The first time I burnt out was around 2014, while teaching full-time in South Korea and doing a Master’s degree online. I was already being treated for chronic fatigue, which, along with the bone-deep tiredness, brought inexplicable inflammation that would take months to recover from. The last time, the fourth time, was in 2024, when I was in a toxic work situation and suffered a three-hour panic attack that doctors likened to having a heart attack. I had been pushing myself, trying to delay leaving the company to save up more money, until my body had to shout. I was completely depleted. Even taking a shower required planning, and a rest afterwards. I had driven myself to the brink, again, and I was done.
When people asked me, while I was living abroad, what South Africans are like, I always answered, “Resilient. And we have a great sense of humour; we laugh when things are going well, and we laugh when things are going badly.” This all holds true. We have a wonderful strength to us, borne of adversity and the political and economic pressures that come with living in a multicultural, developing country. Where I missed the mark was in my understanding of what resilience means. Resilience is not simply bouncing back after setbacks. It is more than just getting up and dusting yourself off when you’ve fallen down. This was my mistake, thinking that I had to keep going, to do more, to work harder. Resilience, at its core, is about being flexible, flowing like water; being able to recalibrate with awareness, to come back to our centre and our purpose, to find harmony no matter what life presents.
What is Resilience?
Resilience cannot exist without self-compassion and the awareness of ourselves as part of a larger community. It takes introspection to be resilient rather than just obstinate. Resilience is having the ability to be productive and knowing when to rest. We need to invest in our own wellness practice and integrate the lessons and skills we learn along the way. We have to be attuned to ourselves, our values and our purpose, to act as our north star on the journey back from hardship or challenge. Without that, we don’t know what to return to. If we don’t know ourselves, our innermost desires and needs, what matters most to us and what we choose to frame our lives around, what do we set our sights on when we feel as if we’ve lost our way? Resilience relies on knowing ourselves well enough to find our way back to centre; to flow over and around obstacles on our life’s path. To return to harmony, which is ultimately the highest expression of ourselves.
Harmony vs Balance
We often hear people talk about achieving balance in life. But the thing about balance is that it has an implied burden of doing more. Not only that - it also means that you have to divide your time, energy, resources and capacity equally between all the different dimensions of your life. This is just not realistic, and especially for someone who already feels spread too thin, it requires too much mental and physical bandwidth. Harmony, on the other hand, doesn’t aim for a fixed state of equilibrium, but encourages a gentle, dynamic flow of energy, resources and mental load between the different aspects of life, as needed. In her Harmony Handbook, Melissa van Hal describes harmony as inviting “adaptability, alignment, and authenticity” (van Hal, 2025). It’s not about forcing a calm demeanour at all times, but about nurturing the ability to continually return to our centre. Harmony means we have the capacity to re-align and respond to the demands of our lives without burning out because we are trying to be everything for everybody all the time.
Resilience Supports Harmony
The secret to building our resilience lies in granting ourselves the grace to grow our capacity in small increments. Just as we don’t learn to swim by flinging ourselves into deep water on the first try, we have to take the baby steps and train ourselves over time. After a setback, we want to give ourselves the space and time to recalibrate, take a breath and reevaluate. To see if there is a lesson to be learned from the experience. Perhaps with hindsight, we can see that there was another pathway that we could have followed. Perhaps we realise that we weren’t playing to our strengths, and doing so would smooth the way and lead to a better or more achievable outcome. Without forcing ourselves into a preconceived attitude, or a notion of success, that we are just not ready for yet. Taking a step back to broaden our perspective might help us see a healthier, more sustainable approach that serves us better.
Resilience is not just about getting back up and dusting ourselves off. It’s about looking at the experience from a new vantage point, practising kindness to ourselves and thinking about how to support and sustain our wellness. Maybe we can reach out to someone in our community to delegate a specific task to. Maybe we can arrange our schedules to make time to learn a new skill, or take that yoga class we’ve been aiming to go to. Maybe the thing we need is to do less, to expect less of ourselves, not more. Breaking complex or daunting tasks down into micro-steps until we get to a level that feels achievable. And herein lies the meeting point between resilience and harmony.
By building our resilience slowly, mindfully, with a view to increasing our overall well-being, we place ourselves in harmony. Not only with all the external aspects of our lives, but with ourselves. We give ourselves the breathing space to look within, to get to know ourselves, to notice the way breath catches in our throats when we say yes when we mean no. When we ignore our fatigue to pick up the slack for a colleague or family member. When we load another task onto our plates instead of saying, “I don’t have the capacity for that now.” Because living in harmony with ourselves means we understand that our capacity is not the same each day, or week, or season of our lives. It means we realise the wisdom of saying, “Just because I can doesn’t mean I should.” It means we are both truthful with ourselves and kind, and that we learn to discern when we can push a little, taking ourselves out of our comfort zone, and when it is best to call it a day.
When it comes to resilience, the best thing we can do is to realise that it is a skill we build over time, with practice. It doesn’t mean enduring past the point of breaking, but instead that we pay attention to our inner world, noticing when we are at capacity. We tend to think that our worth is tied to our productivity, and that is why we push ourselves too hard. Resilience is the ability to flow with the energy and the mental acuity we have available today, and to look at our wellness through a wider lens. Taking into account all dimensions of our lives and our well-being, and making decisions from a place of self-love and kindness. Resilience says, I will rest now so that I can approach the next thing with enthusiasm, attention and care. I will break this difficult task down into small steps that feel manageable and sustainable. This is how we achieve harmony in our lives and build a life that feels fulfilling, meaningful and nourishing.
Reference:
Van Hal, M. (2025) Harmony Handbook: A Practical Guide to Creating Centredness, Connection, and Capacity. Holistic Awareness. holisticawareness.co.za/