Running on Empty

Burnout syndrome and a ship without its captain

One important concept to understand is that everything we do and think is financed from somewhere. Nothing happens without the energy available to support it. We can reduce it to something like calories, or glucose, etc. but the general notion and underlying truth is simply that resources need to be available for any function to take place, and if resources are consumed, eventually function will fail, just like a car without gasoline.

The 3 Types of Accounts

We can think of this energy or resource like three levels of banking/finance accounts. First, we have the checking account. We can think about our digestive and respiratory systems: if we eat good food, drink clean water, breathe healthy air, we generate energy and fuel for the body to use. And, if we get sufficient amounts, and live moderately (eg, don’t burn it all up, or burn more calories then we take in), we can build a surplus. That surplus can be siphoned off to our savings account. We can store some energy for a rainy day. If we are over stressed, get sick, lose sleep, work too hard for short periods of time, we can transfer monies from the savings to the checking, and all functioning remains stable. Nothing breaks down. We also have a retirement account. We can contribute monies to this account when savings are abundant (thru long periods of healthy moderate living), but we also innately have a storage of resources here as well. This is our constitution, our genetics, our inherited lifespan that, from a Daoist perspective comes from past karma (which makes up and actually plays a role in determining our constitution/genetics, life circumstances, etc.). We don’t want to draw down on these resources; they are what allow for us to live to a ripe old age with relative health and ease.

But, as you already know, most of us don’t live neatly within this framework. We don’t eat well; food has been denatured, filled with chemicals, pesticides, GMOs, hormones, etc. We eat junk food; we don’t eat regular nutritious meals; we eat on the go, while stressed; we consume tons of refined sugars and empty calories. The water we drink and the air we breathe is continually contaminated and poisoned. Right off the bat we are working from a deficit. We don’t have savings of energy, and in fact we barely get enough quality energy to sustain our go-go-go lifestyles, burning the candle on both ends, staying up too late, not getting enough rest and sleep, feeling over burned, over worked, over stressed. But, we don’t stop; instead we draw down on our retirement accounts; we tap into and drain our 401ks. We don’t see that we are consuming our resources because we are able to maintain functioning without missing a beat. We are a crisis waiting to happen. Over time (different for everyone based on a multitude of factors), as we start to breach the threshold of using more than we store, function begins to break down. Degeneration happens. And this happens physically, mentally, emotionally….

Karma/Ming/Allotment

We see these concepts also mirrored in Classical Daoism which contains a concept of a predetermined allotment of days/years (eg, 命, pinyin mìng). This mìng (also often translated as destiny), however, is not static and fatalistic; it can actually be altered (for the better or worse). Karmic repercussions of bad actions deplete this, and there are formulas that detail specific numbers of days/years being reduced from lifespan by the nature of the infraction. Karma can also be changed by virtuous behaviors, increasing lifespan. Virtue (德, pinyin dé) is essentially a spiritual wealth and reflects the innate goodness of the Dao (道, pinyin dào) being played out in our lives. It is the ultimate bank account, the one that Daoists work very hard to preserve and grow. Cultivating life practices, simplifying and reducing desires, and the following of precepts form the bedrock of Daoist praxis.

The Empty Pulse

But what happens when we don’t cultivate life or follow these guidelines moderating behaviors, moderating our consumptions (that which we expose our senses to, eg, over eating, immoderate sex, over stimulation of our eyes with screens, etc.)? We start to burn out. We lose the subtle balance between yin and yang, the gravitational and the expansive, the advance/action and the retreat/resting. As this balancing act of homeostasis becomes compromised we start to bottom out; we become rootless, a ship without a captain to navigate it. We start to separate from our essence. This is reflected in the Empty pulse, of which there are a number of stages (a few of which are depicted in the bottom three images below).

Pulse depths/Normal wave image excerpted from my text, Heart Shock, with permission from Eastland Press

Empty pulse images excerpted from my text, Heart Shock, with permission from Eastland Press

The Normal pulse (first image shown above) reveals the waveform starting from the Organ depth (the repository or storehouse of the system’s energetics/resources), rising thru the Blood depth (system’s energies represented via amount/quality/circulation of blood), to the Qi depth (system’s energies represented via amount/quality/circulation of qi-energy), then receding back to the Organ. This is a state of health and balance.

The Empty pulse starts with the Organ depth separating away. This marks the beginning of chaos, the separating of yin and yang. It ends with the complete absence of the Blood and Organ depths, only the Qi depth palpable, reflecting the yang that has broken away from yin, wandering, aimless, metabolic energy that is rootless, unguided, wreaking havoc, functional energy no longer able to function without the checks and balances or any guiding principles. We see inflammation unchecked, autoimmunity, cancers and metastases, psychological fragility and lack of control of emotions and faculties, etc.

So What’s the Big Deal?

All the foregoing would simply be interesting if these were isolated findings. The problem however, is the sheer ubiquity of the Empty pulse currently. We are living in times that we can classify without hyperbole as a systemic crisis for our population. Instability and chaos have become the norm for so many, the boundaries controlling our homeostatic functioning have been breached, and we are collectively moving towards increasing disease, with shortened lifespans and/or diminished quality of life We are at a crossroads which require taking stock of our lives, our lifestyles, and our philosophies of life in general.

I’d love to hear your philosophies on life and on how you prioritize your own health and cultivation. Feel free to drop them in the comments.