I used to think that the biggest risk of having too much on your plate was burning out.
Burning out happened to me and getting out of burn-out was a long and tricky journey spanning many years. I had to learn the ins and outs of what made me stressed. I had to learn how to set better boundaries both practically, psychologically and energetically. And I had to learn a ton about the psychic world, intuition, empaths and the stress load that can pile up when you’re sensitive to energy.
Some of the Burnout Symptoms I lived through
Burning out meant laying awake at night not being able to sleep. It meant crying every single day for hours. It meant only being able to read 350 words of text per day before I got a migraine. It meant that a single 5 minute phone call was a huge task. It meant that getting dressed easily took 2 hours.
Looking back on this now it sounds unbelievable, as if, surely I must be wildly exaggerating to make a point! But this is how it was, literally.
I was able to do some things. Cycling worked, if it wasn’t for too long. Though over time, my ability to ride a bike worsened. For several years, I could do it but I felt nervous throughout, as if I might fall. It took a very long time before riding a bike became no big deal again. Walking around was also o.k. That said, there were days when I could walk around for hours, but also days when my legs felt like they were made of lead and a 10 minute walk was my max.
The Problem of Recognizing Burnout in Time
Since burning out was a traumatic experience for me, I naturally didn’t want any of my clients ending up burned-out! So whenever I saw signs of any of my clients having too much on their plate, I made sure to point it out and warn them about where it could lead. (I still do)
One of the mindset indicators of looming burn-out is when someone keeps pushing and hanging in there for “just a few more weeks”. You know, like we were all encouraged to do during the pandemic…
Of course, if you’ve ever tried to tell anyone something inconvenient, you know that even if you’re right, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be heard!
Part of the problem of burn-out is that it is the outcome of lots of habits that devalue and ignore healthy limits. It’s not that you’re actively trying to sabotage your limits, it’s just that you likely grew up never having a very healthy and supportive sense of boundaries to start with. We learn boundaries from our family. So, when we don’t have very good role models growing up, we muddle through with what we’ve got, the best we can!
Anyway, I suspect that for some of my clients all of this translated as:
Somehow I managed this far… so what’s that concerned lady yapping on about anyway? It’s kind of annoying! I have responsibilities, I can’t just “slow down”! Doesn’t she see that?
So, long story short, there have been times when I ended up watching a client slowly slip into what I assumed would be an inevitable burn-out. Clearly, they weren’t going to heed my warnings, so life would just have to show them what was what. Then maybe we could start building back their energy once they realised how very seriously too much they had allowed their life to become.
Yet, surprise surprise. That inevitable burn-out didn’t always happen.
When Burning Out Mysteriously Doesn’t Happen
I have met a few clients over the years who just kept on going.
Barely had any sleep for over a year? No problem.
No time to even think? No problem.
Serious health issues that brought them to the hospital time and again? Gotta keep up with that 60+ hour workweek!
Every time I thought “yikes, now they’re really going to crash hard!”, they would just keep on keeping on.
Yes, they were miserable and desperate and complaining and yelling at their husband and what have you not, but they didn’t crash.
It really puzzled me. Clearly they were not doing o.k. Yet somehow, they were doing o.k.? What was going on here?
The Burn-out Boundary
What I learned over time is that even burn-out is a boundary. When you burn out, you get sick and have to stop working…
It’s not a fun boundary. It’s clearly not the first boundary you “should” have put in place (in an ideal world) but it’s still an important and healthy boundary. Your body says:
Enough is enough! We (the vital systems of your physical being) are pulling the plug and forcing you to deal with reality. You want to keep going but we won’t let you!
As terrifying as it is to experience burning out like this, it is a good sign. Yes, you were driving way too fast for way too long, but at the top of the cliff, your brakes still work!
So now you’re forced to sit there, at the top of the cliff and deal with the fears you’ve ignored, the sleepless nights you’ve made yourself push through and all the other issues that have been piling up for much too long. It’s not fun. It’s full on terrifying! But it is necessary.
What Happens When the Burnout Boundary is Ignored?
So what happens when someone doesn’t slam the breaks in time and keeps on driving?
My expectation was that they’d crash even worse at the bottom of the cliff.
Yet instead, it appeared they just magically turned their car into a plane… and kept on going!
Maybe this seems unbelievable or as something to envy. Do these people have magical bodies or what? I’m telling you though, it happens and it’s not worth emulating.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and when it comes to your health limits, there is no free lunch either.
Yet what some people have discovered is that when they keep on pushing, their body flips into an emergency state of what I’ve come to call psychic narcissism.
At this point, some folks feel very very off. That’s a good sign! It means that even though the brakes stopped working, the red blinking light is still on! Folks who don’t feel good in this emergency mode are also much more likely to turn around. They feel bad and want to go back to feeling better, not push on more.
Yet there are also people who feel very very good once they cross that line into psychic narcissism. As you might imagine, it’s pretty much impossible to convince someone who feels better than they ever felt before that something is in fact very very wrong.
So, what IS wrong exactly?
