Avoiding Burnout: The Seven Principles of Self-Preservation

By K.A. Mann

K.A. Mann had it all. She was a mother and wife, an ultra-marathon runner and a business owner. But the stress of doing the wrong work in an unpleasant environment landed her with a lifelong autoimmune illness. Without work and income, she took stock of how it happened and how she could have prevented her burnout. Kathy developed the seven principles of self-preservation.

The principles cover relationship issues such as the importance of boundaries; knowing yourself and injecting creativity into your life – all in order to create a richer, more rewarding life and to connect with what matters most to you.

In this heartfelt and personal account, she provides great insight into the factors affecting our stress levels. Accompanied by personal stories and backed up by research, Kathy provides opportunities for us to evaluate our lives and to design a life more aligned to our authentic selves.

If you’re suffering from stress, this book could help you avoid burnout and change the trajectory of your life.

“This is a book of triumph and grace that follows when one has suffered deeply and endured crises of such magnitude that our hearts and minds are literally cracked open and we recognise a power beyond ourselves that is always present.”
Meryl Abrahams, Professional Specialised Kinesiologist

About the Author

K.A. Mann enjoys public speaking and writing articles on the topic of avoiding burnout and self-preservation. She writes an honest and thought-provoking blog (www.findingyourlifepassion.co.za) on connecting with your passion and in living a fulfilling life. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with her husband and two daughters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A. Mann
• Release date: Aug 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370989072

K.A. Mann

K. A. Mann experienced a dramatic burnout which showed her that her life was not ideal. She made changes to her life in various ways and now lives a much more authentic life, aligned to her strengths and talents. She is passionate about sharing her lessons and aspires to inspire others into making positive changes to their lives.

Book preview

Avoiding Burnout:

The Seven Principles of Self-Preservation

Avoiding Burnout:

The Seven Principles of Self-Preservation

K. A. Mann

Copyright © 2018 K. A. Mann

First edition 2017

Second edition 2018

Published by K. A. Mann Publishing at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Author using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

This book is dedicated to Stuart, my husband and my best friend.

I love you.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

Reasons For This Book

PART 1: My Story

Growing Up

The Family Business

What’s Wrong?

PART 2: The Seven Principles

Principle 1: Know Yourself

Principle 2: Explore Your Creative Side

Principle 3: Prioritise Self-Care

Principle 4: Address Energy Vampires and Obligations

Principle 5: Be True to Yourself

Principle 6: Lose the Guilt

Principle 7: Find Meaning

Final Words

References

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I’d like to thank my husband, Stuart for his patience with my recovery and for having the courage to grow alongside me.

Thank you to those who have been supportive, particularly Claire and Derek. You have helped me more than you know.

Thanks to Sonia and Kim for taking the time to read through my early drafts and for providing insightful and considered feedback.

Thanks to those who have played a part in my healing: Lourentia, Meryl, Ingrid, Stella, Joanne, Yvonne, Veronica, Taryn and my doctors.

Meryl, thanks for all your hard work in editing this book and for helping me to transform it into something I can be proud of.

I am grateful to all those who believed in me, and who never doubted my career transition.

Foreword

Kathy’s story is sincere, genuine and deeply heartfelt.

This is a book of triumph and grace that follows when one has suffered deeply and endured crises of such magnitude that our hearts and minds are literally cracked open and we recognise a power beyond ourselves that is always present.

This is a book that describes such a personal journey and the deep blessings and healing that comes when we accept and claim responsibility for our own part within the crisis. True healing liberates. It fills our hearts with more love and a capacity for forgiveness.

A crisis is often a blessing in disguise. It is life checking on you and asking: Are you sure this is the path you want to take? Often the crisis is life’s gentle nudge to say we are on the wrong track. Being forced to take time out, we are given a magnificent opportunity to check again and see our true path more clearly.

