Self Worth and Burnout

How can I recover from burnout and continue to build the highway towards authentic self-worth and self-empowerment?

I have been experiencing symptoms of burnout this last month. My feelings have been of exhaustion, lethargy and disinterest from my daily schedule and it’s’ associated tasks.

My schedule has been affected and my relationships have been affected as well. I’ve been unable to perform to my previous standards at work and have been out of touch from friends. A volunteer project has been delayed as well.

How did I begin to struggle with burnout and why?

I began to struggle with burnout from my feelings around the sudden loss of my former neighbour and classmate. The loss was shocking and the trial around it deeply traumatising to watch. At the same time, our understanding of the course of events surrounding her passing was causing us fear, anguish, confusion, worry, and anxiety as well as sorrow about the course of events that had taken place.

The feelings of anguish, confusion, worry, sorrow, anxiety were affecting my overall mental wellbeing.

This was also affected by the sudden invasion of our neighbouring country by terrorists. It caused feelings of outrage, disgust, embarrassment, hatred, shock, and confusion towards the terrorists, who had stolen the peace of my extended family members several years ago.

These feelings of disgust, outrage, hatred, shock, embarrassment, and confusion affected my wellbeing and caused me to begin feeling utterly hopeless and disinterested in my day to day life.

My wellbeing has also been affected by the ongoing lockdown which hasn’t ended in my country, as there are still individuals who have yet to be fully vaccinated. Instead, these restrictions are in place and we remain restricted to travelling on certain days and times, to certain places. Our general mobility is affected heavily by this lockdown.

I have been feeling burnt out in part, due to the restrictions on my mobility through the nationwide lockdown as well.

These events and this lockdown have been tiring to experience, as these feelings resurface with new developments regarding the passing of my neighbour. Similarly, the ongoing political changes nearby are not immediately being reformed. The lockdown itself is only being applied using the number of unvaccinated as the justification.

The resurfacing nature of these events have been triggering burnout symptoms as the feelings associated to them increase in intensity as a result of the number of times I am exposed to the same kind of stimuli.

How can I continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment whilst recovering from burnout?

These emotions are normal. I have been experiencing these emotions as a result of these events, and not spontaneously. I cannot be critical of myself for reacting to negative events in a negative manner; that is the natural response to negative events.

These emotions I’m feeling are natural responses to negative events, and I can’t be critical of them for existing, as they are normal.

These emotions feel painful as they are negative, but they are feelings, at the end of the day, not anything else. I’m feeling negative emotions, which are causing me to feel burnt out. Nothing else.

These are just painful feelings, nothing else. I am not experiencing anything other than painful feelings due to the stimuli that I am exposed to.

I am also not responsible for the events that are ongoing. These events aren’t within my control. It is a global pandemic that affects every person on this planet. Similarly, an entire country is being affected by a terrorist takeover. A whole family has been devastated by the loss of their child.

I am not alone in my feelings, nor am I the only person to experience negative reactions to these events that are occurring right now. I am also not the one in control of these events.

I feel angry and upset at these events having happened, but these events are in reality, happening to people every day. Such homicides of women are incidents which occur worldwide. Terrorist groups exist in multiple countries and have taken over governments in the past. Global pandemics have occurred in the past two decades with the Bird and Swine flu.

My reaction is more personalised this time around, causing burnout. However, all three of these events have happened before, and occur across this planet from time to time.

In order to recover from burnout, I need to recognise that the reaction I give is highly personalised. This is triggering burnout in reaction to the stimuli that I’m being exposed to. I’m reacting to it as if it is happening directly to me, even though these events, while occurring, aren’t happening to me, right here, right now.

These events aren’t happening to me right here, right now. My personalised reaction is triggering a burnout to the exposed stimuli.

I find that these events are usually the product of news updates, social media posts, conversations with family and friends, thereby exposing me to information that relates to these issues. In order to recover fully from burnout, I will need to silence these channels for a few weeks until full recovery.

