30: Bethaney Wilkinson on Capacity, Burnout, and Leaving Well
“What does it mean to let things rest, to let things lie fallow for a time, and then return to the next phase of it when we’re ready.”
Bethaney Wilkinson is a facilitator and spiritual director who is passionate about holding space for the changes we long for most in the world. She is author of The Diversity Gap: Where Good Intentions Meet True Cultural Change and hosts a podcast by the same name, which has been downloaded over a quarter of a million times worldwide. She is the founder of multiple social impact efforts including A More Beautiful Way, The Diversity Gap, Grace Dialogues, and Atlanta Harvest. She has dedicated more than a decade to exploring the intersections of community, racial healing, and social change—specifically in the organizational context.
As part of her work, Bethaney has been invited to share at major conferences and in partnership with top global companies, including Google, Creative Mornings, Ball, Magna International and more. She has a degree in Education from Emory University and in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. She is in the process of becoming a Certified Spiritual Director via the Kairos Spiritual Direction Training Program from Parish Resource Center. She is also in the process of becoming a Certified Breathwork Facilitator to better support BIPOC communities on their embodied healing journeys.
As a facilitator and thought leader, Bethaney is passionate about amplifying creative solutions to the challenges facing diverse communities and organizations.
When she’s not holding space for individuals or teams, you can find her reading about spiritual formation, playing with her dogs Isla and Bear, or sustaining Cedar Wilde, a 1-acre homestead and market garden with her husband Alex.
“It serves me - and it might serve others - to look at all of the different types of changes and the discomfort that they bring, as invitations. To deepen self awareness, deepen love of neighbor, to deepen our expertise in managing a team.”
Additional Quotes:
People tend to have very unrealistic expectations about how long something is going to take, how long it takes to really understand one another, how long it takes to get on the same page. It takes a long time and having a workshop here and there doesn't quite get us to where we're trying to go. Information is incredible and I love a good light bulb moment. I love learning new language for things, but embodying a new way of leadership, a new way of working across lines of difference in ways that truly honors the dignity of every person at every intersection is really hard work. And, it's often messy.
Part of the reason transformation takes so long is because people are already at capacity in life, typically. We are leading full lives with partners and kids and homes and communities and things happening all over the globe. I think that our capacity tends to be limited, at least in modern times. The amount of space it takes to think deeply about the shifts needed in our organization, that space tends to not be there unless we create it.
The really practical cost is higher turnover. It tends to lend itself to a disengaged workforce, people who feel used and not valued. There are real financial costs to that turnover. Depending on the nature of the organization, it can lead to broken trust in a community, the communities you're serving, the clients you're trying to reach if you aren't able to be responsive and adaptive to like the felt needs of the people you're serving.
What does it mean to let things rest, to let things lie fallow for a time, and then return to the next phase of it when we're ready.
Leaving well means looking at the real, even if it's uncomfortable and doing the best you can with what you have and honoring the present reality. Knowing that in some grand sense, there's grace for every step of the journey.
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Transcript:
It really serves me and it might serve others to look at all of the different types of changes and the discomfort that they bring as invitations. To deepen self awareness, to deepen love of neighbor, to deepen our expertise in managing a team.
This is Leaving Well, where we unearth and explore the realities of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose. And when possible, I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. I will bring you experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace with nuanced takes from guests on topics such as grief, confidence, leadership, and career development.
Braided throughout will be solo episodes sharing my best practices and leaving well framework. Expect to be inspired. Challenged and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well, as you seek to leave your imprint in this world. Bethaney Wilkinson is a facilitator and spiritual director who is passionate about holding space for the changes we long for most in the world.
She's the author of the diversity gap, where good intentions meet true cultural change. And hosts a podcast by the same name, which has been downloaded over a quarter of a million times worldwide. Bethaney is the founder of multiple social impact efforts, including A More Beautiful Way, The Diversity Gap, Grace Dialogues, and Atlanta Harvest.
She's dedicated more than a decade to exploring the intersections of community, racial healing, and social change, specifically in the organizational context. As part of her work, Bethaney has been invited to share at major conferences and in partnership with top global companies, including Google, Creative Mornings.
