From burnout to breathing on World Mental Health Day

October 10, 2024

Today is World Mental Health Day, and I am reflecting on the last few weeks: pouring my heart and soul into MOAR! Chapter 7: Conquer your darkest hours: Rise beyond resilience with brilliance and sharing some of my toughest moments. 

Chapter 7 starts in December 2023, with me standing on the stoep of my dream home, on a bright sunny day, and surrounded by the Stellenbosch Mountain. I should have felt ecstatically happy. We'd done it. We’d returned to our roots after 18 years in the UK and built our barn-style house on an acre plus of land. The boys were settled and loving their new life in SA. 

But I was shattered. Completely burned out – once again.

How was this possible? I had chosen this life. Every single piece of it. But what I hadn't anticipated was this: returning to South Africa meant the protective distance of London was gone. I was unknowingly grieving my London life whilst being forced to face what I'd been running away from most my life.

When following your dreams reveal new devils 

Eight years earlier, my burnout made sense. I could point to external villains – the toxic workplace, the impossible demands, the bullying boss. That burnout was caused by someone else's dysfunction (or so I thought), and I could fight against it.

But now? Now the call was coming from inside the house. It reminds me of the saying “next level, new devil”, meaning that advancing in life, career, or spirituality brings new challenges, problems, or conflicts to overcome. 

Although I was chasing my dreams, I'd been using the same self-destructive patterns that ‘served’ me in corporate: drowning in busyness, distracting myself from discomfort, pushing through exhaustion, and treating my body like a machine regardless of my energy levels. 

This is what my recent conversation with Dr Ela Manga on the ROAR for MOAR podcast made so clear: burnout has become an epidemic, particularly among the very people we need most – passionate people, people committed to making a difference, people who are open, heart-centered, and empathetic. 

As Ela said, "The kind of people that are making a difference in the world are more at risk of burning out. And this really concerns me."

Why resilience alone is not enough

For years, I confused signs of burnout with being resilient. Being the hardest worker in the room meant I was the most resilient person there. Every sign of burnout felt like proof of my strength.

But resilience, by definition, is about survival. It's about bouncing back, adapting to difficult circumstances. And while it’s powerful, doing it wrong, can keep you treading water – constantly expending energy just to stay afloat.

We need something more. Not instead of resilience, but beyond it. The capacity not just to survive the storms, but to transform difficulty into growth without draining our life force. As a friend recently said: “It’s not enough to sink or swim, we must learn to surf the waves.” 

But how do you rise beyond resilience with vibrancy and authentic brilliance?

Finding a new way of being

By March 2024, when the dust settled, I intuitively knew I had to start training differently. I'd been thinking about signing up with a personal trainer for a while, and that's when I started working with Katy. She introduced me a whole new way of training, teaching me that slow is the new strong, that proper breathing and core engagement meant being fully present to form and body wisdom rather than mindlessly pushing through.

Around the same time, Maya invited me into her "Always in your wildest dreams" programme, where I would prepare for a live speaking event in September 2024. Through this dual process of physical training and speaking preparation, three words emerged as my new way of being: Present, Peaceful, Powerful.

Every time something felt too hard or I got too overwhelmed, I would pull back and focus on my wellbeing practices, especially my breathing. This is where the breathwork became essential, not just as a practice, but as my anchor.

I learned to turn towards my breath, rather than pushing through or ignoring what my body was telling me.

As Ela shared: "Our breathing is a language, an unconscious language. Every thought that we have and every emotion that we feel is reflected moment to moment in our pattern of breathing." I love this so much.

Then came the ultimate test.

On 29 July 2024, as I watched my husband being wheeled into an operating theatre – surgery to test if the cancer (stage 4 malignant melanoma), had spread – I had a flash back to my moment in ICU with my close friend Andrew the year before: his hand in mine, his tired eyes trying to speak what the ventilator silences. Me promising to see him when I am back from London. Him nodding... the nod that became his final goodbye. 

The weight of mortality hit me hard in that moment: we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We are not even guaranteed today. Despite feeling sad and petrified I stayed grounded and calm. Those months of practising Present, Peaceful, Powerful had prepared me for that moment in ways I did not understand until I was living it. A week later we got the news that the cancer hadn’t spread –a type of relief that is hard to put into words. 

Breath as medicine

Here's what I didn't fully appreciate until talking with Ela: I'd been breathing my whole life, but for the most part, I hadn't been practicing ‘conscious’ breathing.

As Ela explained, breath is a bi-directional language. Every thought we have, every emotion we feel, every pattern we hold is reflected in how we breathe. But here's the powerful part: we can also use breath to change those patterns. When we breathe in ways that signal safety to our nervous system, we literally rewire our stress responses.

In stress and burnout, we disconnect from what our bodies are communicating, we ignore our ‘interoceptors,’ those internal sensors constantly sending us information. We override our need to rest. We override the clear signals our nervous system sends. We hold our breath without even realising it.

Ela guided me through the ‘square breath’ practice live – and I invite you to experience it too by listening to the episode. It's a balancing technique that works with four equal parts: inhale, pause, exhale, pause. This practice retrains your nervous system's tolerance for carbon dioxide (which sounds technical but matters enormously for how we handle stress), building what Ela calls inner sight, the capacity to actually feel what your body needs.

This is not woo-woo. This is neuroscience.

As Ela explained: "When we understand the science and we understand the brain and we understand the diaphragm and how it is designed for us to breathe consciously, then we can't not. We can't not reclaim this birthright."

Your mess becomes your message

On this World Mental Health Day, I want you to know: if you're burned out, if you're struggling, if you're passionate about making a difference but feel like you're drowning – you're not alone. And there is another way.

Your breakdown can become the initiation that returns your power to you so that your authentic brilliance can shine. This is the alchemy: transforming the darkness of inherited patterns into the light of conscious choice, and conscious breathing.

The world needs people who transform through their challenges, thrive beyond survival, and share their authentic brilliance with others.

What's one small step you can take today to honour your mental health? 

Let me know – I'd love to hear from you.

🎧 Listen to my full conversation with Dr Ela Manga: "Burnout to Breathing: Optimising Breath Intelligence as a Key to Resilience"

📧 Join my community: Sign up for regular ROAR for MOAR insights on energy management, conscious leadership, and rising beyond resilience.

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