The burnout I went through is something that I have only discussed with my closest friends and family, and less in recent months. It’s still fairly fresh; my new mindset is continuing its learning curve, but I am in a much better place now. I sometimes think it is difficult to explain what burnout even is let alone its lingering effects on someone’s life.

I’m not proud of the fact that I let myself reach such a low point but I treasure what I’ve gained and the wealth of what I have learned.  I pray that the sharing of my struggles and victories here can help others. It certainly helps me to process where I’ve been and renew my perspective. Recovery can be a long process and I can honestly say 5 years on there has been a great deal of healing.

What is burnout? (From http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/preventing-burnout.htm)

“Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.”

What does burnout do to someone?

“Burnout reduces your productivity and saps your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Eventually, you may feel like you have nothing more to give.”

Burnout for me was as the descriptions say; a result of excessive and prolonged stress, mainly in ministry. I did reach the point of helplessness. I was weighed down by hopelessness, cynicism and resentfulness as I tried to maintain my overloaded schedule. For years I worked at a furious pace. Life is short; there was so much to do and so little time to do it in. I couldn’t bring myself to delegate or drop commitments no matter how hard I tried, for fear of how people would be affected. When I tried to stop and rest, my mind would quickly drift toward the things that needed to be done. Anxiety became a frequent and familiar enemy and severely affected my sleep and countenance. A desire to be available and love people was fuelled by love for God, but anxiety often niggled and gnawed at that love, turning it into obligation.

It was difficult for me to see that God’s expectations were different from my own; I had set mine far too high.  Looking back, I see myself acting on too many of the creative ideas floating around in my brain. So creativity, something that should bring joy to life, would end up draining me. I desperately wanted to be free, yet lacked the know-how and energy to make any change. Fear loomed; fear of exposure of my weaknesses and fear of all that I would stand to lose – so I avoided taking daring steps toward freedom. I wrote about my desire to escape the rut and find a “sweet spot” in my music (eg “Joy of the Song”, “One Thing”).

It seemed there was no way out; it was like running on a treadmill without an off-switch in a locked room. I tried to look at the positives of where I was and pray for the energy to continue running, yet part of me wanted to escape and never come back. I couldn’t even do holidays well. As much as I wanted to enjoy going away with my family, I always dreaded the packing and organizing. Even though there were plenty of fun moments, I lacked the ability to rest properly and usually returned tired. I often prayed to God about this but didn’t have much hope for change.

I knew a God of love wouldn’t want me to be miserable. I would ask Him many questions: “What do you really want me to do?”, “do I just lack faith?”, “others could cope with what I have on my plate, so why can’t I?” and so on. For years I prayed that I could be a “normal Christian” (whatever that was!) and for increased strength and wisdom. God never left me and helped me through all I faced, but the constant stress and anxiety eventually took its toll . Like a car with mechanical problems that had been ignored for a long time and repeatedly run out of fuel, I had to stop and park in the garage for as long as it took to be repaired.

I finally “fessed up” to my church family that I was burned out and needed to hang up my ministry hat for a while. In all the emotional upheaval, I was reassured not only by people but by the peace of God that this was the way to go. In the initial weeks of recovery, I could barely do anything. Every day I sat and cried with God, asking for His healing. From that very first day I felt His love and acceptance. I’m not sure what felt worse, the feeling of disconnection from people, the lifelessness in my spirit or the guilt, but I brought them all to God. I began to see that He had more in mind than simply empowering me to keep running on a treadmill. He wanted to show me the open spaces but firstly teach me in the quiet places so I could then begin to run free. Bible promises came to life for me in a new way, especially those about Jesus being the living water, giving me rest, and lifting me from the pit. I wrote many songs as declarations of what He was doing in me at this time (“Have Your Fill”, “The Hand of the Lord”). And this was just the beginning of the healing.