Burnout Is Not Your Fault: A New Path To Self-Trust And Calm - by Clare Downham

COURSE

Burnout Is Not Your Fault: A New Path To Self-Trust And Calm

With Clare Downham

Burnout doesn’t mean you’re broken. Especially for high achievers, it often means you’ve been living with invisible pressure for too long. Pushing, proving, and pleasing to feel worthy. This course offers a powerful shift: burnout isn’t a failure to manage your life. It’s a wake-up call to remember who you really are. Over 10 insight-rich lessons, you’ll explore the deeper patterns behind your exhaustion like perfectionism, people-pleasing, emotional suppression, and control. You’ll learn why burnout is more than overwhelm, and how reclaiming ease starts not by doing more, but by seeing differently. Drawing from the Three Principles and nonduality, this course invites you to reconnect with your natural clarity, self-worth, and calm without guilt, without fixing, and without losing your ambition. Whether you're struggling to rest, constantly in your head, or tired of trying to hold everything together, these lessons offer not just relief but a return to your true self. You’ll walk away with: • A deeper understanding of burnout as a pattern of thought, not personal failure • Relief from guilt, internal pressure, and over-functioning • Tools to release perfectionism and control in favour of self-trust • Practical shifts for creating more space, clarity and balance without efforting You don’t need to become someone new. You just need to remember the version of you who doesn’t burn out.


Meet your Teacher

Clare guides high-achieving professionals and business owners to release stress, perfectionism, and emotional overwhelm, not by doing more, but by seeing differently. Her courses and coaching offer a transformational shift: from burnout to clarity, from inner critic to inner knowing, from over-functioning to sustainable ease. Drawing from the inside out understanding, Clare’s teachings help people stop overriding their truth, reconnect with the body’s wisdom, and experience deep, lasting wellbeing. Her work speaks especially to those who are holding everything together on the outside but quietly burning out inside.

read more

10 Days

104 students

4.7 stars

8 min / day

Grounded

English


Lesson 1

The Truth About Burnout

Burnout isn’t just about doing too much. It’s about believing you are what you do. In this first lesson, we explore how the entanglement between worth and productivity quietly fuels chronic stress and exhaustion. We begin to see that burnout is not a personal failure, but the inevitable result of believing that your value depends on how much you can manage, fix, or hold together. Burnout begins not in your schedule but in your thinking.

read more

Lesson 2

You Can Do Anything But Not Everything

You were told you could do anything. But somewhere along the way, that empowering message became a heavy burden: you must do everything, perfectly, all the time. In this lesson, we look at the cultural messaging that shaped a generation of high-achieving women into over-functioning, overwhelmed professionals. Burnout isn’t laziness. It’s loyalty to a standard that was never yours to carry. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Not even yourself.

read more

Lesson 3

Thoughts! The Invisible Driver Of Burnout

It’s easy to believe burnout is caused by work, deadlines, or demands. But the real driver often hides in plain sight: our thinking. In this lesson, we explore how the stories we tell ourselves, about worth, urgency, and responsibility, create pressure even when things are calm on the outside. When thought looks real, burnout feels inevitable. The mind can burn you out faster than your calendar ever will.

read more

Lesson 4

Suppressing The Body’s Wisdom

We’ve been taught to “push through” tiredness, ignore discomfort, and override the body in favour of productivity. But burnout accelerates when we disconnect from the quiet wisdom of our physical selves. In this lesson, we explore how ignoring the body’s signals feeds chronic exhaustion and how listening again can begin to restore balance. Your body isn’t a machine. It’s a messenger.

read more

Lesson 5

Perfectionism! The Silent Burnout Trigger

Perfectionism often hides in plain sight, disguised as high standards, ambition, or “just doing your best.” But behind it is a deep fear of not being good enough—and that fear creates burnout faster than any task list. In this lesson, we look at how perfectionism fuels constant self-correction, drains energy, and disconnects us from the rest we deeply need. The need to be perfect is often a fear of being judged… by your own inner critic.

read more

Lesson 6

People-Pleasing And The Burnout Trap

People-pleasing can look like kindness, empathy, or being dependable but often, it’s fear in disguise. In this lesson, we explore how the drive to please others leads to self-abandonment and burnout. When we say yes to avoid conflict or seek approval, we exhaust ourselves. True care doesn’t come from sacrifice. It comes from clarity. If being “nice” costs you your peace, it’s not kindness. It’s conditioning.

read more

Lesson 7

Letting Go Of Control

The need to control everything, our schedules, emotions, outcomes, and others’ responses, keeps us locked in exhaustion. In this lesson, we explore how burnout is often fuelled by the illusion that peace comes from perfect management. You’ll learn how softening control invites spaciousness, flow, and an unexpected return of energy. The more you try to hold everything together, the more you lose connection to yourself.

read more

Lesson 8

Burnout As A Wake-Up Call

Burnout is not a sign of weakness. It’s an invitation. In this lesson, we reframe burnout not as a breakdown to fear, but as a signal to pause, reflect, and realign. When we stop fighting it and start listening, burnout can become a powerful pivot point back to truth, balance, and inner freedom. Burnout isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of something deeper calling you home.

read more

Lesson 9

The Power Of Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is not a luxury. It’s essential. When we meet ourselves with gentleness instead of judgment, something profound shifts. In this lesson, we explore how self-compassion dissolves the inner critic, allows us to rest without guilt, and creates the conditions for true healing, not just from burnout, but from the beliefs that caused it. You don’t need to become someone better. You need to remember who you already are.

read more

Lesson 10

Sustaining Ease And Preventing Burnout

In this closing lesson, we reflect on the journey you’ve taken. Burnout loses its grip when you live from clarity, not pressure. When you rest in your true nature, balance isn’t something you manage. It’s something that naturally emerges. You’ll leave with practical ways to stay connected to ease, and a reminder: the version of you who doesn’t burn out already exists. You’re not broken. You’re remembering.

read more


4.7 (15)

Recent Reviews

Hayley-Rose

October 20, 2025

Easy to listen to and understand , just like a wise kind friend imparting advice. Very insightful & helpful. Thank you so much for this. 🙏

José

July 20, 2025

Powerful check in. It helps to know I’m not alone. Thank you!

Jayney

May 26, 2025

Thank you for sharing your journey & experience- a lot of things resonate with myself. I will certainly bring the concept of pause & learn to listen more to my body

Shannon

May 5, 2025

I will definitely be listening to this one again to help remind myself of all your thoughtful advice. Thank you for creating this for everyone ❤️

Steve

April 15, 2025

Quietly transformative. Calm seas have strong tides.

Jim

April 12, 2025

Wonderful course!! Going to repeat it!! Thank you!!🙏

More from Clare Downham

Trusted by 35 million people. It's free.

Insight Timer

Get the app