Guardrails: Recovering and Reclaiming Your Life During Burnout

A decolonized five-step guide to achieving rest in the western world.

When life feels like it's spiraling out of control and burnout looms on the horizon, the key to reclaiming your peace and purpose lies in creating simple yet powerful— personal guardrails.

This Week’s Takeaways

🌟 How to Set Guardrails That Protect Your Well-Being
Discover why personal boundaries, which we refer to as 'guardrails' in this newsletter, are essential for preventing burnout, staying focused, and maintaining balance.

📝 A Practical five-step plan to implement guardrails in your life

From reflection to continuous improvement, learn the five-step process for identifying obstacles, creating boundaries, and sticking to them.

💡 Identifying Your Why: The Key to Lasting Change
Find out how to connect your guardrails to a powerful purpose and ensure they become habits that support your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

✨ Real-Life Guardrails to Inspire Your Own
Get inspired by real guardrails I’ve implemented in my life and how they’ve transformed my ability to recover from burnout.

📣 Exciting Announcements for Our Growing Community

Stay updated with the latest changes, including the new posting schedule, a Substack chat for paid subscribers, and a milestone celebration for our 5,000+ subscribers!

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Introduction to Guardrails

We all hit moments when life feels out of control. For neurodivergent, empathic, and highly sensitive people, these moments feel inevitable, like a never-ending cycle that’s impossible to escape. Life is a consistent balancing act as we juggle sensory overload, emotional regulation, and the daily demands of the material world, like jobs, family, and mental health. Why are guardrails essential? 

1. Improves Self-Awareness 

2. Protects against burnout 

3. Enhances the ability to be present

4. Supports a stronger mind-body connection 

5. Improve physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. 

Guardrails are self-imposed systems and boundaries you put in place to prevent burnout and support your well-being. 

Just as a physical guardrail prevents a vehicle from sliding off the road, our personal guardrails act as safeguards to help us avoid burnout, distractions, or self-destructive habits. They provide us with the comfort and confidence to steer our lives with purpose. While the ideal scenario would be for us to live in a world that makes prioritizing our well-being effortless, that is not the reality for most of us living in the Western world. That's when guardrails come into play and help us balance our connection to self and source in the physical world, supporting the belief that we can coexist with the world without being defined or controlled by it.

The quote 'They are not of the world, even as I am not of it' from John 17:16 (NIV) reminds us that our guardrails maintain our individuality and purpose in a world that often prioritizes productivity over well-being.

Guardrails are an act of self-love—a reminder to protect your humanity in a world that relies on your production instead of your purpose. Without them, rest and recovery slip away, leaving us physically and mentally drained. By setting up guardrails, I created the space necessary to experience rest in all its forms without guilt or worry that I could or should be doing something more “productive.” 

In the next section, we'll explore how I created guardrails in my life and how you can implement them in a way that allows you to recover from burnout. 

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Five-Step Plan for Implementing Guardrails

I’ve experienced enough breaks in my life to know that without systems in place, rest can often leave us feeling like we need a vacation from the vacation. That’s why guardrails are essential—they ensure that rest is a standard instead of a luxury confined to PTO and mental health days. If you are ready to set up guardrails in your life, I put together the five-step plan below to ensure you are set up for success. 

✍️ Step One | Journal and Reflect 

Ask yourself, what prevents you from genuinely resting? Is it work, family, guilt, or maybe your mind is always in the future, anticipating what’s next? Identifying these obstacles helps bring awareness to the barriers that lead to burnout and prevent you from obtaining rest. Once you have reflected on your obstacles, it’s time to observe how they manifest in your daily life. 

🔭 Step Two | Observe

It is hard to make decisions that align with your mind, body, and spirit if you are constantly anticipating the future or regretting the past. This is why being in the present moment is critical to recovering from burnout and reconnecting with your soul. As you go through your day, notice what people or situations move you out of the present moment into the past or the future. Record those observations or make a mental note. After a week, reflect on the trends you noticed. When did you feel the most present? The least? How did you feel in those moments? 

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

― Lao Tzu

📑 Step Three | Plan 

From your reflections and observations, consider when you felt the most present and at ease versus when you felt scattered or depressed. What contributed to those feelings? Brainstorm what you can do to increase your presence and feel more peace. Determine no more than three guardrails that you want to put in place to support your ability to be present. Consider what you can control and the sacrifices you are willing to make, like not sleeping in as late or reducing screen time.  

