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The One with the Burnout Truth

Writer's picture: Abigail YardimciAbigail Yardimci

I'm sitting here writing this blog post in a precious spare hour on a Sunday in between my husband and sons leaving to go shopping and my mam coming to pick me up to do some jobs around her new house.


I have a blanket, a hot water bottle, a mug of mint tea and a box of tissues to help me cope with my perpetually runny nose. My throat has been hurting for a few days now and I've done a stellar job of ignoring it. Now, however, it's screaming at me.


Over that screaming I can also hear the howl of the washing up in the sink. The wail of the carpets that need hoovering. The bellow of the dinner that needs planning and the hiss of dust thickening on the surfaces I've neglected for weeks. For a quiet, empty house, that's a lot of noise.


Amidst the noise, I've been thinking about 'Burnout' a lot recently. Or, actually, no, I've been feeling it. Yes, this early in the game of 2025, I've been feeling burnout.



Abi smiling at the camera and wearing a pink bobble hat with the words embroidered onto it: 'I am fucking radiant'
Ignoring burnout with a new hat

I've scraped through January, not exactly encouraged by the weighty lag of late December, and February now beckons with sprigs of sweet hope, but I can feel burnout singeing my insides already. I ask myself, 'How did this happen? You know the bloody signs. You know not to let the fire take hold.'


Many of my friends, if they could see me now, would say something along the lines of, 'Why the hell are you writing a blog post then? Why not close the lap top and sleep during this hour? Why not get some Gilmore Girls in? Have a bath! Snooze! Bloody well rest, woman!'


And I'd be hard pushed to argue with them. I mean, we all know rest is a rare currency these days, right? We all know the mental and physical benefits of slowing down, resting deeply, even if we hardly ever do it.


I mean, I spent the first decade of parenting dreaming about rest. It was my most hardcore fantasy: a dark room, a fluffy duvet, a week's worth of silence. I spent so many years pursuing it, now that my kids are teens and there is a noticeable absence of after-school clubs and meals thrown at walls, I know I should be revelling in it.


I've written blog post upon blog post about stillness, pausing, taking proper breaks and mindfulness. Ok, so I'm juggling a hella lotta stuff (like many, many other women my age) but I am such a huge advocate of rest, surely I should be feeling some kind of benefit in some kind of capacity?



Feet covered in fluffy grey socks right next to a green mug containing a hot drink
Gimme rest

But what if that's not enough?


I'm not a religious person, but I am a steadfast believer in the power of enlightenment. I've felt beautifully terrifying, bone-deep moments of revelation enough times now, that have blasted themselves so sensationally through my being, that I just KNOW we have an inner wisdom that could astonish any god.


I would like to report I felt one of those moments of god-astonishing revelation just last week.


It was a weird one. In many ways, it came at a time that was very normal and everyday. But in other ways it was a unique and staggering situation. Ok, let me hit you with it . . .


Why it was Normal and Everyday

I was attending a music event organised by the college that my 16 year-old son, Big Lad, goes to. In that way, it was quite standard. I've been watching my kids perform since pre-school drama clubs. Apart from the occasional dabbing away of proud tears, I wouldn't have expected anything too raucous on the emotional front.


Why it was Unique and Staggering

This was the first time I'd get an insight into Big Lad's new music endeavours at the college he started last term. I took my younger son, Little Lad, with me as well as our ex-next-door neighbour, Margaret - two of my favourite people of all time. What really took it up a notch though, was the fact that the venue was Kent's Cavern in Torquay. These are 400 million year-old caves, people. Like I said, unique and staggering.



A collage of photos of photos Abi took inside the caves
Kents Cavern is the place to be

So after a creamy latté in the cafe and a tour of the caves, I was seated with Margaret and Little Lad, with prehistoric rock above, below and all around us, watching the students perform music through the decades. The slightly haunted echo that caressed cover versions of Cyndi Lauper, Rick Astley and Aha certainly added a little something. The golden gleam of wet rock, the ancient will of stalagmites and the ghostly presence of unknowable cave creatures certainly had something to do with the magic that was building in my body. My heart was coming up for air no matter what I had to say about it.


When Big Lad blasted out 'Should I Stay or Should I go' by The Clash, I was properly gone.


