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! Physical Recovery Burnout When you are moving towards a burnout your body is overproducing a very useful hormone called cortisol. This is known as the ‘stress-

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. Burnout & Relationships Relationships always change During the burnout I disc

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. Help Team Assemble 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

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 Restart Burnout Recovery

Should social media companies edit content? Some say no and cite freedom of speech. Others say yes and cite hate speech. What is the way out of this conundrum? That answer becomes clear when we start to see social media for what it truly has become: our shared online public space. And in the real world public space you have freedom of speech. Yet, crucially, you also behave. Help Social media are right now at the center of conspiracy theories, racism and cancel-culture. Let'

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. Restart Story 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 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. Creative Health & Anxiety (In the past, and as creator, I have suffered from the usual big creative anxiet

A few years back I was at this art exhibition that had attracted hundreds of people. The main artwork was a big block of simple perplex wood that was painted white. That was it. Must have costed somewhere between 20 and 30 euros. Maybe close to an hour to built, including the painting. The price? Five thousand euros. And in front of all of those visitors, I exploded. Art, Telepathy & Storytelling When someone asks me why storytelling is important my standard answer is that go

Storytelling is always about the journey, never about the destination Storytelling is about embracing friction, not avoiding it Storytelling is about universal emotions, target groups simply don’t exist Storytelling is about building character, step by step, brick by brick Storytelling is about honesty and truth, not about sales and marketing Storytelling is about losing ego… and having fun doing it Storytelling is about maintaining values without compromise Storytelling is a

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. Quick Storytelling L

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. Quick Storytelling Lesson on Emotions 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 l

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. Quick Storytelling Lesson on The Journey Epic story The Lord of The Rings is about a group of

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. Quick Storytelling Lesson on Friction The best things that human beings have ever created all come from some type of friction, conflict, disagreement

Even after GDPR, governments, businesses, consumer and civilian rights organizations are still failing at online privacy, and the mood around AI pioneers seems to be to shoot first and pay for the consequences later, no one seems to know what to do to protect us all against the theft and use of our data... whether it be by criminals, governments or tech-companies. Yet in this emotional discussion we are missing a strikingly obvious solution - not to mention a golden opportuni

Just like any good team, The Green Team make mistakes, especially now in survival mode. When that happens, I sharpen my pen, and let us have it. So, strap yourselves in boys and girls. We have to talk about the teams’ failed reaction to this pandemic and how to get back on message. Pandemic Story Although I'm not someone who particularly leans to one direction, I do strongly feel that the sustainable and conscious corner is also my team. The Green Team, if you will. Lately ho

Burnout Recovery & Creative Anxiety 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 artic