Practical Magic Lessons From Burnout Recovery
Practical Magic Lessons From Burnout Recovery
You Can't Figure Your Way Out, You Need To Feel Your Way Through
One of the very hardest things about the last year that I spent wandering through a desert of burnout and grief has been the fact that I couldn’t envision what life would be like on the other side of Autistic burnout.
I spent most of 2024 absolutely unable to sit and write (or do anything else business-related) and filled with terror that this would be a permanent condition.
This image from
perfectly illustrates my experience. Before I discovered I was Autistic, I was the little masked caterpillar you see up there. I had acquired all of my writing and business skills while masquerading as a neurotypical person, and relied on a jerry-rigged assortment of strategies in order to function. Shame and urgency were ever-present, as was the constant internal pressure that results from suppressing your true nature. I was forever on the lookout for new hacks, structures, frameworks, or planners1 (AHEM) that would help me be more productive.From big names like Amy Porterfield, Kate Northrup, and Marie Forleo to more niche business witch teachers, I carefully studied and tried to replicate what everyone around me was doing. And it kinda worked!
Actually it worked pretty damn well for a while. I had a couple 5-figure launches, I grew my Instagram following to over 17k, I was fully booked and starting to make money—more than my nervous system was prepared to handle, if I’m being honest.
After the Autism revelation, things didn’t collapse all at once so much as they petered out in such a slow way that I couldn’t tell for sure what was happening, or how profound and all-encompassing the transformation I was experiencing would be. A slow-burn Tower moment, if you will. I didn’t know I was in the process of dissolving into primordial goo so all my parts could be rearranged, like my buddy the caterpillar in their cocoon up there.
Skill loss or skill regression is a very weird experience. It’s not so much that the skills are lost, but more that they are inaccessible, locked away behind a glass door I didn’t have the key to. I could still see them, but I couldn’t make use of them. Tasks that I had previously accomplished with ease and success were now completely impossible to do. I’d pull up Substack, I’d pull up Flodesk, and just stare and stare at the screen, unable to find my way in, and shut the laptop in despair.
What I’ve come to realize now is that there was no way I could conceive of what unmasking—being a butterfly—would be like. I had no embodied experience of ease, freedom, and joy in my Autistic body, and there were no models around me of nervous system witches who were also parents and who were also polyamorous who had unmasked and rebuilt their lives beyond burnout. I had no idea what that might look like.
Like you, in the before-times I’d gone through about a million visualization exercises about what I wanted my life/business/impact to look like. They never really worked for me, but I didn’t understand why, and they were the best thing going so I dutifully future-tripped and journaled my ass off about it.
But it turns out, the information I needed wasn’t what this new life would look like—I needed to know what it would feel like. The only way to do that was through the slow-as-molasses process of unmasking and embodiment: being curious about the moments when I felt lightness and ease in my body, taking note of what made the feeling possible, and finding ways to make the feeling happen more often.
Turns out, I couldn’t figure my way out of burnout and to the other side. I had to feel my way through, and validate the shit out of what I was feeling, and experiment with new ways of being and creating so that I could thrive as an umasked, embodied Autistic human.
Can you imagine being a caterpillar and making elaborate plans to fly here and there and everywhere when you HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT WINGS EVEN FEEL LIKE??? It’s just not something that can be apprehended through the mind’s eye. My rational brain had absolutely no reference points. I spent so much energy trying to think my way through the morass, energy I didn’t have to spare.
There’s a quote I’ve always loved, by the novelist E.L. Doctorow, and which I’m sure I came across reading a book about writing in my early 20s:
Writing is like driving at night: you can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. -E.L. Doctorow
It’s also damn good advice for burnout recovery, honestly, and this quote has been a steady companion through the whole journey, except in this version the headlights are these moments of connection with my body and with the world that felt both grounded and light. The spark of those moments created just enough light to get me to the next moment, and so on and so forth, until I did, in fact, make the whole trip that way.
So the work of burnout recovery for me was:
Find the spark (and trust that it was real.)
Follow the feeling (and trust where it was leading me.)
Tend to the feeling with joy (and trust that it would be enough.)
And I’ll tell you—having wings is fucking WEIRD. I do feel that I’ve crossed a threshold into some post-burnout butterly-shaped embodiment. The fact that you’re reading this here Substack is proof. The fact that I’m writing to invite you to a ritual workshop this coming Saturday about learning to find, trust, and follow your spark is proof.
The most incredible thing about being on the other side of burnout, of having gotten my wings, as it were, is how fucking GOOD it feels and how EASEFUL it is. I can’t believe how much fun I’ve been having writing a sales page and creating a workbook and writing emails and shit. It’s truly stunning. It’s not something I could’ve imagined in a million years. It’s not something I felt would ever be possible for me.
Turns out you can’t really imagine what it’s like to have wings, so trying to imagine your winged life so you can plot your course towards it is a fool’s errand. You really just have to wait until you feel them, catching glimpses and glimmers along the way and stringing them like beads on a thread of hope and prayer.
If you’re exhausted by the effort of trying to think your way into an unknown, embodied future, boy oh boy do I have a workshop for you.
Your wings are waiting. You can make the whole trip that way.
.
Practical Magic Ritual Workshop
Saturday, October 26th 1pm-4pm CST | $33-$55
The magic of true, lasting systemic change becomes possible when we cultivate relationships of sensory joy with the world.
How do we rewrite the story of our nervous systems so that we can take creative risks and connect with ourselves, others and the world without overwhelm or burnout?
How do we engage in the work of transformation without shaming, pushing, or extracting from ourselves?
How do we approach deep trauma work in a way that works WITH our neurological wiring, and not against it?
And how do we do it in such a way as to NOT freak all the way out?
The answer is: We start small We go slow We do it through sensory joy We don't do it alone The answer is: We do it through practical magic.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Queerdos; spoonies living with chronic illness and pain; burnt out baddies; grieving and traumatized witches; neurodivergent babes who want to expand their nervous system capacity to feel & receive without overwhelm or burnout.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A sacred container held by an experienced trauma-informed practitioner.
A chance to receive witness and validation from witches & weirdos who have similar lived experiences.
Accessible & sustainable nervous system magic practices.
A magical workbook of bespoke tarot spreads, journaling prompts, and nervous system spells.
Lifetime access to workshop recording & materials.
Saturday, October 26th 1pm-4pm CST | $33-$55
Sliding Scale Coupons
At checkout,
Use coupon code MAGIC33 for the sliding scale rate of $33
Use coupon code MAGIC$$ for the sliding scale rate of $44.
The search is over though, I am ecstatic to announce that I have finally found planner peace with Sterling Ink’s Common Planner.