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I think one of the key things about the difference between burnout and acute stress is that burnout tends not to be something that we easily recognize in ourselves.

So we can know when we’re kind of really stressed and overwhelmed, but actually. Burnout is when we are kind of so exhausted that it’s a kind of numb protective place.

It’s when everything is absolutely too much.

It’s a very kind of dry feeling.

There isn’t the possibility of looking outside or taking anything else in.

Compassion is very hard, very self-focused, any demands from the external world, it’s too much and more than that, The voice that starts to happen in your head is kind of I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, don’t give me anything else, I just don’t care, and anger.

So burnout tends to be something, in my experience, that actually other people tend to relationally point out people who are very close to you.

And there’s a lot of shame around burnout.

I think that’s the other thing that makes it extremely hard to recognize and or to have pointed out, because it goes with the notion that you’re not functioning well enough, which will actually be true because you’re burnt out. But it deserves absolute compassion, and the repair for it is some time out, however long that might be. And usually it needs someone alongside you on the journey to help you recover personally for you why it was that you burnt out.

And it’s often to do with what you were saying earlier around the kind of despair actually not having been able to do the job that you passionately believe in.

That does a real harm to people.

And that’s one of the real reasons for burnout now is that people have been repeatedly and over a long period of time, not being able to do the job in the way that they feel competent in or care about.

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