In order to recover from burnout, I will need to silence these channels until complete recovery. This includes social media, web-based news, and conversations with family and friends about these events.

I have to recognise that these issues, while affecting me, are not within my sphere of control. So, it is not logical for me to carry forward efforts to try and control these events or the issues surrounding them. I need to let go and allow them to take their regular course.

I need to let go and let these events take their course instead of trying to control them, in order to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

Self Worth and Loss

How can I heal from the loss of my schoolmate and neighbour and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Last week, I lost someone I had reconnected with after many years, to a gruesome incident. Her departure left many unanswered questions, confusion, and uncertainty. I was shocked at first, then devastated, angry, and remain so.

I am furious at the sudden departure of my neighbour and schoolmate in such a violent manner.

It angers me that she was not given any physical medical attention for her wounds. It angers me that the police were not called to the crime scene. It angers me that the use of violence was brutal, designed to create life threatening injuries, and that the entire incident was pre-meditated.

The neglect, violence, and malicious intent behind the crime anger me.

I feel angry that instead of being given protection by the surrounding people in the neighbourhood, no one intervened. Instead of being assisted with police intervention, there was a therapy team called, that too, for the perpetrator and not the victim.

The clear disregard for the victim’s physical and mental wellbeing among the residents of the neighbourhood and the residents of the home alongside the therapy team infuriates me.

I feel angry that the victim lost her life for a person’s twisted pre-planned scenario. I feel angry that the victim wasn’t given even an iota of legal or physical protection from this perpetrator. I feel angry that the victim did not get any support until it was too late.

I feel angry that the victim lost her life, due to the lack of support, protection and due to the pre-planned murder.

I feel furious at the perpetrator’s disregard for the health and wellbeing of the victim, the dignity and worth of the victim, the sense of physical and mental autonomy of the victim. I feel furious that this perpetrator lacked any empathy or regard for social conventions, legal protections, and individual responsibility for one’s actions.

I feel furious at the perpetrator for their character, intent, and actions towards the victim.

I feel infuriated that the victim was not given the human dignity that was her basic right as a person. She deserved to be attributed that right regardless of the perpetrator’s personality.

I feel angry that the victim was not given their basic human rights that they deserved for existing, irrespective of the perpetrator’s personality.

What did the victim do that was so terrible that the perpetrator ended her life? Absolutely nothing of that sort. The victim did nothing. The perpetrator’s character and personality are the reason the victim did not leave their place alive. The perpetrator is responsible, not the victim.

The perpetrator is responsible, and the victim is not. I am outraged at the perpetrator’s sense of entitlement over the victim’s basic dignity, physical being and rights as a person.

The perpetrator generated a plan that could only reflect his personality and character. He used weapons and was clearly looking to end the victim’s life. The use of weapons, enforced hostage, and repeated violence was all a reflection of his personality and character.

I am greatly outraged at the people blaming the victim and not the perpetrator for his actions. He is responsible for his actions, and they reflect his character and personality.

I am outraged that the number of people who watched this person abuse women remained silent about his actions till he felt brazen enough to kill someone. I feel furious that they enabled him through their social support of such a person regardless of his character or personality.

I am outraged at the number of people that enabled this perpetrator through their continued friendship with him despite his abuse of women, despite his character or personality.

I’m furious that there is so little that is done in the first instance. Why did it have to get this far? Why couldn’t there have been intervention in the previous years for the perpetrator, and why was he being enabled constantly? Couldn’t there have been more people stopping his access to weapons, victims to abuse, and criminal activities?

I am furious that there were many enablers surrounding this perpetrator and that he wasn’t stopped from his actions prior to this incident occurring.

I feel that such people should have been institutionalised from the very first signs of their behavior; if they had displayed violence and any dice behavior in the past, they should have been institutionalised and that too, quickly.

The institutionalisation of such is necessary for the public good and cannot be disregarded in light of the events that have occurred.

