Burnout is a spiritual crisis

"It is a time to ponder on those essential questions: What is your purpose in life, and how can you follow it? What talents can you share with the world, and what are you grateful for? When we deviate from this true calling, when we deviate from love, from creativity, our spiritual crisis occurs. Our body breaks down with negative thought patterns, pain and illness.

Even though burnout is the end-stage symptom of chronic stress, it is, in essence, the deviation of our spiritual self. How do we reverse this? We begin to ask ourselves the essential spiritual questions. When we practice them during the time of introspection/quiet/meditation/prayer on asserting our truths of being loving, joyful and creative beings, the process begins and continues.

Stress and creativity cannot co-exist. We cannot wait until our health crisis or until we hit rock bottom, deviating into greed, anger, shame or lust. That is not our nature. We must prioritize time to get back to our true selves and, as Gandhi said, "be the change" we want to see in this world: be love, be joy, be creation."

Diana Londoño is a urologist and can be reached on Twitter @DianaLondonoMD.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "Burnout is a spiritual crisis."

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