The Unseen Triggers Behind Workplace Burnout

A Shadow Work Perspective

Before Burnout, There Was a Mask.

What if your exhaustion isn’t just from doing too much, but from being too much of someone you’re not?

We (Gabrielle and Keila) have spent the past few years circling similar questions from two different worlds: Gabrielle through her writing on career, and burnout; Keila Shaheen through her work on shadow work and emotional healing. Somewhere along the way, we realized we were asking the same thing in different languages:

Why are we burning out, and what are we actually carrying beneath the surface?

We’re here to explore how shadow work, typically reserved for therapy rooms and journal pages, can illuminate what’s really going on beneath workplace burnout. Because burnout isn’t just a bandwidth issue. It’s often the side effect of self-abandonment in the name of being a “good” employee.

Let’s go deeper.

Burnout Isn’t Just About Overwork. It’s About What’s Hiding Beneath It.

• Burnout isn’t caused by tasks. It’s caused by who you think you need to become to survive work.

• Shadow work is the process of revealing the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden to stay safe, liked, and employed.

• What if burnout is your shadow trying to break free?

Burnout is a sign that you've been performing someone else’s definition of “enoughness”. If you’re constantly teetering between resentment, stress, and exhaustion, remind yourself that you’re not failing. You’re waking up to the never-ending need to chase validation instead of your own truth. - Keila

The Good Employee Persona

Shadow Trigger: You’re addicted to being liked.

• Where it comes from: childhood people-pleasing, needing approval to feel safe

• How it shows up: never saying no, smiling through disrespect, overextending constantly

• Shadow work prompt: Who am I afraid to disappoint? Why?

The root of when burnout begins is when your self-worth becomes a performance. Who are you trying to prove yourself to, and are they even watching? Read more about the masks and roles we wear in our modern day society in my book, “The Book of Shadow Work”. - Keila

Overachievement as a Disguise

Shadow Trigger: You confuse success with safety.

• Origin: growing up in chaos or instability

• How it shows up: needing to earn rest, micromanaging yourself, tying self-worth to output

• Shadow work prompt: What am I scared will happen if I slow down?

Many of us build a version of ourselves that only feels valuable when achieving. But healing begins when we realize that our worth was never meant to be tied to our productivity. Can you exist in stillness and still feel enough? - Keila

The Martyr Complex

Shadow Trigger: You need to be needed.

• Root wound: feeling invisible or powerless in the past

• Workplace symptoms: doing everyone’s emotional labor, staying late, being the “fixer”

• Shadow work prompt: What part of me feels valuable only when I’m suffering for others?

If you're always saving the day, ask yourself what you're afraid would happen if you stopped. Who would you be if you weren’t the reliable one? - Keila

Identity Enmeshment

Shadow Trigger: You think your job is you.

• Learned belief: career = identity = worth

• Signs: loss of self outside of work, panic during transitions, shame when unemployed

• Shadow work prompt: Who am I without my job title? And does that scare me?

Your title is a temporary role. Your soul is not a résumé. Start listening for the version of you that lives beneath the one who needs to be a certain role. Remember and reclaim the parts of yourself you had to forget or let go of before your role, so that your self-identity does not revolve around a title. - Keila

The Fear of Freedom

You sabotage rest because you don’t feel worthy of it.

• Hidden belief: rest = laziness = failure

• Self-sabotage patterns: overbooking yourself, guilt during downtime, “I’ll rest after…” loops

• Shadow work prompt: What emotions come up when I stop being busy?

You’re not lazy for resting. You’re unlearning a culture that only deems you valuable when you're producing. Real freedom isn’t a certain amount of time off. It’s being able to enjoy your time regardless of being “off” or “on”. - Keila

Your Burnout Is a Messenger, Not a Moral Failing

• Burnout cracks the mask you’ve worn to survive late capitalism.

• Shadow work helps you reclaim the parts of you that were never meant to be sacrificed for a paycheck.

• The path forward isn’t always productivity hacks, sometimes it’s radical self-honesty.

Burnout is your soul’s quiet rebellion against a life that asks you to abandon yourself daily. Shadow work helps you remember who you were before work became your worth. - Keila

Let’s Keep Digging

• Subscribe to Gabrielle’s Substack to catch her upcoming 4-part series on Love Attachment

• Subscribe to Keila’s Substack for more on shadow work and self-reclamation

• Download Zenfulnote, the next-gen inner work app, for guided digital journal prompts, exercises, and emotional check-ins rooted in shadow work psychology.