Kelly Kay, L.Ac.
So burnout for healthcare providers is real, and there are different signs that it can be happening to you. One of the signs is feeling tired for no apparent reason, one of the signs is not wanting to go into work the same way that you used to, one of the signs can be, simply, almost a “resentment” that you have to see another patient, or add on something else into your day. And for me, that is one of the number one signs of when I know I'm starting to get burnt out, is that I, kind of, start “resenting” that I have to see, you know, one more patient or one more thing that gets put into my schedule. And that's when I know, okay I'm overbooked. I need to cut back, I need to start taking care of myself better, because that’s the last energy I would ever want to bring into a session with someone is resentment! We want to bring compassion; we want to bring the highest energy possible at all times. Burnout can be a combination of physical, mental, emotional, and energetic, and that's what makes it complicated. So, sometimes it's a matter of looking at your scheduling and doing a business review, so-to-speak, of how are you organizing your practice; are there ways that you can manage your own energy field a little bit better? Sometimes it's mental. How are you approaching your day? How are you approaching your clients? Sometimes it's emotional. We can absorb emotions from our clients if we're not careful, and as many energy practitioners or holistic practitioners are aware, most people that are coming to us have a lot of emotional, physical things they want healed and that's why they're coming to us. So we have to be very careful about that. And then energetically, spiritually, we are giving what we have to our clients on a daily basis and we need techniques and tools to replenish that energy ourselves, otherwise we will end up feeling drained if we're not careful. We're doing energy exchanges with people all the time whether we're conscious of it or not.
So ideally, we have knowledge of how to protect our own energy, how to recuperate our own energy, but unfortunately a lot of people don't know how to do that, they're not taught that in chiropractic school or acupuncture school. And they go off into their practice and realize, ‘oh my gosh I'm drained every night. I thought this was my passion, but maybe it's not because I'm feeling so drained, or I'm feeling so tired all the time.
So what I offer are ways to help people recover that passion and recover that energy and realize, oh, maybe this is still my passion, I just needed a few more techniques and tools so that I can regain that passion again! So what I've seen is that people shift from being tired and exhausted and not even sure if they want to keep doing their career anymore, to people that are loving their career again and excited to be passionate about their job, which is what their soul has really been meant to be doing this whole time!
Self-care is so important. I was forced to learn self-care for myself because I neglected it for a few years and realized that it is probably one of the most important things that healers can do for themselves is self-care. We have to be on Top of the list of making sure that we are doing what we need to do to take care of ourselves, making sure that we are getting enough sleep, that we're eating healthy foods, that we're taking care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And sometimes we, as healers, have difficulty saying no. We want to help as many people as possible and it's noble and it's wonderful, but also learning to set healthy boundaries of, maybe I need to scale back on how many days a week that I'm working, maybe I need to restructure how I'm helping people. And that's really important so that you don't burn out. Because you have unique gifts to offer the world and that's why you became a healer.
We have to maintain your own energy so that you can continue to offer those gifts for many years to come.
