Burnout Myths and Realities: What You Need to Know with Cait Donovan (109)

In this episode, we explore the complexities of burnout with Cait Donovan from FRIED the Burnout Podcast. We discuss its causes, symptoms, and effective recovery strategies. Cait helps us identify common symptoms and stressors, sharing personal stories and examining the impact of stress on the body. We also highlight financial insecurity as a critical factor contributing to burnout and provide practical budgeting tips and tools to help manage finances and alleviate stress.

We emphasize the importance of foundational self-care practices to signal safety to the nervous system and enhance well-being. Additionally, we discuss mindfulness techniques and offer practical tips to integrate them into daily routines.

For those in the recovery phase, we cover essential steps to take during rest periods, the significance of setting personal values, and how to align actions with these values for a healthier, more balanced life.

Episodes Referenced:
The Power of Female Friendship
The Culture of Burnout


Connect with Cait Donovan:
www.caitdonovan.com

www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com

www.instagram.com/caitdonovanspeaks

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:06:12
Speaker 1
A lot of us burn out. Not because life got totally crazy, but because we've been neglecting ourselves for 25 years.

00:00:06:12 - 00:00:08:18
Speaker 1
Well, no wonder your system is

00:00:08:18 - 00:00:09:14
Speaker 1
shut down.

00:00:09:14 - 00:00:11:02
Speaker 1
You were taught a system.

00:00:11:02 - 00:00:20:10
Speaker 1
then you woke up one day and you were like, what is this? Is this my life? Am I always going to feel like this?

00:00:20:19 - 00:00:24:05
Speaker 1
Right? But if your basic needs aren't met, you can't regulate.

00:00:30:04 - 00:00:30:13
Speaker 1
I'm

00:00:30:13 - 00:00:52:21
Speaker 1
really excited to share that I am now offering one on one intentional living, mentorship, and coaching so we can work together and use the modalities of yoga and mindfulness to help you learn how to deal with stressors. Strengthen your relationship with yourself and mindfully move towards your goals and the way you want to be in this world.

00:00:52:23 - 00:00:59:03
Speaker 1
So if you want to book a complimentary connection, call to see if this is the right fit for you. There's a link in the show notes

00:00:59:03 - 00:01:17:06
Speaker 1
I also want to take a moment to thank the beautiful, beaming members of our dream team who support the podcast every single month. You can join the Dream Team for as little as $3 a month, and that helps to support the operating costs of this podcast that make it possible.

00:01:17:07 - 00:01:37:19
Speaker 1
There's a link in the show notes to join. We would love to have you join the Dream Team, and thank you for making this offering possible. And one final thing. You can also join our Intentional Living community, where we continue the conversations we have on the podcast and show up each week to share what it means to live with intention.

00:01:37:20 - 00:01:42:14
Speaker 1
This community is totally free, and there's a link in the show notes to join.

00:03:57:15 - 00:04:29:14
Speaker 1
I'm. I'm so normal. I'm just a regular girl sitting in her office. Excited to be here. Yeah. I mean, literally, that's my door right behind my sign. I'm in. I'm in a closet.

00:04:29:16 - 00:04:54:05
Speaker 1
Oh, you think I can't do this right now? They're like, are you sure? Okay. My office has a window and and is, six feet by six feet. So this is a massive walk in closet that is in my guestroom. And I don't need a guest that needs a closet this big. Because if you need a closet this big, that means you live here.

00:04:54:05 - 00:05:02:01
Speaker 1
Now. So you're not a guest anymore. So, yeah, I stole it.

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:50:16
Speaker 1
So when we talk from this perspective, I always like to give the actual current definition from the World Health Organization so that we're all starting from the same place. This does not mean that I necessarily fully agree with the World Health Organization definition. But when we're doing anything science based and science related, we all we need to know that we're all talking about the same object or else we're having two different conversations.

00:05:50:21 - 00:06:15:20
Speaker 1
So burnout, according to the World Health Organization, is an occupational hazard. So it is related to your workplace. This is reason number one. I disagree with it because it can be related to a lot of things. And it involves three components. These three components all must exist similar and exist for I think the rule is over two weeks for us to say that it's burnout.

00:06:15:20 - 00:06:38:14
Speaker 1
And those three components. The first one is physical and emotional exhaustion, which like half the podcast listeners just went, yes, anyone not physically and emotionally exhausted, like, are you joking? The second one is cynicism and detachment. So feeling detached from people, feeling detached from what you do, being really cynical, being negative. My grandmother would call this being a negative Nancy.

00:06:38:16 - 00:07:11:04
Speaker 1
this is most commonly because we're talking about burnout as an occupational hazard. What this is in your workplace, which again, just hard disagree. But World Health Organization has its own rules. And the third thing is in the World Health Organization it says lack of productivity. But in the people that it did the research that supported the World Health Organization's definition, they say lack of impact, lack of meaning, lack of productivity, sort of this overall feeling that what you're doing doesn't really matter.

