on burn out and overwhelm

 

‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.’

Isaiah 43

Two years ago, I was burnt out. I had been covering two vacancies, in two neighbouring churches, for too long, and the fact that someone was providing cover meant that the processes for addressing the situation were not moving in the way that they ought to move. And I had reached the point where I was exhausted, emotionally, and had run out of hope that anything was going to change.

When I share this story, people share with me their experiences of burn-out, in the face of intractable challenges in their working lives or family circumstances. And when we are burnt out, we need someone to show us one small step that we can take.

I met with my archdeacon, and told him that, even though I had not lost my sense of vocation, I was seriously contemplating walking away from this, from holding these vacancies. He listened, and said, ‘You need a sabbatical.’ (three month’s paid leave). I replied, ‘I’ve been asking for a sabbatical for over two years now, and I just get pushed from pillar to post.’ He responded, ‘We’ll make it happen.’ One small step.

On my wife’s recommendation, I got in ouch with friends who live in Spain and arranged to go and spend a week with them. They live in a Roman walled city. Each day, I walked around the city wall, then found a café and drank coffee and read. Small steps.

The next small step was deciding that I would not go back to holding two vacancies but would leave the place where I had been based and concentrate on the place where some of my time had been loaned. Small step after small step. And at times what looked like a path forward vanished into thin air, inviting me to stop and wait and look around and find a next small step.

In this way, step by step, including not heading too far off the path, we rebuild hope.

Burn out is not uncommon. But being overwhelmed is very common. Overwhelm is the experience that life is unfolding too fast, faster than our bodies and minds can manage, faster than we are willing or able to keep up.

One of the common experiences of overwhelm is found in the wake of bereavement. The world rushes on, oblivious, as if it did not know that it had come to an end, as if people did not care that you had lost your very life when someone dear to you died. You might even have had it said to you, ‘Have you not moved on? It’s been six months.’ as if six months was anything at all.

We experience overwhelm when the demands placed upon us are too relentless.

And the experts tell us that the cure to overwhelm is play.

When children play, they are fully absorbed. Their parent might say, ‘Come on, it’s time to go.’ and it is as if the child has not heard them, because they have not heard, not because they are disobedient but because they are absorbed.

Through play, children learn cooperation and problem solving, but also and more fundamentally experience joy. As adults we assume that we have learnt the lessons of play (the skills of cooperation and problem solving) and so we leave play behind. And over time we forget how to play. We lose touch with joy.

Burn out is a long-term challenge. It takes more than a three-month sabbatical to return. But overwhelm, despite being a big emotion, can be smaller in scale, and a more frequent experience. The late modern world comes at us thick and fast. At times we might take out ten minutes just to play and that be enough; at times, a whole day.

And God does not say to his people, you will not walk through fire and the waves will not rise over your head. God says, when these things happen, because they will happen, when you are burnt out or overwhelmed, there you might discover me with you. In the revelation of a small step, or in the midst of play.