My Journey from Burnout in Four Acts
I recently had the great honor to speak at my hometown’s chapter of Creative Mornings, an international creative community that hosts breakfast lectures in over 200 cities around the world. I shared my journey from burnout using Transformational Travel. Watch a recording of the talk on the Creative Mornings website or read the transcript below.
My life is my magnum opus. I’m a dancer and photographer but the work of art I put the most creative energy into is crafting my own personal version of the good life. Helping other people craft their own versions of the good life is also how I frame what I do for work as a therapist and social worker.
I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk... Life is art.
– Actress Helena Bonham Carter
But like many people who work in helping professions I’ve struggled with burn out. Today I’ll share my journey from burnout using travel as a tool to build a more joyful, meaningful life.
ACT I: Unsuccessfully Trying to Wrangle the Bucking Bronco of Life
I try to optimize everything. As a kid I carefully rationed my Halloween candy. In college, I did the least amount of studying possible to get straight A’s. In my 20’s I worked full time while going to grad school to minimize debt and maximize financial freedom. When life threw curveballs, I would double down on effort.
As I entered my thirties, striving for optimization began to feel unmanageable. I was living in San Francisco, sleeping in a literal closet with a hot water heater for cheap rent and working as a psychotherapist for former foster youth. I loved my clients and the trauma of their lives weighed heavily on me.
I tried to balance the darkness of my work with light in my time off. But I applied the same perfectionism to having fun. Road trips, costume parties, feminist art collectives--I did everything at 110%. Hashtag YOLO. Despite great effort to manage my experience, I was exhausted.
One Saturday morning, despite desperately wanting to stay in bed, I put on my running shoes and stepped out for a jog. A few blocks later I tripped. My shoulder hit the concrete and my collarbone broke in two. I snapped. And the illusion of control in my life began to unravel.
I returned to work to the news that one of our clients had died. The news broke me. It was as if a curtain dropped between me and the ruthless inevitability of death. I knew what I had to do. I needed a vacation. A really long one. Despite crushing guilt about abandoning my clients, I gave notice at work. I packed up my life in San Francisco and bought a one-way ticket to Thailand.
ACT II: Letting Go of my Bowels and Much More
Unsurprisingly, my intense personality quirks came along for the ride. I kept a full agenda while traveling, checking temples and waterfalls off my list. I would agonize over decisions--should I go to the beautiful beach or the beautiful mountains?--still striving to shoehorn the experience into perfection.
I did not, however, plan for what happened next: a stomach infection hit me like the concrete hit my collarbone. It was coming out from both ends. I couldn’t keep any water down. I was hallucinating from a high fever. I laid on the dirty floor next to the communal toilet until the hostel staff put me in their truck and brought me to a small local hospital.
After drifting off to sleep I woke up wet. I had shit myself. I was lying in a pool of my own excrement. I felt so hot and uncomfortable in my skin, I wanted to rip the IV out of my arm, tear off the hospital gown, and run down the street to escape. But I could barely move.
I needed reassurance that I wasn’t going to die but couldn’t reach anyone back at home. I wanted someone to know where I was: hours away from a major city, continents away from anyone I loved, in a ward so crowded that a sick little boy’s grandma was sleeping on a flattened cardboard box underneath my hospital bed. Even with her right under me, I had never felt so alone.
After two nights I was released and spent a month recovering my strength in that tiny Thai village, waking up in my bamboo hut with no agenda, just following a thread of my interest. To where? I didn’t know. Losing control of my bowels opened a willingness to let go of my travel itinerary. I just danced, played silly games, and rode on the backs of motorbikes to hot springs.
I decided to try LSD but was absolutely terrified of having a bad trip. I hoped, however, I might learn something by letting go even further.
I walked along an overgrown path to a jungle stream. As the acid gained momentum, I saw the truth of the universe in the vine laced branches arching above me: all that is contained within this jungle is immaculate in its imperfection, even me.
I tossed stones into the stream, as the stones left my hand, I released the weight of societies’ and my own expectations. I repeated to myself, “This is your trip. This is your trip.” And the meaning of that statement rippled through my consciousness like the ever-widening concentric circles of water. I tripped over concrete, tripped internationally, tripped on acid. Life is a trip. There’s an unstoppable momentum that I can either try to control or surrender to the imminent unfolding.
ACT III: Homecoming
Eventually I returned home to Santa Cruz and to my vocation as a therapist and social worker. Practicing surrender has freed up more energy and space in my heart for the inevitable suffering of my clients, my loved ones, and myself.
The Transformational Travel Protocol
You’ve probably heard stories like this, stories of how travel has led to deep insights and transformation, because many of them have become blockbusters and bestsellers. Most Disney movies, Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Alice and Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings. The hero goes on an adventure, confronts obstacles, overcomes them, and comes home transformed.
There is wisdom in the call to adventure when you’re feeling burnout, stuck, or broken. It works for people in the movies, it worked for me, maybe you’ve had some success with it too. Or maybe not. You might be thinking, “Hey, I went to Hawaii last year and it was fun but I wouldn’t say it was transformational.” A travel trip is a lot like a psychedelic drug trip.
A trip, whether travel or substance induced, can simply be a diversion with little consequence or serve as a catalyst for meaningful and lasting change in our lives.
Some people take trips for personal growth and healing, some people take trips for fun.
There is substantial research that both psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and travel can improve quality of life and clinical symptoms. While scientists aren’t totally sure how these outcomes are achieved, it may be because both psychedelics and travel offer novel ways of experiencing the world which allows new neural connections to form.
Because there are so many parallels between taking a drug trip and taking a travel trip, I have borrowed the basic psychedelic assisted psychotherapy protocol–Preparation, Exploration, and Integration--and applied it to travel.
Following this protocol makes it more likely for our travel experience to be transformational.
The Transformational Travel protocol offers simple tools that allows individuals to learn deeply about themselves, the world, and shift the course of their lives for the better.
I have used Transformational Travel to cope with burnout. Has anyone else felt burnt out? Can I get a show of hands…
Burnout Is characterized by:
Exhaustion–loss of energy, debilitation, or fatigue.
Cynicism–irritability, loss of idealism, withdrawal, apathy, negative attitudes toward those you are supposed to help.
Inefficacy–reduced productivity, loss of capacity or capabilities.
Work, caregiving, a global pandemic, rising fascism, rising tides, it’s tough out there. It makes sense if you’re feeling burnout.
Transformational Travel can also address other needs. Perhaps you want to get over a break up, figure out next steps in your career, grieve, or find meaning.
Transformational travel can be tailored to your needs. It can look like a lot of things, a vacation, a sabbatical, a thru-hike, a humanitarian mission, a road trip, etc.
Transformational Travel is not necessarily expensive. Like everything in our capitalist culture, companies have figured out how to package Wellness Travel and sell it to you. But Frodo didn’t pay for an all inclusive package to Mordor. You can do it yourself.
Transformational Travel is not necessarily inconvenient. You don’t have to go far or do anything fancy to be transformed by an adventure. You don’t have to move out of your apartment and dive into #vanlife. Any adventure, regardless of location or length, has the capacity to be transformative. You don’t even have to go anywhere. You can apply the Transformational Travel protocol to a staycation or even just play hooky for one day and have your own version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Transformational Travel is not intended to put I’m not here to put undue pressure on you or your vacation time. I’ll leave that to travel influencers. Not all travel has to be transformational. But I have found that applying this protocol to my adventures help me keep burnout at bay and stay engaged with my work, my creativity, and my community.
Here’s some good news: The Transformational Travel protocol does not require you to shit yourself. There are just 3 phases.
Phase 1: Preparation
In this phase an individual considers what to expect on the upcoming journey, makes plans, and clarifies their goals and intentions.
They say the key to having a good psychedelic trip comes down to the right “set and setting,” meaning the individual's mindset (shortened to “set’) and their physical environment (the setting). The same can be said for travel.
To cultivate the right mindset going into a trip, do these three things:
Reflect on your values and desires
Embrace inevitable challenges–If there’s one thing you can count on it’s that your trip will at some point go off the rails. Luckily for us, this is where the magic happens because, it’s true what they say: Growth happens outside of our comfort zone.
Define a clear purpose–Write a mission statement for your trip. Allow this mission statement to guide your decisions, big and small.
To plan the right setting for your trip, use your mission statement, your “why,” to answer questions about “who, what, when, and where.” Here are the things to keep in mind when planning:
Facilitate awe and other transcendent states with nature, music, art, spirituality, etc. to facilitate an expansive mindset.
Avoid setting a rigid schedule. Allow for spontaneity and serendipity.
Go solo–I know this is a hard sell for some folks but in my experience it is essential for transformational travel.
