Maybe You Should Meditate: A Story About Burnout and Change
I pulled into the parking lot early and parked my car. I took a deep breath, grabbed my backpack with my lunch and tried to exit the vehicle but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed and panicking. It wouldn’t be so hard to just drive away – my car was still idling, like I subconsciously wanted to keep running away from it all as an open option. Has anybody seen me yet? I could call out from the road. Say I was acutely ill. There’s no way they saw me. I could pretend that I still actually liked my job and wasn’t thinking of walking away from a career I used to be in love with. Eventually the panic was replaced with a familiar numbness I’d come to accept. This was how it was, how it would always be.
If you’re a veterinary professional of any kind, you probably recognize this story. Maybe it’s even yours. Burnout is a buzzword lately, but we’ve been experiencing this for a long time. In medicine, there is constant pressure to perform at a high level. But burnout is not a simple case of stress, and the various and complex causes are not always obvious. And while I have A LOT to say about systemic causes of burnout (especially in vet med), that’s not why we’re here. Systemic change is possible, but it takes time. And it takes healthy individuals to support and enact those changes. We have a basic responsibility to ourselves and our patients to take care of ourselves – and there are things we can do, as long as we believe changing is an option.
When we’re in school, we are consumed by vet med – and in academia that’s kind of appropriate. Veterinary medicine is a challenging field. We are smart, driven individuals. Many of us are perfectionistic, single-mindedly pursuing anything that brings us closer to our goals. But when we start our careers, there has to be a shift. This is the rest of our lives, and if we don’t make time for something outside of veterinary medicine, we will be consumed – our lights will flicker out.
“Maybe you should meditate.” In the deepest hole of my burnout, when my performance reviews were focused on my attitude, irritability, and communication style, this was the only solution that was offered to me. So I did. I bought an app. I meditated HARD. Every day. Sometimes twice a day. Like it was my damn job. You don’t tell a high achiever that this one thing is going to solve all their problems and expect them not to go all out.
Here’s the thing (spoiler alert): Nothing changed. I still hated going to work, hated my cases, complained about clients, and snapped at my technicians. This led to my believing that not only was I failing at my job, I was also failing at being a good person. See, I wasn’t walking into the building each day looking for new ways to destroy relationships. I didn’t want to be acting the way I was; it felt wrong. I was completely out of alignment with my view of myself as a caring, compassionate individual. I’d become unrecognizable, and I didn’t see any possible way out.
Just as I had almost fully sunk into the “all is lost” darkness, I learned that our brains can reorganize over time by forming new connections based on experiences and learning. Wait, WHAT? Not only did this give me an explanation for how I fell down the slippery slope – it gave me a way out. Science is my love language, and it was speaking to me. Here was my first glimmer of hope. Science told me I wasn’t stuck, and I believed. I could create new pathways – new thoughts – and new behaviors.
My first step to overcoming my burnout was recognizing I had the power to make changes in my life. I was aware that I was unhappy – but I also trusted science and the faith that there was another option.
I get it. You don’t want to do the work of changing anymore because everything you’ve tried so far has failed. It’s only provided more proof that our profession is broken. That unhappiness goes hand in hand with veterinary medicine. But I’ll let you in on a secret: There is no one thing that you’re going to do that is going to make this better. There’s no “easy button,” and sometimes the work of change is hard. But making an effort – consistently – is a massive step in the right direction. The only way forward is to start: Take your PTO. Eat lunch away from your desk. Seek support from friends and colleagues. Move your body in a way that feels good. Identify your values and passions – and incorporate them into your daily life.
I don’t want to suggest that if you do all this your problems are just going to magically disappear. Because they’re not – clients are still going to come with their pets and you can’t always control how patients respond to treatments. But your thoughts, reactions, and responses to those things are absolutely within your control and can have a direct impact on your overall job satisfaction.
It breaks my heart that so many of us assume that it’s not possible to do this job AND live a genuinely happy life. That unhappiness is inherent in the profession. I used to believe this too – but I don’t let that hold me back anymore.
If you have a similar story – what helped you get through it? Or if you’re stuck in the cycle as we speak, what do you think needs to change in order to have a different future?
