Burnout

I have the privilege of supervising clinicians at many different stages of their careers, and there is one question that comes up again and again: How do I prevent burnout? And what do I do when I feel it?

It’s always struck me as a puzzling question, not because it isn’t important, but because the most honest answer I have is: I don’t actually know.

Recently, I was asked this again, and I found myself talking in real time, trying to discover my own answer as I spoke. By the end of it, what I landed on was simple, but incomplete. I said that it’s important to reflect, to notice when burnout is happening, to recognize it rather than ignore it. But even as I said it, I knew there was something more.

Then I had a day off.

A real one. No children. No obligations. No schedule. Just a dinner plan later in the evening with a friend. Throughout the day, I found myself doing small, ordinary things. Running errands. Sitting at home.

Watching Fallout. I got completely pulled into it, the storylines, the characters, the layers of meaning. I watched episode after episode, fully immersed.

And somewhere along the way, I forgot I had plans.

I called my friend immediately, apologizing. He was kind, understanding, even relieved in his own way. He was tired, and the commute would have been long. But what stayed with me wasn’t the missed dinner. It was what I realized in that moment.

I didn’t know what to do with myself when I had a life.

There was no structure. No productivity. No role to play. No one to show up for in the way I usually do. I wasn’t organizing, planning, helping, or holding anything together.

I was just… existing. And it felt incredible. And terrifying.

I realized that I had lost myself in my time off. Completely. Not in a dissociative way, but in a way that felt free, uncontained, and unfamiliar. I moved from moment to moment, doing only what I wanted to do. Even the small pockets of work I engaged in were chosen, not required.

There was no performance. No responsibility to carry. No need to fix, guide, or support anyone else. I just had to be.

And somewhere in that experience, I found my answer.

Maybe preventing burnout isn’t about strategies or techniques or perfectly balanced schedules. Maybe it’s about creating space to step outside of the roles we inhabit every day. Space where we are not defined by what we produce, who we help, or how we perform.

Space where we can disappear a little bit into ourselves.

Space where we can remember what it feels like to simply exist. For me, it’s having more days like that.

Days that are unstructured, uncontained, and a little disorienting. Days where I can follow my own rhythm instead of someone else’s needs. Days where I am not a clinician, not a supervisor, not responsible for anyone’s outcome.

Just a person, moving through time, moment by moment. It turns out, that might not be the absence of purpose.

It might be the very thing that restores it.