Ball, Madden International and more. She has a degree in education from Emory University and in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Bethaney is in the process of becoming a certified spiritual director via the Kairos Spiritual Direction Training Program from Parish Resource Center. She's also in the process of becoming a certified breathwork facilitator to better support BIPOC communities on their embodied healing journeys.
As a facilitator and thought leader, Bethaney is passionate about amplifying creative solutions to the challenges facing diverse communities and organizations. When she's not holding space for individuals and teams, you could find her reading about spiritual formation, playing with her dogs, Isla and bear, or sustaining Cedar wild, a one acre homestead and market garden with her husband, Alex, Bethaney, I have been listening to and loving your podcast, and I'm excited to have you here today to talk about all things leaving.
Well, thanks for having me. I'm going to jump in with the first question being to ask you what three words. Or maybe it's a phrase. Would you use to describe your relationship to change or transition? Tumultuous, necessary, expansive. I love those three. Would you dig in a little bit more on the tumultuous part and perhaps share a little bit about your relationship and your experience with change?
Maybe it's in the workplace, maybe it's with projects. Yeah, tumultuous comes to mind first because I've often experienced myself as someone who is incredibly indecisive and struggles with knowing. If the direction I'm going in is the right direction, even if I have lots of wisdom from my body, past success, support from people in my community, my internal experience of decision making and navigating change just tends to be incredibly uncomfortable, pretty anxiety inducing, and it's been that way for years.
My first big realization that. My relationship with change was a bit tumultuous, was actually graduating from college for my undergrad program. This was like almost 10 years ago now, but I remember being so caught off guard by my friends being all over the world. All of a sudden, like we'd been in this one container for four years.
We graduate one friend moves to L. A. One friend moves to Austria. I stay in Georgia. Another friend moves somewhere else out West. And I was like, No, what's happening? Like, I just was so disoriented by it and it caught me off guard. I didn't know that I would feel that way. And so that particular change was an initiation in and of itself.
And it was very uncomfortable. Obviously I survived it and there have been lots of other changes since then. But that story comes to mind. Yeah, and I, I'm thinking as you were talking about that, the pain sometimes that we don't talk about and don't normalize of being the stayer, the one who, while everyone else leaves, whether it's a workplace, post college, uh, I hadn't thought about that before, of what that looks like and feels like to be the one who stays as everyone else disperses and does their thing.
Yeah, it is a special kind of grief. I think part of it, even though we were all starting new adventures in our careers, there was this sense that, I don't know, like you're supposed to go to the other side of the world to do a cool thing. No, there's, there's something insane too. What have you learned, perhaps, about grief?
And your way of tending to it and, and being with it, whether it's because of your transition experience, or perhaps in the work that you're doing with organizations and individuals. I would say grief is something that I've had. I've had friends even recently remind me that that's what I'm experiencing because it doesn't come to mind right away.
Like I might say, Oh, I'm anxious or I'm angry, or I'm disappointed. Like I'll go to all of those other. Not labels per se, but I'll, I'll name those other realities and it takes someone outside of me to say, Oh, you're grieving. And then I'm like, Oh, wow, that's what's happening. And so I guess I tend to not always be aware of it without the mirrors in my life, helping me to see it.
Once I become aware of it. I'm a person who loves naming things. So just being able to name like, Oh, this category of emotions fits in this box. I can move through this. This is a human experience. This is normal. A lot of that self soothing and reminding myself, like I I'm going to survive. This is really helpful, but it tends to take a minute again for me to know that grief is what I'm experiencing because I tend to think that it's something else first.
I appreciate you saying that about kind of naming and normalizing and then creating what your box of grief might look like and feel like, because I also feel that grief shows up differently for each of us based on our experiences and also based on the timing. I think it can show up differently. And so that's just a beautiful practice as you listen to this episode and listen to Bethaney to think about what does your box look like that you might put what emotions would sit there and where can you experiment with Your relationship with grief.
So that's really powerful. When you think about the organizations that you work with or have in the past or the ones that you hope to in the future, what's the one thing that most often is gotten wrong about transition and how change shows up inside organizations? The first thing that came to mind is related to pace and timing.