Next, consider your why. If you are neurodivergent, then you can likely relate to not moving without a strong why. These changes required sacrifice—a sacrifice I wouldn’t make without a compelling why. My why had to extend beyond just discipline; it had to connect to my mental clarity, emotional peace, and spiritual well-being. Otherwise, convincing myself to wake up at 4:00 a.m. would be a hard sell. 

Ask yourself how these changes will improve your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Make sure your why is meaningful to you. Without a clear why, it’s less likely that you will stick with the changes, especially those that require you to sacrifice the comfort of doing what you have always done. 

🚨TIP |  Listen to your body as you list and plan your guardrails; it will tell you if what you’re committing to is realistic or not. If you immediately feel doubt or anxiety about your guardrail, zoom out and adjust until you feel comfortable with the guardrails. Remember, you are working toward your ideal self. Give yourself the grace and space to feel and adjust as needed. 

🏗️ Step Four | Implement 

Set up a goal that is meaningful, not stressful. For example, if sticking to your guardrails for one week sounds too overwhelming, commit to them for three days or even one. Committing to your changes for a set amount of time is empowering because it gives you a sense of control over your life. It is also a radical act of self-love. For me, I had to ask myself, I can do my job for 10 hours a day, so why can’t I give myself an hour? I deserve a life that doesn’t revolve around everyone else’s needs, but I had to decide to prioritize that, which is what implementing guardrails allowed me to do. 

⭕ Step Five | Continuous Improvement

Remember to leave room for your guardrails to grow and change with you. The goal of guardrails is to reduce your physical resistance to making changes that support your well-being and connection to yourself. As you learn more about yourself, don’t be afraid to adjust your guardrails if something is not working for you. If you are unsure whether to adapt, ask yourself, 'Will adjusting this guardrail negatively or positively impact my well-being?' You will intuitively know the best path forward if you are present, deepening your ability to trust yourself. 

Final Thoughts 

It’s been just over a month since I re-implemented guardrails in my life, and as I sit here writing at 5:23 a.m. on a Saturday, it feels surreal. I’m sipping tea while my new puppy and family sleep peacefully upstairs, living in a dream I designed—and I have guardrails to thank for that.

After reflecting on my habits, three key observations stood out:

• Rushing in the morning made me feel unsettled, pushing my mind into a state of future anxiety instead of present awareness.

• Skipping my morning routine left me doubting whether I had done everything I needed to, which only added to my anxiety.

• Doomscrolling on social media drained my energy and stole time from rest and creativity, making it harder to transition back into the present moment.

These realizations led me to create three non-negotiable guardrails:

1. Wake up early: I commit to waking up at least three hours before leaving the house on weekdays and no later than 7:00 a.m. on weekends.

2. Develop a grounding morning ritual: My morning routine allows me to ground myself before diving into the day's demands.

3. Delete social media apps: Blocking them wasn’t enough, so I fully removed them from my phone.

These guardrails are rooted in my “why.” Managing my physical time allows me to connect with my spirit and take control of my day. Without this connection, I easily rush to meet others’ needs, losing sight of my own purpose.

Waking up early grants me valuable "me time," helping me stay centered before the day's demands take over. Setting morning rituals reminds me to prioritize self-care and self-love, reduce resistance, and create space for physical rest, ensuring I approach my day with intention.

Finally, deleting social media has been a game-changer in conquering my ego and staying present. Doomscrolling used to steal my mornings, but now, without that distraction, I have more energy for rest and creativity. Though simple, these guardrails are grounded in my commitment to discipline and reducing resistance, allowing me to live in alignment with my physical and spiritual needs.

I'd love to hear from you! How do you plan to implement guardrails in your own life? Did something resonate with you? Feel free to leave a comment!

Weekly Announcements

Autumn has officially arrived, and I’m excited to announce a few updates to my Substack this season: 

🫂Our Community is Growing

• We have reached 5,000+ subscribers in just two months. Your subscriptions mean so much to me—THANK YOU. I am so grateful for the support, and I look forward to growing our community.

🗓️ Updated Posting Schedule 

• Paid subscribers will now receive weekly posts filled with deeper insights, practical tips, and exclusive content.

• Free subscribers will continue to enjoy quality posts like this one bi-weekly.

🗣️Subscriber Chat

• Exciting news: Our subscriber chat is now open! Everyone can view the content and respond, and as a special thank-you, paid subscribers have the exclusive ability to start threads and engage in direct conversations with me and the community. I am committed to checking the chat three times a week, so join us today and be part of the conversation!