So, I was standing in my kitchen last winter—barefoot, in the middle of the day, staring at the microwave like it had just personally offended me. I had just made tea, or at least I thought I had. I couldn’t remember. The water had gone cold, and I was just… stuck.
Not sad. Not crying. Just flat.
You know that feeling when your brain is awake, but your soul is somewhere under a weighted blanket in another room? Yeah. That.
At the time, I didn’t call it burnout. I thought I was just being lazy. Or dramatic. Or tired from work, or people, or life. But here’s the thing—burnout doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it just quietly erases you, one small task at a time.
Have you ever felt like… doing nothing still drains you? Like, you take the weekend off, sleep in, avoid everyone, scroll through memes, eat junk food, don’t open your laptop—and somehow you still feel worse?
That’s emotional burnout.
It doesn’t look like fire or chaos. Sometimes it looks like doing everything right—and still feeling completely wrong inside.
No energy. No spark. No real reason. Just a numb kind of tiredness that sits behind your eyes and steals your ability to care about things you used to love.
Everyone assumes burnout means you’re working 14-hour shifts or pulling all-nighters at a start-up or something dramatic. But mine came from quiet things.
Little things.
Being available for everyone all the time. Smiling when I didn’t want to. Holding space for other people’s emotions while ignoring my own. Saying yes when my whole body is screaming please say no. Even just pretending to be “fine” every single day. That was the killer.
And eventually, your system just… short-circuits.
Here’s how I knew it wasn’t normal tiredness:
And the worst part? I didn’t even feel upset about it. I felt… nothing. And that scared me.
Okay, I wish I could say I read some self-help book, bought a journal, and everything turned around in a week. But nah. It was messy. And weird. And slow.
But I started doing tiny, not-instagrammable things that added up.
First, I let myself do less. Like, a lot less. I stopped pushing through everything. If a task felt heavy, I paused. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes for days.
Second, I told someone. Just one person. I said, “Hey, I’m not okay.” And they didn’t fix it or give me a quote from Pinterest. They just sat with it.
Third, I let myself be boring. Like, capital-B Boring. No productivity. No new projects. Just staring at the ceiling, going on random walks, eating cereal for dinner kind of boring. And weirdly, I started to feel human again.
There was a moment, maybe two months in, when I realized I couldn’t untangle all this on my own. I wasn’t in a crisis, but I was somewhere in between. That place where you’re still functioning, but not really living.
So yeah, I reached out for support.
And no, it wasn’t some dramatic breakthrough in the first session—but it gave me language. Tools. Space to breathe without fixing anything. Just naming it: burnout—was a relief.
👉 If you’re in that weird in-between place too, Clarity with Sadaf is a good place to start.
No pressure. Just permission to be where you are.
Let’s kill the narrative right now: If you’re canceling plans, ignoring texts, zoning out at work, or feeling disconnected from yourself—it’s not because you’re lazy or ungrateful or broken.
You’re likely just fried. Burned out. Worn the hell down.
Your brain is protecting you. Your body is whispering, “Can we please slow down?”
Listen to it.
Maybe today’s not the day for a deep solution. Maybe today’s just a “drink some water and delete a few emails” kind of day. That’s okay.
Maybe just recognize the signs. Give yourself a little grace.
And if you’re ready to get some support—whether it’s coaching, a quiet chat, or someone to help untangle the noise—I’d love to help.
Burnout doesn’t mean you’re weak.
It means you’ve been strong for too long—without enough care in return.
So maybe today, give a little of that care back to yourself.Start small.
Pause.
And just breathe
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