00:07:11:06 - 00:07:31:14
Speaker 1
No matter how much of it you do. So feeling like the thing that you are doing in the world is, is not useful to people, or you're not useful at it, or there's no value add in it like this. So those three components, all smashed together at the same time is what we're currently calling burnout. Now my background is Chinese medicine.

00:07:31:14 - 00:07:59:05
Speaker 1
I've been an acupuncturist for nearly 20 years, which is weird to say. I don't know, like, I don't know when that happened, but here we are. It's been 17 years. And so in Chinese medicine we say that when stress affects the body, it affects your weakest points. So if you were in a car accident when you were 12 and got whiplash, when stress affects your body, you're likely to have neck tension and headaches because of this sort of weakness in your body.

00:07:59:05 - 00:08:18:00
Speaker 1
So you can have two different weaknesses. According to Chinese medicine, one is constitutional, so genetic. Basically that would translate as a sort of genetic. And the other is things that happen to you in your life that weakened part of your system. So if you have a really bad diet and you've had a bad diet for a long time, one of your burnout symptoms might be some digestive upset.

00:08:18:02 - 00:08:55:09
Speaker 1
So for me, all of these components must exist. And there's probably a set of symptoms that you have that are very closely related to your burnout process. But what those symptoms will be will be highly dependent on who you are, how you are, where you are, etc..

00:09:14:20 - 00:09:39:17
Speaker 1
Exactly. And this is one of the things that we teach people to watch for like this. This is considered a burnout red flag. The symptoms that you know that repeat. But most of us at a certain age we've had a symptom that we've had on and off for 20 years. We mostly ignore it. But what we need to understand is that when it flares up, that's something to pay attention to, not just the symptom.

00:09:39:17 - 00:10:12:02
Speaker 1
I was going to say the hip, but that's talking about me, not just the symptom. Yeah, right. It's like not just the symptom, but the but the life attached to the symptom. And this is the thing that we miss. So. So when I say that what I'm thinking about is the fact that if your body is reacting in some way and telling you so, if your eye is acting up and that's saying there's too much stress when my hip acts up and that says that's too much stress, now I have to look at what's the too much stress, because how many of us are like, well, I'm good at handling stress.

00:10:12:02 - 00:10:43:01
Speaker 1
I don't feel stressed by the way, you guys. Stress is not an emotion. It's not something you can feel. It's a state that you are in or you are not in. Not an emotion, not an emotion. Everybody. So you might say, I don't feel stressed. Well, I don't care if you feel stressed or not. Your body is giving you a very clear signal that something's not right.

00:10:43:03 - 00:10:57:08
Speaker 1
Oh, freaky. Yeah.

00:11:10:14 - 00:11:31:23
Speaker 1
When I see people in a space that are having stress based bodily reactions that don't understand that they're stressed. My questions start in on are there things in your life right now that you're doing that you feel like you have to do because you have to pay your bills or whatever, that are actually not aligned with your values?

00:11:32:01 - 00:11:54:06
Speaker 1
Or are you building? Especially when I'm working with entrepreneurs, like, are you building your business in a way that is truly, actually aligned with your values? I actually work with a lot of other burnout coaches that are burnt out, right? And I'm like, well, you started this business when you were still burnt out, and then you thought that you had to work full time in order to create it.

00:11:54:08 - 00:12:11:22
Speaker 1
But that's not the business you wanted to run. You wanted to run a business on three days a week. So if you want to run a business on three days a week, you have to build a business on three days a week. So things like that, like what's going on here that's less obvious. Where is there a values mismatch?

00:12:11:22 - 00:12:42:16
Speaker 1
Where are your priorities a little bit off. Where have you decided intentionally to make a sacrifice about something that you've not paying yourself back for because you think the payout is coming in five years or ten years or whatever? People that are on the fire program, the, what's it called? Financial independence. Retire early. Right. People that are on the fire path burnout frequently because they're not allowing themselves any joy because they're going to get joy in three years.

00:12:42:16 - 00:13:00:13
Speaker 1
They're going to get joy in five years, they're going to get. So have you play put your joy in your piece off for something. Is there a value like I'd be digging into questions like this, I wouldn't say, is there something stressing you out in your life? Because if you knew that, you would know that already, but you don't know that.

00:13:00:13 - 00:13:16:23
Speaker 1
So what's the internal friction that's happening that we can bring to awareness so that we can do something about it?

00:13:17:01 - 00:13:22:12
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:13:39:12 - 00:14:01:20
Speaker 1
Well and just before we started we were talking about you know when you have to be like this is, this is the unofficial tagline of my podcast. And there's a one part we can, we would dig into into the values and into those frictions and see what's going on. The other part is, are you doing really fabulous self-care but missing out on all the foundational stuff?

00:14:01:22 - 00:14:21:10
Speaker 1
Because most people are. So the foundational stuff is paying when you have to pay. Like, did you not ask your partner to wait for an extra 60s, and you held your bladder and got in the car for a 30 minute car ride instead of saying, hey, I'm just going to run to the bathroom before we go. Are you doing that?

