On Loops, Burnout, and the Radical Act of Presence

It was a Sunday, after a week of late nights, stomach aches, and tears that I hid from everyone. The instructions I had learned without being taught them swelled in my mind: don't burden anyone, carry it, be strong. I had absorbed them so completely I didn't even recognize it as a choice anymore. It was just who I was. A Black woman who handles things.

I had three client calls ahead of me. All three needed to hear that timelines were shifting.

That I couldn't deliver what I said I would, when I said I would. And I was dreading them with my whole body. Not because I didn't know what to say, but because of what I had already decided it meant. It meant I wasn't strong enough. It meant I was letting people down. It was proof that I couldn't cut it in "that" world — a thought I'd been running from and had managed, until now, to prove wrong.

There was something pressing on my rib cage. Literal, physical weight.

I made the calls.

And then, almost immediately, the weight released. The calls went better than I had any right to expect — and when the last one ended, I sat with that for a moment. The catastrophe existed entirely inside me. The story of my failure, my inadequacy, my unraveling. I had written all of it before a single word was exchanged. All of it in anticipation of conversations that, when they finally happened, reminded me that the people I work with are human too. That grace exists. That I had been so busy prosecuting myself that I never once considered they might meet me with anything other than the verdict I had already written.

That's the thing about the stories we tell in the dark. They have the texture of certainty, despite being stories authored by us.

I had merged myself with my output so completely that when the output slowed, I read it as a verdict on my worth.

I experienced something I so often coached others out of. Not only burnout. It's something older than burnout. A cultural inheritance. In my case, the expectation that a Black woman rises, carries, endures, and never, ever admits that the weight is too much. I was so faithful to that script that I almost couldn't see it as a script at all. Those scripts — or something like them — exist across so many cultures.

We had more clients than ever. On paper, things looked like growth. But under the surface, we were running on fumes — smaller infrastructure, fewer hands, more weight. And the weight of this work, specifically, has its own particular gravity right now. If you're in this space — DEI, equity, mission-driven work of any kind — you don't need me to explain what the last year has felt like. The work we spent years building and defending has been contested, defunded, and dismissed. That cuts deep when what you do is also what you are.

I thought I'd feel disillusioned. And there was grief, yes. But what settled in underneath wasn't disillusionment. It was a recognition I hadn't let myself have in years:

The work I do matters. And it is still just work. It is not my whole life.

This is a lesson I've learned before. And despite knowing it cognitively, I relearn and unlearn it as new challenges emerge.

That pattern of unlearning and relearning relates deeply to what I want to share with you about how we understand progress. Or rather, how we've been taught to understand it.

In America, the story goes: forward is progress. More, bigger, faster, better. We accept this so completely that when we're not moving forward — when we're stalled, contracting, recovering — we read it as failure. As falling behind.

I had a professor in grad school, Wael Hallaq, who pushed back on this. He taught Islamic law, and he shared a perspective that's stayed with me: in some Islamic philosophy, forward is actually regression, because we are moving further from the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him — believed by Muslims to be the finest example of humanity. The closer in time to that example, the better. The further, the worse. It's an inversion of the dominant story. And while it's not quite where I've landed either, it loosened something for me.

Then, recently, a client shared a different framework entirely. She described time not as a line — neither forward nor backward — but as a loop. Like the infinity symbol. And when she said it, something clicked.

We are not progressing. We are not regressing. We are looping. And our loops intersect with other loops — other people, other organizations, other moments in history. Each time we move through a loop, we can learn something and shift the trajectory just slightly. Or dramatically. The loop changes shape based on what we carry through it.

What this means, practically: the downturn is not an anomaly. It is part of the loop. The hard quarter, the difficult client, the season where nothing seems to go right — it's not exceptional. It's expected. It's built into the geometry of a life actually being lived.

And that changes everything about how you move through it.

Because if we're looping, then the question isn't when will this be over? or what did I do wrong?

The question is: How am I being right now, in this part of the loop?

Not just what am I doing — but how am I being?

There are two schools of thought on what your presence does in the hard moment. Some believe that how you show up creates the upswing. Others believe the upswing is coming regardless, and your presence determines whether you're awake enough to experience it as such. I've stopped arguing between these views. Because in both cases, the answer is the same:

Your presence makes all the difference.

Let me make that concrete, because I know some of you are in it right now.

You might be staring at a budget that needs to be cut. The temptation is to read every line item as loss — this service we have to let go, this support we can no longer afford, this version of the organization we thought we were building. That's real. And also: there is liberation available in that same process. Cutting a budget can be a clarifying act. You can be in grief about what you're releasing and be free in knowing what's essential.

You might be in a difficult situation with a client, a colleague, a board member. The story that plays easiest is: they're wrong or I'm failing. But what if you tried on a different story? What if this person is calling you forward — not because they're right and you're wrong, but because something here needs your attention? Maybe it's how you communicate when things are uncomfortable. Maybe it's a boundary you've been soft on. Maybe, yes, they're right and there's something genuinely new to learn.

I'm not asking you to spiritually bypass the hard things. I'm asking you to listen differently to them.

This specific, turbulent, disorienting moment we are collectively in is one where you can be swept along, or you can be intentional about who you are becoming through it. The change is happening either way. The question is whether you're shaping your relationship to it, or whether it's shaping you by default.

What patterns, what beliefs, what ways of working and being have carried you to this exact moment? And which of those are you ready to release?

Because the loop is going to keep looping. And I'd rather move through it awake.

This Week

Pick a situation that's been sitting heavy — at work, a relationship, a decision you keep circling but not making. Choose something that feels stuck in a way that's starting to feel familiar.

Don't try to fix it yet. Just get curious about the story you're telling about it.

Ask yourself:

• What am I making this mean about me? Not about the situation — about you. Because there's usually something there.

• Is this actually new, or does it just have a new costume? Be honest. Sometimes the client is different, and the wound is the same.

• What would I have to let go of to move through this differently? A belief, a standard you hold yourself to, a version of yourself you've been protecting.

  
  

One honest answer is worth more than three polished ones.

Write it down or say it out loud to someone who won't immediately try to fix it for you. Let yourself see it or hear it outside of your head. Sometimes the bravest thing is just letting something be witnessed.

The loop doesn't need you to have it figured out. It just needs you to be present in it.

Hyphens & Spaces exists for moments exactly like this one. When the old maps stop working, you need to think more carefully about who you're becoming through the change. If your organization is in that season, we work alongside teams and leaders doing that discernment in real time. Reach out. We're here.

And if someone in your life is carrying something heavy right now, forward this to them.

With care, 

Samira

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Hyphens and Spaces exist for moments exactly like this one — when the old maps stop working, and you need to think more carefully about who you're becoming through the change. If your organization is in that season, we work alongside teams and leaders doing that discernment in real time. Reach out. We're here.

And if someone in your life is carrying something heavy right now, forward this to them.