Your body still functions, but your soul is like an empty battery. You sleep poorly, even though you are exhausted. You eat, but taste nothing. You smile, but feel like you’re behind glass.
Last week, I sat across from a manager who said: “I can’t cry anymore. I can’t laugh anymore. I just function. Is that normal?” No, that’s not normal. These are signs of burnout – and there are ways to deal with it.
Burnout is not a character flaw. It is a dysregulation of your nervous system. Imagine your nervous system is like a car that has been driven in the red zone for years. At some point, the engine overheats. That’s exactly what happens with burnout: your system switches to emergency mode.
From a neurological point of view, you have been trapped in the sympathetic nervous system for years – the fight-or-flight mode. Your body is constantly producing stress hormones, as if you were fleeing from a saber-toothed tiger. Only that the saber-toothed tiger is your schedule today.
In energetic hypnosis, we work specifically with your parasympathetic nervous system – the rest-and-digest mode. This is where regeneration can take place. This is where you can find your way back to yourself.
But burnout often has deeper roots. In trance, my clients often discover beliefs such as: “I am only valuable when I perform.” “Breaks are weakness.” “Others need me.” These programs have been running since childhood and can unconsciously drive you.
One client told me: “My mother always said: ‘He who rests, rusts.’ Now I realize that I never learned to just be, without doing anything.” Such imprints sit deep in the subconscious and often cannot be changed by willpower alone.
Hypnosis can reach these deep layers. We can explore old programs and develop new perspectives: “I am valuable simply because I am.” “Rest can be productive.” “I am allowed to have boundaries.”
Your burnout is not your failure. It can be a wake-up call from your soul. It says: “Not like this anymore. There may be another way.”
If you feel that your system is overloaded and you are ready to explore new paths – at www.katharina-kowalski.com you will find more about my work with Performance Mentoring. Or send me a private message. Together we can see how your nervous system can get back into balance.
Image by nikko macaspac via Unsplash