It is infuriating that the way this perpetrator acted was clearly ignored by the people before it escalated to this point. His actions should have been reported to the authorities and that too, many years ago. It was clearly a sign of disregard that his abusive treatment towards women went unchecked for years.

I am furious that the perpetrator’s behavior went unchecked for years, and only surfaced after this happened.

I am deeply sad at the loss of a young woman to such a crime at such a young age. I am saddened by the violence she was subjected to, by the perpetrator. I am saddened by the actions of the people who enabled the perpetrator by watching and refusing to intervene in the violence against the victim.

I am saddened by the loss of a young woman, to such a violent crime at such a young age, and saddened that her life was cut short so quickly.

How can I heal from this loss and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I can continue to share how the loss of this young woman made me feel as a person, as her neighbour, as her schoolmate, as her acquaintance. I can continue to share how this incident makes me feel as a citizen, a resident of the city, as a citizen of the country and as a young person. I can continue to share how this incident affects my sense of trust in travelling on my own, and carrying out actions individually.

I can continue to share how this incident affected me personally in order to continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

Self Worth and Grief Management

How can I process my grief in a non-invasive and safe manner and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

For starters, by recognising that it is an emotion and that an emotion itself is not permanent. My emotions are like everyone else’s and are temporary.

My experience of grief is no different than anyone else’s experience of grief.

The emotions I experience are a normal reaction to my circumstances that were triggering. It is not an a normal reaction of any kind and is not a strange reaction for me to feel grief.

My experience of grief is not abnormal or strange. It is normal and expected.

I am experiencing grief and while it is a difficult emotion to express, it is not impossible to express and needs to be embraced for being a normal reaction to difficult events in life. Grief is a normal reaction to events including personal loss, trauma and stress.

My experience of grief is not impossible to express, despite being difficult to express.

I feel grief in reaction to my lost opportunity to continue building my corporate career. I feel grief as a response to experiencing personal losses of relationships with people I imagined to be trustworthy colleagues. I feel grief in response to trauma around my personal losses in relation to my professional reputation at work and my personal reputation.

My grief is tied to my negative life experiences.

My grief is normal and needs to be expressed in a healthy, non-disruptive manner. I wish to be as non-disruptive as possible in expressing my grief.

In order to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment, I need to express my grief at the experiences I have had in my personal and professional life.

Feeling Insecure and Inadequate

How can I overcome feelings of inadequacy and low self worth to continue building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Low self worth is an ongoing problem in my life. I feel terribly unworthy at times, and inadequate for others. It makes me feel as if I am not capable of anything and can’t do anything in my life either.

My self worth has been tied to my ability to gain the approval of others.

Growing up, my worth was tied to gaining the approval of my caregivers. I was tied to the need to avoid any form of physical abuse in the form of corporal punishment and forced removals from the room. I also was attached to the approval that would protect mr from emotional abuse.

I first developed the need for approval as a child to avoid physical violence and emotional abuse at the hands of my caregivers.

This was a coping mechanism for me to adapt to the circumstances I was around. It also was a way of adapting to narcisstic abuse; not being sure of what reaction I would get made me seek approval as a result.

I survived this experience through approval, which became a part of my mind. It is now unhelpful and needs to be removed from my life for good.

I need to learn to heal this need for approval and live without it to continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

I’ve found that my loss of the need of this approval is directly related to confronting my toxic self beliefs formed from the incidents that led me to develop a need for approval.

I first developed the belief that I was responsible for every form of violence and abusivr treatment that was directed towards me.

I need to address that this belief is incorrect. That it was placed there wrongly and falsely without rhyme or reason. That all that should have been said instead was to change the behavior being presented. Which could have been corrected in a much less abusive way.

I was not responsible for the earliest form of abuse I received. I was three years old when I was told to leave the house after an argument. I sat outside, it was night time and I saw a small spider next to me. This didn’t make any sense to me.

I was also around the same age when after playing with my sibling, my caregiver ripped apart a new baby dress purchased for my sibling that very afternoon. Especially since I was three and my sibling was less than a year old.