00:14:21:15 - 00:14:49:07
Speaker 1
Are you drinking when you're thirsty? Are you eating when you're hungry? Are you resting your eyes when you're tired? Are you moving when you're antsy? Are you meeting your foundational needs? Because those those foundational needs, what they do is build a skill and a function of your brain called interception, which is your basic ability to notice what's going on in your body and respond appropriately.

00:14:49:09 - 00:15:15:20
Speaker 1
Your body does a lot of this automatically. When it's too hot, you sweat, right? And stuff like that. We regulate heartbeat and breath, rhythm and etc. but some of it we have to do for our bodies and a lot of it, we just don't show up for. So sometimes the questions end up being like, did you avoid pooping today even though you had to?

00:15:15:22 - 00:16:41:21
Speaker 1
And it sounds silly. Yeah, like it sounds silly. But if you do that every day, then your body starts to think, oh, I'm not safe here. And your stress response system kicks in.

00:16:41:23 - 00:17:04:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. I have 25,000 people a month listening to fried. They love the tagline. They don't love the tagline only because it's silly. They love the tagline because it's true. I had somebody DM me and say the sentence. Pee when you have to pee. Changed my life. The sentence not the podcast, not the 250 episodes that we've spent the past five years creating.

00:17:04:10 - 00:17:23:03
Speaker 1
The sentence changed my life and we override things because of these external circumstances. We also override things because we were taught to. When I'm a little bit older than you, so. But it's already changed by the time you were in school a little bit. But when I was in school, you raised your hand and asked to go to the bathroom.

00:17:23:03 - 00:17:43:23
Speaker 1
The teacher would say no often, so you couldn't even go if you wanted to. I also was a competitive gymnast for ten years. Pain. Were you like pain? Who cares? So nobody cares about your pain. Wrap your ankle and keep going. I knew how to tape an ankle like a pro when I was like eight. That's not normal.

00:17:44:01 - 00:18:11:05
Speaker 1
So of course it's not your fault if you don't know how to pay attention to those things. And this is this is a slight tangent, but and if you had any sort of adverse childhood experiences, those are called aces a big a big C, big E, little S aces during your childhood development, your brain, the part of your brain that's responsible for interception might not have developed properly.

00:18:11:07 - 00:18:40:19
Speaker 1
So you really might just actually not have this skill. If you practice it, that part of your brain will develop. So you can still do it as an adult. But this might really not be your fault if you grew up in poverty with a parent who was abusive in some way, shape or form, or neglectful in some way, shape or form, or you had a parent who was chronically ill or incarcerated or had, a mental disorder, or was not present because they had to work three jobs to pay the bills.

00:18:40:19 - 00:19:15:12
Speaker 1
Or we could go on and on about what all the aces are. But if you had some of those things or multiples of those things in your life, there's a high chance that your internal set of skills are naturally poor and you actually have to work on them on purpose. And when you do, this is fascinating. The science behind this is wild when you focus on being, when you have to pee and drinking when you have to drink and eating when you're hungry, etc. your emotional regulation skills improve without you even doing anything, without working on your mindset, without doing any therapy, without you.

00:19:15:12 - 00:19:33:00
Speaker 1
Learn to better emotionally regulate. When you learn to better physically regulate happens automatically. It's like magic. Everybody.

00:19:33:02 - 00:19:39:17
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:19:39:19 - 00:19:53:22
Speaker 1
I actually just need food.

00:19:54:00 - 00:20:07:16
Speaker 1
That all that should be the most important thing that we say today, right? You just said you can't regulate if your basic needs aren't being met. That's it.

00:20:07:16 - 00:20:27:23
Speaker 1
A lot of us burn out. Not because life got totally crazy, but because we've been neglecting ourselves for 25 years. Well, no wonder your system is shut down. No, no wonder it's not your fault you didn't do this on purpose.

00:20:28:01 - 00:20:53:03
Speaker 1
You were taught a system. You used the system. It probably worked for a lot of things for a long time. So you kept doing it. And then you woke up one day and you were like, what is this? Is this my life? Am I always going to feel like this? Adulting sucks.

00:20:53:05 - 00:20:56:15
Speaker 1
Right? But if your basic needs aren't met, you can't regulate.

00:20:56:15 - 00:21:16:08
Speaker 1
I don't. This is why I actually don't talk about mindfulness and mindset all that much on my podcast. Not because I don't know how powerful it is. I've read all the studies. My background is what my background is, you know, like whatever. But the people that end up burnt out, that's sometimes a step too far for them.

00:21:16:10 - 00:21:44:08
Speaker 1
That's something that comes later in the burnout recovery process. That's something that, yes needs to happen. But that's like, you know, 14 months into recovery. That's not week one. It's like way it's like way too hard. And we think it's that that's the basics and it's not.

00:21:44:10 - 00:21:51:22
Speaker 1
I did oh sorry. Yeah yeah.

