When Burnout Becomes a Burn: A story of pain, pause, and transformation
There was a bucket of boiling water…
A flash of searing heat.
A second-degree burn.
An emergency room visit.
And a message from life I could no longer ignore.
I had danced with exhaustion before,
the kind that creeps in slowly, quietly,
camouflaged as care.
I had lived in devotion:
to soul families, to sacred homes, to a thousand to-do lists dressed up as service.
But this time…
my body didn’t whisper.
It screamed.
The injury wasn’t random.
It was a reckoning.
Mother Nature, in her fierce love, had intervened.
My internal burnout had finally erupted on the outside.
And suddenly, everything had to stop.
I couldn’t push through. Couldn’t smile and carry on. Couldn’t hustle through the pain. It was time to choose myself. Not in theory. Not as a someday. But now. Fully. Unapologetically. This burn was more than skin deep. It was cellular. An initiation. A wake-up call I could feel in my bones.
There, in the bandages and the forced stillness, something softened. I began to see what I hadn’t let myself see before. That I had been negotiating with life, saying yes when I meant no, tending others before tending myself, mistaking exhaustion for devotion, and calling it love.
But love doesn’t hollow you out.
Real love, for self, for others, for Source, nourishes.
And so began a reorientation.
A sacred surrender.
From the ashes of that injury…
Five truths rose:
1. Listen to Your Body: It always speaks.
First with a whisper.
Then with a nudge.
Eventually with a roar.
Please don’t wait for the roar.
2. Embrace Change
Letting go of the familiar is terrifying.
But comfort zones don’t birth new versions of you.
They coddle the tired ones.
Sometimes, pain clears the path.
3. Set Boundaries
Loving yourself means disappointing others sometimes.
That doesn’t make you selfish.
It makes you sovereign.
4. Seek Support
You don’t have to hold it all.
Let yourself be held too.
By friends. By therapists. By nature. By the Divine.
5. Practice Self-Compassion
This is not the soft option.
This is sacred work.
Rest recalibrates your nervous system.
Compassion rewires your self-worth.
If your body has been whispering lately…
If burnout is knocking at your door…
Let this be your sign:
You don’t have to wait for the burn.
You are allowed to stop before the emergency.
Before your body takes the choice away.
But if it’s already happened, if you too are wrapped in metaphorical or literal bandages,
please know:
You are not broken.
You are breaking open.
There is something holy in the pause.
Something redemptive in the unraveling.
This is not punishment.
This is fierce love.
Your body is not an inconvenience.
Boundaries are not betrayal.
Change is not failure.
Rest is not weakness.
And needing support doesn’t make you less spiritual.
It makes you human.
So here’s the invitation:
Lay down the story of having to do it all.
Put down the productivity altar.
And come home.
To your breath.
To your body.
To the knowing that your needs are sacred.
You are not here to burn out.
You are here to burn bright.
