Burnout

I think I could be the poster boy for being burned out, but every burned-out person I have ever known feels the same way. We all seem to have the same symptoms and reactions although everyone deals with it in a way that fits them.

I burned out while serving an exciting and healthy church, doing a job I loved and having the most success I would ever know. I kept a far too busy schedule while companioning far too many people through unbelievable conflicts and pain, but, as I hope to show in this blog, the schedule, or the kind of issues I tried to help people face did not cause me to burn out. Who I was inside and how I related to me was the ultimate cause.

I have no idea how many readers of this blog are burned out, but one thing I think I do know is most of those do not know they are or at least how close they are to being in the camp with me. Burnout is insidious, if slips up on us. There are no dynamic blaring cymbals that cannot be ignored. There are, however, some red flags that can give us some warnings or clues we should not ignore. I think there is a list of these red flags. I am sure I don’t have all of them but the ones I have certainly fit me.

BURNOUT IS THE GRADUAL LOSS OF:
IDEALS
We gradually become more sarcastic, more cynical, more willing to let the end justify the means and wink at things we once would have stood against. I think we need to check our cynicism rate on a regular basis.

PURPOSE
I remember sitting on the platform waiting for my time to speak and suddenly thinking, “If preaching can change the world it should have already done so, there has never been a shortage of preaching.” That thought from a person that at one time had a burning passion to say things that would help and challenge the congregation and myself to higher levels of life. Now I was just going through motions to just do the job with no expectations or joy.

ENERGY
Tired with no way to get untired; seemed like I had some kind of load on my shoulders that took away my energy.

HUMOR
My sense of humor is one of my most precious possessions. Things began to be far too serious. I hid it well and told a lot of jokes and stories but inside I had lost a great deal of the joy and what they used to call being light-hearted.

Things I normally would not notice began to upset me. I made mountains out of mole hills and then climbed the mountain and counted the rocks.

MORALS
Burnout plays tricks on the mind. We begin to have pity parties and tell ourselves that everyone wants something from us, but no one puts anything back and wonder when we will get ours. Unfortunately, there is usually someone willing to give us what we want but certainly do not need. I am convinced that most of the affairs men have after they turn forty have very little to do with sex and a whole lot to do with burnout. I have a far different feeling toward the ministers who get caught in affairs. We have no idea what temptations they face nor what impact burnout can have. In my case I ran. I moved to a different church and honestly believe had I not done so I may well have really messed up.

The numbness continued at the new place until after ten years I was able to find a new career and new enthusiasm for which I am eternally grateful.

The question then becomes, "What can we do to avoid burnout?" I do not claim any magic or absolute cures but maybe working through some ideas might help us learn how to take better care of ourselves.

On a sheet of paper make three columns. At the top of the first column write the word Stress. At the top of the second column write Tension. At the top of the third write Self.

Under the Stress column write the normal unavoidable things that cause stress in your life. Such things as time, traffic, health issues, money issues, work pressures… the things you worry about.

Under Tension write the names of those people who jerk a knot in your stomach. In this exercise tension is people related. I hope you destroy the list after we finish so you can feel free to write the names of anyone who creates tension in your life: bosses, mates, children, parents, in-laws etc. All of them.

Stress management seminars have much to offer us in ways to reduce and handle the stuff in the Stress column. Relaxation techniques, diet, meditation, sleep, perhaps prayer, exercise, music… the list is long, and the ideas are very helpful in teaching us how to relieve stress.

But these ideas do not work on Tension. We must learn how to get the folks that create the tension in our lives off of our backs. They somehow have found a way to get under our skin and control us. I call that hooks. Folks hook us.

HOOKS
We are all hookers. I don’t mean the happy hooker kind, but we all use hooks to motivate people or get our way without having to actually ask or admit our real motives. So much of our lives are spent either hooking folks or biting the hooks they throw at us.

Marriages don’t have fights; they have a fight over and over. No matter what the issue is, the fight will move to the hooks that always work. I listened to a couple argue through the too-thin walls of a motel room. The wife began to win, and I knew the “never-fail hook” was on its way. With no connection to the subject they were dealing with the husband blurted out, “Well it wasn’t me that wanted the abortion.” I could almost hear the wind go out of her and she began to cry while saying, “You were part of the decision and you have promised me a thousand times to never bring that up again.” Somehow, we always go the “never-fail hook”

There are only three hooks: Guilt, Fear, and Anger or the threat of anger, and people usually use them in that order. First, they try to make us feel guilty. If that doesn’t work, then they try to use some kind of threat or fear followed by anger to clinch the deal.

The hard part is learning first how to spot the hooks. If we do not see them coming, we will be hooked before we realize one was even thrown our way. I make a game out of it. When someone starts trying to motivate or convince me of some thought or action, I look for the guilt. I even ask myself how I think it will come. Then I start looking for the fear and then wondering if they are going to get mad when fear doesn’t work of if they are going to try to make me mad so I will not be in control.

It is not easy, and it will take time and training, but we will never release the tensions in our lives as long as we bite the hooks.

Our lives are far too absorbed by what others think about us or threaten to do to us. We live in fear of a people called “They” and do not even know who “They” are. I love the poster that says, “Your opinion of me is none of my business.”

Manipulation is by invitation only. No one can manipulate us without our letting them do so.

SELF
My schedule was a killer, but that is not what burned me out. My problem was my own lack of self-worth. I was the unblessed child in my family which lead not only to feelings of inferiority, but left me performing, trying to get folks to like me. I got so good at the performance that I found myself in over my head trying to do tasks I did not feel qualified to do. I lived in fear of being exposed as mainly just smoke and mirrors.

I found relief only when I learned to accept and love myself, which in my case came from a new discovery of the love of God. I finally accepted a thing called grace which meant God loves me just the way I am. Like the little boy said, “I am me and I am good cause God don’t make no junk.”

CAREGIVER SYNDROME
The performance for love led to what I call a Caregiver Syndrome. I learned to give love and serve others, but I never learned how to be loved or to be served by others. So, I had no way to take care of my own needs and no way to let others help me do so. I kept it all inside. I now know that it is what we swallow that makes us sick.

I would sit up all night and listen to someone’s pain but never share my pain. That is caregiver syndrome.

I would go the second mile and look for ways to do the third one but find it hard to ask for even very simple helps from others. That is caregiver syndrome.

This is still an issue I must struggle with. There aren’t many actual cures in our lives there are only discoveries of who we are and how we relate so we can recognize and avoid that which is natural for us.

I was making speeches in Atlanta, Georgia when my brother died. I called his room in California at noon and he died while I was on the phone. I had to make a speech at 4:00 and another at 7:30 I made them both and never told a soul about my brother. I did not want their sympathy. I thought that was humility and now see it as arrogance. I could not admit that I needed anything from other people.

That happened on a Wednesday and I was staying over another day in order to be interviewed on CNN. I made arrangements for my wife and mother to catch a plane in Texas on Friday and my flight would meet them in Phoenix so we could fly on to California together. I went to bed that night with those plans made. Then it hit me that I did not want to do that. I wanted to go home. I wanted to find someone to cry with. I wanted to let down my guard and be as weak as I really felt.

I caught the first plane home the next morning. That is one of the healthiest days of my life. It is not enough to know how to love, it is only enough to know how to be loved in return.