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Cone of Shame

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Left to Right: Eléa Faucheron

By Eléa Faucheron , Founder MOVE THINK SMILE | Head Coach: Burnout to Badass

Photographer: Christine Lentz

Herbert J. Freudenberger, an American psychologist who studied stress has been credited with coining the term BurnOut. He was intrigued by patients who would light a cigarette, and then let it sit in their hands and BurnOut without smoking it. Dr. Freudenberger was so dedicated to his work, he never took vacations and barely saw his family.

One day he woke up and literally could not get out of bed. It was here that he spoke into a recorder about his own symptoms and then listened back, analyzing himself. He felt like those cigarettes that his patients just let BurnOut. Dr. Herbert was the first to describe symptoms of professional exhaustion.

What happens you find yourself unexpectedly knocked down by stress?

Disillusionment is one word. Embarrassment is another. You trudge on knowing—eh, maybe you're not certain at this point—you're better than this. Immense shame often wells up over an inability to fix it. You feel deeply lost.

You know big lifestyle changes are in order to get your life back on track. But for many the stumbling block is a pie in the sky notion, that life will run smoothly once you get that next project done. But like creative author Natalie Goldberg so eloquently pronounces: “life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.” Sh*%t happens. . . all the time.

BurnOut exaggerates the disorder of life, especially when you feel like everything hinges on you. Our livelihoods, financial security, and reputations feel like the are tittering on the edge of disaster. This rapidly declines our mental health as stress takes huge chemical draws from the brain. The change in cranium chemistry can result in depression, anxiety, and feeling like a 200lb gorilla is on your chest.

BurnOut creeps in while you’re hopelessly wrapped up in getting stuff done for the sake of, you guessed it, getting stuff done. For that short-lived accomplishment high, addicted to busy leads to doing more but living less.

“I can handle this”, we think to ourselves, as we say yes to taking on more. But in fact, we are poorly maintaining. We don’t notice what is happening until the physical symptoms keep
us from working.

Here is the odd thing: many who experience BurnOut aren’t in a miserable career. But people often equate BurnOut with a bad job or poor career choice. This fact can make BurnOut even more uncomfortable because those who burnout are extremely passionate about their work. Especially when you’ve taken on the persona of superhero impervious to work kryptonite.

A five-letter word pops up: shame. You ask yourself, I’ve got it good, how could I be so utterly stressed? It doesn’t make sense. What was wrong with me? Am I ungrateful? A fraud? Useless? If these questions sound familiar, then you've been down a similar path.

The BurnOut label feels like a failure. Which can lead to irrational storylines. For me, in the worst of my burnout, I had a fear was that the entire world, all 7 billion people, with their 14 billion eyeballs would use their 70 billion fingers to send gossipy texts about my inadequacies.

BurnOut happens only to people who aren’t tough enough, an uneducated part of me thought. This is an example of how our thinking deters us from seeking help. I was feeding myself BS, a habit high achievers take on to keep themselves going when they are running on empty.

Then a life vest arrived. A very wise woman said to me: “In order to burn out, you first have to have a burning passion.”

BurnOuts have a tireless drive. Dedicated to a powerful why and a need to make an impact—this fuels that passion that will either launch you forward or burn you out. But the paradox is, without it, you wouldn’t be able to do what you do. For many, the process of understanding how to succeed and heal from stress is learning how to control the flame.

You have to stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, stop taking responsibility for everything, and stop piling on more projects. You have to say YES to yourself, put health first, and say NO to going into energetic debt.

The experience of BurnOut is messy, depressing and ugly. You might feel like you’re wearing a cone of shame. But, I have since realized, it doesn’t make you less than, it makes you more than. The darkest times often create the greatest strength within us. It’s time to walk away from chronic stress. It’s time to stop feeling ashamed, lost, and confused. It’s time to go from charred to charged. Are you ready?

Want to kick stress & burnout to the curb? Book a FREE call with us: movethinksmile.com/talk

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

This post is the fifth 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?

Part 4: Why I wrote BurnOut to Badass

Why BurnOut to BadAss?

burnout, conquer stress, manage stress, negative thoughts, reduce stress, relief stress, stress relief, work stress 0

Left to Right: Eléa Faucheron

By Eléa Faucheron , Founder MOVE THINK SMILE | Head Coach: Burnout to Badass

Photographer: Christine Lentz

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?

