29 Oct 2010
‘Ingredients of Transition’: Emotional Support/Avoiding Burnout
Laughter at the 2009 Transition Network Cities Conference in Nottingham.
Here is a good ‘Ingredient’ for a Friday afternoon… this one addressing ways of avoiding burnout…
Context:
Burnout is a constant lurking danger for those who dedicate a lot of their time to something that can be as all-consuming at Transition. From first experiencing POST PETROLEUM STRESS DISORDER to maintaining a work/life balance, finding effective strategies for minimising the risk of burnout is vital to maintaining your own PERSONAL RESILIENCE and to maintain both your personal, and your initiative’s, MOMENTUM.
(We are collecting and discussing these Transition ingredients on Transition Network’s website to keep all comments in one place. Please leave feedback and comments, suggestions for alternative pictures, anecdotes, stories and projects for this ingredient here).
The challenge:
The closer we get to deadlines about climate change, financial meltdown, the more pressure there can be to make something happen quickly. People engaged in this kind of work need to pay extra attention to resting, to resourcing themselves, and to getting support to avoid burnout and exhaustion, a common outcome for people working in all kinds of movements for positive change.
Core Text
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light!Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950).
Burn out is a real and present danger for anyone involved in Transition, as indeed for any kind of community work or activism. I have known several green activist/campaigners who suffered from terrible burnout, which led to depression, withdrawal and cynicism. When I visit Transition groups around the country, burnout is raised regularly as a concern, given that most initiatives are self-funding and driven by passionate volunteers. I am not immune to it myself, but I sometimes wonder how come, given the incredible amount of commitment and energy people around the world are putting into Transition, there isn’t far more burnout than we actually see?
Frank Lipman, a New York-based doctor, uses the term ‘spent’ to describe the fact that although people come and see him with a range of symptoms, headaches, backpain and so on, “when you delve into their histories, they’re all exhausted”, he says. His book “Spent? End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again”, sets out some of his tips for overcoming the ‘spent’ state. These include things like eat well, exercise, meditate if you can, impose an “electronic sundown”, whereby all electronic devices are turned off at 10pm, sleep in as dark a space as you can create, eat a good breakfast and lunch and a very light supper, and design into the work day ways to switch off for a few minutes.
Dutch burnout specialist Wilmar Schaufeli argues that one of the strongest predictors of burnout isn’t taking on so much work that we struggle to keep up with it, rather what he calls “work-home interference”1, which he identifies in the syndrome of composing hurried ‘must-send’ emails to people from your Blackberry while making your children clean their teeth in the evening. Putting firm boundaries in place beyond which work, and in this context, Transition, shall not tread, is vital. He also stresses the importance of setting realistic expectations on our work. “That’s what burnout is in essence,” he recently told New York Magazine, “a mismatch between effort and recovery.” James Gleick, in his book ‘Faster’2, uses the term ‘hurry sickness’ to describe the sense we can often feel of never quite catching up with anything.
Anyway, returning to Lipman, the bit that piqued my interest came at the end of an article I read about him3;
“… Lipman believes the greatest influence on his patients’ wellbeing comes from what he calls “intangibles”: community, friends, family, love, meaning. “People are so isolated in our culture – we’ve got more and more removed from that sense of community. The diet and exercise stuff is relatively easy; it’s the other stuff that’s hard. How do you tell someone to get meaning in their life? Or create a community?”
In his view, getting involved in helping a good cause, or community project, is the best way to avoid burnout, to avoid feeling ‘spent’. The benefits of community involvement are, he says, a self-perpetuating process. “When people learn to give or start volunteering and caring for others, they in turn learn how to care for themselves as well”.
It struck me that there is perhaps a case that Transition, if done properly, with adequate support and the advice he gave above, could actually be seen as being a solution to burnout, rather than just its cause. I’m not sure that his assertion that “when people learn to give or start volunteering and caring for others, they in turn learn how to care for themselves as well” is completely the case, given that there is more to how people work than just their initial motivation. It is important though, not to underestimate the energy and the power that can come from doing something for a broader purpose, or for others.
Although it may be over-egging the pudding somewhat to suggest that Transition, if done well, might actually be an antidote to burnout, it could be that Lipman has offered a valuable insight into why it is not a more widespread phenomenon. It also highlights one of the key roles of the Heart and Soul elements of Transition. In Totnes, one of the things that group does is to arrange and organise support for the people in the key places in the organisation, in the form of counselling or mentoring. Personally speaking, it has made a huge difference to my effectiveness and my ability to deal with burnout.
The solution:
Small, self-organising support groups have been a key feature of many movements for change, including the women’s movement, peace activism and civil rights. Arrange the possibility for those most involved within your initiative to be able to draw from a pool of people offering professional support services. This can range from counselling or co-counselling, to more therapeutic responses or just a support group. Remind people who are busy and haven’t availed of what is on offer that it is there if they want it. Having key people supported and held in this way can make a huge difference in terms of minimising burnout.
Connections to other patterns:
One of the key aspects of avoiding burnout it cultivating an awareness of what is happening around you, and pausing to reflect on it regularly. So CELEBRATING what you have done, and what your initiative has achieved can help reduce the risk of burnout, as can CELEBRATING FAILURE, reflecting on things that haven’t gone so well, and honouring the input and good intention that has gone into them. In terms of collective burn-out, GATHERING FEEDBACK/HOW ARE WE DOING? is a key ingredient here, as is cultivating the practice of regularly PAUSING FOR REFLECTION.
References:
1. Senior, J. (2006) Can’t Get No Satisfaction: in a culture where work can be a religion, burnout is its crisis of faith. New York Magazine 26th November 2006. http://nymag.com/news/features/24757/
2. Gleick, J. (2000) Faster, the acceleration of just about everything. Vintage Books.
3. Agulnik, D. (2009) How to beat that exhausted feeling: Frazzled New Yorkers are flocking to holistic doctor Frank Lipman to help them relax, sleep and banish perpetual tiredness. The Guardian, 5th May 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/05/frank-lipman-spent-sl…
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