00:21:52:00 - 00:22:02:14
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:22:02:16 - 00:22:20:15
Speaker 1
Yeah yeah.

00:22:20:17 - 00:22:39:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I don't actually believe in burnout prevention very much unless you've already been burnt out and you're preventing it for the second time. The reason I don't believe in burnout prevention is that most of us that end up burnt out don't have that introspective skill. So we by the time we're actually paying attention, it's too late. And it's not your.

00:22:39:19 - 00:22:56:03
Speaker 1
I don't want people to feel guilty for getting there when the world is like you could have prevented it if you just paid attention to you couldn't pay attention to those things because your brain is not primed to pay attention to those things. Because your development happened in a way that said no to that, and that has nothing.

00:22:56:03 - 00:23:16:07
Speaker 1
It almost has nothing to do with you. It's nature and nurture from your childhood development years that you had no influence over. So if you like, like you need to know that burnout is not your fault. You need to know that you. If you're wondering if you're there, it's probably too late and the recovery process is 12 to 18 months typically.

00:23:16:09 - 00:23:37:01
Speaker 1
But the line in the sand between I'm just tired or I'm just stressed and burnt out is one that's really clear to me. And it took me a couple of years to figure this out. But the line in the sand is this if you are tired or stressed, you can take three days off, do a staycation, get your get your house vacuumed and like get your stuff organized.

00:23:37:01 - 00:24:04:10
Speaker 1
And then maybe you're not dying to go back to work on Tuesday, but you're rested, you've recovered, you feel like a human again, and like you go to work on Tuesday and you're basically okay when you're burnt out. You could sleep for a month. And still feel tired and be like, why am I not recovering? When you're burnt out, you don't feel it, doesn't feel like you ever recover because you don't.

00:24:04:12 - 00:24:32:14
Speaker 1
Your sleep doesn't do the same. Detoxing that it's supposed to do. All the glial cells in your brain, all the mitochondrial waste, all of that stuff doesn't get cleaned out because your body doesn't have the power for it. Your gut bacteria is all messed up. Your muscles are atrophying. There's all this stuff going on. You don't have enough rest or peace in your life to recover, to restore your body so you don't restore.

00:24:32:16 - 00:25:05:11
Speaker 1
So you try and you try and you try and you still and you're like, okay, okay, I just took a vacation. I feel worse. That's burnout.

00:25:05:13 - 00:25:16:17
Speaker 1
And then work on our mindsets so that we can interpret life differently and deal with stress differently. And so yes, the mindset. Yes.

00:25:16:19 - 00:25:31:20
Speaker 1
Right. Yes. No. Yeah.

00:25:39:07 - 00:25:42:23
Speaker 1
Okay.

00:25:42:23 - 00:26:09:01
Speaker 1
specifically as it's linked to financial scarcity. I am someone that has dealt with financial scarcity and believing that I have to work myself into the ground in order to have enough resources, which obviously then leads to me getting sick and my body having issues or my mental health being so low that I actually can't then work.

00:26:09:03 - 00:26:32:11
Speaker 1
and so I guess I've had a hard time kind of knowing when it's time to put on the brakes and back up a little bit before I get to that point of complete burnout. And I would love to know if there are any. Yeah, I guess any advice you have or any maybe signs to look for before you're at the point of no return of like, oh my gosh, I can't, I can't go into work one day.

00:26:32:11 - 00:27:08:14
Speaker 1
I'm, I'm just drowning. because I feel like sometimes for me personally, when I am feeling good and healthy, I can I it's a really slippery slope for me to then start to be like, well, if I just if I pick up one more shift a week, then I'll have this much money I can put into savings or I can buy this thing that I need, or I could go on that trip later on and inevitably what happens is that then by the time later on comes around, I am sick or really burnt out or very much not okay mentally.

00:27:08:17 - 00:27:25:22
Speaker 1
And yeah, so I'm just wondering, I'm in my personal life and in my professional life trying to figure out the balance of making sure that my needs are met and I'm okay, and I'm doing enough well knowing when to cool it. Before I get to the point of wanting to

00:27:32:08 - 00:27:48:13
Speaker 1
This is an amazing question that I think actually has two parts. The first thing she asked is what? What's the deal with burnout and financial security? And the second thing she asked was how do I notice it within myself before I get too far? Which I just said, I don't really believe in burnout prevention because we don't most people don't have that skill.

00:27:48:13 - 00:28:06:10
Speaker 1
So a little bit of this answer has already come out. But let's start with the burnout in financial security. Peace. Financial security is trauma. Financial insecurity is a trauma. So let's just start with a.

00:28:06:11 - 00:28:17:13
Speaker 1
Financial insecurity is a trauma that is very closely linked to how your brain developed in childhood.

00:28:17:15 - 00:28:47:05
Speaker 1
So first we need to deal with that. Does that. But that might mean therapy. It might mean eMDR. It might mean shaking and dancing. It might mean whatever method you want to use to move through things that are stuck in your system, use them. There's I'm not a I'm trauma informed, but I'm not a trauma therapist. But there are people that who are but that needs to be dealt with because that's actually much more serious than we want to give it credit for.

