Burnout

Several years ago, I completed burned out in my work. I had started to feel a dimming of interest in a work project I’d been involved in.  I'd been co-running a yoga program in San Francisco with a colleague for five years, and I had stopped feeling that magical feeling.  I kept bumping into a kind of been-there-done-that fatigue along with a nagging sense that there was something else out there, something unclear waiting for me.  I'd had these sort of feelings before. I'd been started yoga programs like the one I’d been co-running for more than fifteen years, so aversion was not new hat.   I thought this one would fade like the previous times, but in this case, my frustration persisted.

Sorting Through the Confusion

It's often hard to detect when feeling associated with burnout are just a passing reaction or when it's a message from the deeper interior that change in needed.  We all have periods of time when our jobs or our relationships are just kind of blah.  That's normal.  The notion that we're always supposed to be happy all the time is b.s.  Even the best of job or relationships can go stale on us or just irritate us to the core.  That's normal as long as it doesn’t last forever.  

When that difficulty is prolonged, however, it can be a message that it's time to slow down and reflect on what we're bumping into.  Sometimes it is a message that it is time for a change.  Deciphering burnout can be difficult, though.  It can be immensely helpful to have wise counsel we can trust enough to help us distinguish the wisdom of our inner callings from the voices that deceive us.

I shared the experience with my coach.  I said, "Okay, I'm feeling burned out. I'm starting to wonder if it’s time for me to let this project go.  I want to name this urge, but I don't want to make a decision just yet. I want to use these next two months to see if, in fact, I am done, or I am just a little fatigued or bored."  

Sure enough, after two months, the feelings had passed.  I felt reinvigorated by some responses I'd had to some blog writing I was doing about the intersections of yoga and life coaching and started to see that the project I was in was a great platform for the expression of this cross-breeding.  

Then a friend contacted me and said, "I'd like to partner with you to do some consulting work in corporations.”  I'd really wanted to explore that possibility, but I was too tired to take on another project.  I just could not muster the energy to begin.  My days were too filled with teaching classes and working with my coaching clients that I couldn't possibly give it the attention it deserved.  Not being able to do this left me completely frustrated.  Once again, I began thinking that it was time for a change, but somehow I wasn't quite ready.

 And then I had this experience that absolutely changed me forever…

Letting Go

After an arduous bike ride to the top of Mt. Tamalpais, I stood on a hillock overlooking the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay, The City of San Francisco, and the East Bay.  As I stood there taking in the scenery, I felt a sense of gratitude for the beauty that surrounded me. I started to do a little, improvised gratitude jig, somewhere between a yoga sun salutation and a dance.  

As I did so, I started to hear a clicking noise behind me that kept the rhythm.  And when I turned around, I saw this raven standing only a few feet from me with a seed of sorts in its beak. The clicking was coming from the raven's beak making contact with the seed, and I had this clear sense that the raven was relating to my movements by keeping the rhythm.  

I continued to dance my gratitude dance around the hillock.  Each movement I made to the left, the raven moved to the right.  Each movement I made to the right, the raven moved to the left.  We were in a dance together, and the raven was keeping the rhythm.  At the same time this dance was taking place, I'd had this intuitive sense that the raven had a message for me.  Who knows whether I was making it up or not, but it was a message that moved me:

"It's time to let go, to stop dancing someone else's dance, to dance you're own steps, and to trust them."

For me this was code. I'd spent the last 20 years being faithful to my yoga teacher and the tradition he taught me.  I'd been his student and I’d taught hundreds of people his method. The crow’s message for me was that it was time to let go, to trust a deeper and more personal wisdom, rather than following someone else’s path.  

Gulp.  I'd been a student of and run these sorts of programs for so many years because they had given me access to deep teachings, the security of a teacher, a community, some sense of authority to back up my own teachings, and an identity.  Now, the raven-teacher was giving me the the sage advice, “Let it go!"

My need for change wasn't so much about leaving the program or about being burnt out.  Rather, it was about making room for something more personally truer to enter.  I realized that I had to make space for that to come about.  And for that brief moment, I felt released.  Released from the burden that by leaving, I was betraying my students, my business partner, or the tradition.  It was a visceral experience, this clear sense that not only was it okay to make a change, but I was being called forth to make it.  And while I'd been preparing for this moment for the nine months of back-and-forth, the inner teacher's message had clearly arrived.

Living with Uncertainty

Within a week of this experience, my partner and I met.  I shared my decision, and we both wrote a public announcement about that decision.  By the way, this doing, this action required little to no effort.  The challenge was living with the uncertainty for almost nine months.  One of my teachers used to call this form of waiting, "holding the tension."  Holding the tension is another way of saying, living with uncertainty.  It's called holding the tension because it feels uncomfortable to live between a question, to live in ambiguity.

Each of us has a propensity to try to get ground underneath our feet by wanting certainty or clarity.  That's why we turn to self-help programs, gurus, yoga traditions, techniques, methods, and philosophies.  But if we're following our inner guidance, the messages come in only when we're really ready.  Sometimes we must undergo a trial by fire before the message is clear.  You can't always coax the interior into a "yes or no decision."

But when the message is announced, it comes in declarative tones from what the Quakers call that still small voice within: "Call her."  "Go to New York." "It's time." "Let go!"  And when we disregard these messages because they're inconvenient, we sometimes find ourselves in the throws of depression.

