We are not immune from burnout here at Mindful. It takes constant communication for our small but mighty team to feel supported, balanced, fair, healthy—to create the psychological safety necessary for all of us to show up, make mistakes, fix them… and be real together so we can make quality things together.
We use weekly “Too Hot To Handle” check-ins to take each others’ temperature, see who’s “on fire,” and discuss how we can spread the work around to make sure we’re hot enough to keep us warm, not burn us out. Sometimes our systems fail us. Sometimes we take on too much. It takes all of us working together to maintain compassionate systems that support our thriving at work.
This New Year, rather than offering you a “New Year, New You” issue, we wanted to to explore how mindfulness can help with one of the most complex problems of our time: burnout. Because burnout isn’t an individual problem, it’s a collective challenge partially fueled by our disconnection from each other. Burnout at work happens to people who have been pushing themselves to perform for an extended period of time. It’s a byproduct of passion and drive embedded in unkind systems. But those systems were created by people, which means they can be updated.
The Gift of Rest
I’m excited to share that we just launched a new Mindful at Work program, to help organizations learn the foundational skills of resilience, focus, and self-compassion and foster high-quality interpersonal relationships. And our latest issue of Mindful magazine is The Burnout Issue because we packed it with some of the themes we think are important for healing burnout:
• Public health innovator Jenée Johnson offers a practice to rest, relax, and release stress.
• Writer Mara Gulens shares the latest research on strengthening clear, vulnerable communication at work.
• Meditation teacher Caverly Morgan reveals how we can remember our belonging.
• And our Mindful editorial team curated a meditation retreat to help you take your individual practice into your relationships and your community.
Burnout at Work: A Path to Compassionate Change
Your personal mindfulness practice can help you create respectful boundaries for yourself, connect you to your purpose, and reveal your values. By building that knowledge of yourself, you learn how to more deeply respect others. And when we can build respect for each other, at work, at home, and in our communities, we can create the kind of positive culture change where caring for yourself and others is the norm. And from there, we can begin to repair. Together.
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Don’t Stop at Empathy. Your Employees Need Compassion
Compassion is more empowering than empathy, according to research. Mindful leadership expert Rasmus Hougaard breaks down how excessive empathy can contribute to burnout, and explains five key ways to support your teams by leading with compassion.
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This Kind of Movement Can Be the Key to Healing Burnout
Coping with any degree of burnout can leave us feeling stuck. Sometimes, what we need to begin healing and to rediscover joy is to (literally) move our way through it.
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