00:28:47:07 - 00:29:10:00
Speaker 1
Because when you have financial insecurity, trauma, it doesn't actually ever matter how much money you have. It doesn't change. It doesn't doesn't matter how much money you have from for that portion of how much money you have and how much is enough, etc. and what you need. My question to that person, should they were they a one on one client would be what kind of systems do you have in place for budgeting?

00:29:10:00 - 00:29:28:05
Speaker 1
How do you keep track of your money? Do you know where all of it is? Because a lot of people with financial insecurity don't really know what's going on with their money all the time, because they're afraid to look at it and they're afraid to know. So I think part of you have to deal with the emotional piece of it.

00:29:28:07 - 00:29:52:02
Speaker 1
while while you do this, you can't just do this part. But I use y nab, which is you need a budget budgeting software, and I let it teach me how to set my business up and set myself up for a long term so that I can have those feelings of safety. I now know how to keep enough money in my bank account to have three months of expenses for my business, right?

00:29:52:02 - 00:30:09:23
Speaker 1
My my, personal banking is separate, but for my business so that all of my bills are covered and things like that. There's a number in white knob that you can click on. It gives you a report that's called Age of Money, and it tells you basically how much time passes between the day you get money and the day you spend money.

00:30:10:05 - 00:30:31:13
Speaker 1
And the higher that number is, the more financial security you have. So sometimes what I find happens that with people that have financial insecurity is they get a mini windfall, a tax return or something, and then they splurge instead of giving themselves a buffer for another time. So I think first we need to deal with the emotional stuff around the trauma.

00:30:31:13 - 00:30:55:10
Speaker 1
Second, we need to create a really clear system for how you're going to save and spend money where you're going to splurge. Because I believe in splurging and joy and all of like, I want you to go on vacation and I want you to enjoy everything. So let's figure out how we can work that in. And then let's really look at all of your expenses and figure out where your money's going, why and how and when so that we can plan it.

00:30:55:10 - 00:31:13:15
Speaker 1
Why not allows you, for instance, like if you pay your car insurance twice a year, it has you set money aside monthly so that when the bill comes in, you have all of that money for that bill so that you're not like, oh shoot, I forgot, it's my car insurance and now I need an extra thousand dollars, so I have to pick up two shifts.

00:31:13:17 - 00:31:37:05
Speaker 1
you know, I and the reason I'm talking so much about this piece is because I hear you. Because I have that trauma. I grew up that way, and I worked shift work throughout college. I was a bartender and a waitress, so I. This is. Yeah, I just got to pick up a shift. I just got it. I know this world deep in my soul because this is how I lived my life for the majority of it.

00:31:37:07 - 00:32:06:08
Speaker 1
Still the majority not for long, but still the majority. The second piece of that is how do I. And I'm going to change the question a little bit. I think the true question is how do I start to notice when my capacity is waning? Instead of only notice what my bank account is doing? So this question to me, I don't know what your capacity notices are.

00:32:06:08 - 00:32:32:00
Speaker 1
We call these capacity notices in my in my business. And for some people you'll start to get a little more clumsy. For some people, your insomnia will kick up. For some people, you'll start to be irritable. And for me, it's always resentment. Resentment is my capacity notifier every time, right? So I don't know what your capacity notice fires are because I'm not living your life, and I wish you were on the call with us because I would love to have this conversation with you.

00:32:32:05 - 00:32:53:06
Speaker 1
But let's figure out what you need to figure out is what your personal capacity no to fires are. When would your body? When does your body ding like a phone does to let you know that your battery is down to 20%? Like, what are the things that happen? Do you swear more? Do you forget words? Do you lose your keys?

00:32:53:06 - 00:33:12:19
Speaker 1
Do you trip more? Or do you go the wrong way in your car because you go somewhere that you go all the time, instead of the place that you were supposed to be going? Do you like, do you stop cooking food and eat out a lot? Do you take shorter showers? This is a big one for me. When I when I'm overwhelmed, when there's a lot going on, I'm like a tits and bitch girl.

00:33:12:19 - 00:33:49:06
Speaker 1
And then I'm out. Tits and bits. I got to get out of here. I don't feel when I start to feel like I don't have enough time to clean myself. That's a signal to me now that my capacity has gone down, that I need to look at my schedule, look at my life, and make some adjustments. The other little piece of that is grooming is one of the ways that we signal safety to our nervous systems, because you're not going to ever groom, do your hair and brush your teeth and pick out your skin and put oil on.

00:33:49:06 - 00:34:14:11
Speaker 1
You're not going to groom when you're being attacked. So the very act of grooming helps your body to restore itself. So if you're doing tits and bits, not only are you not taking a good shower, not only are you rushing yourself and feeling this massive sense of urgency, but you're also missing out on an opportunity to to tell your body like, hey, we've got time.

