Disrupting Burnout For Good

My busy season is almost over. I’m writing today from Canmore, AB, where I’m participating in a small summit on ending homelessness in Canada. In the past few weeks, I’ve also spent time in Ottawa with leaders of patient organizations and travelled to Winnipeg for a symposium on pathways to care for people with hepatitis C in Manitoba.

I’ve had the pleasure of many conversations with passionate leaders — and I noticed a pattern: they’re all angry.

We’re all angry.

I’ve been running this idea by people, and it seems to feel true: in the past, burnout showed up as tiredness or even apathy. But right now, burnout looks like anger.

As in, we wake up angry. Every little thing irritates us. Every thoughtless remark feels like a personal attack. Every request feels like a burden. 

If this isn’t you, I’m happy for you! But if it does, I hope you’ll find something useful in the next few paragraphs. Not answers — I don’t have those — but perhaps a few prompts that are helping me reorient my own thinking.

​Lately, I’ve been wondering whether the shifts I write about might help with this particular flavour of anger. Maybe I’m angriest when I’m being certain instead of curious. Or when I’m wishing people would appreciate my efforts instead of grounding myself in solidarity.

So I tried practicing those shifts this week. And you know what? It has helped.

When I make the effort to stay curious — not my default setting these days — the anger loosens its grip a bit. It doesn’t soften the righteous anger that fuels justice work. That stays. But it does soften the ego-driven anger: the anger of over-identification, of wanting credit, of feeling like everything is on my shoulders.

But there’s more to it. Some of this anger comes from carrying responsibilities that should be collective and working inside systems that don’t meet the scale of the need. From feeling unseen, under-resourced, and undervalued. Sound familiar?

For years the advice was “self-care.” And sure — it’s better than nothing. But I’m noticing a shift toward recognizing that community care is even better. All this pressure breeds anger; connection relieves some of it.

Connection interrupts the isolation that tells us it’s all on us. It restores a sense of collective effort. It reminds us: I have an important part to play, but I don’t have to do everything.

Maybe that’s part of why unions are cool again. Maybe we’re remembering that collective power isn’t just effective — it’s energizing. I once heard Dean Spade say that we often think, “I’m too tired to go to tonight’s organizing meeting,” but when we actually go, it gives us more energy than a nap ever would. I think about that a lot.

To be clear, the anger at structural injustice, chronic scarcity, and political hostility is legitimate.

But if we find our people, stay curious, and sit in solidarity, maybe we can change how we experience this context internally. So this important work doesn’t eat us alive.