Ballad of Burnout: a helper lost and found by Kerry Makin-Byrd (me) © 2023

Part 1 of 4 here; Part 2 of 4 here; Part 3 of 4 here.

10 Acceptance

My own path of acceptance and meaning making

Is a dizzying double helix

A tension and release

A continual letting go

Each time I accept a truth

It allows new meaning to emerge

Which unveils more truth

They layer and urge each other on

Here I stand, open handed open eyed open hearted

Unarmed with reason or defense

It was always about me / It was never about me

I did this / I was a victim of this

I turn toward myself / I look at hard truths

I chisel through clay, finally willing to explore the pockmarked imperfection below

Can I look at myself, warts and all, in service of a deeper knowing

My confession

The part that breaks my heart (open?)

CALL

RESPONSE

I colluded in this mess

Warts and all

Warts and all

I papercut my integrity till it bled out

To understand the truth of my experience

Because it was easier to ignore it

Because I was distracted and full of myself

Warts and all

Warts and all

Sure I was above it

Above the fray and shine

Yet look what I did and made

Look how off center I drifted

To understand the truth of my experience

In the face of a sick and broken system

I said to myself and others

Warts and all

Warts and all

Please continue

Please go on.

The experiment requires that you continue.

It is absolutely essential that you continue.

You have no other choice; you must go on.

Warts and all

Warts and all

I understand the truth of my fall

The grief of my knowing:

I exchanged my selfhood for fool’s gold worthiness

In my hustle for love and acceptance

I lost hold of the things that grounded me to earth, to the home of myself

11 Meaning-making

What does it mean and what did I learn?

I learned that I use charm, wit and sweetness as tools to hustle for a facade of

enoughness

belonging and love

I learned that I elbowed for the success of being special, better, best

(Not with but above all others)

I thought love was pie and grabbed for each piece

I did all this

To achieve the prize youareloved

To defend my dark fear youarenotenough

Warts and all, my fragile edge has two sides

One side: love compassion service

The other: charm repression subservience

I bow to this truth

I will always be vulnerable to this intoxicating exchange

Trading my Self for the love of others

Again and again

This will be my work

Feeling the pull and tacking back

Laying down the fizzy hustle

Instead…welcoming myself back to my own humanity

Being just me

A quieter love, a shakier voice

If I accepted that I would always need to fight my way home1

How would I move forward?

I learned that I am vulnerable to give up my allegiance to myself. That I will betray what I know to be true in the hopes of approval, clinical service, and professional success. As I pivot my attention fully to others, I ignore my own needs, a slippery slope sliding to the cavern of burnout, where I wake from the fugue state exhausted, lost, and dry, thinking how did I get here?

What if each day I created a life of small moments?

What if the biggest risk I took is backing myself?

What if I built a life, vast and wide,

a life that transcends simple versions of career/identity/success.

(Period not question mark)

12 Living

There is no arrival. No happy ending. This life is a series of small choices, pivoting away from myself and fighting back. If I am already unimportant, skipped over and invisible, who cares anyway?

Why not whisper my heart desires…no one is listening. The world becomes so quiet I begin to hear myself again. What I am learning is that a life crafted to be a sanctuary is quiet, boring (deliciously so), filled with treasures holy only to myself.

I sleep nine hours most nights. I try to pray in the morning and meditate before bed. I walk and swim, without goal or hope. My only wish is to move my body. My circle of focus is small, my husband and child, a few trusted friends.

I say no frequently, enjoying my own company better than most others.

I hold my power and respect myself.

I remind myself each no is also a yes.

I find hope in the surf and am skeptical of people, their sarcastic jokes, or buzzing inconsistent attention.

I give up things.

Being liked by all.

Being admired and polished.

A flat stomach, a clean house.

I release these old wishes like sand in the wind, grit crunching between my teeth as they fly away.

I swim towards the deep.

I find marvels appear when space and time are quiet.

The loved ones I most wish to know will share, not on a prescheduled “connecting time”

But in moments of silence, moments that stretch,

Moments we unfold like clean sheets and billow out between us.

I fight against a crazed culture pulling me back to the shallows.

I watch my own urgency to be someone I don’t even like.

To sidehustle hashtag.

To build a facade.

To skim over a life instead of crafting it.

I am always vulnerable to looking like a successful helper and failing myself.

I must accept this to wrestle against it.

This is the great work of my life.2

Again and again.

May I love and be loved.

May I know peace and happiness.

May I be free from anger and fear.

May I be free from suffering.

I add my own:

May I sing myself home, again and again.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Ara and Isla, Arlyn Llewellyn, Betsy Quilligan, Debbie Sorenson, Meg McKelvie, Mara Bear Vernon, Sanno Zack, Stacey Bromberg, Robyn Walser, and Yumi Perkins.

This writing began in pain

To scorch the earth behind me

But unveiled it was a letter of love

to all of those who freed me.

To the artists, objectors, scientists, authors, mentors, and loved ones who lit my way home.