Latest / AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation / [EP31] How to avoid or heal from burnout

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[EP31] How to avoid or heal from burnout · AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation

• 0:00
  Either people are heading towards burnout and they don't know that they're heading towards it, or normally they know after they've had it.
• 0:09
  And burnout is like when you just crash and burn, your body just shuts down, very non-technical way of saying it, and you literally just either end up in a hospital bed or in your own bed for months, normally two, three months, trying to recover, trying to get your body's energy back so that you can function.
• 0:28
  so what normally happens and and is not the only thing that can cause it but generally what happens
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  with the kind of people that come into this work is this the patterns i've noticed generally it's
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  to do with burnout as in working too much or overworking or maybe if it's not the job then
• 0:47
  it's in another area in their life where they are working too much and it's generally from an
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  in a work perspective, too much of something that takes your energy, and it doesn't mean it's a bad
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  thing. You could be really good at it or enjoy it even, like your job, for example. But it takes
• 1:06
  your energy, it takes your focus, and not enough of the things that actually nourish you and feed
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  you, so to speak. Right? So that's generally what happens. And when people continue to go down that
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  trajectory and normally it's how do you cook how do you boil a frog right and and i haven't done
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  this but it's just a saying how do you boil a frog you you put it in a pot and you turn up the
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  heat on the hot water slowly little by little so little by little by little it doesn't realize the
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  temperature is going up therefore suddenly it's cooking and it's kind of like that with these
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  things stress and burnout it's just been compounding for a long time and the pressure
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  building and building and building over time, that at some point when you realize it's too late,
• 1:56
  like you've already crashed, the body's already kind of gone to protection mode and shut you down.
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  So you might start looking at some, I want to say symptoms, but some signs,
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  as in you're doing too much of one thing and you're low on energy and you're just kind of
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  lacking in rest, you're really in high stress, there's just a lot of pressure and a lot of your
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  hours in the day is filled with pressure, pressure, pressure. So that's something to actually keep in
• 2:27
  check. And it's kind of, it could just be that like you're really good at your job, for example,
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  and you enjoy your job maybe. So it makes it even harder because you're good at it or you enjoy it
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  or it's an area because you're good in one area in your life at least where you feel like, yeah,
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  what, I can actually function really well in this area.
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  I'm achieving something.
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  I'm being successful.
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  So we then tend to put all our time and energy normally into work because work, we tend to
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  have a bit more of an idea on how to control it, what steps to take to feel, get some results,
• 3:00
  some outcomes.
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  So then we just keep doing that, right?
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  But other things that are a bit more chaotic, like relationship and things like that, we
• 3:08
  go, that's too much.
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  I'll just go to an area of my life that I can control, like my work.
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  steps, I might get some certain results. So then we tend to shut out all the other areas of most
• 3:19
  of the others and we tend to put normally our energy into work. And work is not a bad thing,
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  the job is not a bad thing, or your business, if that's what it is, is not a bad thing. Obviously,
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  you might be good at it, you might enjoy it, but actually too much of something
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  can be not good. And the body needs a balance of things, right? It needs that kind of
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  just like muscles, right? It wants to be stretched and it wants to be strengthened, right? So
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  strengthening is kind of like little micro tears and then it heals, right? That's how strengthening
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  works in muscle. So kind of like that, our mind and our emotions as well, we're built in such a
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  way that if there's no stress at all, we'll tend to normally create stress for ourselves. We tend
• 3:57
  to create some drama and some problems for ourselves to solve. But it's good when you have
• 4:04
  an environment where you're being challenged, you are growing, you know, you could say you're being
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  stretched in a way, or there's like strengthening happening within yourself, some resilience being
• 4:13
  built. So that's good. And you're good at doing the job, you maybe even enjoy the job. So without
• 4:20
  realizing you're putting a lot of time and energy and effort into it. And to add to it, maybe there's
• 4:25
  pressure from the business that you're working in, or the organization that you're working in,
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  or if it's your own organization, that there is this pressure to keep up, to perform, to meet targets
• 4:37
  and results and things like that. Therefore, you find yourself putting yourself deeper and deeper
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  into just, let's say, working and working and working, where the body then starts to take toll
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  of the stress and the pressure that it's feeling. And at some point, it has to go somewhere. And
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  And generally, the body ends up kind of taking most things like our stress, our trauma, our pain, our struggles, our suffering.
