Burnout Fix: Five Morning Meditations How to fill up your own cup and become a better leader
By Josephine McGrail Edited by Patricia Cullen
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Burnout happens slowly, usually without us even realising before we find ourself exhausted, overwhelmed and stuck in survival mode. However, even just five minutes to yourself in the beginning of the day can really help bring you back to you. Morning meditation is a powerful way to regain a sense of control by tending to your own needs- before the world demands your attention.
Here are five simple, but extremely helpful morning meditations to help you beat or prevent burnout and to start your day energised, positive, empowered and balanced – and show up exactly the way you want to be as a leader.
1. Morning Intention Meditation
This meditation takes between 2-5 minutes and will help with clarity, empowerment and calmness. By setting a clear, heart aligned focus for the day you will feel anchored and secure: living life from your own centre.
Practice:
- Find a calm spot and sit down, placing a hand over your heart.
- Take a deep breath in asking "How do I feel"? Hold for a moment
- Exhale and let the answer land (can be a colour, a word, or an image - stay open to how you receive the answer). Repeat a few times until you have a clear sense of how you are truly feeling.
- Then breathe in deeply asking "How can I best support myself today"?
- Exhale and let the answer land (again stay open to how the answers may appear)
- Finish by thanking yourself for the making time to check in with you.
This meditation brings you back in touch with your values and reminds you what truly matters to you today- beyond work or the never ending to do list.
2. Calming Breath Meditation
This five minute meditation will help to regulate and calm your nervous system. Start your day by deeply connecting to the stillness of the ever present moment. Sit comfortably, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths. With each inhale, feel the fresh new oxygen fill your body with positive energy. With each exhale, completely let go and release any tension and stagnant energy.
Practice:
- Inhale for 5 counts
- Hold for 5 counts
- Exhale slowly for 8 counts
Repeat this cycle 5–10 times noticing your body settling down, breath by breath. Slowing our exhales helps to regulate our nervous system creating a balanced mental, emotional and physical state.
3. Be like water meditation
Burnout often comes from feeling like we are carrying the world upon our shoulders- mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. This 5-10 minute simple meditation helps clear the mind, release emotional tension, and allows you to create space for the new positive ideas, feelings, experiences and people that the new day will bring.
Practice:
- Sitting or lying down, close your eyes and visualise yourself floating in a beautiful healing pool of water.
- Take a few conscious deep breaths in and out, and see if you can "mentally step out of the way" and just notice how life is breathing life in and out of you.
- Every time you notice yourself mentally drifting back into the past, or ahead into the future come back to the feeling of floating: The water holding and carrying you. Life abundantly breathing life into you.
- Recognise that in this moment everything is taking care of.
- If a stressful thought comes up, gently exhale and release it into the water and watch it drift away. Welcome all thoughts, emotions and sensations and let it all flow through you.
This practice of detachment builds over time and can be very helpful in dealing with everyday challenges.
4. Cultivating compassion meditation
Burnout often leaves us feeling depleted to the point where we have no emotional resilience or space for empathy. A lack of forgiveness in our lives can also mean carrying a lot of pain around with us. This practice is important for cultivating compassion as a leader for yourself and others and enhancing feelings of kindness and forgiveness.
Practice:
Repeat the following silently:"May I be safe." "May I be healthy." "May I be happy."
- Then extend these wishes to others: Someone you love, a neutral person, someone you're struggling with, and then to all beings. This meditation practice reminds our mind what our heart already knows: that we are all human beings sharing the experience of being alive at this moment, in this timeline, doing the best that we can with the tools that we have. It reminds us that life is full of ups and downs, but that we are all in this together.
5. Journey through the senses meditation
Our bodies will often notices burnout way before our mind accepts it, so carrying out a daily body scan is a powerful way to recognise the signs before burn out happens. A simple 10-15 minute meditation can help you tune into your body and notice how you are feeling.
Practice:
- Lie down or stay seated, make yourself comfortable in the ways that you know best.
- Hearing. Start by noticing all the sounds around you. First far away - what can you hear? Then the sounds around you in your room, and then finally land on the sound of your own breath. Stay there for a bit.
- Touch. Notice the feeling of being in your body - run your thumbs across your finger tips, noticing the sensations of temperature and texture. Place a hand on your heart and one on your belly and notice the gentle movement of your torso as you breathe deeply in and out a few times.
- Sight. With your eyes closed, notice what you can see with your inner gaze. Colours, patterns? Pay attention to what you notice.
- Smell. Take some nice deep breaths in and out and pay attention to what you can smell.
- Taste. Notice the taste in your mouth- run your tongue around the inner ridges of your mouth, in front and behind the teeth. Feel what you feel.
- Finally place both hands to your heart and finish by placing all your attention on the sound and feeling of your own breath and heartbeat. Rest there for a few moments until you feel calm and ready for the new day ahead, remembering that the only thing we ever need is the breath we are already given so abundantly.
This practice promotes physical awareness and wellbeing, helping you mentally slow things down enough for your nervous system to rebalance and self-regulate.
Gentle reminder
Your body knows how to self soothe and self-regulate and it is always on our side. If one part of you is out of balance, all the other parts come together to help. All of your cells are constantly rejuvenating themself and self-sacrificing for the wellbeing of the entire organism (ie you!). Your entire mind, body and heart are all wanting you to succeed in feeling good and living your best life so it's important to make time to check in with yourself first and foremost: we can only take people where we ourselves are willing to go. We can not expect our teams to ooze power, assertiveness and passion if we are crumbling ourself.
By meditating first thing in the morning you help attune your mind, body and heart to everything that matters to you: setting yourself up for an amazing day. Even just a few minutes a day will lower your stress levels significantly and protect you from burnout. Meditation doesn't require anything but your presence. It is never about perfection - we all have stress and endless thoughts from time to time – but burnout doesn't have to define your mornings, your work or your life. The question is not whether you feel you can or have time to meditate - the question is: will you finally prioritise your own wellness understanding that when you look after you everyone around you benefits?
Tending to our own energy levels is not vanity - it is a necessity. Will you lead that change?
