What Burnout is really telling us.
This full moon is a call to return — not perform.
We’re in the thick of summer full of golden light, full bloom, high energy, and yet many of us feel anything but radiant. There’s so much happening in the world, in our bodies, and in our feeds that asks us to keep going, keep performing, keep coping. But our systems are quietly (or loudly) signalling: this isn’t sustainable.
“Dysregulation means your nervous system is no longer shifting smoothly between states of stress and rest.”
— The Buffalo Herbalist
When we’re regulated, we move fluidly between activation and recovery. When we’re in survival mode, we get stuck in states of constant alertness, or utterly flat. Maybe both. It can look like emotional overwhelm, numbness, brain fog, digestive trouble, burnout, fatigue, cynicism, or complete disconnection.
Sound familiar?
Most of us weren’t taught how to regulate. We learned to push through. To please, perform, perfect. Our emotional needs weren’t modelled, they were minimised, and now, even rest gets hijacked by productivity culture: something we "earn" only after collapse.
But regulation is where we must return,
just like the seasons,
just like summer.
This full moon — the Buck Moon — is a quiet reminder to reorientate ourselves towards what is natural, elemental, organic and required. A reunion with presence. Named after our deer kin, whose young velvet antlers stretch like branches toward becoming, it marks a season of slow, organic growth. It’s also known as the Hay Moon, the Wyrt Moon, the Salmon Moon, each name a call to remember our place in the great breath of life.
In a culture that thrives on bodily and mental extractions of time, energy, and attention, the almanac names of the moons and seasonal shifts offer resistance to the over culture and direct us to the inner nature of ourselves. They speak to a different kind of power. One that isn’t based on output or overdrive, but on rhythm, rest, and reorientation.
They remind us that we are not machines, we're tender animals who require attention, who need to make some space in time to breath and feel and love.
With this seasonal adjustment, August is going to be a slow-down month. A lot of practitioners are away having a summer rest, which we encourage. Limited bookings are available, so watch out for our return in September.
You are allowed to pause. To be unfinished. To need gentleness and we are going to keep reminding you of this.
You don’t have to burn out to come home to yourself.
Space can be the bridge you need to recoup post burn out or prevent it all together.
With you in the becoming,
Hayley x
Article written by Hayley Frances, Poetry Therapist.