Intense Burnout Calls For "Intensive" Solution
- CGreven
- May 15
- 4 min read
I thought I knew burnout.
At one point in my life, I was working three jobs while taking enough college credits to qualify as double-full-time. I’ve worked in community mental health and in an adolescent inpatient facility. For years, I’ve run my private practice completely solo—no biller, no administrative assistant—all while being the primary parent to my children.
It turns out, even all of that had not produced true burnout.
How do I know? Because last year, I really hit the wall. And it was unlike any level of stress I had ever experienced in my life.
The Perfect Storm
Let me set the scene:
I was running my solo private practice.
My children were two and seven (my son and I did Taekwondo twice a week).
I was singing in my church choir and leading the contemporary band.
I was enrolled in a full-time PhD program.
And then, my husband was deployed out of the country for work for three months.
Full disclosure: it wasn’t pretty.
I am a person who keeps her cards close to the vest. I am an open book in many ways, but I do not often let people see the cracks in my smile. But during that period? I cried—publicly—on multiple occasions. I simply could not hold it all together anymore.
I was exhausted. I wanted to quit almost everything, because the thought of continuing was too much to bear. But I couldn’t think of a single thing I could afford to drop. Too many people were counting on me.
On a daily level, it looked like:
Crying after my children went to bed.
A constant tightness in my chest and a frustrating inability to catch a deep breath.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or dino nuggets most nights for dinner (not a mortal crime, but far from my ideal).
Broken sleep, occasional nightmares, and dragging myself out of bed in the morning.
A simmering, low-grade tension in my marriage.
A brain constantly buzzing with tasks, demands, and forgotten obligations.
Retreating into myself at every opportunity—not for solace, but just to dissociate from the noise.
I was not okay.
When the Stressor Leaves, but the Burnout Stays
Here is the defining feature that told me this wasn't just situational stress: I felt this way for months after my husband came home.
After he compassionately helped me pare down my responsibilities (bye-bye for now, PhD dreams...), after he took the lead on household tasks, after I finally had physical time to breathe—I still couldn't. My chest still felt tight. My brain would not slow down.
I felt adrift.
Slowing down made my insides itch (definitely not a clinical term). Even going back to my own therapy wasn’t helping. Not because my therapist wasn’t great, but because she couldn't provide what I was desperate for: Time. I couldn't find enough spare moments to make a dent in the hollowness in my chest.
The Spoon Math
Research tells us that burnout is a state of total depletion. Think of it like this:
💰 Imagine you spent five years saving up a $10,000 financial reserve. Suddenly, your home water heater dies, and you have to spend every last cent of that reserve to fix it. One hour of work isn't going to put that $10,000 back in your bank account. It takes time to rebuild.
Burnout is a state of "I have absolutely nothing left."
Every single day we exist, it costs us.
Let's switch from money to "spoons" (energy units):
If you go to sleep and gain 5 spoons, but you use all 5 spoons just to get through your workday, you come home with 0 spoons. You are gaining just enough daily energy to barely function, leaving you with a zero balance.
There is nothing left in reserve for when your car runs out of gas, your toddler has a meltdown, you get stuck in traffic, or you are subjected to a 45-minute dissertation from your kid about a video game boss.
This is why intense burnout requires an intensive solution. Weekly, one-hour therapy sessions weren't giving me enough spoons to get ahead of the deficit. What I needed—and finally forced myself to take—was extended, uninterrupted time away from my stressors to kickstart refilling my reserves.
A High-Impact Solution for a High-Impact Problem
This is exactly why I created Outdoor Therapy Intensives.
An intensive gives you more than a one-hour “pause” in your day. It is a full-day or multi-day break designed to quiet the internal buzzing and re-anchor you into your body.
We aren't just temporarily leaving your stressful environment; we are immersing you in a naturally regulating space. Burnout physically impairs your nervous system's ability to regulate cortisol levels (a stress hormone). Science shows that being in green spaces automatically initiates the body's repair process, helping cortisol levels return to normal.
Through a full-day experience paired with the natural nervous system regulation of the Pacific Northwest outdoors, you get the actual time and space to breathe. The extra hours mean you don't just talk about tools; you can practice them in real-time.
Where is your reserve at?
The ideal way to heal from deep burnout is a three-month sabbatical. But let’s be realistic: most of us cannot do that. So, we have to find radical ways to restock our spoons.
Pay attention to how many spoons you start and end each day with:
Have you been operating in the negative for a while?
Is the thought of adding another weekly appointment to your calendar enough to spiral you into a panic attack?
If you are ready to reset your nervous system, quiet the buzzing, and get back to you, let's connect.
Email me today for a free 15-minute consultation to see if an Outdoor Nature Intensive is the right fit for you.
And always remember: You’ve got this.
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