Burning Out and Finding Balance

By Chance Copeland

I sat down to write this blog post nine days ago.  I typed out the title, erased it, adjusted the font, typed it out again, decided to try a different one, and erased that one too. When I decided that the worn-out cushion of my office chair must be the reason that I couldn’t think of anything to say, I raised the standing desk, jumped on my walking pad, and started moving. Then, the phone rang. I shut the computer, reassured myself that I would come back to it just as soon as I finished solving the problem that came up in its place, and then I forgot about it until nine days later, when my internal panic about unfulfilled promises started feeling like an emergency whose origins I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Panic led to memory, and memory led to this moment: back on my walking pad, the very opposite of mindful and probably well-past expert status in nothing except my own burnout.

If you’re reading this as an administrator working in special education, a teacher, a student, or even somebody who clicked the wrong link online and ended up here by mistake, I don’t think it is much of an assumption to make that you are either currently overwhelmed by life’s competing demands, have been in the past, or will be sometime in the future (I’m not a fortune-teller, just a realist). If unchecked, what starts as a relatively simple human experience can lead to a debilitating burnout, which is what happened for me. About three weeks ago, I got home from a 14-hour day seeing clients, taking classes, and using 15-minute walk breaks to check on clients at my other job over the phone, and I told my wife, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m quitting.” And quit I did.

At this point, you might be wondering where this is going, and I’ve been told I can be wordy, so I’ll cut right to the chase. In the moment, I made the right decision for myself. I knew that the quitting was coming. There was no way I would survive clinicals with two jobs, two classes, and the added pressure of learning to be a parent to my teenage brothers. If I did somehow manage to make it through all that unscathed, I also realized that I would be modeling the opposite of self-care, and as someone with an already over-developed sense of imposter syndrome, I felt sure that my clients would be able to sense the overwhelm and burnout all over me. The problem wasn’t the choice itself: it was that I knew better, and instead of finding five minutes to slow down and take care of myself, I waited until I was on the verge of implosion to act, convinced that everything except for me was a priority.

I had the tools, I’d done my own therapy, I knew all about mindfulness and self-care and the importance of rest, and I’d chosen instead to keep fighting through. In essence, I was ignoring myself, and while the reasons were valid, I was also ignoring the very idea that without me at my best, the work I was doing wouldn’t be my best either. I’m not unique in this feeling, but you don’t have to take my word for it. A 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center found that almost 80 percent of teachers surveyed endorsed frequent job-related stress, and half said that it was hard for them to balance work with their personal lives. Eight out of ten said there was not enough time in the day to do everything that needed to be done. Thirty percent are thinking about leaving education altogether, even though they love the work itself, the kids, and their colleagues (Lin, Parker & Menasce-Horowitz, 2024). But what if there was a better way?

I’d be lying if I said I knew how to fix the problems that lead to teacher and administrator burnout, and I am also not making an argument for or against switching jobs, but I do know the research is clear on the one variable we can control: ourselves. That research tells us that as mindfulness increases, burnout decreases (Anama-Green, 2022). If you relate to anything I’ve written here, or even if you don’t, I still believe that while we navigate competing responsibilities, a complex political climate, and high-stress, high-demand jobs, there’s nothing to lose by intentionally trying to take better care of ourselves, being mindful of our needs, and treating ourselves the same way we’d treat someone we love -  and there’s no better time to start than today.

So, the golden question: how does somebody do this without adding to an already-overloaded plate? Although reductionist to say, it’s relatively simple, really: pay attention. As mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn says, mindfulness is about befriending yourself – “being” instead of “doing.” In a world where we are constantly called to do more, this is a reminder that all we have is the present moment. If we can’t take something off the to-do list, we can take a second to recognize what it feels like to have it there. There are lots of ways to do this: the body scan, a walk at lunch, or even counting breath. You can use an app, if you want – you can write in a journal, read a book. The only requirement is this: that instead of judging, changing, problem-solving or fixing, you bear witness to the moment, a conscientious observer to yourself. It doesn’t take an expert to be an expert in ourselves, and if you’re not one yet, you can be if you choose to be.

So, my challenge to you is this: start small. Feel your breath in your lungs and hold it there. Go outside and look up at the sky. Notice the faces in the clouds you’d forgotten about when you became an adult. Hear the birds chirp and the whir of the traffic. Really hear it. Do something that’s doing nothing – something that reminds you being alive can be simple in ways we often forget. Thank your feet for carrying you this far, your mind for making you brilliant, and your hands for holding the weight of the world like it’s no big deal. For five seconds, forget the urge to do. Instead, just be. To me, that’s mindfulness – and the purest form of love we can offer ourselves in a world where we need all the love we can get.