Job Got You Burnt Out and Having Nightmares? Here’s How to Fix It

"There are many actions we can take to overcome burnout, and telling those thoughts to go fly a kite is one of them. So is saying “No” to things we cannot possibly cram into our schedule..."

If you start having nightmares about your job, it’s time to get a new job. That’s one of the self-imposed rules I created some 25 years ago when one of my bosses showed up as Satan in a hallucination while I was going through the DTs.

Yes, I left that job eons ago and have been lucky enough to have pretty mellow dreams since then. Well, my dreams aren’t exactly mellow—but at least I’m done with the DTs and hallucinations. And at least my dreams haven’t involved nightmares about work.

Until today. I woke up from a deep sleep with leftovers from one of those panicky dreams bouncing around in my head.

The dream had me at the workplace of my part-time leave-the-house gig, and everyone there was demanding something and all of those 10 billion somethings weren’t done and there was no way to do any of them and more and more people kept demanding more and more somethings until I woke up in a giant ball of overwhelm.

Sigh. Quitting that job is not an option I feel like exploring at the moment. Aside from the part about having to leave the house (kidding!), it’s actually a pretty cool gig.

And it’s not like we have high-pressure life-and-death situations like you’d find working as a firefighter, police officer, emergency room nurse or alligator tooth cleaner.

So, why the heck am I so fed up, burnt out and annoyed? Because burnout is an equal-opportunity employer. You don’t necessarily need a high-pressure job to experience it. All you need is the right recipe for creating it.

While we could sit around and discuss all kinds of fancy or psychological definitions of that thing called burnout, it really boils down to one thing: Burnout occurs when your output exceeds your input.

You can think of it as being allotted a drawer full of spoons every day. Every time you face a situation you perceive as stressful, one of your spoons gets taken away. Every time you embrace love, light and happiness, you get an extra spoon in your drawer. If you end your day with a few spoons left, you’re doing OK.

If you run out of spoons by something like noon, you’re screwed. That’s when you’re likely to feel depleted, depressed and cranky. It’s also when you become prone to accidents, injury, illness and the strong urge to kick a garden gnome.

So why do we run out of spoons in the first place? A few reasons come immediately to mind. For starters, we live in the digital age where everything is always on, on, on. We’re constantly connected with flashing, beeping, idiotic talking speakers that can’t even play our requested song, and other annoyances persistently vying for our attention.

Many of us have also fallen into Superhero Syndrome. This is where we think we can do 82 hours’ worth of work in 10 minutes—or have all those somethings done by yesterday.

Another reason, one that especially holds true with jobs that are not physically demanding, is all that noise in our heads. When we live in our heads, we are constantly being pulled into yesterday, tomorrow and all kinds of worst-case-scenarios that have us living under an overpass or lying bleeding in a ditch.

We also may not be aware of how much energy we’re leaking – leakage that takes away spoons, puts us on the defense, and starts all that pillow screaming that scares the dogs.

Yep, the burnout many of us experience is more mental than physical. It often comes from the thoughts of what we think we have to do rather than what’s actually in front of us.

How many times have we built up a project or task into a giant mountain in our heads–only to actually tackle the thing and find it was relatively fast, painless, and maybe even kind of fun?

There are many actions we can take to overcome burnout, and telling those thoughts to go fly a kite is one of them. So is saying “No” to things we cannot possibly cram into our schedule, asking for help when needed, and setting boundaries when it comes to protecting our serenity.

The bottom line on it all is to make sure our input exceeds our output, and not the other way around.

We leak energy through stress, negative thoughts, guilt, fear, over-thinking, living in the past, catastrophizing about the future, sitting idle in a cubicle, bulldozing through life, and falling into the trap of all work and no play.

We conserve and build up energy through joy, laughter, peace, sunlight, fresh air, fresh ideas, moving, dancing, nature, creativity, love, and finding ways to turn work into play.

The key to it all is creating a routine we can healthily sustain, one that includes making time for creativity and fun. Notice we said “making” time for creativity and fun. Not “finding” time or “sneaking” time. Making time. Carving it out on our schedules as a non-negotiable must.

Unplug from the outer chaos. Plug into the joy of the moment, the power of Spirit, the healing of nature, the light, laughter and love. It’s there, it really is. Once you surrender the need to control the world, you’ll find it right there waiting for you.

Meditation, Reiki, physical activity, connecting with kindred souls, hugging your dogs (or cats, rats or goats), creating art, writing, singing, dancing, and soothing baths infused with essential oils all help with the above.

As does recalling one of my favorite quotes, which doubles as an absolute truth: “If we don’t set our priorities, someone else will.” And it’s more likely than not that someone else will be coming from the outer world of fret and stew, demanding those 10 billion impossible somethings that are the stuff of nightmares.

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Ryn Gargulinski is an award-winning author, artist, speaker and Reiki master who hugs her dogs daily. As founder of Sanctuary of the Wild Souls, she helps people unleash their full power and potential by teaching them how to attain and maintain higher states of consciousness. More at WildSS.com.