The Burnout Series

I've always been interested in how much energy we spend trying to make life explain itself. It shows up in therapy all the time, particularly around grief, relationships, burnout and unexpected changes in our lives. We want to understand why something happened, why someone behaved the way they did, why doing everything we thought was right still led somewhere we never expected to be. There is often a hope underneath all of that searching that if we can finally understand what

How do you know whether your relationship needs more work, or whether staying is costing too much of yourself? One of the most difficult questions someone can bring into therapy is also one of the questions I don't believe a therapist should answer for them: How do I know when it's time to leave my marriage? By the time someone begins asking that question seriously, there is usually an entire history contained within it. Years of love, disappointment, shared experiences, rese

There is an idea I have been thinking about lately, perhaps one of the greatest forms of happiness is simply understanding the source of our unhappiness. At first, that may sound unnecessarily pessimistic since we tend to think of happiness as something we acquire rather than something we understand. We look for it in relationships, careers, experiences, financial security, achievement, purpose, or some imagined future version of our lives in which the difficult pieces have f

One of the more interesting things about success is that it tends to conceal its own disappointments. When people imagine success from a distance, they often imagine a feeling. They imagine confidence, security, satisfaction, freedom, peace, or perhaps some durable sense of arrival. They imagine that certain struggles will finally quiet down once enough has been accomplished. The specifics vary from person to person, but the underlying assumption is remarkably consistent: the

People often ask why I moved from tech leadership into psychotherapy. The short answer is: burnout taught me things success never did. For over twenty years, I worked in high-pressure executive roles. International expansion, crisis management, constant decision-making, and the expectation to be always reachable were part of the job. I learned how to lead teams, manage risk, and stay composed under pressure. What I didn’t learn, until much later...was how to stay connected to

Most people don’t miss burnout because they’re careless. They miss it because burnout rarely announces itself clearly. Instead, it whispers . In my experience, both as a former executive and now as a psychotherapist, burnout is most dangerous when it becomes quiet . When the body adapts. When the mind rationalizes. When the nervous system goes into endurance mode. That’s why I often encourage clients to identify their “canary in the coal mine.” What Is the Canary in the

Most people don’t ask for help when they’re burned out. They ask when they’re almost burned out, when something feels off, but they can’t quite name it. This is the window where burnout is most preventable. After years in executive leadership and now as a therapist, there are a few truths about burnout I wish more professionals understood earlier, before exhaustion hardens into identity loss. 1. Burnout Is a Gradual Loss of Self-Awareness One of the earliest signs of burn

Burnout doesn’t arrive all at once. It’s not usually a dramatic collapse or a single breaking point. More often, it’s an erosion...slow, subtle, and easy to rationalize while it’s happening. I know this because I lived it. Before becoming a psychotherapist, I spent over twenty years as a tech executive working in fast-paced, high-stakes environments. International growth, crisis management, constant decision-making, and an unspoken expectation to be available at all times wer

Preventing burnout isn’t about working less, it’s about working differently . After two decades as a tech executive and several years supporting clients and clinicians as a therapist, I’ve learned that burnout is best prevented long before exhaustion sets in. Sustainable careers aren’t built on intensity; they’re built on rhythms . Here’s how I teach clients (and practice myself) to prevent burnout in ways that feel realistic, humane, and grounded. 1. Build a Career Rhyth

Burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s a predictable outcome when human beings are asked to operate like machines - constantly productive, always available, endlessly resilient. Over the last several years, burnout has become one of the most common reasons people seek therapy, whether they work in tech, healthcare, education, mental health, leadership, trades, or front-line roles. As someone who lived through two decades of high-pressure executive life before becoming a psych

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