Is it burnout - or internalized capitalism?
If you are anything like me, where you enjoy searching current keyword and topic trends, then i’m sure you have noticed an uptick lately of the topics of both burnout as well as mental health. When I recently was doing research for Summer 2022 marketing trends, in numerous occasions I came to articles that stated that discussions around both burnout and mental health are quite big right now in the realm of online business. If I know one thing for sure it’s that we should not ever take the angle of glamorizing the concept of burnout. Rather, we must consider why this topic is currently trending and what we can do to not just simply attempt to avoid or cure burnout, but get to the root causes that are creating such things in the first place. Within this article I dissect ways we can look at as well as approach burnout, providing alternative approaches to this topic that you may not have considered before. As well, I share ways to determine whether you are in a state of burnout (no shame if you are! In reality, most of us probably are) and how to get to the root of your burnout woes.
There is no real way to completely avoid or heal from burnout in a capitalistic system
Kicking things off with a bold headline, but hear me out. One of the most important things i’ve learned about burnout is that its becoming a systemic crisis brought on by the capitalistic system we reside in (speaking as a USA resident). When curious as to whether you are in a state of burnout, I find it helpful to ask yourself “Is this burnout I am experiencing, or the effects of internalized capitalism?”. The answer may be both (and probably is). Yet, when examining our relationship to burnout, we are often taught that it is a personal problem. It’s something that happens to us because we did something wrong. We worked too hard. We didn’t enforce clear boundaries. We’re workaholics. We didn’t ask for help when we should have. We didn’t delegate enough. We didn’t have efficient systems in place. The list goes on yet here is the problem with this approach to examining burnout: It puts all of the responsibility on the individual to solve… and also it teaches us to respond to burnout from a space of “fix the problems causing burnout so you can get back to a highly productive work pace”. Most of the ways in which I have been taught to respond to burnout have been bandaid approaches, meaning, I’d been encouraged to take some sort of actions in response to my burnout so that I can get back to being a highly efficient work machine. This approach to burnout does not solve the underlying causes of this issue, but rather, just puts a bandaid on it.
There are many reasons that someone may experience the sensations of burnout. What is important to understand is that burnout is a consequence of experiencing prolonged states of extreme stress. Have you listened to the news lately or looked out your window? There are endless reasons for us to be extremely stressed right now as a society! In a capitalistic system, we often do not give ourselves (or be given) the time to slow down enough to fully process our experiences. Currently standing, I can turn on the news or open up my social media apps at any given time to find countless headlines about countless stressful things going on in our world. If you’re like me and you try your best to stay informed about social and environmental happenings going on around you, then this eco and social stress may be even more so than others experience. The world IS stressful right now so it comes at no surprise that so many folks are feeling extreme stress to the level that it is causing them to become burnt out. So then, why would we try to fix our burn out as if it was all our fault that it was created in the first place? In case you need the reminder, the environmental collapse happening around us as well as all of the ongoing social injustices taking place are not your fault. If you are experiencing burnout as a consequence of the very traumatic and stressful times we currently live in, that also is not your fault.
Burnout is most often attached to work. We become burnt out when we work too much or become workaholics. Yet, I invite you to examine ways in which you may become burnt out that have little to nothing to do with the work you do in the world. Maybe its prolonged stress coming from family dynamics. Or maybe its prolonged stress from having to be responsible for so many things in order to survive the day. There are many reasons one becomes burnt out, and it doesn’t always come back to their relationship with their work. Personally, i’ve experienced burnout in the past due to traumatic and stressful events that have taken place with family members and I have become burnt out by ongoing stress revolving around social and environmental crises. Neither of these examples had anything to do with my work, and in some instances my work even became an outlet that created a sense of relief from the burnout I was experiencing in my personal life.
