Burn-out vs. Joy and Calm
By John Horton, M.D.
I went by Starbucks today to buy the New York Times, not the coffee, which is too bitter for my taste. I was greeted my friend Kalidas, who introduced me to his friend – the minister of the local Methodist church. Of course Kalidas and I talked about the book and the minister shared that he wrote his Ph.D thesis on stress in theology graduate school. The common ground of understanding, after a 10 minute conversation was this:
After a long hard day of doing something you really enjoy you get home very tired but not frustrated, afraid or in pain. You rest and wake up eager for another long hard day.
He made this distinction between hard challenging work and burn-out; burn-out comes when you are not enjoying what you do. You exhibit symptoms of stress, feel distant from people and it progresses to illness. His thesis research showed that over 50% of clergy suffer from burnout.
I was surprised. I wonder about the number for doctors…
We talked about our ability to stop, reflect and refresh our inner life. The minister preaches about this; trusting that our attraction to calm, beauty, joy and love is stronger than our adaptations to stress. He was happy to hear that the inner game tools teach reflection without cultural or spiritual concepts because we all need to evolve our inner lives.
Perhaps I can share our mutual understanding with his church from the scientific and medical perspective. We could call it The Truth About Stress, Challenge, Burnout and the Holy Ground of Enjoyment and Calm.
I will let you know if and when this talk takes place.
August 27, 2009
I gave this book to a friend who was stressing out and they're thanked me three times already.
September 2, 2009
> burn-out comes when you are not enjoying what you do.
This is the true measure… I do enhoy my work, but if I am not careful, works that is enjoyable stops being such. It requires a degree of awareness to be able STOP when I start to feel that joy is no longer there. Joy and stress are mutually exclusive.
May 15, 2010
Timothy and TEAM, I had another blast about how powerful the Inner Game has been in my life. This time in relation to "training" and "discipline."
I wanted to share it with you.
Perhaps we meet in the near future. I'm still tracking your work and progress.
@jmacofearth | uber.la
http://bit.ly/tennis-sword