11/05/2025
Most of what we've been told about burnout is wrong.
And that's why so many educators are burning out, and then blaming themselves for it.😔
Burnout isn't a personal failure. It's a nervous system injury.📣📣
From a polyvagal perspective, burnout happens when your nervous system gets stuck in chronic dysregulation:
⚡Too much sympathetic activation (stress, doing, hypervigilance)
😴Not enough parasympathetic restoration (rest, safety, recovery)
🥶Eventually collapsing into dorsal vagal shutdown (freeze, numbness, collapse)
Understanding burnout through a nervous system lens changes everything:
👩🏫Instead of "I'm not strong enough" → "My nervous system needs protection"
👩🏫Instead of "I just need to push harder" → "My body is asking me to stop"
👩🏫Instead of "A vacation will fix this" → "I need sustained nervous system recovery"
The truth? Prevention is simpler than recovery. And prevention looks like:
✨Honoring your body's signals before collapse (notice sensations!)
✨Building in micro-moments of rest daily (settler practices!)
✨Protecting your nervous system like the resource it is (teacher well-being!)
✨Saying no before you're empty (boundaries!)
Your nervous system isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do: trying to protect you.
⚡The question is: Will you listen?⚡
