Burnout, Balance & the Body: Reclaiming Sustainable Practice
Burnout is a word we hear a lot. For many of us it’s more than just a buzzword. It’s a lived experience. Especially those carrying the weight of intergenerational pressure, perfectionism, and systemic inequities.
As a therapist, educator, yoga teacher and former nonprofit leader, I’ve worked with countless people who feel like they’re running on empty. Their minds are attempting to push through, but their bodies are telling a different story. Collectively, many of us are chronically experiencing exhaustion, disconnection, and survival-mode functioning.
So let’s talk about it. Honestly.
What Burnout Really Feels Like
Burnout isn’t just stress. It’s chronic and relentless. It’s what happens when we live in an unmanaged constant state of mental, physical and emotional overextension.
It often looks like:
Chronic fatigue or numbness
Difficulty concentrating or staying motivated
Feeling detached from purpose or community
Increased anxiety, irritability, cynicism, or hopelessness
Feeling like rest is “unearned” or unsafe
For those who are the firsts in their families, caretakers, community advocates, and people navigating high-responsibility roles—burnout often arrives earlier and deeper.
How Stress Lives in the Body
In the healing and leadership workshops I’ve facilitated for students and professionals alike, we talk about how burnout doesn’t just live in our to-do lists. It lives in our nervous systems.
When the body stays in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn too long, we lose access to the parts of us that help us connect, create, and show up with clarity. Our systems begin to forget how to automatically down shift.
There’s good news. Our bodies also hold the way back.
Navigating burnout prevention and recovery isn’t about achieving more balance. It’s about experiencing more balance in our autonomic nervous system. It’s critical in life for our bodies to experience stress, but they must also close the stress cycles by regulating our stress response. It starts with slowing down, noticing, and listening. Noticing the difference between a “yes” and a “should.” Between effort and depletion. Being mindful of where we are in the present and aware of what we are experiencing in the moment.
Sustainable Practice Starts Small
In the spaces I’ve held, we often explore what it means to practice sustainability, not just talk about it.
Participants reflect on:
The five domains of care: physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and systemic/structural
What nourishes vs. what depletes
The people, places, beings, and rituals that act as anchors
The internal and systemic barriers that make rest feel out of reach
And we remind each other that pleasure, community, and embodied rest are not luxuries. They are strategies for staying whole.
Reimagining Sustainability
Sustainability is not just about doing less. It’s about doing what aligns with our values and needs. Listening to the body when it whispers, not just when it screams or crashes. Noticing the difference between hustle and purpose. It also means reclaiming space for joy, rest, creativity, and community care.
As someone who has worked within systems (justice, government, nonprofit, academia), I know sustainable practice isn’t just a personal issue. It’s political, cultural, and communal.
Burnout is not a personal failure.
It’s a signal. An invitation to pause, reset, and come back to what matters.
I offer workshops and consulting for organizations, academic programs, and healing spaces looking to move beyond burnout and into embodied, values-aligned practice.
Let’s build something better, together.
info@rootedsoulpractice.com
www.rootedsoulpractice.com
