Millions of Americans are returning back to work after being home during the pandemic. While this has been exciting for many, some are feeling burned out by their work. What do you do if you are feeling burned out by your work? How do you reverse it? How can you “get your mojo back”? What can employers do to help their staff reverse burnout?
In this interview series called “Beating Burnout: 5 Things You Should Do If You Are Experiencing Work Burnout,” we are talking to successful business leaders, HR leaders and mental health leaders who can share insights from their experience about how we can “Beat Burnout.”.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Janet Philbin.
Janet is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Hypnotherapist and Certified Conscious Parenting Coach. Janet helps adults heal from the emotional pain and trauma of their past. She is the owner of Janet Philbin, ACSW a private psychotherapy and hypnotherapy practice.
She’s the author of the Amazon best-selling book, Show Up For Yourself: A Guide to Inner Awareness and Growth.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I was born in Brooklyn, NY and raised on Long Island. I am the oldest of three girls. I remember the first five years of my life in Brooklyn. There was a freedom at that time, running up and down on the sidewalks, walking to a friend’s house, and just sitting on the stoops. When we moved to Long Island, we lived in a court which afforded us the same freedoms. We played outside every day and when it was time to come in for dinner, mom would open the front door and call our names out to the neighborhood that it was time to come home, and we came running. It just was the way it was back then.
My sisters and I had a very close relationship with our grandparents. When they came to visit, we would devote our entire day or weekend to spending it with them. The relationship with my grandparents was one of the strongest building blocks for the person I am today. What I learned through them as I grew up informed my values and belief systems. Two of my grandparents were holocaust survivors who lost almost everyone in the concentration camps they taught my sisters and I the value of nurturing relationships, unconditional love, and the importance of family. When we would visit them in Brooklyn, they devoted all their time to us. We also made frequent visits to my great aunt and uncles house, and though, as I child it would be “boring” it allowed us to develop close relationships with them and with my cousin whom I still maintain that closeness with today.
My parents divorced when I was five years old. My mother became a single mom. Living on Long Island with no job, not knowing how to drive she had to find a way to make life work for all four of us. What I learned about perseverance and survival I believe took root at that time of my life. My mother went back to school to learn a skill and took driving lessons. She did not let her life circumstances at that time dictate her life, instead she made decisions to direct her life. One of the things she always told my sisters and me was to have something for you, find a career or trade so you can always support yourself. She never cared what we would grow up to do, just that we could be independent and self-reliant. We did just that, as my sisters and I each earned professional degrees.