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  All those kinds of things like if we don't deal with it, the body holds it.
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  Right. And there's books been written on it already.
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  So just kind of catching some of these patterns of like things are unbalanced way too heavily on one side or the other in your life and not getting enough rest, for example,
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  or not enough other human connection, which we're all wired for connection.
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  So you can't ignore that.
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  And if not love, at least connection, right?
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  And just being outdoors, being in nature, just the balance of whole things,
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  the whole balance of things, which all humans need, right?
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  And eating well and things like that, nourishing our body and all that is part of it.
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  Moving is another part of it.
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  So some of the things that can help is, I want to say start your day with intention,
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  But actually, the way you start your day with intention is to end when you're ending the current day.
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  You can make a list of, I say a list, but you can do it mentally.
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  Acknowledgements, right?
• 6:00
  I want to say achievements, but actually just acknowledgements.
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  And how I measure success is things that you have control of, right?
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  So steps that you've already taken, not things that are outside of your control, like results.
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  so you can acknowledge yourself for the steps that you've taken,
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  for the things that you've moved forwards by your actions,
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  and then looking at what you need to focus on the next day.
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  So then when you wake up and start your day,
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  you're not having to sit there and think about,
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  okay, what should I do today?
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  You already know from the previous day when you left off,
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  you spent the last whatever minutes looking at,
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  okay, tomorrow when I come into work,
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  here are the things I'm going to focus on,
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  its work. Or if it's your business, there's probably less boundaries there between your
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  life and your business. So intentionality, right? So your day is led with intention.
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  And what else I mean by that is that having a reason, right? So part of the reason we get
• 6:59
  caught up in just a lot of doing, so much doing that we burn out, is that there isn't really an
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  idea of why am I doing the doing, right? So when I talk about intention, there's a level of
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  like, yeah, I'm doing these things and actually here's why I'm doing them. And if we zoom out,
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  right, from more of like an inner work perspective and your life, so going beyond your job and just
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  looking at your entire life, for example, or the year, you might be just gone through New Year's,
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  so you might have some New Year's intentions or maybe you just have some bigger intentions for
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  your life. So aligning it with your bigger purpose, aligning it with your purpose for the year,
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  right, maybe you've kind of got more technical with it and broke it down to the month,
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  weeks or whatever. So in that case, then fine, you can align it to that. But essentially just having
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  an idea of like, why am I doing the thing that I'm doing? Too often we do lots of stuff, you know,
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  as a box ticking exercise or busy is a medal that we wear, right? Because I'm really busy.
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  Means what? Oh, maybe I'm achieving a lot. And actually most of the time we're just busy being
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  busy unless there is intention behind the business. There's a clarity behind the actions,
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  like the intention behind the action. So that's the first thing I would come to. Second is kind of
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  being intentional with the time that you're using. So I'll speak for myself, what works for me,
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  and if it's helpful, then you can apply it for yourself, is chunking down time. And I find that
• 8:31
  that my brain can focus on something for maybe around 50 minutes maximum.
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  So then I'll generally set a timer, sit down and focus on one thing,
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  turn off all distractions, tell everyone not to disturb me,
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  and just focus on that one thing, right?
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  So all 50 minutes or less, maybe it's a half an hour chunk of time.
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  Do nothing else but that one thing,
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  because that stop, start, constantly stopping and starting doesn't work.
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  Right?
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  It just, we're not productive.
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  So to be productive, to actually get things moving forwards when I'm doing things, partitioning out the time, focus time, and just get the thing done, whatever that thing is.
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  and then at the end of the 50 minutes take a break get up like glass water go for a little
• 9:17
  walk around the house or the block if you want stretch do something or put some music on and
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  jump around if that's your thing or get on the mat and do a few stretches or whatever just have a
• 9:28
  little break 10 minute break and then come back to your list of actions where they were aligned
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  to your intentions and go on to the next thing. So you're moving your day forwards. And for me,
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  I generally would go, normally I aim for one to three things. If I can do one thing a day that's
• 9:49
  going to move my life forwards or my business forwards, great. I'm already, in a way, I'm kind
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  of winning, I'd say. Better than actually doing lots of stuff, but none of it actually mattered.
