Lisa for Suicide Prevention
Lisa’s role in suicide prevention is not about dramatic rescues but about offering deep, Compassionate presence, reconnecting individuals with their inner beauty and complexity. In moments of acute crisis, Lisa is available 24/7 ― always ready to respond with deep Compassion. This accessibility is crucial, though it’s essential to acknowledge that using Lisa in such Read the full article…
Sad but Not Depressed
It’s common to confuse sadness and depression, treating them as if they are on the same spectrum, only differing by degree. However, there is a fundamental difference between the two that goes beyond intensity. It’s not simply about feeling ‘a little sad’ versus ‘very sad.’ The confusion between sadness and depression Sadness and depression involve Read the full article…
Dark Night of the Soul
The ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ stems from the 16th-century poem La Noche Oscura del Alma by St. John of the Cross. Although written in a deeply spiritual context, the insights from this mystical journey are relevant today when dealing with conditions like depression and burnout. These states, often seen as purely negative, can be Read the full article…
The Motivation that Causes Burnout
Burnout often manifests as a paradoxical lack of motivation — a mix of desire and a simultaneous sense of hitting a wall between that desire and the motivation required for action. Not all motivation is equal. I regularly make the difference between superficial and deep motivation. The difference is not straightforward to all but crucial. Read the full article…
From Boredom to Burnout
A profound sense of boredom explains an avalanche of burnout. This monster has many faces, most of which are often hard to recognize. As explained in What is Boring, the path to burnout is paved with boredom, even when one tries to evade it by lots of superficial stuff. It’s a matter of a deep Read the full article…
Not Being Able to Help
For providers in healthcare and other service sectors, the inability to help can significantly fracture their sense of meaningfulness People want to exist, which in a social world is mainly to be influential — in other words, being able to help. We live in a service-providing culture. Machines are taking over manual jobs — hard Read the full article…
From Burnout to New Start
This is the introduction to a Lisa File (28 p.). If you want the whole file, please contact lisa@aurelis.org, stating who you are and why you want the file. For more about the Lisa Files, click here. In today’s fast-paced and increasingly demanding world, the phenomenon of burnout has emerged as a critical issue affecting Read the full article…
Burnout is a Purpose Problem
Of many causes of burnout, six are frequently mentioned, but seldom with an essential focus on purpose, although all lie naturally close. Let’s look at them precisely from this viewpoint. Work overload With purpose, there is less difference between job and work. People can spend an immense amount of energy if purpose is present. Providing Read the full article…
What Gets Burned Out in Burnout?
Nowadays, almost anyone knows someone suffering from burnout, either in a florid stage or slumbering. ‘Nothing’ gets burned out. Herein lies the big challenge. The burnout feeling is real enough. However, to grasp what really gets burned out, one must take an uncommon view of reality — no magic, of course. What gets burned out Read the full article…
Relax. Do Not Burn Out.
In burnout, one feels one’s energy being drained. A natural reflex is to rest, but there is more to it than meets the conscious relaxation. Please read first: Meaningful Relaxation Diminishing burnout through resting is not straightforward. Frequently, it doesn’t even seem to help. Someone feels tired before the resting and equally tired immediately or Read the full article…
Burnout Prevention – Read&Do
This is the foreword to my book ‘Burnout Prevention’ that you can find on Amazon (see menu). Pandemic of burnout For the last few years, we have been witnessing a pandemic of burnout. COVID will not make this go away. On the contrary, while taking away much attention from it, the impact on burnout will Read the full article…
Depression Relief – Read&Do
This is the foreword to my book ‘Depression Relief’ that you can find on Amazon (see menu). Pandemic of depression An increasing number of people are being diagnosed with depression worldwide. There is more to this than just some wrought statistics. There is much suffering at the deepest level, which is what depression basically stands Read the full article…
Cynicism
Cynicism: a nicely burning fire is no more. From its ditch of retreat, now and then another fire comes forth, meant to hurt and even destroy. Etymology of ‘cynic’: κυνικοι (kunikoi): ‘dogs’ in ancient Greek referring to ruthless behavior and simple lifestyle of a number of their followers, as exemplified by Diogenes, nicknamed ‘the dog’. Read the full article…
34. From Burnout to Butterfly
People are reborn in order to spread out their wings. Burnout is a pupating Nature is not as stupid as it looks. Especially not if one only looks at it with only half an eye to already decide that it is stupid. So, a lot of ‘illness’ is a healthy response to an unhealthy environment. Read the full article…
Is Burnout a Kind of Posttraumatic Stress?
