Restoring Life, Part 1: An offering
There is a way out of burnout - my last year of recovery is proof of that
Hello friends, it’s been a while. To be truthful (and I aim to be nothing but truthful here with you, even when it’s uncomfortable), I was totally overwhelmed and underprepared for the response to my last piece about the pitfalls of working in conservation. I was grateful to have created something that resonated with so many and to feel validated, and at the same time acutely sweaty-palmed at being seen (wait, did this mean I had to have some answers, too??). It turns out that if your writing is received well, somehow that can be just as scary as being ignored or criticised. Huh, brains are weird aren’t they. Thanks so much for being here on this journey folks, where you can watch me squirm (and hopefully evolve and settle in as a writer) in real time!
So, here I am, figurative pen in hand and my big girl pants back on, writing to you again because there is a story I want to share that may go someway to offer a response to my last piece which outlined some of the major problems in the conservation (and likely wider non-for-profit) sector. While there is much more discuss in how things could be improved and we should absolutely hold leaders to account, it felt more pressing to share any words of how to take care of yourself first - if I could.
The intervention
A few days ago I hit a milestone. I looked at my calendar and realised that it had been exactly one year since I handed my notice in at the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, after deciding to not only leave my job working on a huge landscape restoration funding programme, but to also move back home to Sheffield to be closer to my family (and entertain the possibility of buying a house this century).
It’s hard to say at what point I made my decision, there had been a series of deep knowings, aches, and practical reasons that slowly coalesced and I could no longer ignore for a number of months, probably years if I’m honest. The penny likely dropped for me when I was on holiday with some of my closest friends last summer, while we celebrated our joint thirtieths in the south of France. I have known these people for over a third of my life, and because they have seen all versions of me - loving me through every one - they are more like family to me.
One night we sat by the pool, the humid summer air wrapping itself us like a blanket, when I once again expressed my grief and disillusionment at what my role and conservation had once meant to me, and the restlessness at being in a place (geographically, in work, in life) that did not feel at all right. One of my friends leaned forward, gently place her hand on my arm, and with furrowed brows of concern that matched the expression of every other friend in the conversation, she said: “G, we love you. Please, please leave this job.”
I would normally advocate that we don’t internalise too much of the advice of friends and family - as well meaning as they may be, they can’t help but project their own ideals, values and experiences. But I saw something in them that night that told me I was missing something obvious that they could see and I couldn’t (or, wouldn’t). I knew they were right, I had put off taking action because I was afraid of the unknown and didn’t know what the alternative was - all I could feel in my bones was not this.
Before I lost my moment of conviction, I sent a message to a woman I had met a few months before on an all-women camping trip. I knew she was a brilliant coach, and asked her advice if she knew anyone in her circle who could help support me going through this kind of transition. That person’s name was Charlotte, and having worked with her for the last four months, it would be no exaggeration to say that she has changed my life in ways I could never have expected.
A lot can happen in a year
As I suspected when I handed my notice in last summer, life has not been at all how I imagined it might be. I couldn’t imagine the grief I would experience losing my beautiful Nan a week before moving home, or the crippling depression that would leave me wondering if life was too much for someone like me to cope with.
But I also couldn’t have dreamt how far I could go beyond just surviving and living in autopilot. How I could learn to trust myself, and live with the discomfort of disappointing others. How in that same year I would start writing for a magazine and my own newsletter, set up a partnership to run community events, and fall in love again. I didn’t think I was capable of any of it.
When I was going through the toughest months, I knew that I would want to reflect on them at some point. How I dragged myself through them - crying, walking, reading, loving, listening, and walking and crying some more - the whole way. It felt too messy at the time, and when you’re in the eye of storm it’s hard to make sense of where you are.
Even months on I find it so hard to summarise that time, but now thanks to coaching I’m less afraid of sharing this messy transition phase - there is an honesty and a humanness to it.
What has taken place is a restoration of sorts, a returning to myself that has gone far beyond this last year. A recovery from the things that led to the burnout I described in my last post. And a path I realised only the other day mirrors the very processes I used to support in my work - restoring ecosystems, and bringing landscapes back to life. And it made me wonder - what if we thought about reviving our own nature, our own being, in this way too?
So, what I offer here is sharing my own story of recovery. Which I’m still working through by the way, and I think (I hope now) I always will. Like nature, we all have our own timescales, and the beauty about processes is that they are about constant evolution, not reaching an arbitary endpoint.
I plan to break this series into four parts over the next few weeks, and use what I know about restoring ecosystems to help visualise the process I went through to recover from burnout, from getting clear are where you are, to removing barriers and creating conditions that make recovery possible.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey, I’m glad we’re here.