The Continuum of Exhaustion: Is Burnout the Forerunner to Bliss?

Dear ones,

Across generations, burnout wears different masks. The Baby Boomers and Gen X were shaped by stoicism, productivity, and self-sacrifice, the unspoken belief that worth is earned through exhaustion. Their burnout is often silent, unassisted, marked by depletion and a quiet endurance that borders on martyrdom. Generation Z, by contrast, has the language of mental health, the permission to name their needs, and a fierce sensitivity to imbalance. They are well-informed, nourished, and self-aware, and yet they too are burning out, not from silence, but from overstimulation, hyperconnection, and the psychic weight of a world in distress. Such a world is veiled in mistrust, a generation alert to the gaps between what is said and what is true.

What we might be witnessing is not just personal fatigue, but a continuum of exhaustion, the nervous system of our collective lineage crying out for rebalancing. The shamanic path would remind us that burnout is not simply an individual failing, but a spiritual signal, a rupture in relationship to energy, to reciprocity, to the unseen. Both the unspoken burnout of older generations and the overexpressed burnout of younger ones point to the same root: the need to return to right relationship with life force, to honour cycles of giving and receiving, doing and being, death and renewal.

This is the terrain we are exploring through the Isumataq Collective, what it means to tend the invisible fires that sustain us, to reclaim vitality not as constant productivity, but as sacred balance.

I know this space intimately. I have watched the invisible chains of work, the inherited belief that rest must be earned, that one’s value is tied to how much one can carry. I remember hearing phrases like, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” or, “Just get on with it,” and “No pain, no gain.” They contributed to the atmosphere of that era, words meant to encourage resilience, but which also trained the body to ignore its own limits - override its wisdom, to see depletion as dedication, and endurance as strength.

Sometimes I wonder how we might edit that phrase for our times?

Maybe it’s not “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but “what doesn’t kill you is still speaking.”

Maybe burnout isn’t something to overcome, but something to listen to, an initiation into a different relationship with energy, power, and tenderness. The terrain of depletion holds gifts of insight, sensitivity, and renewal when approached with compassion and curiosity.

So I want to turn this reflection towards you.
How does burnout show up in your life? When you feel it coming, what are the first signs in your body, your mind, your spirit?

What does your system whisper before it shouts?

I invite you to reply and share your reflections. We’ll weave your voices into our next letter and across our social spaces, so we can listen and learn from one another, a living map of how exhaustion speaks and how we might begin to respond.

And if this speaks to you, please join us as we dive deeper into the materials:

She-Manic: From Burnout to Bliss, a self-guided audio study, is due out next week. You can join either as a subscriber or take it as a standalone Coaching Short. It explores this terrain with guided reflections, practical tools and exercises to help you hear and learn from burnout, and move gently towards a calmer state of being that creates the conditions for bliss.

With care,

Remi

For the Isumataq Collective