Reconnecting to Joy: Healing from Teacher Burnout Through Therapy
For many international teachers, burnout doesn’t arrive all at once. It creeps in quietly — a little more fatigue each week, a growing sense of detachment, the feeling that everything you once loved about teaching now feels heavy.
At first, you push through. You take another trip over break, try to rest, promise yourself that next term will be different. But the spark doesn’t return. The energy you used to pour into your classroom, your colleagues, your students — it’s gone somewhere, and you can’t quite find your way back.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And the good news is that burnout isn’t the end of the story.
Burnout as a Form of Grief
Burnout is often misunderstood as exhaustion or overwork, but at its core, it’s a form of grief — grief for the energy you’ve lost, the enthusiasm that once felt effortless, the version of yourself who could do it all.
For international teachers, that grief can feel complicated. You may have built a life that looks wonderful from the outside — a respected job, global experiences, financial stability — yet feel completely disconnected on the inside.
It can be confusing to hold both truths: I have a good life and I feel miserable inside. Therapy offers a place where both can exist without judgment.
Why Traditional Self-Care Doesn’t Always Work
You’ve likely heard all the usual advice: rest more, exercise, eat well, take time off. While these are helpful, they often don’t touch the deeper layers of burnout — the emotional depletion, the perfectionism, the sense of disconnection from your own body.
That’s because burnout isn’t just about doing too much. It’s about what’s happening beneath the doing — the nervous system stuck in a chronic state of alert, constantly trying to keep you safe, competent, and in control.
When your body has been in that state for too long, traditional self-care isn’t enough. What’s needed is deeper repair.
How Therapy Helps You Find Your Way Back
In therapy, we work to gently guide your nervous system back toward safety and rest — the place where joy becomes possible again.
As a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I integrate talk therapy with EMDR, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and body-based approaches like breathwork and yoga. These methods don’t just address burnout on a cognitive level; they help you regulate physically and emotionally, allowing your body to finally exhale.
You might come to therapy feeling flat or numb — and that’s okay. Together, we work slowly and compassionately to help you reconnect with yourself. The process isn’t about “fixing” you; it’s about remembering who you were before chronic stress took over.
What Recovery Can Look Like
Recovery from burnout isn’t about returning to the same pace — it’s about learning to live in a way that doesn’t require constant survival mode.
Teachers in recovery often describe:
Sleeping more deeply and waking up without dread.
Feeling more emotionally present — in class, and in life.
Rediscovering what brings them pleasure and meaning.
Setting boundaries without guilt.
Feeling a steady sense of calm instead of constant urgency.
You don’t have to give up teaching to heal. You simply have to give yourself permission to pause — to attend to your own wellbeing with the same care you give your students.
Reconnecting to Joy
The path back to joy is slow, but it’s real. Joy doesn’t always look like excitement or happiness; sometimes it begins as small moments of peace — a quiet morning coffee, a class that finally clicks, a deep breath that feels easy again.
Therapy helps you notice those moments and expand them, slowly rebuilding a nervous system that can hold joy without collapsing into exhaustion.
If you’re ready to begin that process, I offer online therapy for international teachers and school professionals worldwide. Whether you’re based in Singapore, Zurich, or Nairobi, support is available — discreetly, compassionately, and grounded in real understanding of international school life.
You’ve given so much of yourself to others. It’s time to give something back to you.