I saw that I was shouted at for trying to put putty in my hair to match my sibling when I had the chance to try putting putty in my hair. I was shouted at and told to leave.

The incidents that I faced as a child were designed to break my self confidence and ability to trust myself. If I was to behave or express myself in a way that wasn’t according to my caregiver’s needs, I would be punished.

I wasn’t wrong, I was not what my caregiver wanted me to be. In effect, I was not being punished for being morally or otherwise wrong. I was being punished for being inconvenient to my caregiver. That behavior was made to look like I was wrong.

Behavior that my caregiver thought was inconvenient was punished and this, without any thought to whether it was morally or otherwise wrong.

A three year old cannot engage in a physical argument with an adult. It’s not physically possible for them to do so. Similarly, two toddlers fighting are not fighting on something morally incorrect, they are simply not adjusting to each other well. A toddler putting putty in their hair isn’t carrying out a morally incorrect action. They are simply being a toddler.

I felt rejected for being me, for being who I was without any layer of pretended or cover. I felt utterly ashamed of being rejected for being a harmless, normal toddler who needed love and care.

I was not wrong for having needs as a toddler. I was not wrong for having normal emotional and physical needs. I was not wrong for having normal needs to be cared for and loved as I was. I was not wrong for being exactly who I was. I was not wrong for being a human being with needs.

I was an am not wrong for being a human being with needs.

My needs are just as important as anyone else’s needs. I am just as valuable as anyone else. My life matters just as much as anyone else’s does. My needs deserve to be honoured. I deserve to be valued for who I am. I deserve to be treated well for who I am. No matter what. Nothing can change that.

I am worthy and my needs are valid. I am not unworthy for having needs. I can and deserve to express my needs to other people and expect that they will at least regard me as no less because of my needs. I am deeply worthy because I am alive.

My needs are the most critical expression of my humanity. This indicates that I have a physical, emotional, and intellectual self, all of which are alive and functioning. My needs are a sign that I am alive and about in the world. My needs are a sign of my ability to live, and are my way of being alive.

My needs are the biggest expression of my humanity and my aliveness. I couldn’t be alive if my needs weren’t being met. My needs are a sign of my success as a person. My expression as a person. My worth is indomitable by people who don’t recognise it. Those that disregard my worth and needs are wrong, and don’t deserve to be in my life.

Self Worth and Self-Labelling

How can I get rid of the urge to label myself and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I first learned how to label from my caregivers. The labels that I first interacted with came from conversations they had on the phone, or with other people. Words that were black and white in description came about, which made me feel as if the only way to describe someone was to label them.

From my earliest interactions, I began to perceive labelling as the only way to describe someone.

In school, labelling was used as a means of classification. Once again, black and white terms made it to the table. Often times, these were used to bully and ostracise others instead of fostering inclusion and building relationships.

I also began to understand how labelling was used to classify and ostracise others instead of support them.

Labelling was present in the media. On television, black and white terms were used to describe people or groups of people. Music videos classified people according to labels. Games would provide tools to ostracise these people.

The media I interacted with reinforced this methodology and use of it ostracise people.

Without having the ability to recognise the destructive nature of labelling, I felt as if it was an appropriate means of internal communication. Like the people around me, I too, used labels to describe myself, classify and even ostracise myself. This was in the absence of proper intervention, and healthy self talk education.

In the absence of healthy self talk education, I used labels to describe, classify and ostracise myself.

The violence of these labels usually came emotionally. Labels would make me feel ashamed, sad, even suicidal. I processed trauma using labels. I processed negative events and situations using labels. I processed toxic situations using labels. It seemed as if labels were the only tool in my Arsenal to process information.

Labelling myself became a coping mechanism for emotional distress.

I labelled myself in the absence of an awareness of self talk and its’ impact. No teacher, tutor, classmate, parent or neighbour around me talked about healthy self talk and what it did to a person. It was never a topic of discussion at gatherings or parties or events.