Signs that point to burnout
There are many signals that we can receive that point to us being in a state of burnout. From physical symptoms to emotional, mental and spiritual side effects, burnout effects each of us differently. Make no mistake, though: burnout is nothing to mess with and it is alarming that it is now becoming such a normalized experience for so many people. For me, I know I am entering into states of burnout when I am highly irritable, moody, depressed, fatigued, or begin experiencing muscle soreness. I also notice that when I am in a state of burnout I grind my teeth, clench my jaw to the point of constant jaw pain and headaches, and have an overall sense of ongoing dread toward the day. I also typically get pretty ‘glass half empty’ in my perspective toward things.
Here are some common signs of burnout for you to consider:
Headaches
Fatigue (mental, emotional, physical)
Intestinal issues and distress
Appetite changes
Severe mood fluctuations
Chronic anxiety
Depression
Cynicism
Skin changes
Lack of motivation
Little sense of creativity or ability to imagine
The above signs relate directly to how burnout shows up on and within our body. What I notice is that if your burnout is beginning to show these signs, then chances are you are in a pretty severe state of burnout. Recently when I was browsing my Twitter feed I came to a tweet where a fellow freelancer I follow stated that they had been in the hospital due to burnout. I have seen these types of stories many times throughout my career where individuals wind up hospitalized because the symptoms they are experiencing from burnout become so severe that they need medical assistance. These types of cases are indeed extreme but it’s important to understand just how serious burnout can become if left unchecked.
Now that we understand ways in which burnout can show up in our bodies, I want to know discuss some deeper signs that you may be on the path to burnout. This article is intended to help you relate to burnout in a different way; a way that acknowledges how the very systems we exist in contribute to our experiences with burnout. Before seeing burnout show up like the above examples, there are underlying signals that we can look for to help us avoid entering into such extreme states of burnout.
Here are some deeper signs to look for:
Feelings of guilt when you take breaks
Feeling like you should always be doing something
Difficulty resting
Not being able to shut off your brain / thoughts
Trouble sleeping (you wake up often)
Attaching the amount of work you produce to how good you feel about your work (the more you DO, the better you feel about your work)
Attaching your self worth to your work (you feel less worthy when you make less money, have less clients, aren’t as busy, don’t get as many likes/comments/follows, etc)
Societal pressure makes you feel like you can’t take a break, take time off, or slow down otherwise something negative will happen to you
You’re constantly striving for more and nothing ever feels like it’s enough
You have a hard time celebrating yourself and what you’ve accomplished (or you even forget to do so)
You catch yourself constantly seeking external validation and often don’t feel worthy without it
You often work on things that don’t even fulfill you simply because you think you don’t have any other choice
You typically take on far bigger of a workload than what you’re reasonably capable of managing
You feel sensations of guilt or shame when you don’t get something accomplished
You struggle to form relationships with people outside of your work
You struggle to give time for hobbies or interests that don’t pertain to work
Chances are, as you read the above list, you said “Yep, that’s me” to at least several of the points. I can check off over half of that list, so no need to feel embarrassed or alarmed if you can, too! These signs are not just common, they are becoming normal states of being for many if not all of us. Why? Because the social constructs we exist in have taught us to function this way. We have learned how to work and live with high functioning anxiety, stress and burn out and the worst part is that in many ways this is a way for us to survive. When our lives literally depend on us constantly working, striving, producing, and being as efficient as possible in order to be able to pay our bills, put food on the table, clothe ourselves and keep a roof over our heads then yeah, it comes as no surprise when I say that burnout is a consequence of capitalism.
Let’s discuss what capitalism is. Capitalism is an economic system driven by the desire for perpetually increasing profit and production. The more we produce, the more profit we make. The goal in capitalism is to drive an increase of capital (aka money). Capitalism drives this increase via production of goods and/or services. Capitalism succeeds through competitive markets and the thirst for increases in wealth. Right now in the USA we are seeing side effects of late stage capitalism, which is an extreme version of a capitalistic economic system that winds up producing an increase of exploitations, injustices, discriminations and inequalities as capitalists continue pushing for more profit, production and wealth accumulation. Those that face the short end of the capitalism stick typically therefore experience levels of exploitation, discrimination, inequity and injustice as the hand of capitalists that are dominating the economic system.
