Two Powerful and Amost-Unknown Tools for Moving from Imminent Burnout to Wholeness
For many executives and professionals, burnout, or near-burnout, is a lived reality. Beneath the polished and often-smiling surface lies a smoldering exhaustion that blocks energy, engagement, and effectiveness.
Leadership Disengagement
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 reports that manager engagement fell from 30% to 27%, contributing significantly to a global employee engagement rate of just 21%—the second such drop in a decade forbes.com+15gallup.com+15thebrokernews.ch+15. Look again: these numbers mean that more than three quarters of workers are disengaged to some degree. The combined downturn is estimated to cost the global economy $438 billion in lost productivity fastcompany.com+3gallup.com+3businessinsider.com+3.
The decline in manager presence and effectiveness ripples outward. When managers disengage, most of their staff follow.
The Stress Landscape
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023, 44% of employees worldwide report experiencing daily stress. Managers are especially vulnerable, often reporting higher levels of burnout than the teams they lead. In North America, manager engagement has dropped from 30% to 27%, and that disengagement carries a financial cost: Gallup estimates stress-related productivity loss at $438 billion annually.
Many stress-reduction strategies focus on outer life: clearer boundaries, better time management, a walk after lunch. All of those matter. But some stress isn’t solved externally—it comes from inner conflict, old emotional patterns, and unconscious beliefs that keep us locked in cycles of overreaction or exhaustion.
One manager reflects:
“I leave work and I can’t switch off. I feel like my inbox owns me more than I own my team.” While anonymized, this sentiment echoes across Gallup interviews, where managers cite difficulty “switching off,” emotional fatigue, and loss of focus www2.deloitte.com+15gallup.com+15linkedin.com+15reddit.com.
The Personal Toll Beyond the Office
Although statistics on sleep issues, strained relationships, or executive divorce rates aren’t readily available, we don’t really need those numbers to have experienced or heard stories about the the exhaustion, emotional heaviness, and decreased well-being at work that inevitably pervade home life, relationships, and personal health.
Conclusion—Not!
The “smoldering manager” isn’t a solitary problem. It’s an organizational emergency that undermines productivity, retention, and well-being. But the fix doesn’t demand heroic endurance. It requires structural support, clear expectations, practical training, and a shift in culture.
BUT—this isn’t enough.
The prevailing wisdom has been that by centering well being and leadership development, organizations can extinguish smoldering burnout before it ignites—and protect both people and performance. The fact that these problems continue to grow makes it clear that this approach is not working.
So this isn’t the conclusion.
A Holistic Approach
What if burnout isn’t just a sign of overwork, but a signal from within? Two practices—Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Past Life Regression (PLR)—offer a deeper, person-centered approach to understanding and effectively addressing chronic stress.
This isn’t about quick fixes. It’s about changing your relationship with your stress by understanding yourself more fully and acquiring tools for dealing with stress as it surfaces.
Tool One: Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
EFT, also known as “tapping,” is a method that combines gentle tapping on specific points (also associated with acupuncture) with verbal acknowledgment of thoughts and feelings to reduce the emotional intensity of trauma, distressing experiences, and physical manifestations, and regulate the nervous system.
In a landmark study by Dawson Church et al., participants who used EFT for just one hour showed a 43% decrease in cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone—compared to a 19% drop in those who simply rested. EFT is now used in clinical settings for anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, and emotional self-regulation.
EFT works not by suppressing emotions, but by making space for them in a safe, embodied way. It helps reconnect us with the body’s wisdom, inviting honesty and calm at once.
Tool Two: Past Life Regression (PLR)
PLR is a guided inner journey designed to access subconscious memories or impressions of other lifetimes—or what feel like them. Whether you interpret these experiences as literal, symbolic, or purely psychological, the results can be transformative.
Many people uncover patterns that mirror present-day struggles: recurring fears, relationship dynamics, or emotional themes. The insight that emerges often brings a deep sense of release or self-forgiveness, as if you’re seeing your life through a wider lens.
Although clinical research on PLR is limited compared to what has been done with EFT, its therapeutic value is recognized by many psychotherapists and hypnotherapists for uncovering subconscious roots of emotional distress.
Inner Work, Lasting Change
These two tools are powerful together. EFT helps clear emotional charge so you enter a regression session with greater calm and openness. PLR can uncover deep narratives that explain long-held beliefs—insights you gently integrate using EFT.
If you’ve already tried productivity hacks, yoga, or apps that promise to make you more “resilient,” but still feel wired and weary, it may be time to turn inward. EFT and PLR don’t offer surface relief—they invite real change.
What’s Next
My next articles will describe each of EFT and PLR, how they work synergistically together, and what’s to be found beyond a Past Life Regression. In later articles you’ll find firsthand experiences and deeper reflections on these practices.
The foundation is understanding that real transformation doesn’t always come from doing more. Sometimes, it comes from listening more closely to the self who’s been quietly asking for your attention all along.