We’re told that burnout is just being “really tired.” That a long nap or a vacation will fix it. But for me, it wasn’t a nap I needed — it was a lifeline.
I remember the morning I sat in my chair for 40 minutes, staring at my computer, unable to remember what the agenda was for that day or why I was even sitting there. My brain hadn’t just “hit a wall” — the power had been cut.
In today’s episode, I’m getting raw about what really happened when my ambition outran my nervous system. I’m sharing the story I was unable to tell while I was in it — the physical collapse, the mental fog, and the moment I realized that “grinding” was actually just a slow way of dying and disappearing.
But this isn’t just a cautionary tale. We’re diving into the deep, uncomfortable lessons I learned away from my home office. Lessons about worth, boundaries, and why your “productivity” is the least interesting thing about you.
If you feel like you’re running on fumes and the fumes are starting to spark — this is for you. Let’s talk about how to come back from the edge. My name is Mariam and this is Transform into Wisdom Podcast. Let’s get into it.
Welcome Back — The Podcast Returns
Oh my god. I can’t believe I’m back — yes, back here in the US — and I can’t believe we’re back as a podcast. Yes, Transform into Wisdom Podcast is back! I am so excited to be here. I can’t really explain it in words. I’m so, so, so excited to be here.
I’m super grateful to be alive at this moment, at this time, and I’m just so, so happy that you’re joining me today listening to this episode. I missed you. I missed you so much. I missed talking to you. Yes, I missed this time that was very sacred to me and to you, and I am just so excited to be back.
The Slow Drain — How Burnout Crept In
Before I left, it felt like I was a zombie — physically here, but energetically and emotionally completely out of it. And it didn’t happen in one day. Back in August 2025, I remember just feeling okay. I was in San Francisco visiting a friend, took some time off for a week, went sightseeing, did all that touristy stuff.
It was nice. It was amazing. I had a great time. Then I came back really excited — I had ideas of where I wanted my business to go, where I wanted to go as a person, really creative ideas — and it felt great.
Then I remember waking up one day just feeling tired. But you know what we do here in the US? You wake up tired and that’s considered normal. Just make a cup of coffee — drink a few cups — and keep going. And that’s what I did.
But then I noticed my sleep was being affected, of course. I made some adjustments — cut back on coffee, tried to get a little more sleep — but even sleeping eight hours a night, I wasn’t feeling rested. I would take a few hours off during the day to go for a walk, get some fresh air. And I would do that, and I still didn’t feel quite right.
Then there were about three nights where I’d fall into deep sleep and wake up after only five or six hours — and I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t want to take sleeping pills, because that kind of messes with my system. So I tried to get enough sleep and then work.
But I fell into this pattern: not sleeping well, not enough energy during the day, too busy to exercise, working longer hours — just getting more exhausted. For about two weeks I wasn’t going outside anymore. I was waking up late, working until late, and I could just see the life being slowly drained out of me.
“I could literally feel the battery being drained by the minute.”
The Colorado Trip — Rest That Didn’t Reset
I thought, “Maybe I need to take some time off.” Colorado is really beautiful, so I bought a ticket and left for a solo retreat in the mountains. It was really nice to be up there — in nature during the day, not working, just relaxing. I thought it would reset everything after one week.
But it didn’t. In fact, I came back a little more exhausted, and I think that had something to do with altitude sickness.
The trip itself was amazing, but when I came back, I wasn’t rested. I didn’t feel rejuvenated the way I normally would after even a small vacation. I said, “I’ll just recover slowly,” and continued doing my job. That’s one thing they don’t tell you about being your own boss — the work doesn’t stop.
Sure, you can outsource some things, but there are things you have to do yourself. So I kept going. I was taking breaks, treating myself well, but my body just was not resetting. I had hit some kind of limit where the usual long weekend or a week in the mountains just wasn’t enough.
The Battery Runs Out
There was a day where I could literally feel the battery being drained by the minute. You know that feeling when you haven’t eaten anything, and then you go to the kitchen and have something, and you feel great again? I remember feeling like I couldn’t do that.
I could just feel the battery running out — and it was really scary for me, because I’d never had that feeling before. I started to wonder, “What is this? Am I getting some weird disease?” But I didn’t feel sick. It wasn’t a bacterial infection or anything like that. It was literally just the battery running out.
I was really scared. This had never happened to me. And in that moment, there was so much uncertainty — I live here in America, what am I going to do about my business, about the projects I’ve been working on?
