FIRE meets AIR: BURNOUT 2
Forging the motivation to do what I have to do but Don't Wanna amidst burnout, apathy and MEH.
If you missed PART 1, not all of this might make sense. In my 5 Elements System, Fire is the Domain of the Heart. It is the Realm of Passion & Emotion. Each element has a pair of emotions we work with.
In Air, the primary emotions are Apathy and Inspiration.
Today we’re covering the tools I use to get things moving again when my reserves are exhausted and I’m unmotivated, overwhelmed and uninspired. In Part 1, we covered the tools of Earth, Fire, and Air.
**This is what I do for garden-variety burnout and apathy. Obviously if I’m in the REALLY, REALLY bad place, I call my therapist and schedule an emergency appointment if I can’t wait until my next one.
If you are in the REALLY, REALLY bad place and don’t have somebody like I have my therapist, or if they’re unavailable when you’re to the crisis point, these people can help you find someone now. Please, please. Always reach out:
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Of if you don’t like that one, here’s 13 more.
Continuing on to the other Elements…
METAL
When my Apathy comes from being so overloaded by problems and conflicts that I run out of energy to solve them, or I feel like I’ll never be able to get clear — so why bother wasting the energy by banging my head against brick walls? — and when I’ve lost the ability to muster creativity in my solutions along with any sort of desire to deal with them, I need the toolbox in Elemental Metal.
The primary emotions we work with here are Anger and Bravery. The primary tools include self-protection, self-worth, and communication.
The sooner I can halt the brushfires and interpersonal storms bombarding me, the sooner I can clean up the mess that burnt me out to begin with. Only then can I begin healing from the butt-whupping that has knocked me down to the point where I can’t get up — and worse, now I Don’tWanna™.
Alas. Self-protection takes:
A whole lot of energy and motivation.
Enough self-esteem and self-value to know that I am worth protecting and communicating my boundaries.
Enough self-knowledge to know where those boundaries are, which ones are flexible, and which ones are not.
Immense control and enough executive function to solve the problems.
Also enough conscientious cognitive faculty to filter what I say and do so I don’t GO THE FUCK OFFFFFF on somebody. Not even with the weapon of my tongue.
When I reach the state of Burnout and the ensuing Apathy, I don’t have that kind of energy, neurological control, or motivation.
But if I don’t address the situation, solve my problems, and protect myself, it becomes a Catch 22. Then I risk becoming so overwhelmed that all I can do is throw my hands up, curl into a ball, and quit FOR-FLIPPIN’-EVERRRRRR!
Which is actually our first tool.
Yes. I said that. The go-getter, overachiever, rawring-fist-raiser, never-say-die grrrl is willfully, intentionally a big ole quitter!
But only for a brief time. (This tool doesn’t work for problems that are immediately time-sensitive.)
Throw It In the Trash
On a day when I open up my mail right after learning that Dain Bramage has struck again — that I messed up my bank account and overdrew it for the gazillionth time — then find out that Heating Assistance has returned my entire application and marked it up in snooty red pen with WTFness and “???” Well…crumpling up the wads of paper and throwing the entire fiasco in the trash for a few days with the promise that I’m NEVERNEVERNOTEVER fishing it back out EVER, helps me gain a little distance from the situation.
Tapping out for awhile lets me crawl my way back to Center instead of continuing to meltdown.
Because the truth is, disabled girls don’t actually get to crumple up Heating Assistance applications and forgo applying. Not if disabled girls want to have heat in their homes in the middle of winter.
But disabled girls first need to stop going Chernobyl before they can solve problems in a remotely composed, compassionate, and professional manner. Crumpling it up and throwing it in the trash helps.
I learned this trick from my mom when big art projects don’t go well. Sometimes you just need to let your inner-4-year-old hurl the quilt-top or the costume or the rat’s nest plot-line in the temporary trash.
But that’s the key: temporary.
If I leave it there, plug my ears, and sing, “Lalalalala!” when a problem needs to be solved, it will keep hammering me. I mean, I’d love to tell that agency to bite me FOREVERRRR!
But as things are in my life right now, that would be supremely self-destructive, and it would hurt me more than it would hurt them.
In fact, it would benefit them if I quit forever. All these assistance programs — they’re purposely designed to make you quit because every one of them is too over-burdened as The Matrix approaches full-system failure.
So I have to deal with the problem — BEFORE the application deadline runs out.
This is where the energizing power of Anger can be a valuable tool. Sometimes it is one of the only things that can drag me out of FuckIt™ and into the inspiration I need to slog back into the trenches — either to do what I don’t wanna do or to find a more creative solution.
But Anger is a volatile little beastie, especially when I’m this burnt out and my executive function is failing. This means I lose my problem solving skills and my verbal filter.
Not good.
Wait & Woo-saaaaah…
When I know that I will not be capable of keeping my scythe-tongue sheathed behind my teeth, this is not the proper moment to communicate my needs, boundaries, and requirements. If at all possible, I wait.
I write down what I would like to say.
I then try speaking it aloud. If I just get all wound up again, I put it away again and wait.
I vent to a caring ear.
I scribble-scrawl in excruciating detail exactly what I would LIKE to say: into my journal.1
I try again to do it calmly and rationally, utilizing all those emotional control mechanisms we covered in ANGER.
Breeeeathe…
Remember that you get more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Although why I’d want more flies…I’ve never gotten that saying but whatever. Honey. Not vinegar.) I remind the agents: “I am not mad at YOU. It’s not your fault and I know you’re trying to help me. I really appreciate that, so what CAN we do? Who CAN I talk to about this?”