Relief stress and turn your burnout into badass.

Podcast: Enter The Flex Zone!

burnout, conquer stress, manage stress, negative thoughts, reduce stress, relieve stress, stress relief, work stress 0

Feeling Out of Order?

burnout, conquer stress, manage stress, negative thoughts, reduce stress, relieve stress, stress relief, work stress 0

Why Is Negativity Like Super Glue?

burnout, conquer stress, manage stress, negative thoughts, reduce stress, relieve stress, stress relief, work stress 0

Left to Right: Eléa Faucheron

By Eléa Faucheron , Founder MOVE THINK SMILE | Head Coach: Burnout to Badass

Photographer: Christine Lentz

Does feeling optimistic seem really hard sometimes? Like negative thoughts have been applied to your skull by minions with a big tube of super glue, causing your zest completely flat line? Leading you to drink more caffeine and buy pinatas in bulk, so you can beat the crap out of something and then eat some candy? All while seriously considering selling your children, dog, and husband for money to take a sabbatical?

Welcome to the brain, your negativity bias, and how you’re wired.

Here’s how it works, whatever you think travels through circuits of neural networks in your brain. The more you think something—My job is a soul-sucking vampire, my hair looks like swamp thing, she’s a manipulative pre-madonna, this wrinkle makes my face look like a tarantula—the easier that path becomes for a thought to travel down again and again.

It’s like muscle memory when you work out, that repetition applies to your thoughts as well. Scientists say we have between 30,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day, the majority of which we’re completely unaware. This fact makes my brain feel like it’s been overcooked and my eyeballs want to melt. Which probably explains why I surprise myself with thoughts I think and even some of the choices I make.

“What was I thinking????????” My point exactly.

Neurons, otherwise known as brain cells, communicate with each other via an electrical communication system. Neuroscientist Joe Dispenza is famous for saying, neurons that fire together wire together. Which basically means repetitive thought wires us to think in certain ways.

If you want to change that wired connection it can feel like deconstructing super glue. Our brains like efficiency and routine. Any change of habitual thought requires the brain to work at unsticking those electrical connections and honestly, it would rather do what it knows. Not because it’s against you, but because it likes to save energy, maybe it’s a little lazy or possibly it’s environmentally conscious and likes to recycle!

The perspective of your life is built on what you think. The more you think something, the more you're wiring yourself to think it in the future. The sobering, pass me a cup of black coffee reality is, a habit-driven brain won't distinguish between good and problematic thoughts; it just repeats. It simply wants efficiency and speed. Which means your life could feel like a little ray of sunshine or a little ray of Darth Vader.

The fact is, you are an incredibly efficient machine! But unfortunately, you’re not banking up extra credit on your electric bill with all those thoughts. No, you are building connections and using a little super glue to ensure a solid structure. Habitual thinking literally remodels the brain.

Negativity also has superpowers because survival often depends on our skill at giving more attention to danger. This is our negativity bias. Rick Hanson, Psychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness, says “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.” Bad news is stored into long-term memory quickly. While positive experiences need to be held in our awareness for more than 12 seconds in order for the transfer from short-term to long-term memory. And apparent, y negativity has covertly overthrown the english language. There are 62% negative emotional words and only 32% positive ones.

All this could get discouraging when you’re trying to battle that huge tube of negativity headed straight for your brain. But the reality is noticing what’s sticking to your brain, is in fact, progress.

If negativity is stuck to you, don’t force yourself to think positive thoughts when you’re actually 3,000 miles from actually feeling optimistic. Instead think a thought that is one step away from the negative thought. Then create a third sentence that is two steps away from that one. . . and so on, until you build momentum out of the negative thought. The rule here is be general not specific.

For example: My job is a soul sucking vampire, is pretty specific. So go general: My job is pretty bad, but I manage to get through each day. I really don’t like it at all, but it does pay. Not everyday is terrible. I know this is leading to job change. This isn’t permanent. I can find other options. I do have a choice. I can make this situation better. Continue reaching for thoughts that feel better and better. Practice this and it will deconstruct negativity every time, I guarantee!