00:34:14:11 - 00:34:44:13
Speaker 1
We're safe. Like, I got this schmancy new patch of whipped, you know, body scrub that smells like chai tea is the best thing on the planet, right? That action is more than just that action. That action is a super signal to your body that says we're safe, we're good. We got time. Everything's okay.

00:34:44:15 - 00:35:06:01
Speaker 1
Oh, gosh. Oxytocin. Did you have to do that to me? Holly? Did you have to do it to me? Do you know how I feel about oxytocin? Have you heard this? Oh, boy. Oh, man. So, should we listen to another question, or should we just dive into this?

00:35:06:03 - 00:35:33:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, it can be a quick dive. We'll do. We'll do three minutes or less. Oxytocin has a flipside. Oxytocin is not just a love hormone. Oxytocin is our social signaling hormone. It tells us whether we should include people or exclude people. It's not only about love and affection. People think that it's not true. So if we are in a group of people and we have bonded and our oxytocin together is high, so say to me, you and three other podcasters in the wellness space and we're like, I love you, I love you, I love you are amazing.

00:35:33:15 - 00:36:08:04
Speaker 1
And then somebody walks over and has a little bit of an attitude. We are more likely as a group to attack that person as an invader because of our oxytocin bond. So oxytocin can make us dangerous. Oxytocin can be has claws, so we have to be careful about that. The grooming in particular, I don't know what the neurochemical association is, something that I haven't actually looked up, but now I will, but I don't I don't think that it's an oxytocin thing.

00:36:08:07 - 00:36:21:01
Speaker 1
It could be an oxytocin thing, but I'm not sure. But I just need everybody to know that oxytocin is not only rainbows and butterflies.

00:36:21:03 - 00:36:48:22
Speaker 1
I know, and it's like, not it's not even new information. It's been out there forever. But I don't know. I feel like I'm the only person that talks about it. One of my keynotes is called The Biology of Belonging because I need to like if people are like, we need to just focus on belonging. Everybody belongs. And I'm like, yeah, but your body doesn't think that a new person comes in and your body, for reasons unknown to you, will flip oxytocin off to say, no, keep that person out.

00:36:48:22 - 00:37:13:23
Speaker 1
This person is not safe. Maybe they look like somebody that hurt you 20 years ago and you don't even remember. I don't know, but oxytocin has got a flip side, so we should know that two minutes.

00:37:14:01 - 00:37:28:17
Speaker 1
I would I would love her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:28:17 - 00:37:54:08
Speaker 1
It feels to me like growing up, there was an emphasis on almost being rewarded for getting to that point of burnout. Like it meant that you were strong if you were pushing, pushing, pushing, doing as much as you possibly can, being as productive as possible, not taking anyone else's help, not taking a break. and so I guess I'm curious about.

00:37:54:10 - 00:38:23:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. Where where we learned that where that kind of came into play. and also how how to do some unlearning as an adult. Now, who is trying to kind of reframe and restructure, the narrative with mental health being a big, important one. I'm very grateful that we seem to be collectively in society. in more ways.

00:38:23:16 - 00:38:50:02
Speaker 1
We're more aware of mental health, being an important thing and needing to be, talked about and listened to. but, you know, I'm in my early 30s. I also grew up in a place where it was it was really like, it's pretty, it's noble. I, I guess to really just, like, work, work, work almost until you work yourself into the ground.

00:38:50:02 - 00:39:04:07
Speaker 1
And, so I guess I'm curious, like, where that came from in our society. And if you have any specific, thoughts on kind of how to unlearn that as an adult and how to reframe that.

00:39:04:20 - 00:39:39:10
Speaker 1
There is an episode of ride that is with doctors Erin Henson and, Kristen Donnelly. And that episode. Yeah, it's. That episode explains how the Puritan culture. When we left the UK, we. I was that was not my family. But when people left the UK and came to New England and started America, the Puritanism that was baked into our new culture gave us these ideas.

00:39:39:10 - 00:40:04:17
Speaker 1
So this is not new. This is old. If you look at American top ten cultural values currently, you'll find on that list two of the top ten values are hard work and individualism. So these are baked into our culture hard core. So we need to know that that's true. And we need to know we need to redefine instead of sometimes it's about unwinding what's happening in our bodies.

00:40:04:17 - 00:40:33:13
Speaker 1
And sometimes it's it starts with the mindset piece of redefining what those things mean. I don't mind working hard. The day of a keynote. But the day after a keynote, I'm probably getting a massage. Like there's I've found as as one should write. So there's you have to know. What your values are very clearly your values. You have to dig into this.

00:40:33:13 - 00:40:59:17
Speaker 1
You've got to do values exercises like eight times, because the first seven times you're lying. If you've done a core values exercise and you only did it once, you're lying and not because you want to. Just because the first answers that you give are the ones that are expected, the ones that are nice, the ones that are considered good, the ones that you have some sort of moral agreement with, even if you don't believe them or don't feel them.

