Book Review: Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

How many of us have chosen to stuff our feelings inside of a box so that we could preserve ourselves? God forbid we untie the ribbon and release our demons. We've been told to do everything but feel our feelings, and Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle forced me to take a hard look at the maladaptive ways I had been coping with my stress. But here's the thing, there's no such as "coping" with stress; stress is not a feeling you can reason with.

It's terrorizes every part of your being, and manifests the more that you neglect to take care of it. You can distract yourself all you want, but your body doesn't forget it's there. It manifests in your foot tapping, jaw clenching, and nail biting. You cannot think your way out of stress, you must feel your way out of it and complete the cycle. Something that deeply resonated with me while reading this book was the idea of "Human Giver Syndrome" or "the contagious belief that you have a moral obligation to give every drop of your humanity in support of others, no matter the cost to you." In other words, it doesn't matter if your cup is empty - keep giving even if you have nothing left to give! It feels like my entire existence I've seen my elders, especially women, fall into this trap.

​The perpetual praise of extreme self-sacrifice has fooled women into thinking they need to be martyrs. What's so great about inflicting all this pain on ourselves as women? We've crushed and abandoned ourselves under the weight of everyone else's needs; and then when we finally relinquish our sticks for swords, and  draw closer to the fire inside of our hearts, what does the world tell us? That we're selfish. Daughters like me come from  generations of women who have been told to sit quietly and listen. Imagine everyone's surprise when they found out I couldn't sit still and watch my life pass by without any meaning. It took a lot of time for me to realize that I did not have to carry everyone else's wounds to hold value as a woman in this world. I was allowed to put myself first, even if it made everyone else uncomfortable. I did not have to earn the right to put myself first. I exist, and I inherently deserve the right to my existence and all that it entails. One thing is for sure, the temptation of pleasing the world no longer appeals to me. It's time to break generational curses, it's time for a revolution. No more hiding, I'm see through and I am not scared of you.

Some teachings that stuck out to me the most were:

• "Wellness is not a state of being, but a state of action."
• "Whatever calls you, whether it's the ocean or art or family or democracy, isn't out there. It's inside of you."
• "What makes you stronger is whatever happens to you after you survive the thing that didn't kill you."
• "If you're using up decision-making about food, clothes, exercise, makeup, body hair, "toxins", and fretting about your body's failures, what are you too exhausted to care about, that you would otherwise prioritize?"