If you’re a person who feels a call to service, if you can’t turn away from the opportunity to help others, if you find fulfillment in being a facilitator of growth, then you embody some of the archetypal energy of the zodiac sign of Cancer.
The sign of Cancer is virtually synonymous with the act of caring. This is the sign of nurturing, nourishing, and growth.
You may feel like it’s your calling to care. You’re a giver. A natural nurterer.
But all of that caring can come at a cost: burnout.
Studies affirm that individuals in caring professions experience some of the highest rates of burnout.
It’s often thought that the high rates of burnout in service professions is largely due to emotional labor, high workloads, and systemic stressors inherent in these roles.
Read: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Burnout
As a service professional for the past 25 years, I’ve experienced burnout several times. I’ve also had periods of high workload, systemic stress, and intense emotional labor. These periods did not correspond to the times I experienced burnout.
When it comes to burnout, there are other factors at play that often get overlooked.
A deeper understanding of the Cancer archetype points us to 3 causes of burnout that go beyond “high stress.”
3 Causes of Burnout (That Have Nothing to Do With Workload)
Burnout happens when you pour your care and nurturing into something that doesn’t feed you back.
(1) Overlooking the Self
Cancer’s instinct to nurture and nourish is a virtue in our culture.
Cancer is often considered the sign of the mother, and mothers are taught to put their children first. Women are conditioned to ensure the needs of others are met. As a result, we often put ourselves last.
Many of the women I’ve coached over the years have described eating the scraps of food off their kids plates instead of making themselves dinner. In a similar way, they have shared how they find time for themselves only after meeting the needs of their children, partners, bosses, and colleagues.
In the same way that they settle for the scraps of food left over on others’ plates, they settle for scraps of time at the end of the day.
To do otherwise feels “selfish” — something we’ve been conditioned to believe is a “bad” trait.
But here’s the thing:
You can’t pour from an empty vessel. If we don’t take time to fill ourselves up, we have nothing to give to others.
There’s a reason that airplanes tell us to put our own oxygen masks on first — before helping others.
You can’t be of service if you’re depleted.
Trying to sustain service without self-nourishment is the first recipe for burnout.
(2) No Reciprocity
Jupiter — the planet of abundance and blessings — is exalted in Cancer. One of the lessons we learn from this is the importance of mutual nourishment.
The growth that occurs in Cancer is meant to be reciprocal: it’s about pouring your efforts into something that feeds you back.
Tending to the fruit trees ultimately produces a harvest, yielding fruit that nourishes you.
To avoid burnout in our work and service, we need the same type of reciprocity.
Burnout happens when you pour your care and nurturing into something that doesn’t feed you back.
(3) Emotional Dissonance
As a water sign, Cancer is associated with emotions.
Investing emotions into nurturing something — whether a person, a project, or a system — that doesn’t give us some emotional payoff or reward is deflating and defeating.
The body’s biochemistry relies on dopamine – the reward chemical — to sustain motivation and desire.
But the “reward” doesn’t need to be positive.
Even negative feedback is better than no feedback because it gives us something to engage with — even if its something we are pushing back against.
The real danger for burnout is when there’s nothing: no acknowledgement, no visible impact, no emotional response at all.
The Key to Avoiding Burnout
There’s only so long we can sustain giving our energy, emotion, and care to something that doesn’t give back to us in some form.
The key to sustaining efforts without burning out is to ensure there is reciprocity:
Pour your energy and care into something — or someone — that will nurture you back
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