation in which we find ourselves. Sometimes very well tamed, yet other times rowdy, rough and unpredictable.

You, the rider gets pulled by the horse. Maybe because of lack of experience, maybe because the horse wants to go in a different direction, maybe because the horse gets scared by a passerby. Whatever maybe the reason, you can no longer hold on. You fall to the ground.

The fall of the rider is resistance. It is the resistance to that which is being asked of you by the situation, by the horse. The ask does not align with the wellbeing of what one knows for thy self, for loved ones, for the planet, for humanity.

Like Sahara Rose cleverly reminds us “Burnout happens when you avoid being human for too long”. I would add that it's when we avoid being honest with ourselves that we are human for too long.

If as we fall or fail, we know that the situation does not serve us - why would we try to get back up on the horse as fast as possible? Why would we get back up on the horse at all?

How can resilience be built?

What if you took a step back and assessed the horse? You could get to know the horse better, by knowing what it is made up of from its muscles, strength, molecules, fears and skills. By assessing the horse, you assess the situation which you had been in. If not physically possible to step out of the situation (off the horse), you do so metaphysically. To provide the distance to see all of the environment and connections that make up the situation.

You also assess the rider herself. What are the components that make up the whole human being which is attributed to her as being a rider? What are the organs, vessels, survival mechanisms, joys, fears and challenges - that make up her as a being, as an individual living within the collective? Are there mechanisms she has learnt only for the purpose of riding the horse? Are these mechanisms attributes that positively influence and balance the wellbeing of the rest of her? Are there techniques of sitting posture or focus that are inveigle to the rest of the organism which enable positive tactics that otherwise wouldn’t be there?

This I often refer to as the learn, unlearn and relearn process.

Firstly, the learning — learning the conditioned actions for when one is to be on the horse. The rider enacts them while riding the horse and likely they are repetitive as to ensure deepening of their ease and habit. These could be simple techniques such as when to speak or when not to speak. Or they could be deeper, more profound — molding our bodies and minds in a way that reflects the disproportion across the rest of our being.

If these learning in fact are not attuned to our holistic well being, they require a committed and purposeful unlearning. And the reason why this is important is because deciding NOT to get back on the horse is not enough to unlearn those techniques. Some of these techniques were essential to our survival while on the horse. But now they serve no purpose and can cause friction with the rider no longer on the horse. Adversely, those mechanisms can keep us coming back to the horse, even if it’s not the identical horse. It represents much of the same.

Months after having experienced the boiling point of my burnout, I went back to the mechanisms that I knew best. While I was not enacting them at work, I was doing it within my community. Putting my physical well being second to ensure I provided for others. Of course that is what I would do, I convincingly told myself. This what I knew how to do. I wouldn't allow the though of simply spending time on myslef, I was not worthy of it. I dared to tell myself. So I gave my time, my energy, my space to anyone who needed it. And in the end I found myself right back on a horse. Different from the previous, but goodness did it have mirror resemblances. I came to feel disconnected and unconcerned with myself, my body and mind helplessly tired, because I would not admit to my needs and allow them to be worthy.

Resilience is about knowing ourselves and knowing what environments, situations and people do and do not serve us. Which values are representative of ourselves. It is about stepping off of those horses and not molding into their shape. It is about inspecting, understanding their formation and nevertheless forming our own shape through the relearning process. A process that builds upon our core values and essence as a whole individual.

My own relearning process is still on the way. And as a returning student in the academic sense, I have come to realize that I am a student and teacher for life. For the process of unlearning and relearning asks of us to preach and inform, while also assessing, experimenting and adjusting.

In defining resilience, I turn to a definition of resilience suggested by Corina Fadel, a Therapist specialist in how trauma stays in the memory of our body. Corina suggests that resilience is “the way the water knows just how to flow, not force itself around a river rock.” She goes on to say that the way the water does not resist, “I can stretch myself into the shape of my own path, that which is being asked of me”.

Only when we know ourselves - our organs, vessels, survival mechanisms, joys, fears and challenges - that make up our composition as a being, as an individual living within the collective, can I understand and allow for the natural flow of my being and there and then build resilience.

story to be continued ... as part of April 2021 - Stress Awareness Month.

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Read the first story of this collection essays about the flow called reslience.