Responding to the Contagion of Burnout Energy

I saw a reel earlier that made me notice how burnout spreads. An entrepreneurial self-help influencer told followers to demand more power, money, and visibility for themselves. You may be familiar with this flavour of message…

“How dare you keep your impact hidden?” they said, “given the state of things right now.” They criticised viewers, demanding that they stop letting fear of what others think rule them. “Start the business, write the book, and share it with a world that needs to encounter it.”

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the underlying sentiment. But I felt troubled by the burnout energy evident in the speaker. I watched with the sound off at first, which intensified the impact of their eyes and hand gestures on my nervous system. There was a sense of panic and hype, which felt completely at odds with what is required for deep courage to meet the very real need being spoken about.

I didn’t feel inspired or grounded in creative motivation. Instead, I was overcome by frenetic urgency and the indiscriminate demand to do more, driven by competition and fear. Things we already have in abundance.

What Burnout Energy Pushes Us Toward

There are enough people waving their arms and shouting demands about what we should be doing, using, and spending our finite resources on. What we need is space to slow down, take a breath, and listen deeply to that still, quiet voice within. This inner voice shows us what matters and why. Then we can choose how we bring it all to life.

We need leaders who lead from that place, so we might be infused with and infected by the gentleness required to move out of that evident stuckness. That stuckness causes wheels to spin in the cycle of hurry, rush, and reactive firefighting mode.

What Does Safety Make Possible?

The word “safe” is used a lot today. To some degree, it has become diluted, making it difficult to define. But it’s worth exploring because it sits at the heart of this issue.

Maybe we have a desire to change something about ourselves, our lives, or the world. Or perhaps we’ve created, or are creating, something that could make a meaningful difference to other people.

We now consider another buzzword of our times: vulnerability. It can feel vulnerable to be honest about what we want in life and to share what matters to us with those who matter to us. It can be scary to admit what we care about and what burns within us. That’s because it can disrupt the status quo and challenge the image people have of us. It’s vulnerable because we cannot be certain how people will react.

Vulnerability Is More Than a Mindset

Likewise, it may leave us genuinely physically vulnerable if we choose to stand up for what we believe is right, for example, through art or activism. This vulnerability isn’t imagined. It’s not simply an issue of mindset, limiting beliefs to overcome, or a conditioned cultural message we just need to override with reframe hacks. We know there are real-world threats out there.

What struck me about the reel was that it failed to provide the support needed to underpin its demands. In fact, it undermined the courage, conviction, and energy required to speak up in a world that might be unreceptive or even hostile to what we have to say.

The finger-wagging shame that comes from an influencer demanding we do more because it’s cruel to hide from people who need to see us, however well-intentioned, will ultimately crumble and fold under its own weight. As a result, it creates the very passivity and inaction it warns against.

Safety isn’t about comfort or avoidance. It’s the internal condition that enables honest reflection, creative movement, and sustained courage. This isn’t about mindset or thinking. It starts with the context of the stories we swim in, the supportive structures beneath us, and the material conditions that sustain life.

Safety is Also Contagious

One of the things I have consistently heard from people over the years who have connected with what I do, especially in The Haven and through the Serenity Island course, is the word safety. I’m always curious about what it means to those who use it, because it’s not something I think about explicitly.

When I started sharing The Return to Serenity Island at the start of 2021, I received messages from people that put words to the experience:

“Oh my word, it is incredible! A really unique mixture of sound and sensory experience, coaching, imaginative play and informal, companionable talks. I’m absolutely hooked. I just did a module and cried like a baby because I felt so safe and seen. It is really special. That kind of cry you do when you’re a kid, not because you’re afraid anymore, but because you’ve been PICKED UP, and the relief just comes flooding out.” – Josie

This spoke of safety not as the opposite of courage, but as the cornerstone around which courageous action can be sustained. A cornerstone we can return to and draw from without conditions on our intrinsic worth as humans. Safety, then, is feeling held as you are, without expectation or demand to prove yourself or fight for a sense of value.

A Step Back From Burnout Energy

This is a key value that underpins The Return to Serenity Island. It was a response to a feeling I had while doing my old year-end practice. I needed something that broke with the message of self-optimisation, personal productivity, and motivational resources, which, with an emphasis on striving, adding, and growing simply because it’s what you’re “supposed” to do, carried a creeping burnout energy.

Tuula wrote,

“Serenity Island has been the most powerful and lovely thing I have ever experienced. Andy has created an amazing adventure, cleverly weaving together incredibly beautiful soundscapes and deeply touching story narrative, which ignites your imagination, activates all senses and sends you on a journey of a lifetime on this island of your wildest dreams.

It is playful and also a very useful creative project, which continues to evolve and grow with me. This Island work and its ripple effects have sneaked quietly and effectively into so many areas of my life already. I could not have found more effective and gentle coaching than with Andy.”

The course is not something that comes with easy-to-market promises and packaged outcomes that everyone walks away with in the same way. Everyone who goes through it seems to encounter it from a different angle.

But there is a common denominator of safety, which underpins everyone’s response to it.

Safety as a foundation for reflection, observation, and planning. A way to let what sits within us speak, and to give ourselves the best chance of hearing it. And as such, it’s not a way to withdraw from reality. Instead, it helps us locate and root ourselves more firmly within it, so we can find strength, courage, and clarity about who we are, what we want to tend to and nurture, and how we will stand in the face of the forces that may take us away from ourselves.

An Invitation to Serenity Island

The Return to Serenity Island is a self-paced guided voyage with optional Zoom “Picnics”. These provide us with time and space for further reflection, support, and in-person connection along the way.

This is a perfect time to grab a passport if this stuff feels right for you. The Serenity Island Passport gives you access to all materials and picnics for the next 12 months.

And speaking of safety, I’ve made the course available on a choose-your-own-price basis. I know many people are navigating changing financial circumstances, and I truly mean it when I say: choose the amount that feels right for you. No minimum, no need to explain or justify your choice. I just want you there if you feel the pull.

Arriving Through The Fog | A Narrated Soundscape

It’s much easier to show than describe, so I’ll share the first of these six pieces that supplement the course materials.

“Arriving through the fog soundscape is the most brilliant thing I have witnessed as a gateway into myself. If I stopped here, at the harbour to the Island, it would already be worth it for me. Thank you for this. It’s filled with magic.” – Zoie

Welcome home!