Burnout Trap: When Being Fried Impacts Your Connection

Author: Earlyn Sharpe, M.A.

How Burnout affects you and your relationships

Burnout doesn’t just affect you—it ripples through your relationships. When you are fried, your ability to connect, communicate, and care deeply diminishes. It’s not because you don’t love—it’s because you are running on empty.

The burnout trap convinces us to keep giving until nothing is left. But true connection thrives when you are nourished. The more you tend to your own fire, the brighter your relationships can burn.

At some point, we often talk about the signs and symptoms of burnout. Work-related stressors such as emails and deadlines, schedules, and the continuous push to hustle have a critical impact on our ability to stay connected with our nervous systems. When they’re out of alignment, it can easily bleed over into other areas, such as our relationships, mental health, and our connection with ourselves.

How Burnout Affects Us

In my work with patients, I often refer to the downward spiral of exhaustion that is burnout as the physical and emotional manifestations that we frequently experience after coming undone. It is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back that we have been trying to numb away or hide from for a while. As with any traumatic event or adverse experience, we have little to no reserves left for any connection beyond survival mode.

The reality of this emotional state is that it often affects our relationships because we’re frequently functioning on empty, leaving no reserves to connect with others, especially the ones that matter most to us. When relationships are strained or burning at the ends, oftentimes, these connections are the first ones we tend to neglect, leave, or temporarily put on autopilot because we just don’t have it in us to give any more.

Breaking Down

Healthy relationships are built on reciprocity and respect, two building blocks that are completely out of reach when you are fried. In relationships, this can also manifest as pushing away from others, especially loved ones, when you can’t get the reciprocity or comfort you need from them. As a result, you get further and further away from not only others but also your own inner sense of well-being.

Burnout is your body’s, heart’s, and mind’s last-ditch effort to recalibrate and get your attention so you can make some better decisions and build better boundaries moving forward.

The Burnout-Breakdown-Breakthrough Cycle

Ironically, however, these buildups can also become your biggest breakdowns. These are the very moments when most of us let our bodies and hearts break, reaching our limits and, in turn, struggling to escape this state of being and make breakthroughs instead.

For some of us, once our body, heart, and soul can no longer function, we reach out for the help we need and get the support we require to establish boundaries that are less healthy to those that bring us better self-compassion, self-care, and autonomy.

Steps Toward Recovery

So, the good news is that if you find yourself in the burnout trap, you can take steps to get out.

1. **Acknowledge** your exhaustion instead of stuffing it down and hoping it goes away. The first step in recovery is recognizing that you need to make a change and that there’s a problem. Acknowledging your own feelings of burnout and depletion may help you stay out of autopilot mode, allowing you to start the healing process on your own instead of ignoring that your body and heart can no longer do more.

2. **Communicate** with loved ones and others you’re in a relationship with, rather than shutting down. If you’re anything like me, one of the first people I shut down to was my husband. By shutting down in the midst of exhaustion and emotional depletion, we often create more space between us and others rather than bridging the gap between ourselves and our hearts. Opening the dialogue and communication with those that we love and care for the most is not only one of the greatest ways to avoid autopilot, but also a great way to reach out for help when we need it most.

3. **Prioritize Rest and Ritual** is regulating the nervous system. Breathing, journaling, and short walks are not only great for calming the nervous system down when we’re out of regulation, but are great ways to create space for us to connect with ourselves and others so we don’t fall further into a state of exhaustion and depletion. Don’t be afraid to start small and build up from there.

4. **Set Boundaries** on time and energy so you can begin to put more time and effort into yourself. One of the hardest things to do when our heart, body, and mind are broken down is to start to set new boundaries that we know we can keep. A way to do this that can help is to make those small, incremental changes to create a new routine that is manageable.

The Best Is Yet To Come

Burnout is not the end of the world, nor is it a sign of failure or defeat. It’s one of the most powerful signals your heart, body, and soul can send you when it can no longer function the way that you have been for so long. When we are able to listen to it, the end of burnout can also be the beginning of a better way to stay connected with ourselves and those around us with presence, compassion, and authenticity.

Reflection: What boundary or ritual can you set this month to protect your energy and your relationships?

Want to Dive Deeper?

If this article resonated with you, I’ll dive into this topic more from a personal place on my Sip & Heal: Tea and Therapy Talks podcast.

Listen to the episode here: http://bit.ly/45vdH23 or on your favourite podcast carrier.