After the Burn(out)

On taming the monster

Last week’s post had the strongest response since I started publishing essays a few weeks ago. Readers seemed to resonate with the idea of internal chaos, what it means, how it can feel, and what it takes to harness the energy that burns from our own personal chaos.

And so, I was left with this terrible thought – how do I top it?

The ego flew right in, asking how to be better, be more, offer more. I’d felt driven to write that essay, to take it to the ends of my exploration, and provide helpful resources through citing research. It was a piece I'd been working on for a while, a piece I'd been completely immersed in, that I was driven to share. And yet once I turned my attention to this week’s offering, I felt this internal (again, internal) push that is hard to achieve, all in service of one thought: how to improve or at least, maintain, a certain standard.

I took a breath.

That’s a lot of pressure. I am not here to prove my worth. That’s not my why. Not even close.

Do you do this?

I wonder…