Healing Burnout from a Chaotic Life
“I manage stress the way I manage laundry: I ignore it until it becomes a full situation.”
Burnout doesn’t always arrive with sirens and flashing lights. Sometimes it slips in quietly, wearing productivity like a costume and whispering, “Just push through.”
For a long time, I thought I was thriving because I was busy. Booked. Needed. Exhausted but applauded. I was teaching 18 yoga classes a week, juggling several private clients, and convincing myself that this pace was normal. Noble, even.
Spoiler alert: it was not.
When Survival Mode Becomes a Lifestyle
There’s a difference between being productive and living in survival mode. Survival mode is when your nervous system never gets the memo that you’re safe. It’s when your calendar is packed, your phone never stops buzzing, and rest feels like something you have to earn.
My life became a long string of inhale-exhale-repeat with no pause in between. Teaching class after class. Showing up for everyone. Managing schedules, bodies, emotions, expectations. And while yoga is supposed to soothe the nervous system, too much of anything can become its own form of chaos.
Living this way kept my body flooded with cortisol. That stress hormone that’s helpful in emergencies but wildly unhelpful when it sets up a permanent residence. Over time, the imbalance showed up in my health. Fatigue that sleep couldn’t fix. Brain fog. Mood swings. A body that felt like it was quietly waving a white flag.
Burnout Isn’t Weakness, It’s a Warning
Let’s clear something up: burnout is not a personal failure. It’s a biological response to prolonged stress without recovery.
Your body is incredibly loyal. It will carry you until it can’t. And when it finally speaks up, it’s not being dramatic. It’s being protective.
I had to face an uncomfortable truth: just because I could keep going didn’t mean I should. Hustle culture loves to reward endurance, but your nervous system keeps receipts.
Healing Begins with Subtraction, Not Addition
Burnout healing isn’t about adding another self-care task to your already crowded plate. It’s about subtraction.
Fewer commitments.
Fewer “yeses” spoken through gritted teeth.
Fewer days that look like a sprint disguised as a schedule.
For me, healing started when I scaled back. When I allowed space between classes. When I stopped romanticizing exhaustion and started respecting my limits.
Rest became a practice. Silence became medicine. And boundaries, once terrifying, slowly became sacred.
Relearning How to Live Below the Red Line
Burnout trains you to live above your threshold. Healing asks you to relearn what calm actually feels like.
It looks like waking up without dread.
It feels like breathing without urgency.
It sounds like your mind not narrating a to-do list while you’re trying to rest.
Lower cortisol doesn’t come from doing more yoga poses or drinking one more adaptogenic latte. It comes from slower mornings, gentler schedules, and honoring your energy as a finite resource.
You’re Allowed to Choose a Quieter Life
A chaotic life doesn’t always look chaotic from the outside. Sometimes it looks successful. Booked. Reliable. Strong.
But if your inner world feels frantic, if your body feels perpetually tense, if joy feels muted under the weight of responsibility, it might be time to choose differently.
You are allowed to build a life that doesn’t require recovery from it.
Healing burnout isn’t about becoming less capable. It’s about becoming more sustainable. More present. More alive.
And trust me, your nervous system will thank you for the volume adjustment.
Let’s Chat:
If you’re comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear from you in the comments:
What’s one thing in your life that quietly contributes to burnout, and what would it look like to soften it just a little?