From Pain to Purpose Women of Resilience

By Jacqueline Duncan

This is a collection of testimonies and stories from women of all walks of life, backgrounds and experiences who share their personal stories and testimonies. Having to overcome pain, find their purpose in their pain, and become woman of resilience. In this book these amazing women share with others how t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natson Publishing & Creatives LLC.
• Release date: Jul 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088045480

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Purpose of My Burnout

Jacqueline Duncan

In October 2019, Mentally and Emotionally, I fought to stay above the waves and waters with counseling members, encourage family members, empower Pastors' Wives Worldwide, try to be a wife and mother, and keep up with a job. After so many years in ministry and working full time on a job, it began to weigh on me without me knowing it. I began to feel that "I can't continue pushing and pushing and ignoring what my body is speaking and saying. In my mind, I told myself I better stop and slow down. Within months of thinking, I needed to slow down. I didn't just slow down; I shut down.

I became impaired, immobilized, and ill after my experience of burnout. I thought that I could continue my journey without resting But, I was genuinely mistaken by deception. This was a wake-up call because I realized my health was at stake. When I told you I had nothing in me to give, I had depleted my adrenals. When I went to the doctor, my blood pressure had reached 150/100, and never in my life had I ever had a Blood Pressure reading like that. That wake-up call scared me! I realized I was not invincible, but I was only human.

Let's look at the life of one of the persons I read about while going through burnout from the Old Testament Prophets, Elijah.

* * *

If we follow the events that occurred in his life (I King 18:4 - 19:18), we can see how he got stressed and overwhelmed:

• First, he faced the wrath and threats of death by Ahab.

• Elijah challenges Ahab face to face and accuses him of being responsible for the loss of the spiritual people of God.

• He challenges 810 priests of Baal and prophets of Asherah to gather against him. He highlights their failure to obtain a response from their Gods.

• He built an altar to see the fire of the Lord descend from heaven to consume his offering in answer to his prayer.

• He destroys all 810 Idolatrous priests.

• He prophesied about rain missing for three years and that it would come soon.

• He went to a mountain top to pray and advocate for the rain, and his prayer was fulfilled. 

* * *

All this happened in a period of just a day or two days. Sometime later, when Elijah learns of death threats from Jezebel, his reaction is somewhat surprising. While he seemed to be at the height of his ministry, confirmed by many miracles, he collapsed psychologically and fled at the words of Jezebel.

He becomes unable to control his emotions, becomes depressed, feels sorry for himself, rejects his friends, and isolates himself. He sinks into despair and fear and eventually wishes for death to solve his problems. Elijah acts as if he had lost confidence in his God, and the miracles he had seen performed had no effect. He feels alone and unable to share his burden with anyone. He indeed was a victim of exhaustion and burnout. 

Living in overload, always putting others before your needs, can cause spiritual, physical, and emotional exhaustion.

I want to share how you can reboot, adjust, and set boundaries to live a better-balanced life. Let me ask you what is burnout?

It is Unregulated Stress. Burnout often occurs when passionate and committed people become deeply disillusioned in ministry, the marketplace (careers), marriage, or life from which they have previously consumed much of their identity and meaning.

Ministry successes can create stress just as fast as ministry failures can contribute to burnout. When Queen Jezebel heard about what happened, she threatened Elijah's life when Elijah had high success with the priest and prophets. Rather than being encouraged by this excellent ministry success and the revival of the nation, Elijah became overly stressed, then burned out, and finally not able to function in his assignment, he ran to the other side of the desert and hid in a cave and asked God to kill him. Stress will make you feel as if you can not go on. It will make you feel like you can no longer handle the call on your life.

* * *

Elijah's story gave me three signs of ministry stress and burnout.

1.  He was confident in his assignment until he heard. Be careful what you hear. (Ear Gate)

2. He was confident in his assignment until he saw. Be careful of what you see. (Eye Gate)

3. He was confident in his assignment until he spoke. Be careful in what you say. (Mouth Gate)

* * *

Stress can cause you to either Fight, Flight, Faint, or Freeze. How we perceive stress gives us a better chance at how to handle it. There is good stress, but bad stress can cause your perception of life to look distorted.  

1. Elijah started to complain and became fearful of his journey. We can forfeit God's blessings if we begin to complain. We have to learn to always be grateful and thankful for every test or trial we may face. God is constantly testing our character and trust in him.

* * *

Dr. Travis Bradberry said burnout is not only in ministry but also in your secular job. Even the best jobs can lead to burnout. The harder you work and the more motivated you are to succeed, the easier it is to get over your head. He also said, "The prevalence of burnout increases as technology further blurs the line between work and home.

Research from the American Psychological Association and National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago reported the following. Because of so many responsibilities in our jobs, 48 percent of Americans experienced increased stress over the past five years. This does not include the stress of being in a pandemic from 2020 - to 2022.

I am sure it is much higher now. In addition, 31 percent of employed adults have difficulty managing their work and family responsibilities. Fifty-three percent say work leaves them overtired and overwhelmed in Iceland; from 2015 - to 2019, Iceland ran the world's largest trial of a shorter working week. An analysis of the results showed measurable success! Everyone was happier, healthier, and more productive. A Society for Human Resources Management poll found that burnout from their current job was one of the top reasons people quit. On March 16, 2020, I left my job of 15 years because of burnout; it was the best thing I did, and it has changed my life.

