Hi friends! 💚 I want to share something personal about this class I’ve been teaching, Creative & Mindful Approaches to Burnout and Ethics
In it, we explore evidence-based tools for burnout recovery, and we also make a “Gentle Burnout Recovery Plan” to implement during the week following the class. We look at what is likely to get in the way of doing so (only 2 mins a day, we ask!), and we plan ahead.
I have an advantage because I’ve taught the class multiple times, so I know that this invitation is coming. Before the last live session, I thought I might like to add in 2 minutes of making music (guitar and singing) for a week. This was a big deal for me because although I’ve played for almost 30 years, sometimes I go through long spells of using my creativity elsewhere.
I don’t make myself wrong about it. I just leave the guitar on its stand where I can grab it, and I figure I’ll pick it up again when I’m ready. Also, last year, the person who handed me my guitar all those years ago passed away unexpectedly. When I first tried to play after he died, I was overwhelmed and didn’t pick it up again for quite some time.
For my most recent Gentle Burnout Recovery Plan, I felt open to micro music moments, just out of curiosity. And don’t ya know, it kept going after that first week. I could feel my nervous system positively responding to singing. My body, so tired of touching screens and keyboards, was drinking in the vibrations of the strings — the wood against my body.
After about a month, I went on a trip out of town for a week. Although I was blessed to take in a lot of art and some high-level music while traveling, I didn’t play guitar at all. I was curious (and a little concerned) about whether I’d pick it back up when I got home — or if I’d be in another long spell of not playing.
Yesterday was my first full day home, and when I suggested to myself that I play around for 2 minutes (why not!?), I was thrilled to discover it was super fun — and that all the culture I’d taken in on my trip had inspired me even more.
I played a song I haven’t touched in ages, but at one point it had been my most-played. Eventually my muscles remembered it (after going through the chords and lyrics on an app a few times), and it was just super fun. Two minutes turned into something more — and it was unexpectedly special.
As we discuss in the Burnout and Ethics class, life will most likely attempt to get in the way of our Gentle Burnout Recovery Plans. We are currently wired for easy dopamine hits that come from things like random notifications and endless scrolling. Especially when tired or burned out, it can feel like a Herculean task to override that reach for an easy hit and do just a little something to disrupt the pattern. A little tiny bit of self-loving. I mean, it’s only 2 minutes. How insane is it that we have to really work to squeeze that in?
Just so you know, I usually end up playing longer than 2 minutes — yesterday was, I don’t know, 30–45. However, some days, I simply grab the guitar and make up a song on the spot that I’ll forget as soon as I put it down, and do that for the 2 minutes I’m waiting for the microwave to warm up my dinner. As it is with simple creativity, consistency beats quantity when forming and maintaining a habit.
And being light about it. This isn’t a chore. This is good for me. This is loving to me. This is healing for me. And I don’t have any rules on it. If I stop playing today, that’s okay too. I don’t want to, but it would be all right.
The energetic pull of burnout is paradoxically (at times) towards more stress. The hormones of stress that surge through our bodies can be highly addictive. But we have the right and self-respect to choose how we prefer at least some of our time to be.
This is why a burnout class counts as ethics credits — we’re responsible for being self-aware and applying our recovery skills in our own lives, too.
Even if you don’t need ethics CEUs right now, you can still benefit from the conversation — and we benefit from having you in it. It can make a tangible difference for you, as it has for me [and covers 3 hours of ethics! (ASWB approved)].
You can start imagining now what you’d like to implement for your Gentle Burnout Recovery Plan.
And why wait? Do you have 2 minutes right now?
Start the recorded course anytime
OR
Register now to join us for the next live (on Zoom) session, Friday, June 5
