How burnout helped me fight for and reclaim my life

Hi community,

Last year, I suffered the worst bout of burnout of my life. It started getting loud in January 2022 and got progressively worse.

My body was inflamed. My mind was an anxious wreck. My back was a series of nasty knots that could seize into chronic pain flares whenever I was too stressed. I couldn’t fall asleep without the help of cannabis. And if I slept without cannabis, I was plagued by apocalyptic nightmares (which I would later learn were signs of my yet undiagnosed complex PTSD).

It turns out that…

Building a community-centered small business for API women & femmes that sold experiences (come make friends who share your interest in unpacking intergenerational trauma, exploring identity, and coming into your fullest expression!!) and feelings (connection, safety, vulnerability, and intimacy!) under capitalism…

Refusing to take big brand sponsorship deals to fund that business because it would require tokenizing and exploiting our community for money…

Scraping by on $50,000/year in New York City, one of the most expensive places to live, after burning through my savings because I HAD to see if this little idea my cofounder and I had could become something real…

Being under or uninsured during the COVID-19 pandemic because I couldn’t afford healthcare and groceries/rent…

Panicking every time I heard a siren on my street because I could see my neighbors get wheeled into ambulances from my bedroom window…

Hosting dozens of healing circles to help my community grieve the pandemic, racial justice uprisings, and the rise of anti-Asian violence while not being able to afford therapy for my own complex?trauma…

Losing friends and connections as a result of different value systems, revealed via our very different responses to current events…

Using work-aholism, my tried-and-true survival strategy since middle school, to acquire a semblance of control that helped me move with fear and increasing uncertainty under dire circumstances…

Dealing with the ongoing suffering normalized under colonialism, capitalism, ableism, white supremacy, and patriarchy…

… all of that (and other things I couldn’t name for time’s sake) comes with great cost to the mind, body, and spirit.?

And nothing made that clearer to me than when, just 10 days into my 6-month sabbatical in July 2022, I collapsed while walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night, cutting my head and leading to a mild concussion.

Writing it all down now, it seems glaringly obvious that I wasn’t okay. But no one was. We’ve all been inhaling oppression and exhaling survival since birth, right? This is just how it goes.

I intellectually knew from reading newsletters and following the news that people were falling apart. But no one was falling apart openly around me.?

Most of what I saw was people swallowing pain after pain, putting on brave faces, and chugging along. So that’s what I did, too. After all, that’s what my childhood taught me to do.

There’s a fine line between a grin and a grimace. If you practice it enough, no one, eventually not even you, will be able to tell the difference.

It has taken well over a year to arrive at a place where I feel like I can even begin to speak authentically and with a meaningful perspective about that time in my life. I’ve referenced it superficially here and there throughout this past year of writing the newsletter, but I’ve avoided talking directly about it because I was and still am in recovery.

Here, I feel the need to define recovery on my own terms because in our society, recovery and healing are often understood as a return to normalcy. But I don’t want normalcy!! Normalcy was why and how I kept taking second and third mortgages on my already-very-bad burnout, each time hoping it'd be different.

But what’s messed up (and the tougher pill to swallow) is that everything considered normal in modern society is what’s messed up.

And when burnout hands you your ass, when you find yourself hitting a rock bottom with how you've been living and working, when there’s nowhere left to run to avoid facing the truth or yourself, well friends... that is a ripe time for swallowing tough pills.

A part of me has spent a long time wondering if I would ever tell this story. That part of me wonders if you will discredit me and what I do here at Collective Rest if I admit this to you.

But most of me believes that what we actually need are more honest, vulnerable, no bullshit stories about what it takes to fight for your life, soul, and ability to imagine and build new worlds from the clutches of systemic oppression and intergenerational trauma.

We need more stories about what it’s like to reckon with burnout from a place of fierce love and commitment to yourself, the kind that can only be borne from sacrificing the impoverished ideas you internalized about what it takes to be successful, find belonging, or make meaning.

We need more stories about what it’s like to allow burnout’s wisdom to take you under, into places where your usual ways of making sense of things or feeling confident are completely inverted, thereby opening you up to things you would’ve refused before, which is the real beginning of growth and change.

Here's the ironic thing: My journey with rest had already begun when the worst bout of burnout reared its head.

This might not make logical sense at first, but hear me out. Though my rest journey began in earnest back in 2020, I didn't realize at the time that I was resting the only way I knew how to do anything, which was so that I could keep chugging along without really changing things at the root.

This time around, I really faced how I've internalized systems of oppression and learned to exploit myself to the point of serious health consequences.

This journey has led me to evolve my outlook, to see?burnout not as a rock in my shoe, but as a site for personal and collective liberation.?It can be a?spiritual awakening to what really matters in your life?and a profound life lesson in transforming suffering into empowerment if you're willing to walk away from the lies we've been told about what success requires.

Right now, we?find ourselves again at the beginning of what may be a prolonged period of immense grief, pain, and exhaustion. Yet the stakes have never been higher.?

We’re screaming Free Palestine, Free Sudan, and Free Congo while?we ourselves are running in the red, so far from feeling free of the forces we're naming?ourselves.

So I come to you today with a new offering that I've been gestating all year.?After years of working mostly with organizations, communities, and groups, I am excited to announce The Rest Mentorship.

?? LEARN HERE ??

If you've been struggling with burnout, feel frustrated by rest, or have no idea how to move forward without replicating unsustainable behaviors, I hope you'll consider getting support because you don't have to burn and fizzle out alone.?

To celebrate this launch, I'm running a promo through the end of 2023 with the lowest pricing I'll offer!

Creating a world where we all feel safe enough to slow down will require systemic and cultural change, which is why I love working with groups where we can impact the culture directly.?

But cultural and systemic change also requires individuals who are willing to look inward, make brave changes, and show up differently right now.?

Know that your actions, presence, values, impact, and leadership are bravely upholding the new paradigm we're fighting for right now.?

We don't have to wait for the new way to come before we rest.

We can choose?to prioritize?rest NOW because the new way – the less violent, extractive, exploitative, domineering?way of being and relating?– will not be born from our burnout, but from our rest.

To rest and revolution,

Cassandra Lam / Lam Thùy Dung

?? EXPLORE THE REST MENTORSHIP ??

As we continue to witness so much injustice, a deep lack of regard for human life and dignity, and unimaginable horror in Gaza, our grief turns into anger and sacred rage.

Join me + a group of justice-oriented facilitators?on November 29th 12-1pm ET for a safe and brave space to be with our individual and collective rage in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The intention of this space is to direct our collective anger toward tangible action for change in Palestine. This is not a safe space for vengeance or hate.

Please note that this event will be webinar-style with no small groups and only private chat options.?More boundaries are needed when it comes to expressing rage with internet strangers, which is why this event will be run differently than the grief circles.

?? RSVP ??