Vent some steam from the pressure cooker — AFTER I hang up. Or the whole way home from the store. Or to my dust bunnies after I get “accidentally” kicked from chat. Again.
Woo-sahhhhh.
I go up the chain of command to (hopefully) deal with people who don’t hack me off so much and who (hopefully) have a better ability to solve my problem.
I utilize outside agencies like the Better Business Bureau and leave reviews online in the hopes of preventing a company from doing this to other people (or myself) again in the future. Or at least forewarning people, which makes me feel like I’ve accomplished a speck of forward momentum instead of eternally spinning my wheels.
I fill out the “how did we do?” survey and tell them the truth — with a clean, crisp, efficient blade while wearing nice-girl-panties. I take advantage of all written mediums, because the Delete Button is a crucial tool.
I have to tackle the problem in small stages, instead of trying to do it all at once.
Baby Steppin’ is a very powerful thing, and it is a crucial part of my self-care and self-defense regimen.
Unfortunately, by the time the Heating Assistance Fiasco happened at the end of two months from Hell,2 that’s what finally dropped the stick of dynamite into the vat of rocket fuel. So not only had I run out of cognitive energy to muster up one more flippin’ nasty-gram, I am bent over the barrel with this entity, begging them for assistance so I have to make sure that I am even more professional, fair, accommodating, and yes…“nice” than ever.
Which takes more energy.
When I’m already on empty.
Thus I had to…drumroll…ask for help.
Getting Help Getting Started
Since my dad knew about the situation in detail, he wrote up the first draft of the email to Heating Assistance, which friggin’ got me started. A lot of times, that’s all it takes to get my ball rolling.
This is also the tool I used for renewing my passport and renewing my trademark in the same time period — both complex, time-sensitive projects with expensive consequences if I mess it up. I’d planned to do these during my surgery recovery — you know. When I’d thought my surgery was going to be in December and I’d be recovering with the love and support of my mom, dad, boyfriend, and friends.
Wrong. If you missed it, my mom died and then I got dumped the day before my surgery so…yeah.
Blessedly, one of my friends helped me navigate the Post-Surgery Blahs on Grief Brain Steroids by helping me just friggin’ get started. That’s often the hardest part for me during MEH and burnout.
It was even worse with Heating Assistance. By then, I was battling post-surgery, grief-brain, threats to my living expenses, and outrage. So after all those failed attempts to draft the email myself…after all that journaling…after all that practice in the kitchen while my dinner cooked, trying to come up with what I needed to say and what I needed to ask for…I had the words.
What I didn’t have was tact.
Since I supremely loathe being that kind of asshole, it stopped me in my tracks.
My dad externally provided that for me by drafting the email, which allowed me to tweak what he wrote into my own tone, make additions and subtractions, and finally push SEND on the thing.
Writing it out for the first point of contact in this sticky situation helped me get through the Fury Phase, and regain some clarity as well as energy to pick up the phone when they didn’t respond to my email.
Piggybacking Motivation
The day I called them, I also needed to put out one final brushfire with AT&T. This was, by far, the more straightforward phone call so I used that momentum to piggyback.
I started with the easier task, which got my mind into the self-defense zone. The speaking my problems aloud zone. The Pissed Off In Nice Girl Panties Zone. Warming up the engines like that helped me push through to the harder one.
(In)Conveniently, I had to leave a message for Heating Assistance, so I got to do a smaller, shorter, greatly distanced trial run at speaking my thoughts. (Always way harder for me than writing them, even before Dain Bramage put a glitch in my verbal channel.)
So there. It was finally out there.
My Voice. Setting boundaries. Clearly communicating what I need, and even doing so in a genuinely pleasant manner. Because again, it’s not necessarily the fault of the person who will get that message. In this case, it might be. But it might not be. And even if it is…
I will not descend to their level by being disrespectful and unprofessional because they did it to me. That’s just not how we roll around here.
Have Backup On Standby
Another thing that keeps me calm and able to squeeze my big, broad asshole-tendencies into nice-girl panties: I come to battles like these armed with knowing who The Big Guns are, in case I need to fall back on them.
Knowing that, if Heating Assistance continues to ignore me or treat me in a disrespectful manner…eh. No biggie. My next phone call will be to Disability Rights.
None of these entities likes to hear from Disability Rights.
I don’t like having to call them. But I have and I do and I will not hesitate to do so again.
Knowing I’m not alone in this fight, and that there are bigger fish who have my back? That makes me feel a little braver to try to handle it on my own, which helps motivate me out of Don’tWannaCan’tMakeMe™.
As you can see, the self-protection, boundaries and speaking up aspects of Metal are such a crucial piece of what gets me unstuck that it needs its own post.
But speaking up about needs and limits isn’t the only thing that requires Bravery. Sometimes expressing unabashed Joy does, too. And that is part of the splash-crash-play in Elemental Water.
Let’s get ready with a Brave little dance partay.
UP NEXT: PART 3 - getting unstuck from the muck of Apathy with the tools of WATER & ALCHEMY
© 2025 Hartebeast
Related Posts:
FIRE meets AIR: BURNOUT
In the Fire Element, we work with the Realm of Passion & Emotion. In the Air Element, the two emotions we work with most intensely are Apathy & Inspiration. Burnout is what makes it difficult to manage the transition out of the former and back into my customary state of the latter...
FIRE: Realm of Emotion
I don’t believe in "good" or "bad" emotions. I only believe in better and worse moments of letting them run through my body. Better and worse moments of expressing them. Better and worse ways of doing so in any given situation.
This post has been about HOW I get out of Apathy. I covered WHAT brought me to the state of burnout on my more personal publication, Bella & the Beast.
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