Beyond Burnout

Let’s face it — for many of us, emotional numbness has become the norm. That low-level hum of burnout… the daily drag of just getting through.

We smile. We show up. We tick the boxes. But somewhere along the way, we stopped feeling like ourselves.

Welcome to what some are calling The Great Detachment — a quiet epidemic of emotional fatigue that creeps in, eroding our sense of self.

We don’t always recognise it. We just feel… tired. Not just physically, but emotionally spent.

And when we can’t muster the energy to “just push through,” we start questioning ourselves:

“Maybe I’m not cut out for this career I worked so hard for.”

“Maybe I’m not strong enough.”

But here’s the truth: you’re not weak. You’re emotionally overdrawn.

You’re caught in an endless loop of holding it all together — especially at work, where ‘being professional’ often means suppressing how you really feel. Where you’re expected to give your best self, even when you’re quietly breaking inside. 

That constant act? That’s emotional labour — and it’s exhausting.

 

I know it because I’ve lived it too.

 

In my previous career, I worked in HR, leadership, learning and development, and coaching — helping others navigate the very burnout I was slowly starting to experience myself. I spent my days guiding people through stress, resilience, and emotional regulation… all while masking the slow cracks forming in my own foundation.

My passion then was emotional labour. Right from the very first moment I encountered this concept in a lecture during my masters degree nearly 13 years ago, I was hooked. While everyone else was writing dissertations on flexible working, I had to write mine on emotional labour. I couldn’t not. It resonated with me so much that I knew it was something I would carry with me for my whole career. I knew I wasn’t destined to be the kind of HR professional who just did the performance reviews and turned up when things went wrong. I was always going to be the one who’d look beneath the surface to understand the context - why people behaved the way they did, what was going on for them. How they were feeling.

Every time I introduced emotional labour to someone, it resonated. Every single time. Helping people realise the link between their feelings of burnout and the emotional gymnastics they’d perform every day at work was why I went to work. Sure, there was a whole world of other stuff, but those stolen coaching moments helping people to see beneath the mountains of emails and spreadsheets and reconnect with their emotions was my true purpose. It’s what I became known for.

Fulfilling as that was and despite all the corporate and psychological techniques I was able to train people on to help them process their emotions, it always felt like I didn’t quite have the answer. Like there was a missing piece.

I also realise how much I’d neglected my own emotional wellbeing — until something unexpected changed everything.

I discovered art. Or rather, art discovered me. It turns out it found me just when I needed it the most.

 

I never set out to be an artist.

 

It started, oddly enough, with a blank wall on our landing. I couldn’t find a canvas I liked — not the right size, not the right style. Eventually, I thought: How hard would it be to make something myself?

A quick trip to Hobbycraft later, I had a canvas, some paint, and absolutely no idea what I was doing. But from that moment, I couldn’t stop. Every spare minute became studio time. I thought I’d discovered a new hobby… but looking back, it was something much deeper.

Art was giving me what HR never could — a space to feel without having to explain. It bypassed logic, skipped past language, and cracked something open in me I didn’t even know was locked away.

I’d always found people fascinating — their emotions, their patterns, what makes them tick. I built a career around it. And now, somehow, I was doing the same thing… but with colour and texture instead of conversation.

 

From Human Resources to resources of humans…

 

When I worked in HR, I helped people understand themselves and others.

Now, through art, I help people feel again.

It’s the same mission — just a different medium.

Abstract art doesn’t show you a person, place or object. It doesn’t offer a tidy story or fixed meaning. That’s why it works.

It invites you to feel instead of analyse. To sit in ambiguity. To let go of the need to label everything.

And in that stillness, something profound happens — your emotions get a voice.

 

The Great Exhaustion is real.

 

In the wake of the Great Resignation, we’re still quietly suffering from years of performance, perfectionism, and pressure. We’ve been stretched too thin, for too long, in a world that’s demanded our energy without giving us space to recharge.

And many of us still don’t know how to rest, emotionally.

That’s where abstract art comes in. Because unlike figurative art — which your brain can quickly categorise and file away — abstract work forces you to stay in the moment. It doesn’t give you the comfort of recognition. And in that discomfort, something shifts. You pause. You reflect. You let yourself feel.

I’m not saying a piece of art will fix everything — or that you need to become an artist.

But I am saying that reconnecting with your emotions is essential. Especially when you’re emotionally frazzled or running on empty.

Think of art as a bridge between that frazzled, busted-up, work-version of yourself and the reason you go to work in the place: so you can live, not just exist.   

That’s who I create for.

The one who’s been running on empty. The one who’s been smiling through the storm.

The one who forgot how to connect with themselves because they’ve spent so long holding space for everyone else.

I make abstract art to offer an emotional release — not just for me, but for you.

To give you space to feel something real again. To help you stop categorising how you feel and simply feel it.

 

That full circle moment.

 

And the best bit? Looking back and realising that I’ve actually come full circle. Everyone (myself included) thought I was leaving my corporate career to do something completely different - it turns out that my new passion is that missing piece I talked about earlier. The part that I couldn’t quite explain that felt like it was just out of my reach. I now know that was art - I just hadn’t discovered it yet.

I’ve realised my purpose isn’t just to create art that people admire or hang in their homes.

It’s beyond décor. Beyond emotional labour.

My purpose now is to give the people I once coached a different kind of tool — a way to make time for themselves, to reconnect with the emotions that got buried along the way.

I just do it with paint now.

You don’t have to keep holding it all together.

Maybe you just need to start feeling again.