Why BurnOut to BadAss?

Writing has always saved me. I have piles of journals filled with sometimes rational, but mostly irrational, beautifully emotional expressions of pain and joy. When I was younger, I wrote short stories and poems to ease my mind when my world felt disjointed. As I grew older, I imagined writing a book that would entertain and inspire others. Those fantasies felt touchable in college. As I grew older, I dreamt, but time and focus always escaped me.

In 2014, writing came to my rescue once again. After building an action sports business for over a decade, it imploded and so did I. In my pain and confusion, my body and mind began to crumble and physical symptoms plagued me. Grasping for relief I began writing profusely along with fixing small things around my house to taste the crumbs of accomplishment.

What was I was experiencing? As I began to unravel that question, I came to acknowledge the fact that I was staring burnout, depression, and anxiety in the face. I had always considered myself a very happy go lucky, optimistic and productive person. It was crushing to realize where I had landed.

Chronic stress benched me and I was deeply lost. What was left, was my time and my thoughts. I began to write for short periods and then rather suddenly, I was writing 5 hours a day. Drafts 1-4 read like my personal diaries. Drafts 5-8 shifted from my woes into how could someone experiencing what I was, get out of it?

Two years later, I celebrated the publication of my book MOVE THINK SMILE. BurnOut to BadAss. Eléa’s stress conquering method to get your life back when work burns you out. It is my homage to what stress and challenge can teach us.

Burnout, depression, anxiety are very dark and intense places. For a long time, I felt this might have happened to me because I was filled with some sort of moral weakness. What I later realized is only the courageous and bold can enter this place and come out the other side.

My goal in publishing BurnOut to BadAss was to help others who have found themselves knocked down by stress. Although I focus on work being the outer form that took me down, the forum I know doesn’t make much difference. In the end, when you get knocked down the pain underneath is the same

It’s shocking to know that 4 out of 5 people are burning out according to the Brain Statistic Institute. And, The World Health Organization named stress as the epidemic of the 21st century. If you, or someone you know is suffering from the effects of chronic high levels of stress, this book is a guide through.

I believe we are testing the limits of our mental, emotional, and physical well being in the face of unprecedented amounts of stress. We are facing a time when we must actively seek out better strategies. It is our responsibility to ourselves, our families, and our communities to find new ways to conquer the obstacles that inevitably come our way.

To acknowledge and ask for help is courageous. To find new tools because you realize yours aren’t working is an honor. To say, “I don’t know what to do, but I am going to discover another way” is the start of a BadAss journey out of stress and into health.

My intention was to create an inspiring, entertaining, in-depth, light-hearted read on a tough subject. My hope is that readers will take the simple method I created, MOVE THINK SMILE, and use it to empower themselves out of a dark, frustrating, or fearful place. The dream I keep is that it will enable others to become the greatest version of themselves they can imagine. The mission I hold is to teach others how to see stress differently.

When I look back now, even though I fiercely resisted being benched by stress, I was given the gift of time. It was then that writing came back into my life to uplift me once again. It was as if the universe said, “Sit, now is the time to write.”

May the words in the pages of my book help you feel great and live awesome once again!

Get the book Move Think Smile BurnOut to BadAss on Amazon in paperback, epub, or as an audiobook. 

This post is the fourth of a six-part article series written for Oblique Magazine in Charleston SC. 

Part 1: Is Stress The New Norm?

Part2: Why Is Negativity Like SuperGlue? 

Part 3: Feeling Out of Order?