The Spiritual Burnout: How to Reclaim Your Power and Find Yourself Again

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Ash Mars, One of Thousands of Spirituality Coaches on Noomii.

I Believed Others Knew Better Than I Did

My inner voice ran on repeat:
They will think you are crazy. They’ll think you are unreliable. They won’t trust you. And you’ll be all alone.

I lost myself.

The voice in my head wasn’t mine anymore. It started to sound like the voices of my mother, my boss, my husband.

It felt safer to trust them, but all I could hear were their criticisms—rebuttals to my every thought and desire.

When I looked in the mirror, I no longer saw myself. I saw them.

I realized I wasn’t living my own dream. I was living theirs. And it was hard to believe they were wrong because I was winning awards, being praised as “the best of the best.”

But it all came crashing down.
-———————————————————————————————-
I was working as a teacher, following the same path my mother had. At first, it seemed like a stable choice. After all, the world always needs teachers, and helping others was my calling. But writing didn’t seem like a viable way to make a living. I needed something practical.

I had bills to pay—well, not just mine… I was also paying my husband’s bills while he stayed home and played video games. And he criticized me for every late night, every school event, every teacher happy hour. Made me feel guilty for being away from him.

In my classroom, I loved helping kids. Watching their faces light up when they finally understood something. Since I couldn’t write for a living, I taught writing—how to share stories, how to capture the soul on the page.

But my principal—driven by test scores and maintaining the school’s rank and image—demanded more and more. Test prep. Skill and drill. Sit and get.

Any kid who didn’t fit in was “Benched,” marked with a scarlet letter of a lanyard, made to sit at the front, silenced. If they spoke or another student talked to them, we added more time to their “sentence.”

I felt more like a prison guard than an educator.

I clung to the light of the moments with my kids—teaching poetry, getting their work published. These moments aligned with my soul’s calling to help others find their voice.

There was healing in it for me. As I got to be the teacher I wished I had when I was growing up. I prided myself on seeing my kids and teaching them how to be seen. How to share their hearts, how to use their stories to change the world.

But the voice in my head was no longer mine.

It was the principal’s, yelling at kindergartners during a fire drill. It was my mother’s, who never pursued her own dream because it wasn’t practical. It was my husband’s, jealous of others who dared to live a life off of a screen.

And then I started getting really sick.

I believed I was fulfilling my purpose—but I was dying on the inside.
-———————
It all came to a head when my husband told me he didn’t like who I was as a teacher—the version of myself I felt most powerful being.

Then the school didn’t pass those all-important tests. The principal left, and the school board decided to shut us down.

The final straw came when my co-teacher had a mental breakdown and checked herself into the hospital.

I kept telling myself, “Just one more day.” But that day never came. I pushed myself until I couldn’t go any further.

It started as a cold, then escalated to kidney stones. But still, I showed up every day. I was sleeping under my desk between classes. The work was more important than me. Even when I was doubled over in pain and peeing blood. The kids were more important than my health.

Somehow I finished the school year, and it cost me dearly.

I spent the next two years putting the pieces of my spirit back together.

How Internalized Abuse and Conformity Lead to Disconnection from Your True Self

If you’re struggling with burnout due to a spiritual calling, you’ve probably grown up in a world that silenced your inner knowing. A world that taught you to fit in and not stand out with your “out there” ideas. A world that prioritized the “safe” path—the job, the family, the white picket fence dream.

There’s nothing wrong with these things when they’re aligned with your soul’s calling. But when society makes us believe these are the only paths to success, we begin to silence our true selves.
It’s a problem when we disregard our vision of the world as it could be—when we silence our own voice for fear of judgment.

Many people who identify as empaths struggle with this—it’s hard to tell our own energy from the energy of others. We’ve been conditioned to absorb other people’s emotions. But I’ve come to realize that this isn’t empathy; it’s internalized abuse.

It’s what happens when we learn not to trust ourselves.

So, I had to start with the energetics—learning how to finally connect with my core Self.

Recognizing the Symptoms of Burnout Due to a Spiritual Calling
It took learning to trust my intuition, taking small steps toward following my gut. I was so lost,. Caught up in conforming to societal expectations. I didn’t think it was possible to live a different way.

Here are some symptoms you might be experiencing if you are having a spiritual calling

Constant self-doubt and inner criticism
Struggling to trust your own voice. Instead hearing the voices of others’ criticism (family, friends, colleagues).

Feeling disconnected from your true self
Losing sight of your personal goals and dreams. Instead following the expectations and limitations of others.

Physical exhaustion and health issues
Pushing yourself beyond your limits. Feeling exhausted at the end of the day and waking up the next morning still feeling tired. Getting sick easily and not getting better.

Emotional burnout
Feeling drained and empty, despite doing meaningful work. Little to no energy left for yourself.

A sense of inner conflict
Feeling torn between your spiritual calling and the need for stability. Being afriad to be yourself for fear of what others might think.

Overwork and neglect of self-care
Prioritizing others’ needs, work, or responsibilities over your own health and well-being.

Feelings of guilt and self-sacrifice
Believing that others’ needs should always come first, even at the expense of your own happiness and health.

A loss of passion or purpose
You are clinging to the small moments that still make you happy but everything else feels heavy. What once brought joy and fulfillment now feels like a burdens or obligations to others.

Isolation and loneliness
Disconnecting from your true self can lead to feeling misunderstood or alone in your journey.

Physical and emotional numbness
Losing the ability to feel joy or connection to the people and activities that once inspired you.

If you are experiencing these things I want you to know you aren’t alone. What the universe has showed me over and over is that when I follow that voice inside me—when I listen to that pull toward something greater—it will always lead me to safety, to delight, to a life beyond what I could have imagined.

It’s time for you to trust the little voice inside of you that’s calling you to transform your life.

How to Overcome Burnout from a Spiritual Calling and Reclaim Your Power

I did this through energy work, meditation, soul retrieval, and power retrieval practices. I did it through mental health work. I learned to recognize which voices in my head were actually mine and which belonged to people I had put above my own truth.

And I want to invite you to share your own stories—your experiences of following intuition and inner voice.

If you’re struggling to follow that gut feeling that’s pulling you toward something more, here are a few questions to help you discover what’s keeping you stuck:
Whose voices do you hear when you have a gut feeling?
What do those other voices say to you?
How does the feeling of your calling change when those voices speak?
What does the voice of your gut sound and feel like?

Ready for more? Join the Ashes to Awakening community where I share practical tools to help you transform you life. ashmars.substack.com