Walking Through Burn Out….

This season I am walking through has a name.
Burn out.
It is called Burn Out.

It is incredibly hard to type those words and admit out loud that my life is not how I wish it was. I inhale a deep breath as I take in the realization that I have somehow ended up in this place that I never wanted to be! That while my life may seem “perfect” to those who watch from afar, but inside I am broken.

Now I want to clear up a few misconceptions about burn out before we carry on…..

Burn Out is not Anxiety.
Burn Out is not Depression.
Burn Out is not a Life Sentence.

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive or prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, or unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest and motivation that once held your undivided attention.

Burn Out happens to people for various reasons and basically, it is an emotional overdraft.
So for me, there have been way more emotional outgoings than there have been emotional incomings. (argh, there’s that blemmin self-care again!)

I found myself at this place at the start of the year.
It is usual for me to bury my head and try to ignore the new year for all of January. But when this carried on into February, I knew something wasn’t right!

Sure, I had been through a lot in the second half of last year, and okay, maybe there are some hurts that I hadn’t dealt with from years ago. And maybe I had been consistently harsh on myself for the past 20 years, and maybe I had buried some feelings of rejection that were never repaired, and okay, maybe there were unmet expectations and feeling of never measuring up that had never been addressed, but seriously Kathy, just get over it! Put on your big girl pants and just get on with life.
But I couldn’t! No matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t!

Burn out is a gradual process. It doesn’t happen overnight and nor does the healing!
Raglan was a great start to that healing, but that was not the end of it (if only life was that simple right?)

Now that I am home, I am going through more of the healing process.
I am learning who Kathy is without all her hang up’s. Without the lies of the enemy and without the incredibly harsh self-condemnation that I have lived with for most of my life!

Friends, this is not an easy process! I have been this way for so long, it feels quite surreal to imagine who I will be at the end of this process.

Now don’t get me wrong, I will still be Kathy. I will still be goofy, I will still laugh a lot, I will still drink coke zero and eat Big Macs, and you can be guaranteed I will still countdown to Christmas! I will still encourage women and girls to be all God is calling them to be. Those things I know.

But what if I could do all those things without the self-condemnation, without the self-hatred?
What if I could believe for myself what I believe for everyone else?
What if I could begin to see myself as God sees me?
What if I actually walked with confidence in my calling?
What if…

So as I continue this healing journey from Burn Out (Breathe Kathy, just breathe!) to wholeness, I will keep fighting the shame that continually hangs above me. I will be obedient in this process, be it ever so slow! And I will believe in the truth of the One who is doing the healing!

What if, my friends, what if?

Here are part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.