Burnout: Beyond Bubble Baths
Burnout is something nearly everyone encounters at some point in their career. When it arrives, it often comes quietly through apathy, exhaustion, and a loss of meaning in work that once felt purposeful. When people reach out for support, the advice they commonly receive is simple: practice self-care.
But what does that actually mean?
For many, this advice can feel hollow, like a well-intentioned but inadequate response to something deeply painful. Do we take more baths? Drink more chamomile tea? While these practices can be soothing in the short term, they rarely address what’s waiting for us when we return to work the next day or week: the same pressure, disconnection, and fatigue that led us here in the first place.
If you explore self-care more deeply, you’ll find that it’s often described as more than spa days and scented candles. Articles suggest decluttering your life, tackling tasks you’ve been avoiding, or engaging in activities that ultimately simplify your environment and reduce stress. That might look like finishing the laundry that’s been living in the corner of your room, actually using the gym membership you pay for every month, or dutifully drinking water from your emotional-support water bottle.
And yet, when you’re burned out, even these well-meaning suggestions can feel like just more demands added to an already overwhelming load. If self-care isn’t tea, and it isn’t powering through your to-do list, you may still find yourself staring at the sky, wishing someone or something could make it all feel lighter.
This is often where therapy becomes especially meaningful.
As a mental health therapist, and as someone who has experienced burnout in a field I once felt deeply passionate about, I believe burnout deserves a more thoughtful, individualized response. Research consistently shows that burnout is not simply a failure of resilience or coping; it’s often the result of chronic stress, misalignment of values, and systems that ask more than they give. My goal is to blend evidence-based understanding with accessible language to help bring clarity to an experience that can feel confusing and isolating. (And no, I promise not to include a long autobiographical preamble - we’re here to get to the point.)
So, what is self-care?
The honest, and often unsatisfying, answer is: it depends. While this isn’t the neat solution most people hope for, it’s also the answer that creates room for genuine healing.
A helpful starting point is identifying what feels most draining in your job—or even in your life more broadly. Solutions can’t exist without first understanding the problem. This might include unrealistic expectations from leadership, a lack of alignment with your organization’s values, an unmanageable workload, or simply the sense that your work no longer reflects who you are.
Once these stressors are identified, the next step is determining which of them are malleable - what is within your control to change, even incrementally. Consider imagining your ideal life one, five, or ten years from now. What does your career look like? What feels different? From there, small, realistic steps can begin to form a bridge between where you are and where you hope to be.
The role of values in healing burnout
Another powerful, and often overlooked, step in addressing burnout is identifying your core values. While this can sound elementary, values clarification is a cornerstone of many therapeutic approaches because it helps restore a sense of meaning and direction.
Core values are the principles that feel most essential to who you are. Importantly, they don’t have to reflect who you’ve been in the past. Healing from burnout depends on honoring who you are now and who you’re becoming.
Personally, when I revisited my own values, I realized that creativity and connection with nature felt central to my well-being. By intentionally practicing these values in my daily life, I noticed a renewed sense of grounding and alignment, something burnout had slowly eroded. When we narrow our focus to a few meaningful anchors, we often find more clarity and peace amid the chaos around us.
You are more than your job
In Western culture, we’re frequently encouraged to merge our purpose with our profession. While meaningful work can be deeply fulfilling, tying our entire identity to our career can actually move us further from self-actualization and balance.
I love my work as a therapist. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing profound growth, resilience, and healing in others. And still, I am more than my career. I have interests, values, relationships, and struggles that exist outside of my professional role - and so do you! Burnout often eases when we allow ourselves to reclaim those other parts.
Support, shame, and self-compassion
Even after reflection and planning, many people find themselves still immersed in the same stressful environment. This is where both short-term relief and long-term support matter. Gentle practices—hot showers, cups of tea, moments of quiet—can be meaningful when they’re paired with intentional movement toward values and change. Completing everyday tasks can also help create mental space, making room for reflection and rest.
Equally important is your support system. Burnout is frequently accompanied by shame: Why don’t I care like I used to? Am I failing? What does this mean for my future? Research on shame resilience highlights that vulnerability is essential for healing. When these thoughts are shared with trusted people, they tend to lose their power.
Finally, self-compassion is perhaps the most critical element of recovery. Burnout thrives in environments of relentless self-criticism and impossible expectations. Mindfully noticing your inner dialogue, and offering yourself the same kindness you would extend to someone you love, can be profoundly restorative. If we exclude ourselves from our own support system, it becomes difficult to truly receive care from others.
In summary, some gentle steps toward healing burnout:
Identify the most draining aspects of your work or life
Clarify your core values
Move toward change in small, realistic ways
Lean on your support system through vulnerability
Allow space for short-term relief practices
Create mental clarity by addressing manageable tasks
Practice self-compassion
Burnout is a painful and deeply human experience. While there’s no universal roadmap for healing, your path can still be meaningful and intentional. My hope is that this reflection offers some validation and perhaps a sense that you’re not alone as you move toward restoration.