Healthy self talk education requires an awareness of labelling.

So how can I overcome this habit and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Labelling is a toxic habit, and a maladaptive coping mechanism.

It is not a healthy mechanism and labels cannot be used to describe human beings. Human beings are too complex and diverse to be labelled.

Labelling deprives a person of a sense of identity.

It is not a way of providing identity. It is a way of removing identity. By labelling yourself, you remove all identity from yourself and deny that a complex nature exists. To be complex and diverse is to be human. To label is to deny your basic humanity.

Labelling denies a person of their basic humanity.

It also serves to further promote violence in the form of emotional and physical violence. Labels that denote race, views, practices, and moral standpoints have always created conflicts. They have even promoted violence and justified it on large scales.

Labelling creates and promotes violence, creates conflict and serves to reinforce the two.

Labelling is a deeply unhealthy practice which needs to be curtailed and spoken out against more often. If I practice it for myself, I promote internal conflict and the opportunity to generate violence.

To maintain a sense of order and peace internally and externally, I have to abandon labeelling.

Self Worth and Respect

How can I reform my need for respect and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

The selective use of respect that has nothing to do with the ability of that person to be respected is a form of judgment. More specifically it is a self serving judgment, because it only serves to serve the person passing the judgment.

I have been exercising this since I was a child, being exposed to my caregiver’s narcissistic tendencies to enforce absolute respect instead of being a model of self respect and universal respect. The way respect was taught to me was not as an exchange between two persons based on their worth as humans, but as something that needs to be applied as a power dynamic.

Respect was never exercised as something to give to all persons, but was a powerful tool that was only offered to people with the power to punish non obedience. And this was evaluated from a social, mental and financial perspective as well as a physical and political one.

Respect to me never resonated as a quality because I only ever saw it and was exposed to it as a powerful tool. This led to the lack of self respect to support and forge my identity, creating a demand for absolute respect as a form of obedience to make up for a lack of self respect.

I expected absolute respect as a rule because I didn’t respect myself and my sense of self needed respect as an emotional need. Respect was something to observe and apply as needed and punish if not offered. This made the understanding difficult to reform and redefine for myself. It also created anger management issues that are deep rooted in unmet emotional needs.

I am not terrible for not understanding respect, but it is high time that I stop enforcing it and start offering it to myself. It is also high time I stop observing and classifying people based on this and preventing my understanding of respect from improving.

Respect is a need and a virtue. It is not a law to enforce, and should not be used to feel powerful. I felt that this use of respect as a law was a source of gratification and power for the people expecting it in absolute quantities from me, and with zero regard for my own needs in the process.

Respect is not something I therefore try to see as a virtue having experienced emotional and personal disrespect and being unable to replicate or make up for it at the time, attempting to punish others for what I endured.

I endured and dealt with it through repression and not self forgiveness and treatment, thereby denying myself access to emotional relief and healing from the experience at the time, making the experience tighter for me to unwind. There are many challenges to overcome in my healing of self disrespect but this was the first one.

I’ve been running towards respect using the train taking me towards disrespect. Disrespect creates emotional emptiness and wounds. Those experiencing emotional wounds and disrespect are then unable to find it easy to reform this for themselves.

Self Worth and My Diagnosis

How can I build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment with my diagnosis of bipolar disorder?

In May 2020, I was diagnosed with type II bipolar disorder, after many years of incorrect diagnoses and misconceptions regarding my mental health. Today, I am proudly taking medication and working to stabilise myself in the daily schedule of things.

Bipolar disorder is a Long term illness. How can I builld the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment with it?

It is now known that bipolar disorder is perfectly treatable. The 45 million people on earth with the illness can be treated, individually for the condition. Unlike other conditions, there is always a way to prevent severe degeneration and mortality in bipolar disorder.

I need to start by accepting that I am capable of being treated, and will be prevented from harming myself in any way.