00:40:59:19 - 00:41:24:19
Speaker 1
So you need to know what your values are, and then understand how to apply hard work according to your values. It's okay to work hard, as long as it is in alignment with where you're going and what you're doing. And I don't believe that it's in alignment with what anybody is doing to create illness. That's not what we're that it's not that that means we've gone too far.

00:41:24:19 - 00:41:57:17
Speaker 1
So if you have to know what is how to define these things, you need to know how to define hard work. You need to know how to define individualism, which is a whole separate conversation. And you need to know how to define success. Oftentimes with my clients, I have them do I have them write their own eulogy? Which sounds really morbid, but if I die when I die, if somebody stands up there and read something about how much I sacrificed, I will be furious.

00:41:57:18 - 00:42:18:16
Speaker 1
Every single obituary eulogy that says things like she gave up everything for her family is like, not what I want, so I can't act like that if that's not what I want. If that's what you want, that's fine with me. I'm not saying that we shouldn't want that. I'm saying I don't want that. I want people to say that I had fun and want people to say that I was fun to be with.

00:42:18:18 - 00:42:46:05
Speaker 1
I want people to say that I took advantage of joy, that I grabbed everything that life gave me and used it because it was fun. That I still managed to provide a service to people that was incredibly helpful, but not at a cost to myself. Not at a cost to my joy or my generosity. So what are your values?

00:42:46:07 - 00:43:15:22
Speaker 1
What are your values? Not Americans values. Not your mother's values, not your grandmother's values, not the values you think other people should have. What are the what are your real values and how can you live according to those? But this is none of this is your fault. This is all baked into our culture.

00:43:15:23 - 00:43:29:13
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:44:59:18 - 00:45:19:17
Speaker 1
Well. And you can. Buffer. Yeah, yeah. You can buffer some hard things if you're taking care of yourself in a way that allows you to buffer some hard things, like you have the energy. That's what bounce back ability is about, right. You're not always standing in the middle. Sometimes you're going to get thrown to the left. The problem isn't getting thrown to the left.

00:45:19:17 - 00:45:46:02
Speaker 1
The problem is not being able to return to center. So it's not about not having hard things happen. It's not about, you know, it's about the ability to come back, the ability and the flexibility to come back. This is, you know, people call this resilience. I just hate that word. But I think that's that's important. And I think also it's important to say, because there are some people out there right now that are fighting against this line of reasoning and they're saying, well, there's some things in my life that I have to do and I don't have a choice.

00:45:46:04 - 00:46:05:04
Speaker 1
Like, I hear you, Sheila, I get what you're saying. Let me tell you this. There's things that all of us do that we don't want to do, and we don't have a choice that don't feel aligned with our values. But sometimes we have to make that choice. When we do make that choice. When when you say this does not line up with my priorities, it doesn't line up with my values.

00:46:05:04 - 00:46:28:11
Speaker 1
There are other reasons that I'm going to do it to support my partner, because I'm broke and I have no choice. Like I have to pay a bill, or else I'm going to lose my house or whatever the situation is. When you have to compromise on your values, when you have to martyr yourself, when you have to make a sacrifice because it's going to happen in life.

00:46:28:13 - 00:46:46:21
Speaker 1
My rule is that you find a way to pay yourself back, understand and recognize and acknowledge that you are making a sacrifice. You are making it intentionally and for good reason. Don't blame anybody if you decide to. Don't blame people. Make the decision and own it. And then on the other side of it, find a way to pay yourself back.

00:46:46:23 - 00:47:07:14
Speaker 1
Sometimes that involves finances, sometimes it doesn't. I really love having a clean desk. Sometimes I pay myself back by taking a half an hour off in the morning and cleaning my desk some. One of my clients loves a blowout. She pays herself back with a blowout. I also love breakfast by myself at a restaurant. I don't know what it is about breakfast by myself at a restaurant, but I really enjoy that.

00:47:07:16 - 00:47:27:23
Speaker 1
So I pay myself back that way. It's $17. You like it? Like it's okay. Like it's all right. And so you can pay yourself back with anything from a spa day to an extra yoga nidra meditation that's free on insight time or in the morning. I don't care what it costs or what it is or how it fuels you.

00:47:28:03 - 00:47:46:13
Speaker 1
I care that it matters to you, that it fuels you, that it feels good to you, and that you're doing it intentionally to pay yourself back for a sacrifice that you made intentionally and by choice, because you know that you deserve to be refueled.

00:47:46:15 - 00:48:23:12
Speaker 1
It is.

00:48:23:12 - 00:48:27:13
Speaker 2
got to refill that cup.

00:48:27:14 - 00:48:31:01
Speaker 2
So we had one more listener send in something,

00:48:31:01 - 00:48:59:07
Speaker 1
So I feel like I've been preparing for a major burnout since I was in high school. I'm 33 now and also experi sensing that burnout at the same time. I'm very thankful that I have a time right now where I can deeply rest and don't have to work full time, but it's still tough to not be productive all the time or subscribe to a expected 9 to 5 40 hour workweek.

