Uncovering the Real Cause of Burnout for Highly Sensitive People—It's Not What You Think

 By the end of this episode, you’ll discover what’s draining your energy and making you feel burned out and how to correct it.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People. A podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie. A way to question and reduce stressful thoughts, and you guessed it. I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover why the first thing you think of when it comes to burnout is probably not the real cause. What lies at the actual root of burnout and how to fix it, and how inner work can help you find your peace again. This is an addition of strategy Fridays where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress.

As a highly sensitive person, what’s the first thing you think of when it comes to burnout? If you’re like me, you probably think overwork or not getting enough sleep or just doing too much. This is the most obvious and striking thought. Oh, if you’re burned out, you’re working too much. It must be that simple.

And of course, this does cause burnout. If you work too much, you will burn out. And that’s a matter of fact, right? If you burn the candle at both ends, you will burn out. There’s no question about it. But have you ever tried to work less, maybe even took a vacation and still felt burnt out? This indicates that there’s something more going on, that overwork itself is not the cause of the burnout.

Have you also ever noticed that you’ve been wor you were working really hard and not feeling burned out? That also can be a case. So if that’s the case, then. Once again, the overwork itself may not be the real cause. Of course, it’s important to stay within boundaries of our own limitations and not overwork ourselves, because if you keep pushing you, it’s a formula for burnout for sure.

But we’re looking at root causes here, and sometimes the root cause is deeper than just the overwork. The other problem with thinking that overwork is the real cause of burnout, is that you can end up shrinking your life so far that you can hardly do anything. And and even then it feels like you’re doing too much.

So overwork is something that gets a bad name, gets a lot of the attention. But I have a feeling that it’s not really the whole story, and I’d like to look a little deep deeper at that. You may even think that at some point you’re just too much in your head. Maybe that’s the cause of burnout, like I’m just doing too much mental activity and similar to overwork, it’s just too much.

Maybe I need to get into my body more so that I can give my mind a rest. And that will help me. But the problem is sometimes that doesn’t work. Sometimes you go do different things with your body, get more grounded, do exercise, do things that are super helpful in that regard, and the burnout still hangs on.

So what’s going on? You can even take the approach of meditation and spiritual work. And you’re. Taking time to really rest and go deep with that, and somehow that feeling of burnout is still there. So what’s going on? What is the deeper cause of burnout? I believe that the deeper cause is some kind of lack of connection between who you are and what you’re doing.

Or another way of saying this is not listening to yourself. This can show up in many different kinds of situations. For example, it can show up in work, obviously and it can show up in different ways at work. If you’re in a high stimulation job that values speed over depth, not a great match for a highly sensitive person who processes things deeply and needs quiet time.

Y you may start feeling like you’re doing and it’s not matching your nature, not matching who you, what you’re built for. And so there’s a certain disconnect or maybe you’re working on something that feels emotionally meaningless and you value authenticity, and you may be doing a lot of repetitive tasks or just under the pressure to get things done with not a lot of connection to your deeper values, and this can cause a disconnect between what you’re doing and who you are, what you value.

Or maybe you’re in a work culture where your sensitivity is misread as a weakness and you’re expected to. Just toughen up and stay late and not take things personally. And so you may find that you’re hiding your natural empathy or your conscientiousness. And it is something that will, may you find depleting.

So these are examples at work. It could be similar in a relationship. You’re in a relationship where maybe you’re always adapting. It’s not like their other person’s a bad person, but. You are doing the adapting and you’re accommodating and so you regularly ignore your own needs for downtime or for softness or for space or for reflection.

And over time this can cause a kind of exhaust exhaustion ’cause your needs are not being met. And another similar example would be like if you’re avoiding conflict to maintain peace, and of course you value harmony. But when you’re not speaking up about your own needs or desires or interests, then it can feel like, ah, something isn’t right.

There isn’t a flow, there’s a lack of connection from the inside to the out. It can even show up in terms of things like just trying to be someone that you’re not, if you’re performing in some way or even trying to be more extroverted or agreeable. Or trying to be low maintenance when you actually aren’t.

That can be exhausting and it takes effort to maintain that. Like we always say, it’s hard to maintain a lie, and if I’m doing something that is not really me, I feel that. And so it, there’s a lack of alignment there. Similarly, if you’re chasing goals that don’t really belong to you, you’re maybe pursuing a.

Certain kind of success or productivity because maybe you’re looking for approval or something and it’s not really where your heart is. Then this misalignment between maybe your soul and your schedule can wear you down. It can make you feel burnout. And then when you add overwork on top of it, now we have a formula that is just guaranteed to bring burnout.

It can even show up when you’re doing inner work and maybe you’re putting a kind of pressure on yourself and you’re wanting yourself to grow, wanting yourself to, become better. And this can cause you to feel stress even in something that’s supposed to be reducing stress. This is like when perfectionism comes in or just trying to, do any kind of work in a way that you’re pushing yourself that can lead to burnout. Because if you have to push yourself, there’s not something spontaneous coming up that’s allowing you to just be drawn to do something. You’re using effort, and that on a deep level is taxing. Like the mine the whole system is built in layers and the more surface layers are.

They require effort. And if you strain on the surface layer you work really hard on with your body, you’ll be exhausted, but you have a night’s sleep and you’ll feel better if you strain on an, on a mental level. You’ll be tired mentally and maybe physically too, and when you sleep, you will feel better, but it may take a little longer.

If you strain on an emotional level or on a even deeper subtle level. Those strains are even harder to recover from. So being aware of where you’re pushing instead of being yourself. It’s great to become, it’s great to evolve, it’s great to change things in a productive way, but if I lose touch with being just the simple art of being.

While I am becoming, I can end up burning myself out. So inner work is something that can help you find your peace. Again, the essence of what inner work is simply one thing to listen to yourself. Inner work means turning inward, paying attention to what’s going on there, sorting through the false.

Versions of what you think is true and finding what’s truer and truer for you. Just asking yourself what you think can be a huge step away from burnout. And when you connect with yourself again, you will begin to feel energy coming from inside. There’s an infinite amount of energy available inside of you if you stay connected to it.

And it’s so easy to get disconnected from it ’cause there’s so many things pulling us away from it. But it’s our job to take the time to make the effort to reach back towards ourselves, to reach in towards ourselves, to listen to ourselves. And in whatever form you do your inner work, this is the path that will bring you in touch with.

Deeper truths in you that literally will set free. Because when you find your truth, when you find what’s true for you, you will feel the energy that comes along with that and that energy, when you hold onto it and bring it out into the world, will nourish you and energize you even when you’re doing busy work.

So the feeling I’m left with today is that the antidote to burnout is. Listening to the subtlest whispers inside you that connect you to your energy. Again, in this episode, we looked at why the first thing you think of when it comes to burnout is probably not the real cause. Yes, overwork is a factor, but there’s something deeper.

We also looked at what lies at the actual root of burnout and how to fix it, and that is. This misalignment between who you are and what you’re doing, and we looked at how inner work can help you find your peace again, by pointing yourself back towards yourself with an ear for listening. When you listen, you’ll be guided with what resonates with you, and it takes courage to follow that.

But this is the call of our souls. So thanks for listening. It’s always great to explore with you. This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom.