AY Advent: Second day of preventing burnout
In which I suggest you practice a different kind of self-care
When I was in social work school a long long time ago, I remember reading a fascinating study. It asked what types of people went into social work. I don’t remember what that study found, but I’ve wondered since then what such a study would reveal about teachers.
A quick search online yields the obvious: Teachers tend to be agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, and “open to experience.” (HA! That last one is pretty darned general! I know plenty of teachers who are not open to certain types of experience — nor should they be).
But I’m not that interested in personality traits. What I’m interested in is psychic structure, the ways people contort themselves to ensure their psychological survival in a world that taught them from Day One what to expect for themselves. Psychic structures express themselves unconsciously and automatically and generally during times of stress. They can be characterized as “depressive” or “obsessive” or “hyper vigilant” or “perfectionistic.” What kinds of psychic structures characterize teachers, I wonder?
Some possibilities:
Saviors: I suspect a lot of teachers, like me, want to save the world. Or at least their students.
Caretakers: A lot of teachers bring strong maternal instincts to their classrooms. They are great at caring for and about their students (and others).
Learners: My guess is teachers tend to be excellent students. They love school, they love to learn, and they love to help others do what they themselves love.
People Pleasers: For whatever reason (fear of losing their job being one, fear of being disliked being another), many teachers say YES to every request made of them.
Which of these psychic structures leads toward burnout?
Under the right conditions, all of them. But let’s start at the end, with People Pleasers.
OMG People Pleasers! You are doomed! If your psychic survival depends on always accommodating to other people’s wishes — watching closely to discern when others are unhappy or need something, jumping on their needs even before they know they have them, sacrificing yourself for other people’s sakes — you are in grave danger of burning out. For one thing, being so externally oriented keeps you from attending to your own innards and figuring out what you need moment-to-moment. And, even if you can attend to your innards, most People Pleasers suck at taking care of their own needs.
For another, it gives other people complete power over your wellbeing. Which means your agency, which is a crucial element in battling burnout, is limited to making the decision to repeatedly to throw yourself on other people’s rocks. Sometimes you come out unscathed, having done something that makes another person happy. But sometimes you come out with the scratches and gashes you’d expect from diving into a stone pit.
There are super-strong reasons for being a People Pleaser. An easy guess is you were raised by people who expected you to — you guessed it — please them. You have been trained over the decades to treat the people you depended on for survival as more important than you. As your top priority.
OK. Fair enough. When you’re around those people, go ahead. Please them.
But notice that they are not everyone. Not everyone needs you to sacrifice yourself for them. Not everyone needs you to throw yourself on their rocks.
What everyone needs is for you to be you. To stand up and show up. To represent yourself and your reality, your rights, your humble but valuable perspective. Your self-respect. Your refusal to cave to their needs at the drop of a hat.
Tip #2: Practice saying, “NO.”
You might be afraid that everyone needs you to say YES to every request and demand. Because you’ve probably been taught that not putting your primary caregivers above yourself resulted in terrible experiences. Anger. Withdrawal. Blame. Criticism. Shame.
These expectations are locked in your Emotional Bedrock. So of course you cannot imagine any other reaction from everyone. You are constructed around these expectations; they’re so automatic you don’t even sense them.
But here’s a shocking truth about People Pleasers: You are actually not at all interested in pleasing others. What you are interested in is protecting yourself.
And good on you! You must protect yourself from usurious people! People who do not see you as separate from them. People who use you ruthlessly as an object. People who put themselves above you.
But the best way to protect yourself? Say NO.
“Can you take my place this Friday as a chaperone for the dance?” Sorry, NO. I’ve got other plans. I’m going to rest and relax and watch Lodge 49. “Can you teach this extra class?” NO — not without additional compensation and/or the removal of an equivalent obligation from my plate. “I didn’t have time to finish my essay. Can I get an extension?” NO — you can suffer the consequences of handing your essay in late. Need help with time management? Let me know and I’ll refer you to a resource. “Got a minute?” Sure. But, when I need to move on to my next thing, NO. If I keep listening to your woes, my burnout builds.
I am positive the People Pleasers out there read these NO responses as cruel. As unthinkable. “I would never say no to —” anyone in need. But that’s the point of NO, my friends. Having the courage and wisdom and faith in others to let people manage their own needs. They might struggle; they might suffer. But hear me: They will either learn they are amazingly competent or they will find help elsewhere. Or, more often than you might think, they’ll just decide they don’t have that need after all.
Try it. Try NO. Plan ahead: What requests are you going to practice on? They should be minor requests, not job security threats. You can even warn your people ahead of time: “When you want my help cooking when it’s your turn to make dinner, I’m going to say NO. I’ve got to practice protecting myself and trusting you to do your work. Please help me stick to it.”
Sometimes you do help. That’s lovely. But other times you don’t. Because you MUST be your own top priority. Starting NOW. If you want to prevent burnout.
I know many of you are thinking, “NO FRICKIN’ WAY. I cannot do this. People would hate me.” If that’s what you’re thinking, leave a comment. What would happen if you said NO?
If you’ve gotten good at saying NO, we need to hear from you. Tell us how you did it!