But then I got this feeling — the word that came to my mind was “timeout.” I had this knowing that I had hit a certain limit and needed to stop everything.
Stopping Everything — The Forced Rest
And that’s what I did. For a couple of days, I stopped doing pretty much everything. The only things I would do were make meals and eat. I changed my diet a little, since I wasn’t exercising — I cut back on carbs and increased protein, because protein is healing to the body. And I rested. I told myself, “Give yourself two weeks. It’ll reset.”
I used to have these flashes of energy — these bursts where I’d think, “I’m recovering! The energy is coming back!” — and then it would just dwindle away. Back to square zero.
And then something interesting happened: I would have a good night’s sleep, wake up with just enough energy to make some breakfast, sit outside for a bit, and then get this overwhelming sense of exhaustion — and just crawl back into bed and sleep like I hadn’t slept at all the night before.
I’d sleep for many hours, wake up at dinnertime feeling a little better, and then that overwhelming feeling would return. That continued for weeks.
Leaving for Somewhere Sunny — Four Months of Just Being
In between all of that, I decided I didn’t want to spend the winter here. I wanted to go somewhere sunny, somewhere I could be outside in nature and change my rhythms, my environment, what I was engaging in during the day. So I booked a one-way ticket and left.
It was nice to leave. The energy in the US at the time — this was November — there was just so much tension in the air. It was such a breath of fresh air to be somewhere else. Getting back into nature every single day — being one with nature, where the environment around you is interacting with you — that was everything.
My mental capacity was really diminished. If you’d given me a complex problem, there was no way I was going to solve it. My brain simply didn’t want to engage in those mental challenges. It just shut down and wanted me to focus on the basics: just being. Not a lot of doing. Just being. I spent about four months doing exactly that.
“We are human beings — we’ve kind of forgotten that.”
I was existing. I know it sounds funny, but that was exactly what I needed to come back to wholeness. I was engaging with people, having fun — nothing serious, just being playful and spending a lot of time in nature. Eating fresh food every day. My sleep reset. My eating reset. It was really, really nice.
There was a moment when I thought I had recovered, and I decided to go out shopping for an entire day with someone. When I came back, I realized I just couldn’t function. The body was recovering, yes, but not at that capacity yet — the battery was still charging.
That happened three times, and each time the body was saying, “Not yet.” So I stopped — no more all-day outings — and just continued my solo, quiet way of just being.
And then slowly — not one dramatic morning, but a gradual progression — I started feeling more alive than I had ever felt in my entire life. That energy coming back, for someone who’s always been a high-energy doer, was amazing.
Why Did This Happen? Tracing the Roots
I remember starting to work when I was around 10 years old — not in an office, of course, but always doing something, always engaged in tasks. I was raised by a narcissistic father who never liked to see people sitting and doing nothing, so from a very young age, I was always working. And it never stopped.
I worked in corporate as a process engineer, then became an engineering manager. At the same time, I started working part-time as a coach. I was also investing — making sure my money was working for me. Multiple things going on, and I didn’t really see the price I was going to pay.
But the job itself was brutal — extremely long hours, on-call weeks where you’re available 24/7 for a full week, and the recovery time was never enough. Then being a high achiever is both a blessing and a curse. There’s so much you want to achieve, so much you want to do.
And when I launched my business, I put that same stamina and enthusiasm into it. My calendar was full. I had a vision. Creativity is one of the greatest gifts you can bring to this world — but there’s a cost when it’s one person trying to do all of those things alone.
My body got to a breaking point and said, “Time out. We can’t do this anymore.” And the good thing is that the body is so intelligent. It shuts down what’s using the most energy — the thinking part of the brain — turns up exhaustion, and if you’re still not listening, it turns on the sleep drive until you have no choice.
“The burnout saved my life.”
Ironically, that burnout saved my life. It was one of those things that feels like the end of the world in the moment — so scary, so uncertain — but it ended up being exactly what I needed.
Lessons Learned — Sitting with Pain
Zero goals. Zero ambition. Just being. Imagine living like that. When you’re incapacitated, you can’t do anything else — and that forces acceptance. At that point, you accept that you need a time out. And you have to sit with the pain.
I remember those first few weeks waking up, and the very first thing that came to my mind was a question: “Can you sit with the pain?” I even had a vivid dream: a fire was approaching my house, and I used the water from a swimming pool to put it out.