How does this relate to burnout? Well, we are the producers for capitalists. Every day people are the ones creating the products and services that capitalists then sell and profit from. We are also the ones that are impacted by actions and behaviors of capitalists. When a market is largely controlled by a small amount of people who hold the most wealth and therefore power, those people typically dominate laws, regulations, and status quo norms. Things like overall price increases, market manipulation, costs of living, food shortages, minimum wages, job security and benefits, access to health care, and so much more are all influenced by capitalism. What you may notice here is that capitalism therefore directly influences the very things that we require as humans to live. As humans, when accessing and meeting our basic human needs is dependent (or at least influenced by) on forces outside of ourselves, this can be incredibly stressful (and scary). As you can see, the current social constructs we exist in impact our stress levels tremendously. And we now know that burnout is a consequence of prolonged states of chronic stress.
Internalized capitalism and burnout
We can internalize capitalism in many ways. Chances are, you have internalized in without even knowing it because often times the pillars of a capitalistic system are so engrained in us from such a young age that we don’t even realize it. Rather, we just accept it as a way of life. What I hope you get out of this article is that not only is this not a healthy way of life, it is also a way of life that we do indeed have a choice as to whether or not we want to subscribe to. Now i’m not saying we can simply blink our eyes or change one habit in our day and poof! We have relinquished capitalism’s hold on us. It is not that simple and it’s going to take much more work.
Here are a couple of common side effects of internalized capitalism to be on the look out for:
You put your work before your health and happiness
No matter how much you do, it never feels like enough
Your sense of work is directly attached to your productivity
You have to be a human ‘doing’ in order to feel any sense of value
You undervalue your achievements and often downplay them as not being enough
You feel a sense of pressure to always be doing more due to comparing yourself to others
As you can now see, the way we relate to ourselves, our worth and value and our productivity largely influences not just how we feel about ourselves but also how we show up in the world. When we don’t feel worthy or of value, we often try to work more, produce more, or DO more in order to gain those feelings. This is internalized capitalism because capitalism is a system that teaches us that the more we produce the more we profit. Profit, in our current world, directly relates to our ability to access our basic human needs. If we do not have money, we cannot survive. Thus, our very survival is linked to our production. This, then, may be why so many folks struggle to shut down, unplug, rest, and take time off. Not only are we taught that doing so makes us lazy (which actually doesn’t even exist!), but we are also taught that doing so could jeopardize our ability to exist. Our very existence is linked to being human DOINGS in a capitalistic system.
How to heal from burnout
How do we avoid or heal from burnout, you ask? I’m sorry, but I don’t have the full answer to that so if you are looking for it here you won’t find it. I do, however, have a few thoughts that may help us at least start moving in that direction.
The first one being that we need to start looking at burnout as a systemic issue, not just a personal problem. We must acknowledge that the very ways our society is set up creates a perfect environment for burnout to grow in. We will never be able to move our society away from perpetual and ongoing states of burnout without addressing the systemically unhealthy aspects of our society. No amount of better boundaries, less working, or prioritizing hobbies will fully cure a society that has been taught that our worth and value is directly related to how much they produce or profit.
Secondly, we must begin deprogramming ourselves from the beliefs that our worth and value is attached to our productivity! This is crucial in order to at least reduce our experiences with burnout. Yet, this is also not a one size fits all thing and each of us will have to deeply examine our own relationship to burnout, capitalism and productivity. In deeply harmful capitalistic systems like we are currently experiencing in the United States of America, these systems do not harm each and every person in the same ways. It is the forcibly oppressed and those that face ongoing levels of discrimination that typically endure the worst consequences of capitalism and therefore are the highest risk for experiencing extreme levels of burnout. As well, the further away your proximity to wealth and therefore power is, the more you will be harmed by capitalism and therefore risk experiencing more extreme levels of burnout. This does not mean that people who have easy access to money, power or privilege do not experience burnout, it just means that their experiences are typically not as extreme or deeply linked to systemic corruption as others. Truth be told, our system is failing the bulk of society. It is causing people to have to overwork to survive, sacrifice their wellbeing in order to simply stay alive, and learn to live with fluctuating states of burnout as if it were just normal. Trust me, burnout is not a normal state of being. Its a consequence and reflection on brokenness within our social systems and imbalances within ourselves.
