Why I said no to burnout and claimed my right to rest

I thought I was failing. But surrendering to burnout saved me and broke a generational cycle.

Writer Vuma Phiri. Source: Credit: Sophie Minissale

My grandmother, Ida Mumbi, was my first hero. In Zambia, we call her Ambuya.

She had a strength that amazed me. Small in stature, I remember her mostly by the deep-blue Catholic chitenge cloth she tied around her waist. It was patterned from the toes to the hips with alabaster white hands in prayer speckled all over it. Variations of these chitenges were her daily uniform.

She was a farmer who tended to her acres of soil, season in and out. She cut fruits from the trees that surrounded her property, and she held down the chickens to wring their necks after they’d been fattened to feed her household. Her work built the home that harboured her whole world.

Whether she was praying, tightly holding her rosary beads, hoisting the wooden handle of a gardening tool, carrying a day’s worth of goods either purchased or produced, or opening her arms to embrace us, Ambuya’s hands always found something to do, like a bee finds a pistil to nestle in.

She never missed a Sunday at church and always attended the funerals of the people she knew, no matter the distance, and opened her home to a multitude of family members and friends when they needed her. She rarely sat still when the needs of another landed at her feet. The capillaries under her dark-brown skin were always visible beneath the faint etching of hardened muscles – a testament to how hard my grandmother laboured.

For as long as I knew Ambuya, she was farming, serving in church, feeding and clothing someone dependent on her, grieving 76 years of losses and giving her time. She worked right until the day she died.

I internalised the idea that my womanhood and worth were tied to what I did for others

From my ambuya, I internalised the idea that my womanhood and worth were tied to what I did for others. I became a lawyer because I believed in the ability to upend a broken system. I gravitated towards jobs that I believed fixed issues and addressed systemic wrongs. But my beliefs started to erode in the face of the unrelenting systemic inequalities and racism I saw daily in institutions built to oppress, marginalise and exclude.

(Left to right) Vuma Phiri’s sister, grandmother and Vuma herself in 1996. Source: Supplied

I hadn’t realised how detrimental my thinking was until I spoke to an old boss one day. I had just tackled an overwhelming workload, and she asked me, “Are you happy here?”

“I don’t think so,” I confessed. At the time, this was normal to me. I hadn’t truly been happy at any of my jobs, but I had always assumed work was meant to be mostly unenjoyable.

I have met several lawyers in my career who also want to dismantle systems and create equitable legal foundations (and I believe they will). But, for me, the lack of support and the burnout, isolation and never-ending hours diminished any fight I had left. I was in survival mode.

I started working at my last job as a lawyer after six years of studying, alongside volunteering in various legal roles. I’d also spent so many hours volunteering at my local church that it had been worthy of a part-time job, on top of going through rigorous job interviews and rejections.

Sitting at my desk one day... I succumbed to a fit of tears that refused to stop

The last thing I expected was to sit at my desk one day, struggling to decide on the best legal option for my client. It was a simple decision. But with more client files looming and more decisions to be made, I succumbed to a fit of tears that refused to stop.

I was too exhausted to return to work after that. Yielding to my fatigue, I thought I was failing. But surrendering to burnout saved my life and broke a generational cycle. I underestimated just how deeply the constant hustling and helping others was ingrained in me. I was working myself to death, and was too proud – too afraid – to admit it.

Vuma at her grandmother’s farm a few months after she died in 2016. Source: Supplied

A lot of the Black women in my life are exhausted. We share stories about feeling drained from living for others without realising it. Older sisters who grew up to be a second mum to their siblings. Girls who obtained onerous degrees that appeased their parents more than themselves. Then there are workplaces, which are already difficult to navigate. Racism ensures we know we are different and unwelcome from the moment we enter the workforce, compounded by the fear of saying “no” when we are overburdened.

Too often we learn how to steer our lives only after hitting rock bottom, like I did. Enough generations have passed for Black women to understand that rest is not rewarded after a lifetime of toiling for everyone else. Our bodies aren’t built for the baggage of the world to be heaped upon us.

If I had resisted the direction my body was taking me in, if I had continued to let the desire to be needed drive my decisions, I would not have experienced a life-changing transformation.

Recovering from burnout involved quitting before I felt like I had accomplished all I needed to

Recovering from burnout involved quitting before I felt like I had accomplished all I needed to. For the sake of my personal welfare, my yearning for rest became more important than anything else. 

In her 1985 essay, “Poetry is Not a Luxury”, Audre Lorde says, “within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive… [our] feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men. But women have survived.”

I think of Ambuya. Everything she did, she did from a place of love. But the occasional complaints that escaped from her revealed to me that she was exhausted. There was not enough systemically to afford her the rest she deserved.

I have learnt enough to know not to ever again give my body and soul at the expense of myself. I honour my ambuya now, not by replicating her struggle, but by giving myself the luxury she did not have: rest.

Vuma Phiri (she/they) is a Zambian-born storyteller. Their poetry was recently published in the Centre for Stories anthology, Under the Paving Stones, the Beach. Their work can be found on Medium and on Instagram: @diaspora_reader and @afroheritagebookclub.

This article has been published in partnership with the Centre for Stories.