I need to also recognise that I am not responsible for my diagnosis. It is a mental illness, not a criminal act or moral crime. I am not undertaking actions that are actively inviting or expecting a diagnosis to occur. I am absolutely not looking for a potential diagnosis.

Bipolar disorder is my responsibility, not my consequence. I am not a criminal. I am a personal citizen with a mental illness.

Furthermore; I am not a person that is looking for bipolar disorder to be the focus of my life. I am actively looking to develop my personality and build my skills in different areas of life. Instead of being a logically disconnected person, I wish to be a well rounded person.

I’m a person that is not looking to make mental illness my only focus in life.

I am not bipolar disorder the illness. I am myself the person: a person who happens to be a patient of type II bipolar disorder: it is not a label defining my personhood. It is not a definition of my self on any level of existence. I’m a person. Not an illness or the mind.

I am myself, not bipolar disorder.

I did not invent the illness. I didn’t create the genes that cause bipolar. I did not create the trauma that activates these genes. I did not create the neurochemical deficiencies. I did not create the prefrontal cortex sizes. I did not create the amygdala irregularities. I did not create the frontal lobe sizes. I did not do anything to cause bipolar disorder.

I did not do anything to create the illness, the genes, the chemical imbalance, brain sizes or the trauma.

I am not the illness. I am me. I am not the creator of my illness. I am a patient like 45 million others. I am not the definition of bipolar disorder, neither is bipolar disorder a definition of my personhood. Emerging the final conclusion: I am not bipolar disorder itself.

I am not the illness. I am me.

I am not building a road from bipolar to a road towards false expectations. I am building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment. It is not a definition of me.

Self Worth and Painful Assignments

How can I finish this assignment and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I am personally struggling to complete a difficult professional assignment. While I have been pushing myself constantly to do more and take on more over the past few weeks; this assignment has really tested my patience to the absolute maximum. I feel brutally burned by its’ nature and the requirements and expectations of it for my forthcoming tasks.

I’m feeling brutally challenged by this assignment and its’ requirements.

I’m also feeling deeply like I cannot be a perfectionist about this assignment and the thought is depressing me to the point of social isolation and suicidal thoughts. I felt like not being able to do a great job on this assignment meant that I should end my life altogether and move on.

I am extremely perfectionistic to the point of near suicidal behavior to achieve perfectionism.

I’m not comfortable doing average work for this assignment. I dream of it being absolutely perfect and deeply capable of bringing me the kind of support that I need for my goals. I am extremely focused on perfectionism and can not tolerate anything less, not even for a minute.

I am extremely perfectionistic and intolerant of anything that is imperfect.

I’m not a very tolerant person when it comes to imperfection. This makes me depressed when I am not absolutely perfect at what I do. It makes me feel like I am being laughed at by others and harassed for my work ethic and berated for not being good enough. It makes me feel isolated and alone and never comfortable.

I’m responding to my trauma subconsciously with extreme perfectionism.

I need to abandon the mentality that extreme perfectionism is a cure to my trauma. Trauma therapy is a cure to my trauma. Nothing else. It is unfair to shoulder the entire burden of trauma and expect it to be fully channeled through extreme perfectionism, instead of there being any chances for the trauma therapy to heal my traumas.

I also need to recognise that extreme perfectionism will not heal me. It is just a cover for my severe depression. It does not give me a sense of comfort: it deprives me of it instead and makes me feel less than others and unworthy in my own skin as a person.

I’m not unworthy for having experienced trauma at the workplace and harassment and exploitation. It is important for me to heal using trauma therapy instead of trying to hide behind perfectionism and other toxic coping mechanisms to isolate myself from my traumas and pretend that they had never happened in the first place.

I am building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment. My traumas are not signs of my unworthiness. I am a person who is worthy and deserves to heal and not remain in pain because of personal trauma.