People tend to have very unrealistic expectations about how. Long something is going to take. And about how long it takes to really understand one another, how long it takes to get on the same page, it just takes a long, a longer time and having a workshop here and there doesn't quite get us to where we're trying to go.
Like, information is incredible and I love a good light bulb moment. I love learning new language for things, but embodying a new way of leadership, a new way of working across lines of difference and ways that. truly honors the dignity of every person at every intersection. It's just really hard work, and it's often messy, and it just takes more time than we tend to think it's going to.
You saying that about the lines of difference also makes me think about the intersection of fracture and rupture as well. I think that we My experience in organizations is that we forget to name that that's also happened, fracture, disruption, disrespect, putting things in a corner and saying we don't need to deal with it.
And that comes into play too, I think, with pace and timing. A workshop here and there is not going to address all of that. What would you say? And this is even hard to ask this, because I know there's no magic timeline, but what would you say an organization whose leaders may be listening to this and thinking, I really probably should investigate some work into the space?
What's a general flow that you like to work with organizations? How long should people plan for? I guess is my question. Yeah. And so it is a broad question because it depends on how much work people have done prior to maybe reaching out to someone like me. I find that if there's been some foundational work and the amount of time spent working on media.
Leadership team. The executive leadership team has a sense of what's needed, whether it's more education or coaching or training or facilitated exercises, then the timeline can be a little bit shorter because there's already a sense of vision and direction. And so if if those leaders have a good foundation, they know where they're going.
They have buy in from their teams. I would typically work with that team for probably a year to 18 months. Take a break, give them some time to flesh and things out on their own. And then maybe I would circle back six months to a year later, check in and see how things are going. How well are they embodying the things that we learned together in our facilitated journey?
If a team does not have that foundational work yet, I would probably add. Depending on their capacity, six months to a year to that process, because it just takes time again to get everyone on the same page. And it's not because I want to say that I think part of the reason that transformation takes so long is because people are already at capacity.
In life, typically, we are leading full lives with partners and kids and homes and communities and things happening all over the globe. And so I think our capacity tends to be limited, at least in modern times. And so the amount of space it takes to think deeply about the shifts needed in our organization, that space tends to not be there unless we create it.
Yeah, and I think about capacity. I'd love to go down that path in a little bit, but I think first. That just brings up to mind. We're also in the workplace. We have a task list. We have a mission to achieve. We have a community to serve and then adding the work of transformation on top of that often can feel overwhelming.
What's the cost to us? What's the cost to our communities if we don't prioritize transformation and time? Oh, beautiful question. I think the really practical cost is higher turnover. It tends to lend itself to a disengaged workforce, people who feel used and not valued. And there is like a real. Financial costs to that turnover, depending on the nature of the organization, it can lead to broken trust in a community, the communities you're serving, the clients you're trying to reach.
Um, if you aren't able to be responsive and adaptive to, like, the felt needs of the people you're serving, I'm mostly thinking about nonprofits in that way. Then the trust that gets broken can take years and years to repair. Um, so that's another cost. And then I was going to say maybe that there's a degree of irrelevance that happens when an organization doesn't change, but that doesn't always land for everyone.
Some, some people, they can keep going and they don't have to change. And they're able to, if they're making a widget that people want, I don't think folks care very much about being relevant. But when we're talking about like heart forward, people centered work, the trust is really vital and you have to be able to adapt and respond and make amends.
Like those have to be practices that you have to infuse into your culture. Yes, I'm, I'm nodding really, really adamantly to everything that you've just said, and I would love to know what you think about capacity. It's a buzzword that we use a lot in the nonprofit space around capacity building. It's something we've gotten used to saying, I don't have capacity for that when it comes to maybe being asked to do something else.
And I've often been curious about. How we could explore maybe and deepen the way that we use capacity. I think of it capacity can mean I don't have the time. I think capacity could mean also I don't have the skill set. It also could mean I don't have the interest, which means they're not going to be engaged.
There's not going to be engagement, but I'd love to know more about your thoughts on capacity. When I think of capacity, the first thing that comes to mind is the limitations of our bodies. And so I tend to think about it. a lot in terms of energy. And that tends to be my first reference point for capacity.
