What Really Causes Burnout

Burnout is often described as an extreme form of fatigue caused by chronic stress. But that misses the mark.

When you’re doing what you love and what energizes you — when you’re in your light — it hardly feels like work. You’re in flow. You’re in service.

You’re operating from your fire, from your light.

Working from your light doesn’t deplete you.

Fire is unique among elements in that it can give of itself without depleting itself.

If we tap into a water supply too often, eventually we run out of water — this is when droughts happen.

In an enclosed space, or without the right atmospheric conditions, we run out of oxygen and can no longer breathe.

If we keep taking from the earth, or building on it, eventually we run out of land or the land no longer produces food to sustain us.

Only fire can give of itself without depleting.

When a fire burns out, it’s not really the fire that extinguished. It’s what the fire consumed: the wick and the wax.

The wick and the wax are our physical body and energy. When we give of our material selves and for material gain, we deple our wax. Our bodies break down. We get fatigued easily.

When we give our energy without replenishing it, or when we try to to hide our light, we burn through our wick.

What really causes burnout is not mere stress. It’s that we are sourcing our energy from unsustainable sources.

When we experience burnout it’s because we are giving from our wax or our wick, instead of our fire — our true drive, our light.

Fire does not want to be contained. It yearns to spread. That’s how it stays alive.

When we give from our fire, when we share our light, we are not giving at the expense of ourselves, and there is no risk of burnout.