'Fried' By Joan Borysenko
Are you fried?
...Do you feel as if too many things demand your attention and you don't have time to give attention to yourself?
...Is your to-do list never-ending and over-ambitious?
...Do you feel emotionally exhausted and as if you cannot possibly give any more?
All of the above may be signs that you are burnt out, a state that Joan Borysenko describes in 'Fried'.
What tells you that you're fried?
For me, a stage of burnout happened in December 2014. It was the end of a busy year at work, and the last three months had been specially stressful with work trips, moving house, and a major revamp of this website. At a certain point, replying to emails from friends was no longer something pleasurable, but another chore to tick off my to-do list.
I was reading 'Fried' at around the same time, and I immediately recognized that I was experiencing burnout.
Burnout occurs when we have been going too hard for a long time on something, or on a number of things. You feel like you just cannot keep going in the same way - you're tired, depressed, done.
What 'Fried' is about
In this book Joan Borysenko has mapped out 12 stages of burnout, born from personal experience. She also shares a number of angles to understand burnout.
Some of the stages of burnout are 'Putting your own needs last', 'Frustrated, aggressive, and cynical', 'Get away from me!', or 'Who cares and why bother?'. If you're reading this, it's my bet you've experienced at least two of these stages.
After the description of each stage there is a self-reflection exercise to transform the burnout into zest for life. You will get inspiration to take action and move forward.
Besides, throughout the book there are many other thoughts and contributions from Borysenko's Facebook friends, who add a variety of interesting views.
What I think about this book
I find that 'Fried' is a key book to read for anyone who lives in modern Western society - because chances are you're affected (or have been) by burnout. This book gives you the steps to move on from a burnout state.
It also contains many other ideas cited in sister topics, such as mental health. Other interesting bits are:
- The childhood roots of burnout
- How burnout disappears when living in the present moment consciously
- The relationship between burnout and learned helplessness
- The importance of mindfulness - and the best definition I've ever seen of mindfulness
- The pessimist explanatory style of something bad: personal, pervasive, and permanent thinking
This is a very interesting book which reflects the current times and provides you with a map to tackle a very common modern phenomenon.
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"Transformation - a deepening into one's authentic nature - is what burnout ultimately demands. Juts as an acorn has an entelechy (an inner blueprint that expresses itself as an oak tree), each one of us has an inner essence that we mature into. That essence is expressed by following our passion, our deepest longing, our bliss."
Joan Borysenko
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