Burnout is more common in the hot months and with modern Western style living.
This is where body heat, daily stress and nerves meet with our screaming mind-body limits. All while our bodies are keeping score.
I’m watching summer tennis scores that’s much more enjoyable. And you too can pause to enjoy a relaxing moment to get away from heated moments.
…I baked this relaxed and low-temperature oven strawberry-guava cheesecake with a ‘lil cafe while catching some tennis points. 🇫🇷
With summer boiling over to year-round heat these climate change days, this can test us all. We can be more sensitive to our daily situations, and easily rattled with weather changes that affect our day.
Those days can kick up our Pitta and fire burning inside us. ☄️
And while heated moments are part of life, our life’s direction shouldn’t be.
One slow boiling source can be when we know we’re passionlessly working, and not doing our life’s work. This is how it is for most of us at some points.
Often it’s how we start off until we gather enough experience or fire in the belly to do something different that we’re wired for.
If we start to feel in limbo, going through the motions and not living a lifestyle we’re happy with, this eats at us and the stress often shows up in odd symptoms on the body in the the mind-body connection.
I know that’s how I felt when I worked in corporate management jobs in a bustling metro city area like Washington DC that’s a highly competitive work area. That’s where I grew up.
Being a local or not, finding work-life balance jobs there isn’t easy or in other places that are filled with movers and shakers who will do circles around you.
That’s when I found passion projects I pursued like scrapbooking as an outlet.
Being in a major metro city can often add additional stressful elements like commute time, turnover transitions, and higher costs of living.
The tradeoff is convenience as larger cities have more service-based businesses and infrastructure to make life better and more convenient.
But they can’t completely take away the daily stressors that add to accumulated stress. And that which can lead to burnout.
In burnout, basically your mind-body is telling you: you need to make changes or else your quality of life will dwindle as we carry you.
Burnout is often gradual like a simmering pot that hasn’t boiled over. It starts with symptoms like a common noticeable gray hair, pimple, or weight gain.
And then one day this grows into a health condition needing to be checked out, frustration or a short fuse, daily inner moods, or a panic attack to name a few inconveniences.
Those are all ways that our body’s alarm system gives us a wake-up call. Burnout symptoms are the body’s way of screaming “fire”in Ayurvedic Pitta terms.
In strong Pitta minds, it shows up as symptoms like being overly critical, blaming, and judging others. If we’re not paying attention or ignoring, this can be tolerable and we just keeping doing what we do.
But this can quickly turn into unhealthy ego-pride areas that can take over if allowed. We see this in road rage and people acting out in public who should know better but don’t.
And while that may not be us, we can have a fire inside us. Some people can be better at smoldering the fire from view, keeping it bottled inside in an unhealthy way.
One day there can be a blowup in another way from a fire buildup.
In burnout, that doesn’t often come from one isolated incident or situation.
A primary source can often be work. Sometimes close relationships. There can be a straw that breaks the camel’s back situation that pushes you over the edge.
The feeling can be like “I’m done (with this).” But, the reality can be you can’t leave just yet. And that’s where all sorts of unhealthy manifestations can harbor like resentment or depression.
In those seasons we’re no longer growing as we struggle with ourselves daily.
Burnout symptoms won’t change by themselves. One productive change you’re empowered to make is daily changes in your mind and body just where you are.
So that your cool, calm, and collected self can walk away from the burnout you had down the street.
Your mind and body are tools to help change your burnout symptoms.
I know this well in my journey because I have been there many times. Each time I thought I was doing something wrong: oh no, not again. 😳
Jobs always started off the same way in the honeymoon work period. You know, when you’re excited about going into work in a new promising role you’re impacting and contributing to.
You meet new people, learn new skills, and the new environment feels a little like you’re walking on Cloud 9 in la la land with your work badge and office space making you feel like you belong and are needed.
And you think: this could be the ONE from the dream of finding an employer who will treat you fairly and you’ll be happy to retire with doing work for them the rest of your working life.
So you start digging into your enjoyable work and proving yourself.
Gradually as the months go by, one day something shifts in the air and you no longer feel new or growing. You feel like you have the weight of performing your job and those around you counting on you as responsibilities now count and add up.
There’s an unseen point system and you’re aware you’re a primary player on the scoreboard. You feel stress above and on your shoulders, and daily neck yoga moves help to release tension.
There’s another point system in your body watching daily, but keeping quiet.
…And as some daily tasks that you didn’t mind before are now seen to you as a waste of time or draining you slowly.
