Create Your Lantern: How meditation can help you prevent and recover from ‘burnout’
Imagine that you’re walking in a dark and windy forest with a candle in your hand. Behind you is a group of people you care for. As you’re walking through this forest a big gust of wind rolls through and blows your candle out. At this point you don’t know where you are or where you’re heading and, like you, the group becomes anxious.
Now imagine that you were walking through the same forest with same group, but instead of a candle, you had a lantern. When that big gust of wind returns, the flame shakes, but it stays alight. You’re still of use to yourself and those behind you.
What this story highlights is the need for us to create the internal conditions that allow us to sustain our energy and wellbeing. So how do we create our own “lanterns”?
One of many effective ways to do this is through the consistent practice of meditation. Meditation can help us prevent burnout in two key ways: By allowing us to calm our bodies and minds as well as giving us a framework to develop a healthier relationship with our thoughts and emotions.
In some way, shape or form all styles of meditation activate the ‘relaxation response’ in our bodies that helps calm our nervous system. As a result, our heart rates, metabolic rates and the production of stress-related cortisol decreases. All this by simply paying attention to your breath with a sense of curiosity and compassion.
“Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor. E. Frankl
But for those of you who have meditated, I’m sure you’ll agree that even though the practice is simple, it’s by no means easy. The reason that it’s not easy is that when we practice paying attention to one thing, we begin to notice thoughts and emotions that we might not have ever noticed before. Although challenging, over time meditation allows us to create space between ourselves and our thoughts and emotions, which allows to make more rational decisions and avoid procrastination, among many other profound things.
So while you continue on your path to getting a promotion, finishing a project or signing a big deal, can you take as little as 5 minutes a day to ensure you don’t burn out along the way?
