When Burn Out Turns To “I Don’t Care” Anymore

Hey everyone, this is Julie Chenell. Today's a little bit of a heavier topic. I've had a few sort of come-to-Jesus conversations with people who are in really, really tough seasons in their life, and I want to kind of explore how to handle yourself when you are in one of those moments. It's almost like this, I don't care anymore. It's, it's more than just wanting to burn your business to the ground. It's nihilism, and that's a fancy term that, you know, basically means like, what does it matter? What's the point? And this is a very scary place to be because all of the things that previously mattered or felt important, once that starts falling away, it can lead you down some sort of paths that lead to even like existential dread, you know, like, why am I on this earth? What does it matter? So I had someone, private client, she said, you know, I'm just— I'm going through a really, really tough season and I just don't care. I don't care about my business. I don't like my offers. I kind of just want to get on a train and walk away. So I've been in this place a couple times in the last couple years, and nothing to do with anything specific in my business that happened. But personal life issues coming up that just sort of rock your world. If you are feeling that way, if you feel that, that sense of nihilism kind of creeping in, I would argue that in many cases you are in a state of detachment or dissociation where the urgency of the hour or the crisis at hand or the emotions that you're feeling whether they have to do with your business or not, they've reached a threshold where you really lose the ability to cope. And so that detachment and disassociation kicks in. It's there to protect you. It's a survival instinct, but it can feel really scary because you don't have any care for anything anymore. It's just a very empty feeling. And the goal of that is to protect you from really painful emotions. Number one piece of advice I can give you is if you are in that state, I would not make any big decisions while you are in detachment or dissociation mode. Really dangerous for your business, so do not do that. I think there are three reasons that we detach or dissociate, and this can be related to decisions and things happening in your business, and it also can be things that are happening in your personal life. And I'm basing this on experience. Please go see a therapist if your mental health is in question, uh, so do not take this as medical advice. But these are the times that I've seen myself really kind of detach and get into that headspace. The first is if you've waited too long to make a decision that you knew you were supposed to make. And you got injured living in that state of misalignment. And if we look at this in business, let's say you have a business partner that you're not happy with or something like that, and you know that you've really needed to kind of separate from that business partner, but because of your fear, you sort of let it drag on, and eventually you sort of detach because you're getting injured in that relationship over and over and over again. And so the body kicks in to kind protect you. And so if you've waited too long to make a decision and you get injured living in that long state of misalignment, dissociation and detachment can kick in. This is what happened in my previous marriage. I really believe that that's, you know, kind of what kicked in. The second reason you could dissociate or detach is trauma. And you know, there, there is business trauma and then there's also, you know, personal life trauma, big medical health issues, divorce, any kind of like crisis, crime, abuse, accidents, those kinds of things. But there are also like business traumas too, you know, betrayal, fraud, identity theft, even things that can be really traumatic like if a customer charges back multiple payments and that was your livelihood and it's driving you to the brink of, you know, filing for bankruptcy or closing your doors. These can be really traumatic events and that detachment and that dissociation can kind of kick in. So that's the second way. The third way is, and, and, you know, I think this can happen in option 1 and 2, but you just are struck with really hugely painful moments. Maybe you wouldn't identify it as traumatic or trauma necessarily, but the emotion is so much that you, um, your detachment kicks in. So this could be something like postpartum depression. You know, maybe you're not identifying it as anything particularly traumatic that happened, but you know, you have a baby, you're feeling depressed, and those emotions are just so intense that that detachment and that dissociation kicks in. Sometimes it's helpful to know what is kicking that in because you're going to need to give yourself both space and grace. What I would do from a tactical standpoint is know that until you're able to kind of come out of that dissociation, out of that detachment, back into your body, back into the present moment, you're going to need to figure out how to keep your business running. So the question I would ask is, what does a winter season of your business look like right now? And when I say winter season, I just mean, think of winter as, you know, everything's still alive, the trees are still there, the gardens are still there, they're buried under a layer of snow, nothing is blooming, you're not mowing the grass, you know, you're not pruning the flowers or the trees. You're not tearing everything down, but it's all quiet. And so what can you do in your business? And that means maybe not launching. Maybe it means looking at, okay, what are the things that I exactly have to fulfill and what can I turn off? For some, for some of you, if you really are in this bad space, turning off the marketing, marketing for a little while. The caveat to that is if your business is funding your life, you really can't. And so you have to outsource that. You have to delegate that. I often thought, this is kind of an interesting theory, but I often thought that there would be a good business model of a marketing agency that is designed to come in when the business owner is really in that traumatic dissociative state and the marketing agency keeps the business going while the CEO or the owner is trying to recuperate. I mean, a lot of times businesses have people who can take over, but in the solopreneur space, there are very few, right? And a lot of, a lot of those businesses don't have teams, you know, big teams and all that kind of stuff. So what does the winter season of your business look like? And give yourself time to come back into your body and understand that when— once you're able to actually feel and process those emotions, you might be able to move through that season. And then once you're not detached and dissociated, you can start to make decisions about how to possibly pivot what's going on in your business. The reason why I think it's important to kind of uncover what got you there in the first place is so that you can sort of retrace your steps. So if you, um, prolonged a decision, this would be the time to go back to that decision and remind yourself that the pain of not making the decision actually ended up being worse than the decision itself. and that can sometimes help jumpstart you into action. If it was caused by trauma, working with a trusted professional who is trauma-informed, who can help you process that trauma so that it's no longer stuck in your body. And other times, like hugely painful moments, things like postpartum depression, getting that support and getting that brain rest and possibly medication or whatever it is you need, then you can hop back into your business. So that is my advice. If you are feeling that feeling of I don't really care and it's, it's the I don't want to burn, I want to burn my business to the ground and I don't really care what happens. That's my advice. And make sure you have a trusted mentor, someone who can guide you, who can be that objective person while you're navigating this, right? It's— this is not the time to go asking for crowdsourced feedback. This is the time to actually trust a mentor who is not in that state to be able to walk you through those steps until you can get back to a place where you can make those sound decisions. As always, if you are feeling like you need a mentor or someone that can support you in that way, please feel free to go to juliechenell.com and apply to work with me privately one-on-one. I'll talk to you soon.