Thirdly, I believe that one of the best forms of medicine for burnout is simply talking about our experiences in places where we feel safe to do so and with folks that can relate. Community care is medicine! We can find strength, solace, comfort, support and relatability within our bonding amongst one another. We can come together and find connection through our common challenges. And, I believe that we can also come up with solutions to our challenges when we work together. I cannot provide an answer to burnout because it’s not as simple as telling you to examine your boundaries or change the way you are prioritizing your projects. I cannot tell you to just stop taking on too much or just practice more self care. Self care won’t save us from burn out, but community care may.
Lastly, there are a few things I do find to bring comfort when trying to reduce the effects burnout. I’m not saying these things will remove burnout altogether, but do believe they can at least make it a little bit more manageable. Please remember that reducing or healing burnout goes far beyond these activities and we cannot heal entirely from something unless we address the root cause of our issues.
Some ideas for managing burnout:
Time blocking your priorities: This practice has brought me a great deal of support as I am someone who typically takes on far more than I should, which causes me to easily slip into states of overwhelm, anxiety and burnout. It’s not realistic for me to tell you to just stop doing so much because the very things you are doing may be connected to the ways in which you fulfill your basic human needs. So instead I recommend learning how to time block so that you can focus on just 1 thing at a time. This requires you to also do some personal development and mindfulness work, where you train yourself to only mentally think about what’s in front of you that you are working on at that moment. You may have a dozen things time blocked in any given day, but the goal is to only focus on the one thing that you are working on in the current window of time so to help reduce the amount of overwhelm you may be carrying within your body.
Build a support team: Instead of telling you to learn how to better delegate or outsource things you don’t need to be doing yourself, instead I recommend simply focusing on building a support team. Sure, this may be a literal team of contractors or employees you hire to help you, or it may be close friends, community members or family members that you can turn to for support. There are many different ways we can cultivate support systems in our lives as well as work and it’s important to develop various types. I like looking at asking for help as building my support team because then I can communicate with these people about how I want to be supported, what I need help with, and can follow up by asking them how I can support and help them as well. This support team should be built on mutual benefit. If all else, you can always join local or online support groups! This helps us form meaningful relationships and learn how to function from a state of community instead of competition and comparison.
When you have the opportunity, deliberately say Yes to things that excite you: This last tip is for those that work for themselves like I do. If you are a freelancer, service provider, or creative of some sense that manages your own schedule and workload, it’s important to learn how to discern what you say Yes and No to. As freelancers, we often take on far more than we should simply because we can handle it. Get clear on how much you WANT to do instead of just going by what you know you CAN do. Remember: Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. Next, discern what really excites you in relation to the projects, clients, and overall tasks in connection to your work. If you have the ability to get a little bit more picky and choosy about what you do, how you do things, who you work with, and what projects or tasks you take one… then do so! We have to be the ones to determine when enough is enough and what our capacity is. We also have to be the ones to choose our joy and wellbeing for ourselves. This has been a big lesson for me as I am someone who has no problem taking on tons of projects and multi tasking my way through everything I do within my work. I have had to learn the hard way that burnout is not a badge of honor and that my wellbeing is not something to sacrifice for the sake of more money, clients, validation, fame, and so on.
We have a long way to go before we can collectively experience a world where burnout is a consequence of just trying to exist. I hope that this article helps you begin to view burnout in a new way and that it also empowers you to begin putting into practice some of the things I recommended as a way to move society into a direction that is free from burnout being a norm. Have thoughts, experiences or ideas in response to this topic? I'd love to hear them. Drop me a message if you’d like to chat more about this topic.
Until next time…
Natalie Brite