Burnout can cause so many health problems even when you have a great passion for what you are doing. Burnout can be because of a misalignment of input and output. You feel like you're putting more into something than you get out of it. I advocate that self-care is essential, and you must always take care of yourself! You must know how to prevent and treat burnout. We have to recognize and see the warning signs.

Some of my warning signs are when I experience burnout and when my health begins to fail. My blood pressure started to elevate, and I began experiencing headaches, brain fog, irritability, and many more signs. Burnout has a massive negative impact on your physical and mental health. If you are experiencing pain, depression, heart disease, can't seem to lose weight, or get sick, you need to consider pulling back from things overwhelming you. You have to know and pinpoint the signs.

During my burnout season, I realized that what I kept repeating I was saying to people month after month and year after year turned into burnout for me. For example, Suppose I keep telling my daughter to feed her cats (when she had them) five times an hour. In that case, it now begins to build up frustration because if you already know they need to be fed, why do I have to keep reminding you was my thought.

I am not good with repeating myself three and four times, and you still don't get it or take action. I felt a problem to me was, If you know God requires his children to outreach into the world to invite people to Christ, why do I have to keep repeating this as your Pastors' wife. This causes build-up and frustration in me that I am asking God to help me. My frustrations, disappointments, lack of balance, and having to repeat myself repeatedly led to total burnout for me.

Research shows that stress hammers the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for Executive function. Executive function impacts memory, decision-making abilities, emotional control, and focus. When you notice that you are making repeated mistakes, forgetting important things, having an outburst of emotions, or making poor decisions, you are likely burning out. My stress may bleed over everything I do, mainly how I interact with people I love. Stress was on my job, at home trying to keep up with washing clothes, my daughter, my husband, my dog, bills, and everyday duties; also stress as a Pastor's wife, Leader to other Pastor's wives, Auntie, Sister, Cousin, Friend, etc., We can wear many hats, but we have to know how to take those hats off and wear one at a time for that moment that you are in. At times, my thoughts keep running even when I lay down for the night, which also can cause burnout, which causes you not to rest or sleep at night. I usually diffuse lavender in my room at least four hours before bed so I can rest peacefully.

Burnout can lead to exhaustion or fatigue. You wake up in the mornings without the energy or motivation to get out of bed. If you are having trouble staying awake during the day, you may need to go to bed earlier or try to take naps during the day if you can. 

Burnout can also cause you to become a negative permission person. You will begin to complain, murmur, and speak negatively about everything. Wow! I was there, and I am usually a faith-filled person, but one of the signs I noticed was that I became critical and started judging and seeing the bad of all situations. I knew I was in a danger zone headed toward burnout. Burnout can also decrease satisfaction. You are no longer grateful in life; everything is a problem, and everybody. Things you used to like or be excited to do you no longer want to do anymore. Burnout makes you see life as half empty.

When I was in the season of burnout, I didn't want to go to church anymore because I thought my problem was looking at me face to face. I had to see beyond the burnout that this was a spiritual attack, and the enemy didn't want me to be in church, so he set up the whole thing, causing me to burn out. The bible says in John 10:10, The devil comes to Kill, Steal and Destroy, but I come that you may have life and have it more abundantly I had to stop, shut down and combat what the devil had intentionally designed to do to me as an intercessor. He wanted to shut me up, shut me down and take me out!!! But God, I thank God he gave me the Spirit of Discernment amid the darkness I felt around me. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. God showed me really what was happening.

I had to understand that I have a soul consisting of our mind, enabling us to think, reason, consider, remember and wonder. Our Emotions will allow us to have feelings like happiness, sorrow, anger, frustration, compassion, and love. Our will enables us to choose and make decisions. Our mind, emotions and will make up our soul, personality, and who we are. But we are even more than just a body with a soul. We have a part that is deeper than our soul….Our Spirit is the most profound and most hidden part of our being. By our spirit, we can contact the spiritual realm. No other creature was created with this third part, the spirit within.

I always say our true self, no one but God, can see. Our body is our earth suit which houses our spirit, our true self. I Thessalonians 5;23 says, And the God of peace himself sanctifies you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are ever out of balance from stress, we can contact our Lord Jesus Christ; we can receive him, ask for help from him, and most of all, fellowship with him. Remember what I said earlier: not keeping your stress under control at work can rear its ugly head at home. My relationship with my daughter and husband suffered because of my burnout and inability to balance all my responsibilities. I was so stressed that I stopped my social media Marco polo to my siblings, etc. I felt snappy and nasty when I knew that was not my true nature or character. I kept getting into unnecessary conflicts and arguments with co-workers, siblings, church members, etc.; I took the flight method so I would not offend anyone I truly loved.

When I started being unhappy or decreased satisfaction with what I loved to do, I realized I was in a place I never thought I would be… STRESSED OUT!!! Usually, when a person is stressed out or burnt out, they do not take care of themselves. They sometimes struggle to stay afloat, but I can say my husband was not going to allow me to go outside looking any kind of way. I ensured I kept my hair done and my clothes were clean and ironed. My feet and nails were manicured, my make-up was always on, and I still would walk like I was going somewhere. During that season, I learned it was OK to disconnect from negative people and a hostile environment.

* * *

Let me share with you some things I found that helped me rebuild and restructure my life from stress and burnout.

1.  I found out what my triggers were causing my blood pressure to go up. If it's your job, ministry, or people close to you, it's time to pull away from the situation for some time until you can rebuild and be restored.

2. Set Boundaries so people will know what you can and will not do. I learned it's OK to