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Recovery Sometime between last spring and summer, I started noticing the early pings of burnout. My husband and I had mostly completed moving, but boxes were still everywhere. The aftermath of the Los Angeles fires lingered in ways that were both visible and subtle as the city healed. I was exhausted in every sense of the word. And yet, my responsibilities to my clients, business, relationships, marriage, and myself were still asking for my attention. The pressure to keep it all together felt heavy. I could feel the creep of burnout: anxiety increasing, motivation harder to access, brain fog. Staying present and focused felt…out of reach. After conversations with people I trust, I came to a humbling realization: if I wanted any chance of sustaining this life, and my career, in a balanced way, I was going to need to take more intentional breaks. Through a lot of processing and reflection, I decided that once per quarter (or close to it), I would pause my work for a week to recharge. I call it strategic recovery leave. The word strategic matters. These breaks don’t just happen; they require thoughtful client conversations, financial planning, and intentional preparation. It’s so easy to get swept up in the demands of life, what Charles Hummel calls “the tyranny of the urgent”. Without intention, even rest can become unfocused or elusive. (This is still very much a work in progress personally.) As I write this, I find myself wondering how you might begin to incorporate intentional recovery into your own life… Our hearts, brains, and bodies were not built to endure a constant onslaught of crisis, whether in our personal lives or in the world around us. After periods of endurance, we need time to recover so we can return to baseline. Sometimes, just staying present with what’s happening in the world feels like an act of endurance. Staying regulated when your child is struggling takes endurance. Choosing to have a hard conversation with care and honesty takes endurance. We could name countless examples. But the bottom line is this: most of us need more space to recover, to rest, to feel restored. When was the last time you noticed your need for recovery and given it the attention it deserves? Mountain Clarity: Recovery and exertion are two sides of the same coin. They cannot sustainably coexist without each other. Take a moment, if you can, and notice what it might feel like to recover with the same intensity you bring to work, service, care for others, or love for your family. However you spend your energy, what might it be like to give yourself an equal measure of recovery time? Journal Prompts for Reflection: What are your first thoughts when considering the notion of recovery time? Do you feel like this is something you need? What prevents you from engaging in more recovery-based activities? How do you notice your own sense of hitting your internal limits, maybe even to the extent of burnout? Is burnout something you have experienced in your life? How did you recover from it? Sometimes, breaks from certain activities or relationships aren’t enough to feel restorative and you may need to end them entirely for the sake of your overall well being. Is there anything in your life that would fall in this category? How was rest and recovery modeled, or not, for you when you were growing up? Was this concept something that was spoken about at all? Did resting carry any particular meaning? If you’re noticing similar feelings about burnout as I described above and you would like to speak more about my experience or how you could start being more intentional with your own recovery, would you feel comfortable reaching out? I would love to partner with you in finding more balance.
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