?? Burnout Edition ??

Hello, friends. You may have noticed that I haven't been sharing as many newsletters this year. I've been writing about and building a new program & community, tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time and blocking us from having more empathy and compassion in the world. That thing is: burnout.

Are you or someone you love working through burnout and don’t know how to evolve??

Do you desire deeper connections with other like-minded people?

Chances are, you will say yes to both, and the data doesn't lie: we're utterly burnt out, and we feel disconnected and lonely. I don't need to tell you that--you likely already feel that way.

What is Burnout?

Burnout happens to all of us. Our lives get busy working, helping others, or taking care of our families. Sometimes, we get too busy and forget to take a step back and rest. That is when burnout can occur. Psychology Today states that:

Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. Though it’s most often caused by problems at work, it can also appear in other areas of life, such as parenting, caretaking, or romantic relationships.

Burnout is both caused by our own conditioning created by a challenging world and past traumatic experiences and also is a product of systems and organizations around us that often prioritize profit over people.

If you think you may be experiencing burnout, take our self assessment test , backed by years of research & experience.

My Personal Supernovas

Energy that we give to all our projects--our work--can be channeled in different ways. All too often, though, we either burn up or burn out. Sometimes it's an explosion, sometimes it's an implosion inside. These "Personal Supernovas" all tell a story of ourselves and most importantly our ways of working in the world that is no longer serve us well.

As we've been talking to hundreds of people who have or are experiencing burnout, this is a common theme: modern day work is literally killing us--our mental and physical health.

I have spent a lifetime recovering from my own supernovas , and in this reflection that explores what was happening inside and around my life and how I tried to recover each time.

Why focus on burnout? Why now?

It's clear that a focus over profit over people and planet is no longer working for most of us and instead has left us in a place of burnout:

• 79% of workers are emotionally detached or miserable at work.
• Two-thirds of employees are looking for more fulfilling work.
• 75% of workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition.

Source: Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report

However for the foreseeable future, we must work to survive in the Capitalistic and often exploitative system we're in.

Hundreds of people we've talked to who are experiencing burnout talk about a loss of power as a slow dimming of the light they once had within them. They no longer found the work that they did exciting or challenging, and it often has to do with the system’s power over them.

The Solution

We have to work within the system to take actions aligned to our values and needs, and we lose sight of just how interdependent we are within this system. We must heal from past (or current) traumas so that we can manage our anxiety and emotions to live a more fulfilling life and have empathy for the people around us.

The way we do that is to build the power, agency, and trust within for us to take imperfect action . Power within is independent of the system--it is self generated. It’s contained within each one of us, yet it is prone to injury in a system that keeps demanding power over us.

We all desire to thrive in our own way, and the first step is realizing our life is out of control and we can change our thinking and take action , which we call Awaken. This is our theory of change:

If we build awareness of ourselves and the system, better relationships and inner resilience in community with others

Then we’ll know more of what we need, have the power within ourselves and agency to be actors in our lives instead of reactors

Thus we’ll overcome the effects of burnout in a dysfunctional world and design a better workplace for everyone.

What is Healing for Work?

Allow me to introduce to you to Healing for Work (HFW), an online community and program that helps you unpack your burnout and take action to heal.

HFW provides a brave, nonjudgmental space that allows us to grieve our past (or current) workplaces and conduct an honest inventory of ourselves and our modern world, so we may identify and heal core traumas, experience freedom from fear and shame, and build the power within ourselves to create the lives we have always imagined.?

At Healing for Work, we focus on both the individual and the system and how each have contributed to their burnout, and devise new ways that we can show up differently to show up more authentically while supported by your Guides and your fellow travelers in life.

We have put many years of research, workshopping and experimentation to get to our current iteration of this work, which is a way for us to have deep self compassion while also changing the world around us. This is what I'm all about: Empathy in Action.

Our Programs

Burnout is not just something that you overcome in a day, a week, or a month. It takes time, intention, and support to unpack the internal mindsets that are holding us back and to fully heal from the effects of the world around us.

We have designed three programs that we offer for individuals going through burnout and organizations who want to support their employees through or prevent burnout.

1: Support Sessions: During these sessions, we explore a theme of the week in a non judgmental way, sharing with each other our own experience on the topic and what gives us hope for the future.

This is great for people who are curious and want to start the journey but not ready to commit to a program. Register for our FREE weekly Support Sessions on Tuesdays from 3 p.m. - 4 p.m. PT | 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. ET.

2: Healing Launch: The Healing Launch is a 3-month small group program that helps you build awareness and take action to build a better life for yourself: a life that is more centered and resilient, boundaried and supported in community.

In this small group experience of learning, engagement, and action with accountability and community, we’ll get you launched on your healing journey out of burnout and back to yourself again.

If you need support in launching your healing, sign up for our waitlist here .

3: Healing Circle: The Healing Circle is a small group program that gives you a full year of support to fully process and heal from the effects of dysfunctional workplaces and the world. You are not alone in this process; you’re joining a community of people who are also working through their feelings of burnout and finding their way to heal so that the next iteration of ourselves can emerge.

During this year of support, you follow our Four Rs Framework in four consecutive quarters. The first two quarters (Regulate & Relationships) provide the foundation for us to have compassion for ourselves and for others, while the last two quarters (Resilience & Reintegration) are practicums where you’ll go out in the real world to explore your best self and influence change around you, supported by your fellow travelers and guides.

Sign up for our waitlist here if interested in participating in this course. We will be in touch as soon as you fill out the

Diving Deeper

We've been writing on our org's LinkedIn page to help build awareness of burnout and help you process and understand it:

• The Symptoms of Burnout: understanding the signs : exploring how to tell if you are experiencing burnout or it exists in your workplace.
• Five Habits to Overcome Burnout: Healing is about helping us to establish new habits that eventually helps us find the power within to take action. These five habits are crucial to help establish self compassion and restore care to you
• 12 Stages of Burnout: Burnout is a chronic condition that doesn't happen overnight, and there are many stages we take to get there, which is backed by forty years of research.
• Six Stages to Commitment: Most of us are getting prepared to take action and setting our intention to act, but very few people do it, and fewer maintain the action. Why is that the case? One model of change that is backed by more than 35 years of scientific research helps explain the steps we take to commit towards change.

How to Support

Support and Follow Us!

• Want us to talk to your team or organization about what we've learned about studying and guiding people through burnout? Let us know in our form !
• Have or know of a podcast or publication that wants to feature us? Shoot us a message on our website's form.
• Sign up to receive our newsletter here , which is full of articles, topics, features, & reflections to help you overcome burnout. Check out all our past newsletters for inspiration.
• Follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram .

How I Can Help You

• Individual (1:1) coaching to help you overcome burnout and to manage the realities that our modern work world has today. Book a exploration call to see what's possible .
• Have me come talk with your team or organization to build awareness of burnout: recognize the signs, steps to overcome it, and habits that you can take to recenter yourself. Find some time in our calendars to talk more about an opportunity.

Healing for Work on The Empathy Edge Podcast

If you prefer to listen about this new community, listen to Amy on The Empathy Edge Podcast with Maria Ross . In it, I talk about my burnout supernovas, my empathy epiphany, symptoms to look out for, and a deep dive on compassion fatigue and empathic distress. It is available anywhere you listen to podcasts!

As always, thank you for reading and engaging with my content--it matters so much! I'm grateful that you've taken the time to read to the bottom of the newsletter. I hope you have a great day on purpose!