I am sure Kathy’s story will inspire you as it did for me. She has learnt to overcome great challenges and difficulties from a tender age of thirteen. Her strength and courage to learn from what life dished out to her is right up there with the likes of Dr John F. Demartini who was told as a young child that he would never amount to anything in life. He overcame his learning difficulties and showed the world what he could accomplish. Other successful stories include Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield as well as Oprah Winfrey and Louise Hay.

Avoiding Burnout: The Seven Principles of Self-Preservation gently offers you an opportunity to reflect on your true authentic self, and to what extent you are living an authentic life. Are you being true to yourself and others? The seven principles shared are life principles that you can apply at any time or stage in your life. It is never too late to be true and honest with yourself. It is time to live the life you are meant to live. If not now, then when?

Meryl Abrahams, M.Sc. (Medicine)

Professional Specialised Kinesiologist

Introduction

The first part of this book outlines my personal journey and all the critical factors that led to my burnout and eventually, to the diagnosis of an autoimmune condition. As you will see, it was not just one thing that made me ill, but a combination of stressful factors: psychological, financial and physical to name a few.

Our bodies are designed to cope with stress, but when the stress continues for an extended period of time and worsens, sooner or later something has to give. My immune system took a huge knock. The journey towards recovery can take years and is often very costly in terms of loss of income (not being able to work), the cost of treatment and the high cost when relationships suffer from the fatigue. You have no energy for family, children, friends, sports or holidays. You watch life go by and find yourself unable to participate.

The second part of this book highlights the lessons I learnt and discovered on my journey towards recovery. I share these valuable lessons in the hope that they may help you, the reader or a loved one to avoid the high cost of suffering burnout, and hopefully to avoid any severe consequences of an illness or a life-threatening condition.

I hope that the principles in this book help to guide you on a journey and lifestyle towards a more authentic way of being, and living a life filled with joy.

Reasons For This Book

Before I got sick, I thought I had it all: a beautiful home and family, my own business and a fit, healthy body. It took me a long time to realise that I had burnout. I used to think that burnout only happened to people who were weak. I was not weak. As an ultra-marathon runner, I completed many marathons and one race that is 89 kilometres long. It is a gruelling event, and I figure that anyone who can run that distance in one day, cannot be weak.

There were many times when I felt shame and I berated myself for having burnout. I saw myself as being too weak to deal with the stress in my life. It then occurred to me that there may be other people in the world who may also feel shame around having burnout. If you are one of these people, then hopefully this book will let you know that you are not alone and that you are not weak.

There are five stages of grief that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross describes in her book, On Death and Dying: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.1 These stages can be applied to having a serious illness too, since losing your health is a form of loss. As a result of burnout, I lost my ability to work and to earn an income for a few years. I lost my business, my status and my identity. I loved running as a sport and the resultant illness meant that I was no longer able to run. The life that I had and was proud of – was gone. I was forced to build a new one.

The autoimmune disease that developed as a result of my burnout may never go away. It will probably be with me for life. When your immune system starts attacking your own tissue, it generates antibodies which will forever be in your system and having an autoimmune condition makes you three times more likely to develop another one.2 I hope that by sharing my journey it can help you and your loved ones to avoid the suffering that comes from having burnout, and ultimately help you to avoid developing an autoimmune condition.

If you already have an autoimmune condition, know that it is possible to manage and reverse many of the symptoms, but it takes an enormous amount of effort, time and money. It took me more than two years to heal from the burnout. I have not yet managed to find solid data about how long it takes on average to recover from a stress-induced illness. I think it’s because the healing is so incremental that it is difficult to know when we have ‘fully recovered’. To compound that, every person’s journey will be different since there are so many factors influencing the illness and the recovery process. My burnout is not the same as someone else’s experience of burnout, and even the same autoimmune condition can affect people differently.

I am grateful for the illness because it has been a catalyst for me to create a new life. I know that I would never have given up on the business I was in, without having a total and utter collapse of my health. Even if I wanted to continue, my body would not allow it. My health crisis was my ticket out of a bad situation, and for that I am grateful.

