What’s Your “Why” for Healing from Burnout?
Hi everyone. Dr. Desiree Howell here, licensed psychologist providing online therapy for adults in Florida and Pennsylvania. Hope you were doing well. I wanted to share today about your big picture why, your core motivation, and why now is the time for recovering from burnout. Why is now the right time and why is it important to really recalibrate your life to do the work, to, to rest and heal and say no more? Life has to be different. It's time to get aligned. I specialize in helping high achieving women recover from burnout. I also do a lot of couples therapy work but burnout recovery is near and dear to my heart.
My son starting high school?!
I definitely have my own history and experience with recovering from burnout. As a high achiever, former people-pleaser former perfectionistic, a woman. And then this topic is near and dear to my heart right now because my oldest son is starting high school soon, which seems surreal to me. I'm like, how is that possible that he's starting high school? But it's definitely led to me reflecting quite a bit on his future thinking about his high school experience, right? And of course, then it makes me think of my high school experience which a lot of meaningful things happen for me in high school. I met my partner, my current husband we've been together for almost 20 years. And not that I expected that of him, but you know, I'm trying to help my son face what high school means without projecting or making assumptions or putting any of my feelings onto him, positive or negative, letting him have his experience basically.
Generational Cycle Breaking
And so with that, it's been having me reflect a lot about being a generational cycle breaker, which is for sure my big picture, why, I mean, I have a few other really core beliefs and feelings that guide me on my journey on this earth, but for sure one big one is being a generational cycle breaker. And that was a huge motivation for me when I realized I was burned out and unhappy and that my life just wasn't really working anymore. It still looked good on paper. It looks pretty successful and probably fine to the outside world. But internally things were not going well financially, emotionally, relationally, physically. And so part of my, my, part of my motivation to make big changes began small changes was thinking about, okay, what am I modeling for my children? I have two sons, what am I modeling for them? What am I passing along? You know, what is my legacy? What are they going to say when they're adults? And they're reflecting back on their childhoods, you know, are they going to say mom worked all the time? Mom didn't have time for us. You know, mom was stressed out. We struggled financially. We couldn't afford stuff. Like I didn't want them to think back on their childhood and have those be some of the major themes.
Modeling a New Way; We Can Do Better
Also, as I think about being a generational cycle breaker, it's not just wanting better for my children. It was also wanting better for myself. There was definitely a piece of wanting to redo or to heal my inner child because as I was going through college and through graduate school, earning my bachelor's, master's, and PhD in psychology and counseling psychology, I was a first-generation college student. I came from a very low-SES background. We struggled financially my entire childhood and adolescence. So lots of student loans. That's another video for another time, but I, as I was going to school and learning about healthy relationships, parenting, active listening, conflict resolution, how brains develop, regular childhood development and as I was learning about all these things, including traditional mental illness and I'm not a huge fan of diagnosis, but I understand the the good points of it but understanding what's depression, what's personality disorders, what's anxiety and also learning about systemic, big picture issues that affect folks you know, real oppression and classism and sexism and racism, and just the big picture of life and living and being a human.
As I was learning all of this in school and, reflecting on what I experienced, I made a genogram, in my first family counseling class and realized that there was a lot generationally being passed along, unfortunately in my family that included a lot of physical ailments including cancer, autoimmune disorders, mental illnesses, anxiety, depression, personality disorders, alcoholism, a lot of trauma abuse, neglect infidelity abandonment. So it didn't take long for me to figure out, okay, I want better for myself and my life and I want better for my children. And so what does that mean?
That's what I was really reflecting on recently and I wanted to share with you all and wanted you all to reflect on what is your big picture why. Do you identify as a generational cycle breaker? Most folks can easily point out the things that they would rather not replicated from their childhood. But also thinking about making sure you're building a life that works for you too, because I know not everyone watching is a parent. So, a better future for yourself. If you do have children a better future for them, you know, what are you modeling? What is your legacy? What do you want them to remember?
Legacy
And so, as I was healing from burnout and making different decisions, I just thought, no, I do not want my children to remember me as distracted and exhausted and overwhelmed and struggling financially and saying, no, I'm too tired or no, we don't have enough money. And if there was anything that I could do about that with self care, my own therapy, changing jobs, changing where we lived—we made some big and small changes—but I just thought I can't waste my time here on this earth. Being stressed, following a path that no longer worked for me. So I am here for you. I hope this resonated with you and I would love to hear your big picture why. What is your big reason for healing from burnout?