Self Worth and Chronic Loneliness

How can I overcome the feelings of chronic loneliness and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

The feeling of loneliness is one of being alone feeling and thinking. Though I am around family, friends, classmates, acquaintances and associates, I feel loneliness. The emotion is one of the emotions I have felt since I began to experience emotions.

Loneliness has been one of the emotions I have experienced since I began to experience emotions.

Lonely is not a state. It is not a label, a lifestyle or a way of being. It is simply an emotion. For me, I have felt this emotion when faced with the inability to express my authentic thoughts and feelings for whatever reason in front of relatives, peers, and associates. The feeling has been tough for me to embrace.

The trick to loneliness is to express oneself constantly and honestly.

Loneliness can be alleviated. You need to be a keen person who expresses their emotions properly. Someone who is open to being an emotionally and intellectually expressive personality, instead of a repressed personality. This helps people around you build deeper connections with you, and you, with them.

Loneliness has a potential cure in authentic social emotional and intellectual expression.

The critical element of loneliness is the feeling of not having the room or permission to express oneself freely. Without this freedom being given to oneself, the ability to express oneself authentically becomes difficult and the loneliness begins to express itself instead. I am lonely not because of a lack of people around me, but because I don’t share my thoughts and feelings with them.

Lonely persons don’t exist. Only the absence of authentic self expression and intellectual and emotional expression exist.

The loneliness you and I express is an absence of emotional and intellectual expression. We choose to silence ourselves for reasons innumerable. This has got to change. Instead of being silenced, we need to express ourselves, and constantly. This enables us to feel less lonely in a world where connections are now easier and easier to build.

Loneliness is hard to define because people experiencing it don’t usually understand what aspect of it they are truly dealing with. Is it the emotional silence or the intellectual silence that is more frequent? Are they spending more or less time being open about how they feel? What are the topics being discussed and where are they being discussed? These diatribes make the entire procedure a bit difficult to manage.

The depression and anxiety that results from loneliness is an accumulation of the emotions that loneliness creates. Disappointment, disablement, jealousy, envy, curiosity, and a constant need to feel validated on the inside and outside.

The deeper meaning of depression in loneliness is also of being unable to see that loneliness is isolation inside the mind, not outside it. The loneliness falls onto the silence of the tongue, not the social engagement. You often silence your hidden thoughts, not your tongue.

I am committed to the alleviation of loneliness through authentic self expression. In words, conversations, small pointers and every aspect of my life. Intellectually and emotionally. I commit to alleviate the feeling of loneliness in order to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

Self Worth and Rejuvenating After Burnout

How can I rejuvenate after burnout and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Burn out has been hard for me. I’ve had to let go of my hobbies for coping mechanisms, let go of my coping mechanisms for less productive mechanisms. All in the while, nursing the empty jar inside my mind, the one which desperately needs refilling.

How can I rejuvenate after burnout?

Spending time talking to friends is one option. It will help me open up about why I feel burnt out in the first place. Burnout is real, and it needs more discussion with other people. There needs to be more awareness about burnout prevention and rejuvenation following burnout for persons of all ages, occupations and genders.

Why haven’t I been able to rejuvenate so far?

I’ve been unable to identify what has been the main reason why I feel so burnt out from work in the first place, because I have had so many roles that it has been hard to identify a single one. Besides this, I have found zero options for me in terms of bouncing back within my existing scope of tasks. It has been hard for me to even look through basic emails at this point of time.

Why has it been so hard for me to identify the fact that I was feeling burnt out in the first place?

I was busy working, without any indication of stopping. I didn’t have any breaks scheduled for me inside my responsibilities. I also didn’t have any team members to share my duties with. This made it hard for me to be able to take a backseat and truly disconnect from time to time. I felt as if I had to take on the work of multiple persons at a time.

Why is it that I didn’t feel like I could ask for some help?

I didn’t feel as if I could trust someone with the formation of the business in this stage. I also didn’t feel as if I had the confidence to truly be able to manage someone who would report to me for responsibilities and duties. It made me feel nervous and incompetent, and I felt a great amount of imposter syndrome when considering leading someone else.