However, the road to recovery is long and costly. I lost my ability to earn an income for at least two years. I’m not sure how many people can sustain a lifestyle for two years with no income. Fortunately, both my husband and I had amassed large savings which we had to dip into. I was able to sell off some of our assets which helped too. For those struggling with burnout, the financial burden of not being able to earn an income can be substantial. Through this book, I want to make people aware of where they might be headed so that they can avoid such difficulties.

My identity and success were tightly coupled with my work, especially in terms of being a business owner. When I became ill, I struggled with just being me. It took me a long time to accept myself without being associated with a job or career. As an achiever, I struggled to see my own value when I was not contributing to the household income or society. I was lost for a while, and it took some deep work to accept myself as I am.

My sport was long distance running and it was a significant part of my life. I loved achieving the goals that I set, and the social aspect of the sport. I lost the ability to exercise. I missed meeting my friends for our early-morning training runs, a fun and refreshing start to each day. I missed the way I felt after a run – healthy and energised.

I did my best to apply myself to recover fully, for my own good and for that of my family. It was difficult to manage and I don’t wish this struggle on anyone. It was not an easy process. I needed to tackle many issues in order to recover. By sharing my journey and the lessons learnt, I would like to help others to avoid the pain of burnout and the cost of having an autoimmune condition. Burnout can be avoided if you know how.

I write this book to help those who are in danger of burnout, who are in the midst of it and those who know someone who could be at risk. I want to prevent any of those on the path to burnout from getting all the way there. If I knew a few years ago what I know now, I might have been able to prevent my autoimmune disease. I know that I was too stubborn to have listened to a message such as this, but perhaps there are people who will listen today. I would like to save them from the suffering that I endured.

In many ways, the recovery process is lonely and no one can truly understand the experience. I found it difficult to explain to people why I wasn’t able to participate in activities. When I tell people I suffered burnout, I often wonder what they are thinking. I’m sure there are many who have visions of me running and screaming from my office, tearing at my hair or perhaps, men in white coats trying to ram me into the back of a van. The reality for me, was that I had no energy to function. And while it is less exciting than the other scenarios, it was enormously frustrating.

Burnout is not something you can see or ever understand unless you have experienced it yourself. I don’t think that my husband understands how it felt even though he shared a house with me throughout the experience. I had people telling me to just get a bit of exercise when I was so weak I could not go out. I had people telling me to avoid exercise when I got better. There is so much advice offered with so little understanding.

My journey of burnout and recovery helped me to focus on the important things in life. I returned to my core values, one of which is helping people. I honestly felt compelled to write this book. It felt like a calling, something drawing me into my sanctuary, to tell my story so that others can learn from it too. I want to help people avoid burnout, to dodge the bullet of a lifelong autoimmune condition. I want them to wake up before it’s too late and to reverse what they can, so that they don’t have to live through it and endure the suffering that both my family and I endured.

PART 1: My Story

Growing Up

My Roots

My parents, Clyde and Mary, met in a small community in Johannesburg, South Africa, where their fathers worked as engineers. They both longed to live the good life and to escape the parochial existence of their childhoods. When they got married, they travelled a lot and they lived in Canada for a few years to reconnect with family there. They took the opportunity to do house-sitting for wealthy people, and they learnt a great deal about this lifestyle. They appreciated the Ming vases and the Persian carpets, the artwork and the opulence that surrounded them. My mother gathered an understanding of interior decorating, and she blended it with her natural sense of style. She also developed the ability to be a fabulous host.

My brother, Brandon, was born in Canada in 1972 and shortly afterwards, my parents elected to move back home to South Africa. I was born in Johannesburg in 1975. My family moved into our home two months before I was born.

From what I remember and what I know today, my mother and brother are very similar. They like the same things such as history and geography, they read biographies and both have a pessimistic outlook on life. I am much more like my father. I don’t have a brain for remembering facts. I’d rather calculate. At school, I loved mathematics and science and I still have a preference for figuring out how things work over remembering the facts. My mother taught us manners and did homework with us and made sure that we had a high level of consideration for others, even to the detriment of our own needs.

