Of course, I make a point in the book of saying your recovery should be highly personal. So I don’t know if this will work for you… but I want to tell you about my experiences with all kinds of Martial Arts. For me personally, they worked. And still work brilliantly today to keep stress away and give me creative focus! Balancing emotions Any kind of movement is good for you if you are stressed, feeling stuck or burned out. Our first blog post is even on just going for a walk

Very often burnout victims have not paid attention to the signals their body gave them. Heck, I even ignored an episode when I landed in the emergency room with a gigantic panic attack! So yes, this lesson is very, very simple: don’t ignore signals... stupid! And for creative people: pay attention to the specific ones! When you are moving towards a burnout your body is overproducing a very useful hormone called cortisol. This is known as the ‘stress-hormone’ and is actually b

A special mention in your personal road to recovery is friends and family. They are the ones who stand by you in your time of need. However, sometimes they can also be part of the cause of your burnout. Try to tread lightly here and take it easy in your relationships with them. Take time to feel your way through. And remember that the only constant in relationships, is change. Let's dive in deeper. Relationships always change During the burnout I discovered many of the relat

A lot of the reactions I get are from the people who support burnout victims, help people with creative anxieties or step up to the plate for those who get depressed for not achieving their creative life goals. So I thought, let’s give a few quick pointers on what to expect when you are part of the Help Team. A shoulder can be enough The first thing is: you don’t always need to offer full-blown help. When we see someone in need, we have the natural tendency to reach out and t

Thank you so much for the fantastic interview by Watersedge Counseling on Restart - Burnout Recovery. It is an honor to tell the story from a patient perspective, time and time again. Please check out the full interview in the link below: https://watersedgecounselling.com/how-to-beat-burn-out/ Love, as always Rogier van Kralingen

What we wish for when we are in a negative emotional state is to come out of it. Yet, it's a cycle: the more we want to be out of the negative, the worse we feel. The switch back to a positive outlook often remains elusive, meaning we start to wish for it even more. That's the cycle. Luckily, there is a way out: embracing the bad. The paradox of emotions It's a paradox: the best thing to do break the cycle of negative feelings is to simply embrace them. This is the reality: L

The tendency of psychologists and psychiatrists is to focus deeply on the cause of your burnout, depression, grief, and mental breakdown or traumatized state. That is very, very good of course. But in my experience that is only half of the solution to burnout. Work the mind yes, but also the body . That's the key. A focus away from the mind, and into the body Of course, the mental side of a burnout is extremely important. We need to give the mind space to process the reasons

There are plenty of causes to burnout and you will have to give a lot of attention to all of them. But if there is anything that my experience has taught me, is that battling the symptoms can be just as effective as finding the causes. So for this first solution blog we will focus on the simplest yet – for me – most effective way to treat yourself successfully: the walk. (In the past, and as creator, I have suffered from the usual big creative anxieties, which I have now full

For those of us in a creative job (and who isn't these days) anxiety is part of the work. Creative expression always comes with vulnerability: you open yourself and your work up to the judgement of others. Naturally this creates anxiety. That's why many creative people are more prone to depression and burnout. In this blog we explain why that's okay and how it can be used as a force for good. In today's world we are all producers of our own content. Whether we post things on

When you're at the beginning of your storytelling practice you can often feel like it's not your place to tell your story. You compare yourself to others who (in your perception) do a far better job. And you feel like you will never reach that point of creative mastery. The opposite is true however: it's that self-doubt, insecurity and vulnerability - creative anxiety - that actually makes your story worthwhile. Your story is needed. Today we discuss why. Storytelling is abou

It’s one of the great questions of art: do I make art for myself or for my audience? The answer is both. Art without an audience is like George Berkeley’s tree falling in the forest without anyone seeing it: does it exist at all? Yet having an audience without artistic soul is shallow. So today we make the first blog about audiences and what you need to know about them. And it all starts with the difference between empathy and sympathy. Quick Storytelling Lesson on Audience W

Storytelling is all about emotion. I mean, 'duh', of course it is. Yet I have to mention it because so many people still get this wrong in storytelling. Let's break down why exactly this is, how it should work and what you can do to make better emotional connections in your storytelling. Without emotional friction a story is not memorable. We relate to each other's feelings, not to facts, figures and functional forms. We remember those less, because we are wired that way. Th

All good stories are always about the journey and never about the destination. The end goal of what you do or say is important of course. But it's not what people will remember. The road towards that ending is what it's all about because it involves all the trials, tribulations, frictions and conflict people will relate too. So, let's have a closer look at how this works in practice. Epic story The Lord of The Rings is about a group of people who all go through several transf

The first and most important thing in any story – whether it’s a film, video, book, brand, blog, musical, art, scientific or corporate story – is a little thing called conflict. For those new to storytelling this may come as a shock. But it actually makes a lot of sense. Humans thrive through overcoming frictions and obstacles. The best things that human beings have ever created all come from some type of friction, conflict, disagreement or paradox. Music for instance is only

In a brilliant Christmas episode of the hit tv-series Community , our group of students reaches the conclusion that trying to force everyone to smile during the darkest time of year, makes our dark feelings even more pronounced. In this time of worldwide crisis I felt a strong need to emphasize this and again tell you: it's okay to feel bad in these incredibly stressful moments. Admitting to this can help you find the light. Yet this article isn't just addressed to you. It i