Why authenticity matters to prevent burnout
By: Anaël Roseau
Tags: Burnout, Life Lessons, Authenticity, Self-awareness, Stress

It all started with my last client distant healing session.

A vision came to me as soon as we started.

She was in front of me, her whole body was paralyzed except for her beautiful smile.

▽ Why we end up “burned-out”?

It struck me. She was wearing this brave -”a bit too much” smile we put on, to fake that everything is going perfectly fine.

But I know that the body never lies.

What I was seeing was a representation of her current situation.

A situation that many of us, “the good people”, face at one point in our life:

Since childhood, we internalize and stick to the rules of life, imposed by our family, our patriarchal society, and our specific culture, until one day we realize we are feeling just numb, empty, and lost.

We do it to fit in, to be loved, to get approval from others, and because we don’t see any other way…

But year after year of wanting to follow the rules, we are invariably denying our own opinions and hiding our true selves.

And we end up sick.

Sick of feeling we are worth nothing since what we think inside is constantly repressed and devalued.

Sick of doing tasks that are against our values because we do not dare to express what we stand for.

Sick of having a life with no meaning of our own because we are hiding our true self and our desires.

Sick of trying to be perfect with the constant fear that our imperfection will be found out.

Days after days of living and working without a purpose, violating our values and our own truth, coupled with the demand for constant productivity and lack of support in the workplace or our community: we can no longer “function properly”, we just burn-out.

▽ How do we prevent burnout?

As a reminder, burnout can be defined as “a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress”.

Preventing burnout will therefore rely on alleviating deep stress, especially the one we feel we can’t do anything about.

As a good indicator of where to look first: the feeling of having no choice, of being a prisoner of a situation we cannot escape, and of feeling that nobody is understanding us or can help us, is pointing directly at the “big stress” we have to address.

First, know that support exists:

□ Your Doctor can stop you from going back to work for a while and rest.

□ People who have experienced burnout gather on online communities and share tips and understanding.

□ Therapists and coaches are there to help you take a step back, take time to reconnect with yourself, find and implement solutions to your situation.

Things you can do yourself:

And then there are things you can do yourself to prevent getting sick.

These are all techniques that alleviate stress like breathing ( cardiac coherence is wonderful), yoga, meditation, exercise, massage…

We often refer to them as “self-care”.

So it’s everything that makes you take better care of yourself.

It goes from resting more to having fun, eating better food, and of course, being kinder to yourself…

This is where being more authentic (as being more respectful of who you are) comes into play.

▽ What authenticity has to do with self-care?

First, accept that getting burned-out does not mean that you have failed.

You are not weak.

So accept to look objectively at your current state, be real and open about it to your loved ones or people who can support you.

This is the first step to authenticity,

the first step of respect towards yourself,

and the first step to getting better.

As I mentioned earlier, every step that you will take towards listening to your genuine self in a self-compassion way is self-care and will count towards diminishing your stress level and your risk of burning out.

This is definitely not selfish nor superficial, as it is vital to take care of your health and wellbeing.

Practicing being more real, will encourage you to ask yourself what you truly want and acknowledge where it is disconnected from your current situation.

It will encourage you to find support to change what’s not working and undeniably to look after yourself better, now that you realize how you have abandoned yourself for so many years.

▽ How can I develop my authenticity?

Let’s face it, authenticity requires courage.

When we are used to hiding, being silent, and people-pleasing this can be quite a challenge to start showing up as who we really are.

But as I have explained, it’s a must if we want to stop living with high continuous stress and prevent burn-out.

So, here are some ways to become more authentic:

□ Discover who you really are: your strengths, your weaknesses, your current behaviors, your values, journal about them to uncover if they are truly yours…

□ Listen to your thoughts and desires, and again check are they coming from your education, conditioning, or are they genuine?.

□ Find what really matters to you and do that as often as you can!

□ Learn to say “NO” when you do not want to engage in something.

□ Learn about boundaries and how to express them to protect your integrity.

□ Let go of beliefs that don’t serve you and learn to appreciate your worth.

□ Practice the expression of your opinions every time you can.

□ Be genuine in who you are, irrespective of the consequences…

▽ Final Thoughts

Please don’t start all at once, remember to be gentle with yourself and not add any more stress to your life!

I advise you to look at your life as if it was a painting and start now adding little touches of your own color.

It will be gradual but I promise that you will soon reclaim your energy, your motivation, and most of all the vital connection with yourself.

Take the fake smile out and start dancing your own way!

I’ll finish this post with a beautiful quote from Freya Stark (a brave female explorer!) that summarizes it all:

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”

Have a beautiful day and take good care of your self.

Anaël

If you are resonating with this situation, I am happy to offer you some resources and help. Feel free to connect with me.