I did not think I was capable of solo travel before I did it. In my early 20s a coworker told me she traveled solo for 3 weeks in Europe and I said, “I could never do that. I would cry myself to sleep every night.” And then within a year I was traveling in Europe by myself. I did cry in bed the first night because I was so proud of myself
Phase 2: Exploration
This phase is the trip itself. It is an integral but small part of the overall experience.
The only to-do item in this phase is to simply explore but I do have some recommendations:
Step forward in spite of fear–having courage builds confidence. Head toward what terrifies and fascinates you.
Connect with yourself–The trick to a perfect solo trip is aiming to delight the shit out of yourself. Take yourself on the best date ever and fall in love with yourself.
Connect with others--I know your mom told you not to talk to strangers and it’s scary for people, especially introverts, But other people are portals to other worlds, other ways of thinking and being. Travel is at once a mirror and a telescope, allowing us to see our own selves and other cultures more clearly. It reveals blind spots, encourages nuanced thinking, and helps us bring to light previously unexamined or unacknowledged beliefs.
Take time to reflect–Alain de Botton wrote in his book, The Art of Travel, writes:
“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts, new places.” I have had many ah ha moments while in transit.
Be a conscientious guest--Tourism is ethically ambiguous. While it brings an influx of cash, the crowds aren't necessarily good for the local people or animals. There’s also the carbon cost of air travel, Airbnbs skyrocketing the cost of rent, or environmental impacts. It’s important that we do our best to travel with integrity.
Phase 3: Integration
And finally, the integration phase,which starts when an individual has returned home.
Just like a cake continues to cook in the residual heat while it rests, so does your transformational travel experience continue to develop even after returning home. And, like eating a freshly baked cake, enjoying the fruits of your labor in the integration phase of transformational travel is the best part.
The integration phase is made of 3 steps:
Managing the come down–Like coming down from a drug trip, there’s often a come down from a travel trip, the post vacation blues.
Engage in Meaning making, make sense of what happened by journaling, talking to trusted others.
Incorporate lessons into daily life–The whole point of transformational travel is not to simply take a trip. The goal is to transform ourselves and thus our “real life.” Turn your insights into action.
ACT IV: Serious About Leisure
This is the epilogue to my story, how I’ve managed to incorporate the lessons I’ve learned traveling into my daily life.
“Serious about Leisure [palm tree emoji]” is written in my bio on social media and I think it describes me perfectly. I like to have fun but strategically. I mean, this whole talk is about a system I devised to optimize your vacation, right?
I’m still that kid that optimized her halloween candy. I have not transformed to become an entirely different person. But I have practiced surrendering the need for control, letting go of perfectionism, and self compassion in the last decade since getting home from Southeast Asia. And my efforts have compounded over the years to the point where I feel brave and worthy enough to share my creativity, for example by doing this talk.
I balance my seriousness by incorporating play in my daily life, that is engaging in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.
play /plā/
verb. engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.
I try to bring a lighthearted and sometimes silly attitude to my fashion choices, to my friendships, to my hobbies, my work, even my activism. No more forcing myself to go on morning runs. I only exercise in ways that are intrinsically rewarding now. I spend several nights a week playing on the dance floor. I took up social dancing about three years ago–swing, salsa, two-step–and it has transformed my life. Not only does social dancing bring me joy, it offers a deep sense of community and belonging.
You may be thinking, “How can she be talking about vacationing and play at a time like this?” I get it. It can feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, writes: “The more we harness the positive powers of rebellion and allow our playful streaks to shine, the more energy we'll have for everything else.”
This kind of travel is not selfish; it’s a rite of passage. Rites of passage involve a person leaving, having an experience, and–this is vitally important–coming back to their community.
Not only are you worthy of Transformational Travel when you’re on the precipice of burnout; you owe it to the people and causes you serve. We journey back to ourselves so that we can be in service of our communities. Strong communities are resilient communities.
Now more than ever as the government takes aim at the rights of marginalized populations, compromises efforts of mitigating the climate crisis, and disregards democratic principles, building robust communities, fostering compassion, and honoring the sanctity of human life seems especially important.
Transformational Travel has helped me recognize my own and others' inherent worth and interconnectedness and my hope is that it can do the same for you.
Celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian, Anthony Bourdain said:
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
Not to drop the curtain between you and a terrifying existential truth but…Life is fleeting and finite. This is your trip: your travel trip, your trip around the sun, your life trip. Use your creativity to make it uniquely yours.