How can I work to properly recover from burnout in ways that will prevent it from happening in the future?

Joining a burnout support group is one step. This will give me regular support. Besides this, being able to regularly relax is a critical and essential aspect. I need a proper relaxation technique which I can practice for a few minutes daily. I will benefit from being able to seek time out for myself to relax and allow myself to feel less stressed. Also, I can benefit from being able to regularly exercise and practice a fun hobby of mine.

What is next for me in terms of being able to take proper breaks?

I work on weekdays for my business. This is a rule I will enforce strictly. I also work from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, in theory. I can rearrange this as per the guidelines that I have worked on with my therapist. I can also spend one of my weekdays doing a particular aspect of the business that I enjoy, as an area of focus for me. While doing this, I can rearrange my commitments for a team member to be able to tackle some responsibilities. This will help me be able to relax and focus on my wellbeing while finishing my work on time as well.

Why did it become so easy to burnout for me?

It became easy because I wasn’t sure how to manage my time in the first few weeks. I had to manage different aspects of my life at the same time, while being unsure of how the business would grow. This uncertainty and fear of failure made me work almost constantly and commit myself without boundaries for my personal space and time. I feared failure and a lack of revenue for my business in the event of a lack of commitment, so I overcommitted to every aspect of the business, to be – in my understanding – fool proof.

Over commitment is unhealthy as it breeds micromanagement, mistrust, and obsessions with targets and results instead of strategy and transformation.

Over commitment is one of the worst mistakes to make in a business. It doesn’t reflect a commitment towards the business. It reflects a commitment towards oneself, or rather, one’s insecurities and fears only. In this mentality, one’s insecurities and fears rank much higher than the actual business targets themselves. Otherwise, these tasks could well and easily be handed to another person for carrying out. Over commitment also encourages distrust, micromanagement and worst of all, incompetence at lower levels of management. It creates groupthink and reduces the potential for ideation, design thinking and transformation in teams. It reflects a cult of personality of a business owner who acts as an owner and not a leader.

How can I motivate myself to become less overcommitted with each aspect of the business?

I think that taking leadership training of different kinds will be useful for me and my professional development. It will allow me the opportunity to grow from this insecurity and fear based management to efficient leadership and team management of other persons. Being obsessed with my teammates and their work will only be inefficient and fruitless for me in the long run. It’s time for me to become a leader and not just a business owner.

How can I overcome the blocks I have internally to becoming a better leader?

My blocks towards becoming a better leader are: fear of being mocked and ridiculed by staff, fear of being removed from my post (false fear), fear of being seen as incompetent and unworthy of the position (imposter syndrome), and fear of being unable to succeed as a leader (fear of failure). I’m also terrified that I won’t succeed in being able to motivate my staff and rectify their problems towards work, or me.

A fear of failure, imposter syndrome, and a fear of being shamed and mocked are what prevent me from becoming a better leader.

I’m finally unafraid to admit my fears surrounding the business leadership. I don’t want to obsess over this aspect and want to grow as a leader in different ways. But my insecurities run extremely deep, as they are some of my deepest fears at large, not just my fears regarding work. Will I be able to lead if I have these fears in real life too?

In order for me to succeed as a business leader, I need to overcome these fears in the most deep rooted setting, for more self worth and authentic self empowerment.

I feel deeply unworthy of becoming a business leader to my staff. It makes me feel useless and imposter syndrome creeps in on me. I feel as if I cannot do this at all, and that feeling is then suppressed and masked with overwork. One of the biggest roadblocks for me is healing these feelings on a deep level and working through them to become a better leader for my organisation.

How can I truly commit to removing these aspects from my life at large?

By working on them with my therapist, through CBT, mindful journaling, support groups, DBT, and leadership training. This will allow me to seek the best quality training I need to evolve as a person.

I commit to building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment by committing to remove my deepest fears and insecurities about my inability to be a leader from my life, while working to build dynamic leadership skills.