In the way that often nobody can tell if someone is experiencing a panic attack, the joy took hold of me with a blissfully silent grip. It was all a bit much for my silly, overflowing heart . . . all these amazing students . . . their total passion for music . . . the courage it must have taken to get up there . . . their tutors giving up their spare time to do this . . . the support from Kents Cavern staff . . . two of the best people in the world sitting next to me . . . the inanimate yet vibrant generosity of the caves embracing this modern phenomenon . . . the beats, the melodies, the lyrics, the absolute nostalgia of my own connection to these songs. Need I go on? I think you get the picture . . .


I was submerged in joy.


Creative joy. Playful joy. Connected joy.



Big Lad performing at Kents Cavern, holding a guitar and leaning into a microphone, smiling
That's my boy

And I was so, so there for it.


A voice deep inside of me quite plainly (and probably quite impatiently) just said, 'This is what you need. Not rest. More of this.'


Before my annoying brain could kick in with plans of how I'd get more of this (where I'd go for it, how I'd find the time, how I'd afford it), I honed in on my body. It was energised. Awake. Alert. My heart had come up for air, bringing everything else with it. This felt like some kind of miracle when for the lion's share of 2025 so far, I'd felt nothing but sheer exhaustion.


This energy saw me through for the next few hours and well into the next day. Even a bit of after-work doom-scrolling on Insta couldn't stop me. That's when I saw it. A post emblazoned with six simple words that facilitated a reprise to the revelation of the day before . . .



Instagram post by Tamu Thomas, reading: Burnout isn't asking you to rest
My kinda clickbait

Like, Wha?!


I quickly saw that the post was made by Tamu Thomas - an author who has caught my attention multiple times before with other brazen click-bait headlines such as:


  • Stop gaslighting yourself with productivity books by men

  • One of the biggest lies women are told is that we can 'have have it all'

  • Perimenopuase doesn't need a calmer nervous system


I mean, can this woman see inside my actual head?


Was she there, at the caves?


I couldn't rule it out.


As I swiped through the other slides, reading about how 'if burnout just needed a rest, a week on a sun lounger would fix it', and what burnout really needs is things like joy, creativity, pleasure, play, safe connections and only then can our nervous systems feel safe enough to slow down and do proper resting. Only then can we make sustained changes that help us break free from burnout culture . . . it all hit me like a warm, glittering, fizzing wave.


Rest is not enough.


This feels like ancient wisdom and something sparkling new all at once. I have always known connecting with the things that make me glow are important. But maybe, just maybe, I've been putting 'rest' on such a high pedestal that I lost sight of them. I even lost the feeling of them.


And before I start beating myself with the primordial stick women seem to reserve for themselves in times of self-discovery, I absolutely refuse to feel bad about this. It's futile to ask myself how I could have forgotten, how I could have let this happen, how I can be so dangerously oblivious. All of those judgements can kindly go and get lost in a prehistoric cave.


Instead, I'm focusing on an open heart. I'm cultivating and remembering and facilitating and connecting. I'm recalling that good old cliché, 'A change is as good as a rest' and having deep, deep faith in it. I'm writing this blog post now, when any normal person might insist it looks a little too much like work, knowing, in that god-astonishing way, that I am re-connecting with what lights me up. Can you feel the glow? I bet you can.


And as I type these final words, feeling that delectable energy twinned with a pulsating joy, I notice the house has quietened. My throat's scream has hushed to a whisper and all of those irritating chores have lulled themselves into a luxurious nap. Burnout is backing off. And I like it that way.


How do YOU like your burnout?


Go well,


Abi

xxx



NOTE:

I'm now an Amazon Affiliate which means I can help fund my blog and socials content when people click through one of my links to buy a product from Amazon. If you'd like to buy any of the items I recommend below, I'd be over the moon. Thank you, beauty.


Get Tamu Thomas's book, Women Who Work Too Much: https://amzn.to/42GblfA (Amazon)


My favourite mint tea, Buttermint by Twinings: https://amzn.to/3CpBCUW (Amazon)


Get yourself a hot water bottle of joy right here: https://amzn.to/40Fse7K (Amazon)




P.S. If you enjoyed this blog post then make sure you sign up to get ALL Abigail's bookish news as and when it happens. You'll also bag yourself a FREE copy of Life Is Yours - the first book in the Life Is Yours Trilogy. Sign up here












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