Maybe you don’t have enough hours in the day to achieve what’s expected of you. Or too many work hours where you wonder why you don’t have more responsibilities.🤔
At some point you’re also put to the pinnacle test. There’s always stress involved. For me that was presenting in front of a Board of Directors where I felt my job was on the line each time.
But those type of situations in your career make you resilient and help build character for your next leg of the journey (that’ll be your life dream 💭).
Over the work years, I became more adaptable from a panic-attack-beginning to transforming worry and overcoming fear.
I learned something new about myself in each work experience challenge and problems that arose. Each shift was pointing me closer to my design and passions. And never did I think, I wish I could go back to any one place I was at.
The desires of my heart and maybe yours is to keep growing, live a balanced healthy and happy lifestyle away from the stress-filled work life.
…And to have something worthwhile at the end of the journey.
I didn’t want to accumulate all this time to be used toward the end when age and health typically is not on our side compared to in our 30s, 40s, and 50s.
And maybe that’s how you feel and what you’re looking for as life design.
Looking back, I realized it was a myth I told myself: that there was a good job out there and that would stay that way. And that I just had to keep looking.
Then I realized, that’s not the truth. Nothing stays the same for long and definitely not in a transient area that the world is.
I also realized work opportunities are always out there, but there’s only one me.
And there’s only one you.
And in my last corporate job, I distinctly remember hearing the whisper in my mind: you will not get this time back. This was after work hours when I was the only one in the office I could hear. And from that day on, nothing was the same.
And I know it may sound like I’m saying take more vacations if you’re unhappy or enduring your job.
Vacations can definitely help prevent and soothe early burnout symptoms.
But if the burnout has gone on too long, vacation can be a temporary distraction where you take your overly stressed mind and body condition along with you.
So then you’re not fully present and enjoying your vacation destination. Plus lines, counters, and flight delays can be stressful.
So you could also take a staycation and work on soothing yourself.
Burnout doesn’t care if you’re at home, near home, or on travel. Burnout is a tipping point where you can choose to do a radical change in mind-body lifestyle nursing yourself.
I spent one summer mediating in a quiet indoor pool.
That was needed. And finding work with work-life balance is not a nice-to-have, it’s needed for our bodies daily.
We also all need reminders.
One burnout warning reminder is we should never ignore our symptoms because small symptom warnings can easily turn into inflammation of sorts when not addressed.
And those can turn to chronic inflammation that lead to the disease realities we’ve heard others have.
Ayurveda Daily Restoration in America
Sometimes we catch on, and other times we choose to ignore. In America, we’re not known for longevity records and that has a lot to do with our work lifestyles.
We’re also not taught health prevention anywhere along our journey.
We could have healthy minded parent influences, but their ideas fall by the wayside when our peers seem to be having the time of their lives who are not prioritizing health.
At work, we learn to do more and burn the midnight oil to get ahead and achieve more at all costs. And that goes against the body’s healthy balance desires.
So a goal commitment to ourselves can be to change any out-of-the-ordinary symptoms we notice within a week. We turn to restoration instead, so those symptoms don’t turn into weeks and months. Or grow out of hand.
You can see if you have a Pitta or any imbalances running by taking the body balance quiz.
And for any Pitta out-of-balance starters, a daily cooling activity is one restoring regimen. One easy way is I added guava for variety that has a tart and sweet taste, and very pretty pink color.
It’s fun to find new balancing fruits that have traveled across the tropics. If you’ve never tried, you could always start with a homemade fresh guava juice first.
Have a cool and calm week!
I’ll be back same time, same channel next week. 😀
Strawberry Guava Layered Cheesecake
Equipment
- 1-2 baking vessels about the same size or diameter. Round spring release pans work great.
Ingredients
- ricotta, whole fat milk
- yogurt, whole fat milk
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 guava (size of lime will work)
- 2-3 frozen strawberries
- black cocoa
- maple syrup (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare two deep cake baking pans. Cake release cans work best. Spray sides to prevent sticking.
- Add a layer of black cocoa on the bottom of one pan. You can alternate with Instant coffee or fine graham cracker crumbs that would also work.
- Mix ricotta, yogurt, and egg.
- Divide batter in half if you want to make two separate layers. Pour into each baking vessel.
- Add guava to one vessel and strawberries to the other vessel. Optional: reserve some of the guava for topping.
- Bake on 325°F/165°C for over one hour until cake is set. Sides will start to brown and may shrink/pull away from the baking vessel
- Let cake(s) fully cool. Then remove from pan and assemble the layers.
- Decorate/top with guava, berry jam, fruit, and or yogurt.
- Drizzle with maple sugar for sweet.
