Burnout is a form of occupational stress expressed through extreme exhaustion and alienation from work and from people.
If at the beginning a person was inspired and burned brightly in their work, now we observe the exact opposite — the flame has gone out, and in place of inspiration there is fatigue, apathy, pessimism, and even cynicism. This is precisely the meaning of the word burnout in English — to burn out. Although burnout usually refers to professional exhaustion, entire social groups and even societies can enter a phase of burnout, showing symptoms of exhaustion, alienation, and loss of idealism.
Because burnout is the phase of the dying flame.
I first became acquainted with the phenomenon of burnout in greater depth when I began teaching at the Police Academy and had to prepare a seminar on stress. I was struck to learn that this form of stress affects the most diligent and devoted employees; those who want most to help others and be of service; those who invest the most heart and energy in what they do. It was precisely they who later found themselves among those affected by burnout. They had developed negative and even cynical attitudes toward people and toward the possibility of helping them. They had burned out. The flame that had once burned brightly was now extinguished, and instead of care and responsiveness they displayed the opposite — apathy, negativity, and detachment.
I remember how impressed I was when I read about the way this form of negative stress — so-called distress — was first identified. A team of researchers had been asked to help explain and address a problem in a hospital ward for cancer patients, where nurses, instead of showing the expected kindness and care, displayed indifference and rudeness toward patients. People dying of cancer were treated not as human beings but as objects. This paradox had no clear explanation, and so the team of scientists was asked to intervene and clarify what the problem was.
Burnout turned out to be the problem. The nurses were caring for people who, despite their efforts, still died. Regardless of how much energy they invested, these people passed away. The alienation, apathy, and lack of involvement were expressions of stress arising from the fact that their role was to help save human lives, while the specific nature of that ward confronted them daily with helplessness.
After this case, research on burnout expanded, and it became clear that those most affected by burnout are people in the helping professions — those who work with people, whose results are not as visibly tangible as in the production of material goods, and who require a different kind of energy to cope: emotional energy.
This led to the development of burnout prevention programs, whose core aim is to inform people about this form of stress and its nature, so that they can recognize early on whether they belong to the group predisposed to burnout and workaholism. The so-called “burnout scale” consists of four phases: the earliest signs appear as milder symptoms of workaholism, while the extreme forms — in the fourth stage — include serious and even irreversible conditions (physical illnesses, severe forms of depression and alcoholism, and extreme forms of isolation from people and the world).
Burnout is the phase of the dying flame
Burnout is the phase of the dying flame.
Now, many years later, I would speak about this topic in a different way. My personal experience has shown me that burnout prevention through prior information is only partially effective. I knew the theory very well, and yet burnout still happened to me. If there was any benefit, it was that at least I understood what was happening to me. Although I knew that one of the methods for stress prevention is balance between work and rest, I was like a heavy truck going downhill without brakes — I could not stop moving along the spiral of workaholism. My attempts to create a more balanced lifestyle between personal time and work kept failing and even made me feel worse.
Fortunately, at that moment, an acquaintance of mine who had recently completed a program in authentic leadership at Harvard sent me an article about authentic leaders. Instead of the popular concept of work–life balance, the article spoke about passion for one’s work, which cannot simply stop at 5:30 p.m. so that one can then go for a walk in the park. It also said that authentic leaders are one-hundred-percent workaholics who cannot be otherwise, but because they follow their passion, this brings them greater fulfillment than a measured and balanced life.
This is the function of theories: if they are not the right ones, they can confuse and oppress you; but if they are the right ones, they bring comfort and strength. This was the case with my own workaholism and stress. I realized that if there is a flame, I have nothing against burning in it, even if that might later lead me into burnout. That is exactly what happened — my “truck” eventually stopped. Its fuel finally ran out. I no longer had the energy to continue doing what I had loved so much until then. The flame had diminished greatly, though not completely gone out.
Something interesting happened when — lying in the ashes of fatigue, exhaustion, loss of interest, and alienation — I suddenly realized that burnout is actually something very valuable, but only if I manage to perceive it from a spiritual perspective, that is, as a stage of inner alchemy and transformation. I understood that if I used this kind of experience in the right way, I could rise from the ashes of burnout like the phoenix — renewed and even stronger than before. I could see this because, in the same way I had devoted myself to my passion — consciously going downhill — I decided to go consciously through burnout itself when it happened.
What I realized is that the gift of burnout is that it purifies the flame of passion.
What burns away are only the impurities that needed to burn anyway — things like unhealthy ambitions, fears, taking things personally, lack of healthy boundaries, and stepping into other people’s zones of responsibility.
A flame that does not come from the ego cannot go out.
Something that comes from an infinite source cannot burn out, because its “fuel” does not come from the personality. Thus, idealism gives way to realism; excessive involvement to compassionate detachment; the urge to save people and worry about where the world is going gives way to awareness of the limits of responsibility, humility, patience, and trust in the hidden intelligence of life.
At this stage of my life, I believe that if burnout is an expression of the consuming energy of passion, then the right attitude toward it is to allow the natural processes of inspiration and passion to carry us through the transformation of ego-desire. In the end, we emerge from the ashes of burned illusions and ambitions like the phoenix — renewed and stronger than before.
It still hurts me to see that burnout is not only a personal problem of a group of enthusiastic workaholics with idealistic views of life, but that it affects large groups of people — entire societies. It hurts me to see that behind the apathy, cynicism, aggression, and alienation of a large part of Bulgarians lie nothing other than burned-out hopes for a more prosperous and just society — the helplessness born of invested efforts for change. It hurts me to see burnout among teachers, police officers, healthcare workers, and many others. And yet, since I now know the smell of ashes, I can accept this a little more calmly. A little more calmly. And if I cannot — I already know that it is not frightening: there are still things within me that can burn.
It is now easier for me not to get angry about what I see happening in Bulgaria. Not only because it is easier for me to remember that these are God’s affairs, but also because I sense that for us as a nation it may be valuable to pass through the ashes of transformation. If we use the heavy energy of Saturn (the planet that astrologically governs our country) in its rightful way, we may be able to be reborn as a nation that is far more mature and spiritually conscious. For if, at its core, burnout is born of helplessness (the same helplessness experienced by nurses caring for dying patients), then its gift is humility (the nurses had no power over how long the cancer patients would live, but they had the power to offer them the support they needed in the final days of their lives).
When we learn the lesson of the limits of our responsibility and stop interfering in other people’s and God’s work, the flame of life returns — purer and more radiant than before. And this is the most important thing I have understood about burnout from a spiritual perspective — together with depression, as an expression of the dark night of the soul, burnout is another example of how the principle of enantiodromia works: as we move away, we are in fact moving closer.
This, too, is a way of caring for the soul.
See also the article on calcination as the first of the alchemical processes of spiritual transformation, which works with the element of fire.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