Like, do I have the mental and emotional and creative energy to invest in this thing? Um, a lot of my journey, even moving towards the work I'm doing now has been me realizing that the pace of Traditional work is very incompatible with the pace of my felt embodied experience, and there can be a lot of shame and discomfort around that.
Like, Oh, what's wrong with me that I can't work that fast or what's wrong with you that my energy is limited in these ways. But it also is what it is. And if I'm constantly operating beyond the capacity of like my felt physical vessel, then it leads to burnout and a lot of disconnection and burnout. It feels countercultural to kind of lead from this body centered place.
And I have the privilege of doing that because I'm an independent consultant right now. So I'm aware of that privilege and flexibility, but I also lived the cost of. Bypassing my body's limitations for a long time and experienced a lot of unwellness in my body, which then ripple affected into every other part of my life, you know?
And so that's what comes to mind when I think about capacity, but I love how you framed it because it could mean different things. It could be time. It could be skill set. It could be interest. And I think it would serve us well to ask an organizational life, okay, here that you're at capacity. What does that mean?
Because if we can ask what that means, we can solve for it differently. I appreciate that. And I'm curious if you'd be willing to go in a little deeper to what you just mentioned around what happened for you as you bypassed knowing where your energy levels needed you to say no. Yeah. So this was prior to this was a few years ago now, and it was the last full time organization I worked for.
I love the mission, love the team was very passionate about what we were doing. And it was also around the time that I. Was starting to get a lot of momentum around the diversity gap as a podcast and project and the pandemic was happening or had started this. I'm thinking 2020 now, um, specifically. And then there was, you know, the series of racialized anti Black violence in the U S that we were really paying attention to collectively.
And all of those things, just plus personal things, I was moving, trying to just figure it out, like my life beyond my work, all of those things together. I mean, I wasn't sleeping some health conditions that just had gotten increasingly worse. Talk about like fatigue, like walking up and down flights of stairs was too much for me.
And I, and I feel like my body kind of starting to not break down. That sounds like I'm overstating it, but me bumping into those limitations. I think those were like the last steps, I think if I'd been listening to just like my heart and to the anxiety and I think my body had been trying to speak to me for a long time, but yeah, that's what happened and I ultimately decided to leave that job.
My husband and I moved in with my parents, which. Was a grace at the time to be, I have a very good relationship with my parents and so to be in a place that was safe and easy, easy where our needs were met really gave me time to recover and start to build my life from the ground up again, really again with like the needs of my body front and center so that I hopefully don't.
End up in that situation of burnout again, I will say, however, that I am a very driven person. And so even working for myself, it is a constant check in to make sure that I'm still not bypassing my body. And that's part of where I'm thinking now, like, it's not just about organizational life. I think it's cultural.
I think as a black woman raised by black parents in the South, like hard work is like the thing you do to survive. So like I have my. Internal survival narratives. There's a lot that leads to the overworking and and unlearning that and trying to embody a new way is it's the work that's in front of me right now.
I resonate with that a lot personally, and I'm just thinking of an episode we just released. If you have not listened to it with Sharman Levy, who talks about being raised in a family where your worth was determined by your service. And then you add to that what happens with burnout. I would love, Bethaney, if you could share some of the things that worked for you, maybe some of the things that didn't work for you as you leaned in to recovery from that burnout and from that bypassing.
I think the number one thing I hear from folks is how do I get out of burnout? How do I Move past this and I'd love for you to share. Yeah So it's been a lot of different experiments and I'll just name the things in no particular order that come to mind One thing for me was tending to my physical Well being so practical things doctor appointments going to the dentist I had to have a surgery like I had to just take care of those things really practically for me.
That was helpful being in a rural, spacious place. So I, my parents have a farm and so living in a place that was beautiful and quiet was Very healing. And then my husband and I actually built our house a mile down the road from them. So we're still in a very grounded, peaceful place. And I think that has done wonders for my nervous system.
Even if you're not able to move to a farm somewhere, prioritizing time in nature, I think is really healing. Community has been huge for me. I tend to sometimes over rely, but really rely on the people in my life to help me see things clearly. See things clearly. And so, um, having people just ask me questions and check in.
