BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — Dr. Bethany Mills stood before the Kiwanis Club in Inez with a simple message for people who carry too much: Burnout is not weakness.
It is a warning.
“Burnout doesn’t mean you’re weak,” Mills told Kiwanians during Thursday’s luncheon. “It usually means that you’ve been strong for too long without enough support and without enough recovery. You matter beyond what you produce. Your value is not tied to your productivity and taking care of yourself is not selfish; it’s necessary.”
Mills, a clinical psychologist from Inez, works at the United States Penitentiary Big Sandy and conducts evaluations for the Kentucky Court System. Kiwanis President Melissa Phelps introduced her as someone already balancing a demanding career and children at home, yet now adding public speaking to her schedule.
“She’s going to talk to us about stress, burnout and all the things that we all grumble about all the time and hopefully help us with some coping strategies,” Phelps said.
Mills earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Mount Vernon Nazarene College, a Master of Science in Counseling/Counselor Education from Indiana University and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Spalding University.
She opened her talk by telling the audience that burnout is something many people have known, are living through or may be close to experiencing.
“We have either experienced in the past, we might be experiencing now or we’re one email away from experiencing it in the future,” Mills said.
She drew a sharp distinction between stress and burnout.
“Stress is ‘I have too much,’ and burnout is ‘not enough,’” she said.
Mills asked the audience to finish the sentence, “I have too much.” Responses included too much to do and too much anxiety. Mills added one of her own: “staff drama.”
Then she asked them to finish another sentence: “I don’t have enough.” Around the room, answers familiar to many working adults emerged: time, energy, money, resources, motivation and qualified staff.
Mills said burnout can stem from an unmanageable workload, a lack of control, insufficient recognition, a lack of support, unfair treatment, a lack of work-life balance, and a mismatch of values.
“The thing that I have recently experienced myself was no work-life balance,” Mills said.
She spoke candidly about her own adjustment to working inside a federal prison, describing it as “a very dark environment.”
“I was very sheltered when I grew up,” she said. “I grew up in a Christian pastor’s home. We didn’t go to dances because back in the day that was seen as inappropriate, didn’t go to a movie until I was 14 years old, very sheltered. So then you throw me in a prison and I learned quite a bit very quickly that the values there are not exactly matching up to my values. That can also lead to burnout.”
Mills asked Kiwanians how they know when they are burned out. One person answered, “I cry a lot.” Another said, “Your output drops.” Others mentioned irritability, depression and physical tension.
Mills said the body often reveals what the mind tries to hide.
“Your body keeps score,” she said. “Whatever is going on in here,” she added, pointing to her head, “is going to come out one way or another. Whether you talk about it and it comes out that way or the body has to release it somehow.”
Those symptoms can include headaches, trouble sleeping, gastrointestinal issues, muscle aches, low energy and fatigue.
She shared another reminder with the group: “Sometimes your body says what your mouth refuses to admit.”
“We want to seem like we have it all put together,” Mills said. “In reality, our body is saying we don’t, we’re carrying way too much.”
When Mills asked how people cope with burnout, Kiwanis member Pam Ward offered, “Make a list.”
Mills did just that, drawing columns on a whiteboard for positive and negative coping strategies. The positive side included music, exercise, chewing gum and prayer. The negative side included alcohol, nicotine and isolation.
Food, shopping, sleep and medication could fall on either side, Mills said, depending on how people use them.
“It’s great with moderation, but in excess, it becomes problematic,” she said. “We could say that with everything on here, even exercise, because that could lead to disordered eating and those sorts of things.”
Boundaries, Mills said, are essential.
“Did you know that ‘No’ is a complete sentence?” she asked. “Yet how many times when someone asks us to do something, we say, ‘No,’ and then give a five-page response to justify our ‘No,’ instead of saying, ‘No, thank you. I don’t have time for that,’ or ‘I would really love to help you, but I can’t.’”
She also encouraged people to seek professional help when needed.
“As a psychologist, I have a therapist,” Mills said. “I got a ton of book smarts, but sometimes I need someone from outside my life to look in and tell me, ‘You’re not crazy’ or ‘You’re crazy.’”
Mills urged the group to reevaluate priorities by asking what matters most, what can wait, what can be delegated and what needs to stop.
“Sometimes we do things because that’s the way we’ve always done them,” she said. “But systems change, environments change, and we don’t always have to do it that way.”
She also recommended mindfulness, staying present in the moment and connecting with others — something the Kiwanis Club does each Thursday.
Before closing, Mills asked attendees to take out their phones or use paper to make two lists. The first: three things that drain them. The second: three things that restore them.
Drains might include overcommitment, lack of rest, negativity, constant availability, people-pleasing, unrealistic expectations or carrying things alone.
Restorative things might include family, prayer, exercise, nature, quiet, reading, laughter, music, sleep, boundaries or counseling.
“As you go through this next week, I want you to eliminate one unnecessary drain,” Mills said. “That’s going to be tough. It might not be tough for you, but for the people around you … The people in your life that you’re used to carrying or being constantly available for, when you pull back and stop doing those things, they’re like, ‘Hey, wait a minute.’”
Then she said, “Add one thing that restores you.”