00:48:59:09 - 00:49:18:00
Speaker 1
So two things I'd like to know are how can I support myself through a rest period after burnout? And then what signs are there when I'm coming out of burnout? I don't want to get back into my old habits of overworking myself, so how can I kind of ease back into it?

00:49:18:00 - 00:49:35:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. The beginning is do the things that we've been doing that we've been saying for the rest of the episode. If you had time to rest and now you're feeling a little more rested, now's the time to dip into your foundational self-care. Now's the time to find out. Am I really doing that?

00:49:35:04 - 00:49:53:11
Speaker 1
Am I showing up for myself that way? Do I have my own back? And then you need to figure out what your values are. You can't show up to a new workplace and know if you're aligned. If you don't know what your values are, that's just not possible. So you need to know that ahead of time you need to also start.

00:49:53:13 - 00:50:09:14
Speaker 1
This sounds funny coming from a burnout specialist, and I don't mean in very big ways, but you need to start to venture out and push yourself a little bit so you can find out where your edges are. A lot of times people in my Facebook community will say, I did too much and now I have to rest. And I'm so upset with myself for doing too much so well.

00:50:09:15 - 00:50:20:20
Speaker 1
How else were you supposed to find out where the line was?

00:50:20:22 - 00:50:51:08
Speaker 1
Right. It's like that's you're going to you're going to bump up against it. Sometimes my ask is that you go gentle with yourself. Please. You're gonna bump up against it when you bump up against it. I want you to reverse engineer it and say, was there a capacity notifier that happened before this that I didn't see? Let me go backwards in my day, was there some indication that I was on this path that I didn't notice?

00:50:51:09 - 00:51:11:21
Speaker 1
I'm. You'll find one the more often you look and then when you learn what they are, you'll be able to take action sooner. But you're not going to be able to take action sooner until you bump against the wall a few times. And so you bruise yourself a few times. You can't do it any other way. And people don't like to hear this because I'm not a rainbows and unicorn kind of coach.

00:51:11:21 - 00:51:36:19
Speaker 1
I'm not going to tell you that you can recover from burnout and then shoot rainbows out of your bottom for the rest of your days, like that's just not what life looks like would be really cool. It's like a really cool superpower, but it's probably not going to happen. So you're going to bump up against things. What if you went into it saying, when I find myself bumping up against something, I'm going to reverse engineer it to see if there's a signal that was a little earlier that I can pay attention to.

00:51:36:23 - 00:51:54:00
Speaker 1
And I'm going to be really proud of myself for knowing that I bumped up against it, and then I'm going to pay myself back, even though I didn't choose to bump up against it necessarily, because I wasn't aware when I bump up against something, I'm going to pay myself back, and then I'm going to pay attention again the next day and see how it goes.

00:51:54:02 - 00:51:58:01
Speaker 1
That's it.

00:51:58:03 - 00:52:24:11
Speaker 1
That's learning.

00:52:24:13 - 00:52:46:10
Speaker 1
I think the podcast is the best place to find us. What you should know about what's available to you is there's two major portions. One of them is, B2C, which means business to consumer, which means if you are a burnt out person, we do offer group programs for burnout recovery, and those function on a waitlist system. So we fill our waitlist once our waitlist is full, we start a new program.

00:52:46:14 - 00:53:06:01
Speaker 1
So when we start, a program is dependent on you, not on some random calendar date that we chose just because. So getting on the waitlist for untried will ensure that someone starts sooner rather than later. And you can join. Every group is no bigger than seven people to make sure that we have enough time, that Sarah has enough time with each person.

00:53:06:02 - 00:53:44:14
Speaker 1
The other thing is, if your company is a mess or you have a conference coming up, that's where I show up. Sarah does all the group programing and I do all the flying over the country and telling people to get their act together in their businesses so that they're not burning people out. So if there's somewhere that if there's an erg that you're a part of, or there's a women's leadership day that you're a part of, and you think that this message could be useful, you can reach out to me through my website at Kate donovan.com.

00:53:44:16 - 00:53:47:01
Speaker 1
Thank you. Holly, thank you for having me.

00:53:52:06 - 00:54:17:11
Speaker 1
So reviews are like gold in the podcast world, because it's what talks to the algorithm gods and helps to make this podcast appear in other places so more people can find it, which is what we want. We want this podcast to share far and wide for the people to hear. So I'm going to read a recent review and if you leave a review, it would mean the world and I will share it on the podcast as well.

00:54:17:12 - 00:54:40:10
Speaker 1
This review said Holly is so well spoken and insightful. Her episode about girlfriends, which is episode 12 but you can link it in the show notes, made me so grateful for all those in my life. She's so gracious and finds the good in everyday situations. This podcast has brought me peace and joy and every new episode is a breath of fresh air.

00:54:40:12 - 00:54:44:08
Speaker 1
I'm always looking forward to the next time I can hear her tranquil voice.