#32: Change Is Possible — Building Resilience in Loss and Burnout with Sabrina Ahmed

Frank Lawton speaks with Sabrina Ahmed, a resilience coach, neuroscientist, and artist, about the deep interplay between burnout, trauma, grief, and resilience. Sabrina shares her personal journey through mental health struggles, hospitalization, and the profound loss of her father—experiences that shaped her holistic approach to healing.

They explore how burnout extends beyond stress, involving emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of ineffectiveness—and how it often stems from unprocessed loss, misaligned values, or over-adaptive coping patterns like overthinking and perfectionism. Sabrina introduces the idea of burnout archetypes (e.g., the Busy Bee, People Pleaser) and explains how loss—especially bereavement—can trigger these patterns.

Together, they unpack how resilience is a trainable skill, developed through micro-habits, body awareness, community, and behavioral experiments. Through frameworks like the Drama Triangle and Empowerment Dynamic, Sabrina offers tools to shift from reaction to agency, and from burnout to growth.

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