To me, that dream meant the passion I had was burning me alive — I was being consumed by it — but I also knew where to find the water to put out the fire. The timeout was the water.
The question that stayed with me was: can you sit with the pain without identifying with it? Without labeling yourself by it? Just observe it, accept it.
Because acceptance is one of the signs that you’re moving with life. Pain is part of life. Even sitting with the pain is natural and necessary. I learned to just sit with that pain without trying to make it into something.
The Unnatural Cost of Hard Work in America
Another thing I learned is that the kind of hard work we engage in here in America is really unnatural. It’s not aligned with the natural cycles of the body. The rewards-and-punishment system is completely screwed up. You get the reward from kind of losing your soul — and that’s not a trade you want to make.
“Money often costs too much.”
We are human beings — we’ve kind of forgotten that. We think, “Oh, we’ve made so much progress with technology” — but what about the humanity? What about the human soul and the human body? The hours away from family, the shrinking social circle, too much screen time, no real support system. So much of how we live right now is completely unnatural.
You have to build your own systems. Recognize what isn’t working and start doing what does — for you.
Work Without Balance Is Not Worth It
There. I said it. Work without balance is not worth it. If you’re working 16 hours a day, working two or three jobs — it’s going to catch up with you at some point. You need balance. Too much sleep, not right. Too much work, not right. No exercise, not right. Too much exercise, not right.
Everything needs balance.
We know this from nature — when it rains too much, it floods. When it’s too hot, there’s a drought. Any extreme is not good.
“Work without balance is not worth it.”
Now, I know some of you are thinking, “But what am I supposed to do if I don’t work enough to pay my bills?” And I completely understand that. The rewards system in America is broken.
The farmers who grow our food, the teachers who raise our children, the service workers who take care of people — they’re supposed to be the most well-paid people in our society. That’s just not how it is. So I want you to know — it’s not you. The problem is the system.
Nothing Is Worth Losing Your Soul
This one sounds simple, but it really isn’t: nothing is worth losing your soul in the process. The soul is you. It’s your inner compass. It’s the real you. You don’t want to lose that to a “fake bus” — a bus that pretends to lead you to happiness and fulfilled wishes but actually leads you to burnout and unfulfilled dreams.
“Nothing is worth losing your soul.”
Beware of the fake bus. And it comes back to balance — balance in your body, balance in your nervous system, balance in what you consume. Balance is really, really important.
Spend Less Than You Make
This is an important one: spend less than you make. I come from a long line of businesspeople, and my father taught me this early on. I’ve always spent less than I make. I don’t try to live beyond my means. I don’t shrink myself, but I don’t run myself into debt. I have no debt.
And because of that financial discipline, I was able to take five or six months off and not worry about where my next meal was coming from.
Financial education is not taught in school, and yet in real life you absolutely need it. So much money is lost on unnecessary things — there’s a consumerism culture of constantly buying something new, and there will always be something new. Don’t fall for that.
And especially right now — the financial situation is only going to get tighter. Protect yourself by living within your means. Build that cushion.
We Are One with Nature — Personal Sovereignty
One more important thing: we really are one with nature. We are not separate from it — we are nature. And there is so much to learn from nature’s cycles. When the passion is too much, that’s fire. Use water to cool it down.
When you root yourself in the earth, you get a better sense of what’s in the air. The natural rhythms of life are there to guide us — if we’re willing to listen.
It’s about finding your personal sovereignty. Can you find a piece of this world where you are in charge — where you control what you can and let everything else go?
If you haven’t started learning about self-sustainability, about protecting your energy from the news and the noise, about honoring yourself and your time — now is a good time to start.
You Are Amazing
All right, I’ve been talking a lot today. I was just so excited to be here and so excited to be back. This episode was really off the cuff — just some notes and a lot of heart. I really just wanted to tell you that you are amazing.
I know it’s a hard time for a lot of people, but I believe in the human capacity to be resilient and to come up with solutions. And I know you will, too.
I don’t want you to get burnt out. I want you to learn from my experience so you don’t have to go through what I did. I want you to be healthy. I want you to be happy. And part of that begins with taking care of yourself, and learning from what I did wrong, and doing something about it.
I’ve really enjoyed recording this episode. Next week we’ll go back to our usual programming, and I can’t wait to share more with you. Please take care of yourself, and I will see you in the next episode. 🌿