And to be honest about where I was with a few close friends, not the whole world, but with a few people, really critical. I started seeing a spiritual director in that season and having someone kind of hold space, like prayerful space for my journey. Um, my inner life, my story with the divine was really helpful.
And I kind of already named this. The privilege of being in my parents home is that I didn't have as much pressure on like. My bank account. And so I want to name that because I think that need to like make ends meet really drives a lot of us to burn out for good reason. Cause we're trying to get by having that room to rest and to not have to be so production oriented, uh, was really integral and vital for my process.
That's a few things that come to mind. I'm thinking so much about the healing nature of nature and. I love that you said you don't have to move to a farm. You don't have to start a homestead. I'd love to hear a little bit more about Cedar Wild if you'd like to share. What is your day to day look like?
How do you integrate your passion and love for that lifestyle with Gathering. Work. So Cedar Wild, it's this one acre plot of land that my husband and I co sustained. Things are pretty quiet and relaxed here at the moment. We had a lot of chickens, but we just downsized to a few because we had like 30 something and that was way too many.
So now we have four. Um, they're not laying at the moment because of the light and the seasons. They don't lay in the winter. Such a good lesson for us. You know, the chickens say it's time to nestle in. We're not going to produce right now. Catch us next spring. So I love that. And then we have a pretty big market garden, but it's also lying low right now.
We'll prepare that for the spring. All of that to say is I feel like right now it's not producing a whole lot, which is great. And it's just really peaceful. Um, the first year we lived here, we're, we've been here for two years now. The first year it was a lot more work, you know, grading and planting things.
I'm looking out the window at it all now, but it's just there and beautiful. And I don't know, it's just kind of nourishing, even though it's not a place that's really production oriented. Which is surprising to me in this moment, even I think a part of our intention was we're going to have this market garden and it's going to be bustling year round.
But again, as we honor our limitations, it's like, okay, the market garden worked for the spring. It's not going to work for this fall. What does it mean to let things rest, to let things lie fallow for a time? And then we'll return to the next phase of it when, when we're ready. That's a, that's a really, really deep seated assumption, I think, that we have, that if we plant something, if we start something, if we launch something, that we have to see it through all the way to whatever it is that society says completion is.
I have gardened every place that we've lived, and when we moved here, which is currently in South Florida, I started a little garden, and then realized I did not have the time to keep it up, and my limitations, really, as you mentioned, Overtook my ability to do anything with the garden, but then realizing even what I did helped support the soil.
Even if nothing is constantly producing, even if it's not going to go into perpetuity as a garden that's flourishing. And so I think that's a good reminder as well that if we focus and prioritize our limitations, our capacity, our energy, our rest, all of those things, it doesn't have to come to full completion.
It doesn't have to look the way that we think it will. And I love, love, love the example of the laying hens that say, we're taking a break right now. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Even I think I have this big, um, this flower garden planted out behind me. A lot of the flowers have died. They've gone to seed and I was going to go through and just trim them all back to make them look quote unquote better.
And my husband reminded me like, just leave them, like, let the seeds stay, like just leave it and we can tend to it next year. But I just love that reminder, like let the plants go through their cycles because every part of it's intentional and. If we let it, let it be, we'll see what grows here next year.
And it's just such a good lesson for me and trust, trusting the process, trusting the cycle of things. You know what else that makes me think of? We move a lot, and when we move to a new place, often springtime is when I think, now I'll know if the previous owner planted something in a, in a season or a geographical location where there's a winter, and that's something beautiful, I think, that I'd love to talk to you about around legacy and what we can intentionally leave behind, just thinking of Planting something that a future owner will find one day and inside of organizations or individually as we work on projects, what's your take on legacy and how we can leave something behind?
Oh, I never think about this. And so I'm really happy you've asked me because now I'm probably going to think about it all day. What do I think about legacy? You know, it hasn't really been a priority. That's probably my, my most honest thought. I tend to be really focused on the present and then, and then perhaps to an unhealthy degree on the past.