Essentially, what happens is that people who keep on going and going and going figure out how to run their system using energy from other people. It’s not magic. It’s more like creating a psychic form of slave labor.
They have figured out how to take the energy they need, from other people: friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues… anyone really.
Imagine how much you can do as just one person. Now imagine how much you could do if you had access to the power, stamina, inspiration, courage, enthusiasm etc of about 100 people. Or how about 1000?
Imagine the goals you could set. The expectations you could meet.
For people who have a lot they believe they need to get done, who feel entitled to have what they want – no matter the cost – and who believe the world owes them somehow… all of this is like Disneyland. Finally, their dreams are coming true! Finally, they have the resources to make things happen!
Plus, this kind of feeding off of other people’s energy tends to come with a massive dose of dissociating: this means no longer feeling the pains and tensions in the body. One person I knew said that finally, she felt the peace she always craved!
It wasn’t peace though, it was numbing out, combined with an influx of massive energy resources from other people.
Think: scam artist high on cocaine, who just convinced 1000 grannies to hand over their life savings.
When do you Hit the Emergency Switch?
Emergency measures are meant for emergencies. They are meant to be temporary.
The body has an inner switch that allows it to survive when technically, it should crash. This emergency switch could save someone’s life. If you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, hurt, and need to drag yourself to the nearest hospital… then the ability to keep on keeping on will save your life.
The question is, when do you hit the emergency switch?
The body was designed to have an emergency switch for life or death situations. It’s not meant to be used to be able to get that promotion, impress your friends, or avoid dealing with uncomfortable realities.
Is stealing some life force for a few hours, while you drag your body to a hospital, a big crime? No, I think that’s what was designed to happen. People who know you and care about you would want you to pull from their resources in those crucial moments.
Yet, is it other people’s job to give you the energy you need to pursue all your interests, and boost your career, and be successful? Is it other people’s job to boost your energy so you don’t need to be sick and uncomfortable? No, not at all.
It’s your job to make do with the energy you have and manage that energy well. There are lots of ways to boost your own energy, and they all require discipline and effort: healthy eating, good sleep, staying grounded, feeling your feelings, not putting your ego in control, listening to your body and your natural limits and respecting those…
Moral Boundaries – or not?
Ultimately, for people who just keep on blasting their way through, the problem is not just a lack of boundaries. It’s a lack of moral boundaries.
When the body goes into crisis mode, switches on psychic narcissism abilities, and feeds off of the energy of others, this is not meant to last long. It’s supposed to be (very, very) temporary.
The only way someone can keep on living like this is when they believe it’s totally fine to take from people who they believe have “more” than them or who don’t “deserve” what they have.
This is why I call this state “psychic narcissism“. People say power corrupts. Well, access to extra energy is a kind of power. It does corrupt many people. They may have been decent before but now that they can smell those mountains of energy, their ego just takes off.
The Narcissism in Psychic Narcissism
Living off of other people’s energy, the way psychic narcissists do ongoingly, is not innocent. It’s not just a cute mistake. It’s an indication that deep down, someone believes it’s perfectly alright to take from someone when they feel they need it.
Of course there is always a reason. That reason may be trauma. It may be over-giving in other ways but ultimately if someone believes it’s perfectly alright to steal what is not theirs to make themselves feel better, they are crossing a moral boundary.
There is no excuse for it. There are plenty of people who are severely traumatised and/or struggling with unfair low energy somehow and yet who don’t do this. Or who – if they do – make all the needed effort to go back to the healthy side of the line asap.
Just like a scam artist is desperate to live above their means, a psychic narcissist who keeps on keeping on, is desperate to live above their means. They are out of touch with reality but because they found a way to make it work they ultimately convince themselves that it is o.k.
This is why, beyond a certain point, you need to give up on people who choose to live this way.
They will keep racking up more “bills”, and if you stay connected to them, they will make you “pay”. Nothing is going to convince them that what they are doing is wrong, because they are on a high: a high of being able to do whatever they please without any consequences.
Is There No Ultimate Boundary?
Energy is like money. It’s only “limitless” when you build some kind of pyramid scheme and put yourself at the top. And eventually, even a very successful pyramid scheme will crash.
I’ve been trying to understand this issue for a while now and what I found is that while people can get away with some of this energy stealing without any seeming consequences, there does come a point when their body crashes. This is when mysterious illnesses without a cure set in. Yet, it can take many many years for this to happen.
Folks who do this do not burn out, they burn through.
They burn through their own resources, then they burn through other people’s resources and eventually, they burn through their own health in very dramatic non-fixable ways. Before it gets that far though, they can do many years worth of damage to many people.
The Moral of the Story?
Not everyone burns out, some people burn through.
If you’re wondering how on earth someone just keeps on going no matter what, be careful. They may be much less healthy than you think, and you may be the on who ends up paying for it.
P.S. If you have an indestructible tank of a person in your life who just keeps on going beyond all human odds, and meanwhile, you feel like your own energy is going down the drain in mysterious ways, I can help. Set up a conversation with me here so I can put my intuition to work and we can figure out what’s going on, and what will fix it.
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