My doubting voices continued to peep up, even after I had made that decision; in fact, the moment I made it, I started to really enjoy teaching, again.  All of the previous feelings of burn out completely vanished.  In fact, some aspects of my teaching, which previously had been driven by a proving energy, altogether diappeared  I no longer had to prove anything to anyone anymore.  And as that went away, I began enjoying the process again.

But I knew at a much deeper place of my being why I was doing this.  This decision was not whimsy.  I had struggled valiantly with it.  I had endured lots of back and forth while continuing to live with uncertainty.  And since that certainty came, I had to be willing to trust it in spite of the fact that I wanted to second-guess my decision. 

If we want real and substantive change, we have to be willing live for sustained periods with the discomfort of ambiguity and doubt.  In fact, one might say that most of life requires us to get accustomed to uncertainty.  The sooner we get that message, the less we'll fall prey to quick fixes and the more our lives will become aligned with our higher calling.

Paradox: Discipline v. Freedom

At some point, all of us face the need to evolve.  It's almost an imperative in spiritual practice that if we are to experience the aliveness of life, we must keep growing.  And sometimes that means letting go of what no longer serves us or that we serve whole heartedly.  If we don't let go, we suffer.  And yet doing so can be grueling.  

I wanted to share a teaching from 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna' about knowing when to let go.  Ramakrishna was a 19th century, Indian mystic.

When we plant a sapling we put a fence around it so that cattle will not eat it or nobody would accidentally crush it under one's feet. But when the plant starts growing into a large tree, the fence should be removed and taken away. If the fence is not removed in time then it might even hinder in the growth of the tree. The trunk of the tree may even get trapped within the fence. Moreover, after the sapling turns into a big tree neither can cattle eat it up fully nor can people crush it under their feet accidentally. Likewise, the tree will drop fruit that will feed the cattle and the people who once threatened its very existence. (1)

Whenever we begin anything new, especially the discipline of spiritual practice, we need to protect the fragility of our endeavor.  When I first started my meditation practice, it took me a few years, but I had to learn the discipline needed to maintain a daily practice : going to bed early, waking early, eating properly, resting enough, getting enough mental and emotional stimulation, etc.  I needed that discipline in order to grow within my practice.  And I loved it!!!  It fed me deeply.

But, after awhile, I started to feel like the fences I'd created for myself only created more rigidity.  I'd find myself judging non-practitioners as "unconscious."  The fragility I'd once felt around my practice gave way to a quality of spiritual arrogance.  A lack of curiosity is  a sure sign for each of us that either we need a new challenge or we need to find a new way into the practice we're committed to. 

This is where it's critical to remove the fences that once kept our fragility from being devoured.  Distinguishing when it's time to give up or alter the discipline and what exactly to give up is highly individual.  That's where having a good teacher on the journey with us can be extremely helpful.  What is clear, though, is that at some point aspects of the structure stop empowering transformation and, instead, only harden us.

Very few of us have the courage to let go of what no longer serves us, though.  Why?  Because our identities get wrapped up in the external recognition and kudos we receive.  These external boons can be enticing, but they can easily be traps for all of us.

When you're considered 'advanced' in a community and you're identified with your role in it, it can be a sort of identity suicide to let go.   I am not saying that we should completely stop looking to the outside for recognition.  As humans, we long for and need this recognition.  But we're all so starved for it, that we tend to forego our own authentic experience and expression of fulfillment in order to be loved, liked, wanted, admired, needed.  And then we miss the opportunity to live a rich and full life on our own terms.

When we're attuned enough to our inner wisdom, however, we know when we're 'b.s.'-ing ourselves.  But when we're not, it can be extremely helpful to have people in our lives that offer us the space of honest communication. If  we don't have this, it can be helpful to empower our inner witnesses, the neutral part of us that is noticing all the time, noticing what we're saying, doing, and experiencing.  That part of us can notice when we're "should-ing on ourselves."  I love this expression.   When we're "should-ing," we say we do what we do not because we love it but because we "should" do it.  That's a good sign that our heart is no longer in it.

The point of all practice is to bring us to the heart of our innate wisdom.  It is not to end up more disciplined.  Paul Meuller-Ortega aptly said, "Eventually as Seekers, we must become Finders."  Knowing when you've discovered an access to your innate wisdom is not  a form of spiritual arrogance.  It's just something that's not empowered within spiritual traditions.  What is empowered is hierarchy.  

Tapping into our innate wisdom does not necessarily lend one to becoming recognized in the external sense.  That it isn't recognized by a community of seekers is not of significance.  What's important is that we not only recognize our essential nature, but that we share it, that we have the courage to give our gift.  That's the part of Ramakrishna's story in which the tree drops fruit for everyone, even the cows and humans who previously threatened its existence.

The point of all spiritual practice is to attune us to our truth, our innate wisdom, and our joy. The point isn't to win in some hierarchical game that all traditions can't help but maintain.  The point is to find access to our inner strength, our magic, and our gifts and to trust them.  I'll end with the following quote from Joseph Campbell, the mythologist who inspired the Star Wars trilogy and who coined the term, "follow your bliss."  In this quote Campbell helps us to not mistake the trees for the forest:

What is important about a lightbulb is not the filament or the glass but the light which these bulbs are to render; and what is important about each of us is not the body and its nerves but the consciousness that shines through them.  And when one lives for that instead of the protection of the bulb, one is in Buddha consciousness.(2)

Footnotes

(1)  Swami Abhedananda & Joseph Fitzgerald. The Gospel According to Ramakrishna: Based on M’s English Text, Abridged. World Wisdom, Inc. 2011

(2) Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. 2011. The Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF)