The Burnout Diaries- 2025

I've written these two long entries to help anyone else who feels they are reaching burnout. They are a long read, so please take them in small chunks! This

Poppys in the garden

Part One - 3rd June 2025 
It’s three weeks since I was officially ‘signed off ‘work. That was about a week after I realised that this body and mind could not do what I have been doing, in the way I’ve been doing it, any longer. My body said, ‘lie down’. My mind said, ‘I’m unclear, don’t think’. My soul said, ‘give me space to breathe’. It was Beltane, and spring was roaring through my body, 
 
That was also a few days after I went to see my dear friend Ghee, as he was dying.  It is now after his funeral and life celebration ceremony, one of the most life-affirming events I have ever had the privilege to participate in. After that afternoon with all his friends and family, I felt enlivened and present, hopeful, and forward-looking, as well as simply myself. 
 
I wanted to write here about my journey with this time; my experience of the physicality of it and how my mind-soul-body is moving through and finding healing. Partly to remember this time, to get it outside of me, and so that if it’s useful for someone else to read. 
 
In the first few weeks, my body felt extremely heavy, like every time I moved there was a weight literally pressing down on me. This was really acute on the morning, and getting up was a real chore. This despite glorious sunshine and warmth, which usually pulls me out into the day. I would then spend time getting food, and maybe walking for 20mins or so, and then into the garden to read, sleep, rest. That was about it. My mind was so unclear I had to work extremely hard to focus on things to do with work especially – and there were a few things that needed attention and dealing with. After these I had to lie down and sleep. 
 
It felt like my whole system was inflamed. Aches, nausea, foggy head, mouth ulcers, spots on my skin, tightness in my back and difficulty really sleeping. 
 
Last week I gave up sweet things – no refined sugars since then. I wondered if the brain-fogginess I was experiencing was being exacerbated by my love of shortbreads and farmhouse chocolate flips. I cut back on my caffeine, noticing how it sends my energy upwards in a way that does not feel useful for resting or being present.  Since then, the real fog has lifted, and I can again string together enough thinking to organise a simple day. 
 
Sitting in front of a computer, at my desk, was (and still is) not easy. Focusing hard on documents, reading and writing take a lot of energy. I’m also curious that some things feel harder and others’ easier. Simple decisions are easy, more complex thinking is a struggle – and when it comes to thinking about my main work and all the complex strands it takes to keep things going, my whole being switches off. 
 
In this time, I’ve also started being supported by a coach, funded through Access to Work. Interesting it started just before I had to stop working. So, I have a regular space to unpick what is happening and where I am, and to begin gently to look forward. 
 
Burnout. I’ve been trying to keep this at bay for at least a year. I took two months off my main work last year, but I can see now that I did not stop, rest, regroup. I did different things and kept busy and full. Now I’ve had to stop, to actually empty my life of most of my work, I can see things differently. I say ‘most’ as I’ve had a few online meetings and have an event in the woods this coming Saturday, which I do not want to let go of. This thing is part of what I really want to be doing, with all my soul-body-mind. And there for me is the crux of why I think I’m in this burnout, this exhaustion. 
 
Because I have been trying to be things, to do things, that are not mine to be/do, but have been what I thought the world wanted of me, or people expected of me, or what I had grown so used to doing that they felt like the right/best/good uses of my time, energy and life. And yet, for some time, I’ve been saying to work colleagues (and that’s complicated, because I love the organisation I’ve co-created, the people who work with us, and my partner who is also involved) that ‘I cannot do this anymore’ or ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’. But have been able to unpick, to follow through on that, or even see what it is that I don’t want to do. 
 
So that is the ‘work’ of this time. Feeling, seeing, naming, knowing the parts that are not mine to do, or mine to be. Because, add into the mix that a few years ago I got an AuADHD diagnosis. And I know that I’ve been very good at ‘masking’ – covering over who I am so that I can present a more acceptable face, and be a more acceptable person, especially in my professional domain, and acutely when I’m presenting my/our work to others outside of the organisation.  A big part of that, I sense, has been around the need to gain funding from other organisations in order to do our work. 
 
My own acute sense of social justice has led me to do work that helps bring people into nature who would not usually get the chance, and that has required oodles of funding to pay our team and provide things that are good. The requirement to tell ‘good stories’ all the time is actually exhausting. To monitor and evaluate, and then report in ways that make what we do look good, has felt to me untruthful. I have wanted to tell the real stories – how hard it is to get funds, to manage small amounts of money, to work with folks who don’t always show up and go up and down, and sit in meetings with professionals where they say they love what we do, but continually fail to finds ways to financially support our or others work. To have to make the case to funders again and again, instead of them coming to us and trusting what we do. 
 
So perhaps that’s part of it. It can feel like we are not trusted and have to continually prove ourselves. And that means me, having to write the story again and again. Don’t get me wrong, I can really enjoy writing a bid and getting the funding in – it’s a quick win and quite satisfying. But the inequalities in the wider system are not being addressed, and all I can see ahead is having to keep doing this. More bids, more reports, and as things stand, the money is less and the expectation is more.
 