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  None of it moved the needle forwards, so to speak.
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  And then boundaries.
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  I talk a lot about in our work around setting boundaries.
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  Mini version of that I would say here is, what is a boundary?
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  You could say like an imaginary line, right?
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  That's as far as someone can come into your space, so to speak, metaphorically speaking,
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  right, or what you would accept.
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  And most of the time, people don't know where that line is.
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  So boundaries about communication.
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  to actually communicating it.
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  And the communication doesn't have to be an altercation,
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  like a confrontation,
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  if you have the communication up front as soon as possible,
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  at the earliest possible point of outlining
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  where is the line, where is the boundary.
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  Right, so communicating it.
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  But if we don't, and then we leave it,
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  and it's in our minds,
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  and they have to somehow find out where the line is,
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  which means they're probably going to cross it,
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  that's when anger comes out,
• 11:00
  bottle it in, then it becomes resentment.
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  And then at some point somewhere, it will blow up.
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  So boundaries is all about communication, right?
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  And when the line moves, communicating it again.
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  So setting boundaries and knowing that saying yes to everything,
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  everything you say yes to could mean there's another no to yourself.
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  Or saying no to something else could mean you're saying yes to yourself.
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  And sometimes it's that kind of linear binary, once and zero.
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  is not that clear, right? It gets a bit more fuzzy. So boundaries is so much of the work underneath,
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  I would say, burnout is around boundaries. And the work underneath boundaries is the work of
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  self-love and self-worth, right? As I've said before in our work. Tension gets stored in the
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  body. Stress gets stored in the body. So the next thing I would say is move your body. And for the
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  thing that we do is yoga. And it's not just any yoga, but like conscious movement, right? So if
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  you don't like yoga and you're still going through that journey of not liking yoga, fine.
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  Do something that you love doing and choose to move in a way that is conscious. That means it's
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  embodied, it's in body. I mean, you're conscious, you're training a level of awareness and
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  consciousness in your body. Therefore, as you are conscious of what's happening in your body,
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  by way of sensation, you can respond to the messages, the signals, the warnings that our
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  body sending, right? The language that the body speaks, which is sensation. So movement is better
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  than no movement, but conscious movement is better than just movement, right? Like any movement. So
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  conscious movement is what I would recommend. Ideally, something that is like holistic, not just
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  limited to the body, something like yoga, which is actually why we do it. The next thing would be
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  having some kind of a wind-down routine. So we're in a time of constant things like our devices and
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  everything is constant, right? Vying for our attention, constant amount of distraction,
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  unlimited amount of distraction available to us. So when you're highly stressed, you've been under
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  a lot of pressure through the day, you've been like trying to perform, get things done, right?
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  Let's say you didn't remove your body and you're trying to get to sleep.
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  Most of the time, people are going to struggle to sleep.
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  When we get to sleep, the mind gets to play out thoughts in the form of dreams.
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  Thoughts that it didn't get to play out through the day because you were too busy generally gets played out right in our dreams.
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  And it mixes information and it's put together and it starts to get playful and creative with it.
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  But sometimes we don't even get to sleep.
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  So getting to sleep, you might need to have some kind of a wind-down routine.
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  I would recommend, if you don't do gratitude during the day,
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  maybe do it before you go to sleep.
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  And gratitude is a really powerful way of rewiring the brain
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  and the nervous system to look for what's good in your day and in your life.
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  Maybe you would journal, maybe you'd read, maybe you'd meditate,
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  maybe you would even move, right?
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  Maybe you'd get on the mat and do some restorative postures up to you,
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  or in your bed you can just do a couple of restorative postures.
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  Deep breathing, body scan if you can't sleep.
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  So scanning the body from head to toe systematically can really work as well.
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  And having some kind of wind down routine and a discipline around sleep.
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  Because part of the reason burnout happens is because there hasn't been enough rest.
• 14:21
  Right. And we're just running on fumes, trying to be productive.
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  So that's my, it was actually five steps.
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  I didn't want to call it that, but five things that I talked about around burnout.