I know that many people go through times in their lives when they feel Fried, and burned out. This is certainly not an uncommon feeling, especially when things have veered off course. In my interview with author Joan Borysenko about her new book entitled “Fried-Why You Burn Out and How to Revive“, we discuss the challenges associated with these feelings and what one can do to revive.
As Joan states “Fried” may seem like an innocuous enough word since so many of us use it these days to describe our frenzied, speed-oriented, exhausted state of mind. But innocuous it is not. Feeling fried is an alarm that life has veered off course. It’s shorthand for losing our way individually and culturally in a world spinning so fast that it feels like we’re about to be launched into outer space.
In our interview together we discuss the work of author and psychologist Herbert Freudenberger who first popularized the condition in his book “Burnout: The Hight Cost of High Achievement“. As Joan discribes in her book, and atributes to the work of Freudenberger ” Falling short of your ideal in a way–perceiving a gap between what you think is require of you and the reality of what you can produce can be disheartening to the point where your entire sense of self crumbles.
Joan certainly know the challenges of burn out herself, having gone through it several times and reverting to using antidepressants to combat the overwhelming feeling of depression. She soon learned that the use of drugs to treat the condition was only temporary and was not a permanent solution to the things she needed to change in her life to sustain a life of balance and harmony. As Joan states knowing what to limit in your life and what to seek more of isn’t always easy to figure out, let alone implement.
Joan also reveals that burnout can have its roots in childhood, and the seeds germinate many years later and can be carried into adulthood. They grow in emotional soil polluted by helplessness that was deeply rooted in the nervous system during childhood. Given the right conditions–a bad economy, a mismatch of values at work, frequent rejection, and abusive or loveless relationship, those seeds of burnout and depression often germinate many years later.
If you are interested in learning more about burn out and want to know more about how to cope with it, then I highly recommend that you read Joan’s new book “Fried-Why You Burn Out and How to Revive“. You can learn more about Joan’s book and become involved in her community of Facebook followers sharing their experiences by clicking here to be directed to her Facebook page.
Enjoy this great interview with a wonderful author and friend.