I’m exhausted. So are others on our team.
 
I want to be able to use what I’ve learned to change things; to look at where the funding and VCSFE sector is not working and is in fact an essential cog of the capitalist model. There are many bigger funders who have started to realise this. There are also many small grassroots groups, our included, that want to keep going, and provide an essential level of care, kindness and compassion that needs to be part of the changing system for humans. But we want to do it on our terms, and be able to provide support, connection, and community without having to ‘fit in’ to the boxes of well-heeled, well-meaning people who want to simply feel good about what they are doing. 
 
I want us to build relationships with folks who can hear the difficulties that we and others face, can help us make mistakes and learn new processes for deep nature-relationship without commodifying us or the more-than-human, spirit of the land that we work within. Relationship is key. Hearing marginal voices is key. Honouring all parts is key. 
 
Writing this helps my body-mind-spirit bring focus to what ails me and this Earth that I’m part of. I can only heal in tandem with the Earth and other beings; we are all part of the same. As I wild-tend my garden, listen to, and watch the fledging blue tits and robins, I feel in-place, related, grounded. I think the answers are in the soil, the air, the sun, and the moon. And the juicy relationships that all the beings make together. I have to be clear with myself. This is not about going back or finding a golden age that used to exist. This is about being part of an evolving, living ecosystem that includes predator and prey, new life and decay, colour and light, stars and satellites, AI and spirit-soul. 
 
A deep breath. A cup of nettle tea and oatcake. That’s how I roll now, forward. 

Swim spot on the river Eden, Cumbria

PART TWO - Monday June 23rd  

Back to work this week, gently. That is my desire and intention.
 
However, I want work to be different, to feel different; to support my health, my thriving and wellbeing. In doing that, I will be modelling the natural system that I’m part of, and I hope I’ll be adding capacity to the over-extended human system by being in a more grounded, whole, and healthy way.
 
Of course, I’m privileged to be able to do this. I have a house, some savings, and work that is being flexible and kind to me. I live in a village, have a garden that is full of life and produce, and friends around me who are kind and understanding. I still have bills, the mortgage, a car, and all the trappings of a modern life that are feel impossible to let go of. 
 
So where is the burnout now - how are my body and mind? What is it like after a nearly 6 weeks since being signed off work? First off, I can really say that I feel physically better than I have for a couple of months. I experienced chronic pain in my lower back and hips for weeks, which dominated my body. Suddenly it lifted. I have not experienced any foggy headedness for the last week and a half or so, and generally my energy levels feel about 80% near normal. It will be interesting to see how working at the computer, dealing with people and having meetings affects all that. I have lost some fitness and feel the need to move about as much as possible. 
 
I’m curious about what has made the difference, so that I can keep on with that way of being, of living, and help myself when unhelpful stressors pile up again, or something big comes my way. 
 
The things that I think helped:
- Stopping working completely. Not even attending to a “few emails”.  Giving my body-mind the chance to switch off, and rest. 
- Making small ceremonies, listening to the all-that-is, being present. 
- Being able to be in my garden, watch the birds, listen to the wind, lie on the ground under the tree or in full sun. Getting grounded. Using the nature-connection practices I teach!
- Tending the veg beds and getting my hands in the soil. Feeling gently productive, forward-looking, and hopeful. 
- Being supported by friends and family who checked in on me or came by for a cuppa or walk. 
- Getting support from a new coach, funded through Access to Work, which started just at the right time. 
- Having a holiday with my beloved, where we slept in, ate well, made mini adventures that felt doable, lay around on the fells or moors smelling the wild flowers and listening to birds. I learned new flowers, heard new birds, and generally felt alive.
- Swimming in rivers and sea. I love the feel of water on my skin, so the chances to dip in wild places in the warm weather felt like balm. 
- Taking hot Epsom salts baths to ease muscles and restore balance.
- Meditating, sitting. Doing yoga or pilates for myself.
- Sleeping a LOT.
- Eating good food – even more organic veg than usual, less sugar, less caffeine. 
- Reading interesting and good books, listening to podcasts and plays. Letting my mind wander, or focus. 
- Resetting my internal “body compass” so that I can feel when I’m getting too tired or know when I’m wired. Then I can rest immediately or do some movement to get through the wired feelings before I can rest. 
- Realising that I need to change to my working life from here. This is non-negotiable. The “system” will want me, as it does all of us, to be productive. It has no compassion and if I burnout out or fall over another person can come along and take my place. This is not a worldview I want to actively support to any longer. All beings are valuable, and we can all make contributions that will enable the web-of-life to flourish. My job now is to listen in to what the best contribution is that I can make, and to do that gently. 
 
That’s quite a lot. This is a huge learning process. There are many things bubbling away in my creative being, and I’m also aware that there is a lot less internal chatter going on. I have more capacity to listen outside of myself, to take things in. 

Start of the river Lune, Green Bell fell, Cumbria