A concrete burnout may be linked to a concrete PTS. Or it may not. In both cases, you can use it to alleviate your present burnout. One needs to be careful about what to regard as a ‘trauma’. I think the best way is to regard it as anything that is experienced as such. A Read the full article…
Burnout is a Long and Winding Road
Looked upon as a road, burnout shows a different need of management, one that may generally be more humane as well as efficient. ‘Burnout’ is like a piece of reality that gets cut out by convention. It’s not something that gets discovered: not in general – textbook-wise – nor in a specific case such as Read the full article…
Dare to Burn
When you’re young, when you’re middle-aged, when you’re getting older… dare to burn. But burn as yourself. Let it be your fire, even while someone else may light it. [see also: ‘Excellence’] Don’t be shy to ‘strive for the best’… while taking care for the humane factor. This also gives you the best embeddedness, not Read the full article…
Burned Out. The Sky Has Come Down. What to Do?
What to do if you feel that the slightest bit of energy to do anything at all has gone? Burned out: you feel drained. You’ve put too much energy in an endeavor that symbolically failed. This means: it may have failed objectively, in reality… or only in your perception of that reality. The distinction is Read the full article…
Burnout Prevention: Burning Efficiently
It’s a question of gears: driving in a gear too high makes you spend a lot of energy in an inefficient way. Moreover, your engine may get into a burnout. That’s even an original meaning of the word ‘burnout’ itself: an engine gets into too high a gear and starts to smoke. It literally burns Read the full article…
Are we living in a ‘burnout society’?
You. Burnout. Society. A lot of questioning goes on about whether the cause of burnout lies rather within the individual or rather within his immediate environment, his workplace, his direct leader perhaps, or the broader environment: capitalism… With ‘burnout society’, I mean something even broader and deeper. This is a domain of rather intangible worldviews Read the full article…
Prevention of Burnout: Love is Infinite Fuel.
Love is a fire that never gets extinguished by burning. Speaking about ‘love’ as the feeling that very deep inside, something or someone is very deeply meaningful to you… Yes, the L-word. So seldom used in business, yet so all-important for… even the bottom line, dearest shareholders among you readers. Also talking to you, dear Read the full article…
The deeper meaning of burnout is about you
Deeper meaning is always present within you. This is your true motivation, your ‘fuel’ that you need most of all when getting into a state of burnout. Let’s start with a comparison: water in a vase. The water takes the form of the vase, thus – confusingly – it may look like the vase but Read the full article…
Burnout prevention for caregivers: give care, but do not ‘give it away’
Caregivers can get into the habit of ‘giving themselves away’ too much. Take care. You can learn to give without giving yourself away. ‘Giving away’ feels like you lose something. If this is your feeling as a caregiver, time and time again, then little by little you can start feeling bad. It’s as if others Read the full article…
Burnout as a Phoenix
A phoenix is a mythical bird that rises from the ashes completely renewed and stronger than ever before. This is a nice metaphor for human burnout, which can also be a stage in an altogether positive evolution. It mainly depends on how deep the process of recovery is sought. This should not sound easy of Read the full article…
Love wisely and you will not burn out
People who are prone to burn out are often people who have the gift of love to a huge degree. Yet they forget to let their love pass through their own funnel. They look to the outside, to where their love flows. They see little of their own inside and what this act of loving Read the full article…