But when I think about the future, I don't know that I think that far into the future, like children or grandchildren. So I don't think about that a lot, but I will. There's an interesting concept from Lisa Renee Hall, where she talks about FIRE is the acronym, and it's being different kinds of ancestors based on familial, uh, I can't remember the acronym now, but I think about that a lot with legacy, that sometimes when we are living In alignment with who we are and our gifts, maybe we don't have to think about legacy so much because we are a living ancestor today doing the work and we don't have to plan for it.
Yeah. Oh, that's. Yeah, I really like the question though, because I, in talking with my parents again, my dad right now is really focused on his legacy of leaving land behind for his grandchildren. Like it is his obsession. He keeps buying more land and we're like, where, how are you doing this? Like all of us, the kids, he's like really set on it.
Like this is his, his mission right now. And it makes me wonder if I will feel that sense of mission one day. Yeah, because that's probably the closest tie in I have with legacy that legacy on the land and the significance of it What are you walking towards and or hoping for as you? continue on your path towards what you're here to do and Potentially internally processing.
Yeah, that's a beautiful, I keep saying that's a beautiful question because you have so many great ones. I'm at this point of decision. It feels like a fork in the road almost between continuing in my path as a writer and creative and spiritual director and freelance facilitator, and then going back into organizational life.
And I don't feel torn per se, but I do feel like they're very different energies and very different choices and I'm leaning more towards the freelance side. Because I, it just feels like such a radically different journey than I was expecting for myself. And that seems interesting and surprising, but what I get stuck on is stepping outside of more conventional.
Depictions of what success looks like and what it means to quote unquote, grow your influence and what it means to have an impact and be a leader, because in my mind, it's like, oh, to have an impact and to work for a nonprofit need to become an executive director. I need to put on leadership in this very specific way.
And that may or may not be true. There are so many different types of leaders, but that feels like the. The crossroads I'm sitting at, and it's drawn up all sorts of thoughts about what does success mean to me and what kind of legacy do I want to leave behind, perhaps to weave that word back in, what does it mean to lead a good life and who defines that.
And so I've been asking lots of big questions about what success means. And I think back to earlier when you also were talking about being present for yourself and not going to the same things and decisions that led you to burnout in the first place. And that is something that is really challenging for folks, for me, as I navigate away from being an employee and more towards full time freelance and consulting.
So I appreciate all those big questions. You'll have to keep us posted with what you decide. Oh, sure. We'll do. Is there anything that you want to say about change, transition, organizational health, any of the things that we've talked about, uh, that people might be shocked or surprised or just really need to hear?
So change is inevitable. It's happening within us and to us and around us all the time. And I think it really, I can speak for myself. It really serves me. And it might serve others to look at all of the different types of changes and the discomfort that they bring as invitations. To deepen in self awareness, to deepen love of neighbor, to deepen our expertise in managing a team.
I think there can be this tendency when change is coming or when it's happening to kind of brace ourselves and to like go into a defensive posture. And that's reasonable because we want to protect what we know and what we value and what we love. But if we're able to kind of soften into it and. Look at even the changes themselves as teachers and as invitations, I think life and leadership can get really interesting and creative and as opposed to trying to control the journey, we get to live it, which I think is really valuable.
That's beautiful. That's really beautiful changes and invitation. My last question for you is what does leaving well mean to you? I think leaving well means. I think it means honoring the present truth of who you are and letting it be messy and letting it be imperfect. And knowing that it's okay if you change your mind later, it means honoring what's right in front of you.
I, that's what's coming to mind. I heard someone say recently, I think they were quoting Richard Rohr, but the quote was that contemplation is a long loving look at the real. And when I think about leaving, well, it means looking at the real, even if it's uncomfortable and doing the best you can with what you have and honoring again, the present reality.
And knowing that in some grand sense, there's grace for every step of the journey. That beautifully ties back to the beginning when you talked about pace and timing as well. So contemplation takes time, requires time, and so does grace. So that all wraps up beautifully for Leaving Well. Bethaney, thank you.
This was a really, really great conversation. It went by way too fast. I appreciate you being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. To learn more about leaving well, and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. Visit naomihattaway.com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system.
We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide, to shift culture, and to create transformation. Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hattaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.