Feeling Drained? Try These 6 Tips

Burnout is hard to recover from. Awareness of it is hard-won, and recovery can require a rewiring of our most deeply ingrained habits. Getting a therapist can help, but no amount of therapy can force you to learn how to work and rest sustainably. It might not sound fair, but the burden of changing your life for the better ultimately falls on you. You were already feeling tired and overwhelmed, and now you have to be your own captain, caretaker, partner, and friend. 

Alli Cravener is a counselor intern  in St. Petersburg, FL. She helps her clients heal from the sometimes debilitating symptoms of burnout. Whether you’re feeling drained from an overwhelming semester of school, a difficult period at work, an unhealthy relationship, or a low sense of self-worth, Alli is a therapist who loves guiding people in their journey to self-reliance, self-love, and self-care. So what advice does she have to offer when it comes to healing burnout?

A Therapist’s Guide To Touching Grass

“When I am feeling burned out, the first thing that I do is go outside. Even if I am in a terrible mood, and feel like the last thing I want to do is leave my house, I do it anyway. The trick to getting yourself to do the things that are healthy for you is to give yourself permission to do at least the bare minimum. I tell myself to just put both my feet out the front door, and if I still don’t want to spend time outside, I can go back to bed. There hasn’t been a single time where I felt like going back inside. But the permission to do the bare minimum helps ease the pressure of doing self-care perfectly. Once you’re outside, it’s important to meander. Notice the sky above you and how the clouds look. Let their beauty fill you with wonder. Appreciate the colors you see around you, the smell of the earth, and the cool breeze on your skin. How amazing it is that you get to be a human experiencing Earth!!” – Alli Cravener, Counselor-in-Training 

• A Therapist Can Help You Deal With Your Anxiety. If your anxiety is overwhelming you and it feels like you don’t have the tools to handle it, that’s probably a good time to work with an expert. A therapist like Alli can use a session to provide you with the tools you’ll need to cope with your anxiety in the present moment no matter where you are.
• DIY Outdoor Therapy In St. Petersburg. Human beings lived outside for thousands of years before the concept of inside even existed. We were not meant to live forever in the air conditioned cubes where we store all our things. The act of spending time outdoors and feeling the sunlight on your skin is necessary to the sustainment of human life. A therapist like Alli can help you figure out when you’re depressed because of your situation, and when you’re feeling depressed because of your environment. 
• Therapy Teaches Us To Practice Mindfulness. In order to have fun and live our lives, we need to be able to have fun and live our lives right now. Without the ability to appreciate and participate in the present moment, we’re going to wind up feeling pretty unsatisfied and burnt out. A therapist like Alli can teach you techniques to place yourself in the present moment when you start to feel disconnected from your joy. 

How To Find Anxiety Relief Through Spirituality

Religion and spirituality can offer you the type of comfort you could never hope to expect from another person. When you have a comfortable relationship with the unknown, whether that’s God, family, or whatever it is that makes you feel comfortable with the universe and your small role in it, it can offer you immense relief from the inherent anxiety of being a small human who appears increasingly smaller in an increasingly vast and mysterious universe. But why?

• We Take Comfort In Ritual And Tradition. We celebrate our traditions for habitual and often highly emotional reasons. These traditions can be treasures passed from one generation to the next like jewelry, or uncomfortable psychological compulsions transmitted from parent to child almost genetically. Therapists like Alli can help you sort out which rituals and traditions are offering you comfort, and which ones are sources of unneeded anxiety. 
• Spirituality Helps Us Find Acceptance. There are certain times in life when we need to act, and certain times when we need to just accept. If we lack a sense of comfort and understanding in the way the world operates, it can be hard to come to acceptance when faced with the sometimes grim realities of real life. Calamitous, challenging things happen, and spirituality can anchor us and provide serenity even when there is a raging stormy sea of trouble on all sides.
• Our Suffering Is Often The Result Of Unhealthy Attachments. Buddhism teaches us that attachment is the root of all suffering. And it’s true, often we are so attached to what we hoped would happen that we miss out on any joys that reality might have offered us. Spirituality can help us to let go of the earthly attachments that weigh us down the most. 

How A Counselor Helps You Embrace Your Inner Child

“As we get older, we often lose sight of our playful, spontaneous side. This is what causes us to be more susceptible to burnout, because we are not giving ourselves time to play. Instead, we force ourselves to be productive all the time, which drains us of our joy, wonder, and creativity. Thinking back to what you were passionate about as a child and what really lit you up and doing those things as an adult is incredibly healing. Your inner child has so much wisdom for you about who you truly are, what you care about, and what you are actually passionate about. By revisiting the activities, dreams, and passions you had as a child, whether it was painting, dancing, playing games, or simply being in nature, tapping into that energy will unlock your joy and creativity. And, like most things, our inner child does have a shadow side, potentially due to unresolved emotions from past trauma or difficult experiences. When you reconnect with this part of yourself,  you can begin to process these emotions and release the hold they have on you as an adult, which allows you to face and heal old wounds.” – Alli Cravener, Counselor-in-Training.

• The Right Counselor Can Help You Integrate. We all have an inner child within us, at least in our memories of childhood if not some of the behaviors we exhibit to this very day. A counselor like Alli can guide you through the process of integrating that inner child into the person you are now.
• Counseling Can Help You Re-Embrace Your Childhood Interests. Our hobbies make us better people! When we make time for the things that are enjoyable to us, it’s a lot easier to be resilient when we have to do things that are profoundly unenjoyable. The man who spent a day fishing has a much better attitude about taking out the trash than the man who spent the day taking out the trash.
• A Counselor Can Help You Rediscover The Joy You Found In Childhood. Often the things we loved and brought us joy in childhood get tossed to the wayside at some point when we were growing up. Counseling can help you figure out how to access that childlike joy even in adulthood and old age. You are never too old to pick up a paint brush, laugh with your friends outside, or get excited about the garbage truck eating all the trash in your dumpster.

Work With A Therapist In St Petersburg, FL

Alli Cravener is a counselor in training  in St. Petersburg who specializes in helping individuals find their purpose, heal their inner child, and re-ignite their creative spark. It’s so easy to lose touch with who we really are, what we’re truly passionate about, and the joy that once fueled our creativity. Alli understands this struggle and offers compassionate, non-judgmental counseling to help you reconnect with your authentic self. By addressing emotional wounds from the past and supporting you in nurturing your inner child, she can help you unlock the creativity and joy that might have felt out of reach. Schedule a free consultation and Alli will answer any questions you have, verify your insurance benefits, and get you scheduled. Fill out our online form to get started.

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.