At home, I revered my father. I put him on a pedestal and I found his optimism to be contagious. He would always say that things will turn out fine, in spite of the struggles. He had an internal strength that was enviable, and even when his business was in dire straits, he managed to find a way out. He had a habit of making things work and of getting out of any fix. For example, he was once caught speeding without his driver’s license and, using his charm and a slab of chocolate on a small-town police officer, was able to sweet talk his way out of a traffic fine.

My father is an alcoholic. Although he had this weakness, he made up for it with his affectionate nature. I have seen him cry more than I’ve ever seen my mother cry. My mother is stoic and hard, and was never the cuddly one when I was growing up. I used to go to my father for love and cuddles, and it was clear that we were very close and alike in nature. I remember as a young child, creeping up to my parent’s bedroom when I woke up in the morning. I paused just outside their door, and sprang into the entrance with a roar as loud as my little lungs could offer. They would feign terror for a few seconds and then I would jump into their bed and would snuggle up with my father, soaking up the love he generously offered.

My father was very successful early in his career. He worked for many different companies and he gained a lot of experience. He started out as a computer programmer in languages like COBOL and Fortran, in the early days of computing. He also had a great mind for business and before long, he headed up the brand new computer division in a large insurance company.

He was also an exceptional ultra-marathon runner, regularly placing in the top 10 in big events. He trained with a team of people who won gold medals in races, some of whom became household names. He was popular, sporty, successful and at an early age had the world in the palm of his hand. Sadly, he became arrogant. He thought he could have it all and of course, he had a weakness for alcohol. Stress and arrogance led to him drinking in the company pub after work. He stopped coming home for dinner, and we sometimes found his dinner in the dog’s water bowl that he had mistaken for the food bowl. One night he relieved himself on the couch cushions in my parents’ bedroom, thinking he was in the bathroom.

The End of Kingy

When I was twelve years old we had four dogs: an Alsatian and a Dachshund who had a litter, from which we kept two puppies. One puppy was for my brother and the other one was for me. We called the mother Dachshund Kingy and she became my brother’s dog.

One day, my mother and I were coming back home from somewhere and as we drove down the driveway, my mother stopped to pick up the newspaper. I also opened my door and let my puppy into the car. We heard a thump and felt the car go over something. I thought it was nothing, but my mother stopped the car and opened the door. She had ridden over Kingy with the Mercedes Benz. My mother was inconsolable and just stood there, sobbing.

Mom, get in the car and drive to the vet! I yelled at her.

She pulled herself together and got back into the car. I picked up the injured dog and held her on my lap, breathing air into her mouth. We got to the vet with Kingy still alive, but she didn’t survive.

Of course, I was devastated about the loss of our lovely Kingy, but I was amazed at what I learnt about myself, and how I handled the crisis. My mother kept saying that she had killed my brother’s dog. She said that it happened because Kingy was looking over her shoulder for her puppy, and was not aware of where the wheels of the car were. When I tried to comfort my mother, she didn’t hug me back. Her arms just dangled at her side and I felt rejected. I was confused and thought that maybe she didn’t like it that she panicked and I took control of the situation. Or maybe she blamed me for the death of my brother’s dog.

A Secret Family

We never saw our parents fighting. They didn’t show any hostility towards each other. My mother was always serious and reticent, and we had no idea that anything was wrong. It was clear that my mother was angry with my father’s drinking habits, and for not coming home for supper, but as young children we thought things would stay the same forever.

One day when I was thirteen, I heard my mother wailing in her bedroom. I went to see what was wrong and she told me that our grandmother had called to tell her that my father had been having an affair for five years and that he had another secret family.

The shock was catastrophic. I couldn’t believe it. Everything seemed to unravel from there. Family members arrived in droves, all following my mother around into various rooms, trying to comfort