FRIED. The Burnout Podcast

Heather Hansen’s burnout, like unfortunately so many others, landed her in the hospital. Her stress levels had become so extreme due to her career as a defense attorney that Heather’s body responded with a severe allergic reaction. Afterward, Heather realized she needed to start advocating for herself with the same level of compassion, love, and loyalty that she had for her clients in the courtroom. Now, a Best-Selling author and speaker, Heather teaches others how to self-advocate through mastering the art of the ask and convincing their inner juries.    In a courtroom, both sides present the exact same evidence from different perspectives. It is up to the jury to consider that evidence and choose which side to support. The same is true for your inner jury. When you start looking for evidence of positive things about yourself, your inner jury will feel more confident about trusting you. This will make it easier for you to advocate for yourself. Give yourself permission to pursue what you want for now, knowing that it will change at some point. Once you know what it is you want, then it is time to ask for help or accommodations out loud and with delight. In order to ask effectively, you must speak with compassion, curiosity, and credibility. Approach your ask from the other person’s perspective instead of your own by asking what they want and speaking to it.    Recovering from burnout requires that you be able to ask for help when you need it. Self-advocacy can be particularly challenging for perfectionists, but it does not have to be. When you can ask for what you need from a place of compassion rather than resentment, you are much more likely to get a ‘yes’.    Quotes • “What I decided to do was to start advocating for myself the way that I advocated for my clients in the courtroom.” (5:02-5:09 | Heather) • “You need to know what you want. You need to ask for it out loud and with delight. And you need to master the ask.” (8:55-9:02 | Heather) • “You've got to give your inner jury a different story.” (11:23-11:11:25 | Heather) • “For those of us who got to where we thought we wanted to be, and then it wasn't the right place for us anymore…that's okay. It just means that you are meant for more.” (13:29-13:42 | Heather) • “If you are asking with resentment, you are very unlikely to get the things that you want.” (16:27-16:34 | Heather) • “In the courtroom, both sides have the same evidence. And both sides use the same evidence to prove different things. So you need to decide what story you want to support.” (19:10-19:21 | Heather) • “If you're struggling with advocating for yourself, make it about something else…Sometimes if you can externalize it, it makes it easier to start advocating.” (48:10-48:37 | Heather)   Links Connect with Heather Hansen: https://advocatetowin.com/ https://www.instagram.com/anelegantwarrior/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-hansen-84243512/ https://view.flodesk.com/pages/64710dde8533b6ba4f709de9   XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Dex Randall’s burnout experience was a long time coming. He shares that as a child, right from the beginning, he was always afraid of everything. His parents’ behavior was unpredictable and he learned very quickly that it was not a good idea to trust any person ever. The coping mechanisms that Dex learned as protective measures throughout childhood followed into adulthood. Eventually, this came to a head when Dex entered into a job position where he was not in alignment with the founder and felt unable to do his job the way he wanted to. He explains that at that moment, he really felt like the stress was going to kill him. He quit his job on the spot and three weeks later experienced a heart attack that landed him in the ICU.    Dex’s experience with his burnout and heart attack led him to become a burnout coach specializing in male burnout. Even though he now is an accomplished burnout professional, it was a long journey to relearn and deconstruct the maladaptive coping mechanisms from childhood that had been so critical to his survival. Around 5 years ago, Dex was diagnosed with cPTSD, which is complex PTSD that results from long standing, repetitive trauma. This diagnosis helped Dex to reframe his burnout and understand that it was not his fault. Psychological safety is incredibly important, and it can be very hard to ask for help, especially if you have been conditioned not to trust people socially.    Men are typically less likely than women to seek help as they view it as a weakness, but there is nothing more courageous than asking for help. Burnout is not your fault, and you can recover from it. The energy to do so already resides inside you. You just have to seek out the love within your heart.    Quotes • “This thought went through my mind that the stress was at such a high level now that it was physically going to kill me.” (4:40-4:47 | Dex) • “Whatever we learn as a child as a coping mechanism is very hardwired in by the time we become an adult.” (16:25-16:30 | Dex) • “Complex PTSD is often a label given to people who, for example, were in the military where they've had repeated trauma in the military sense, but it's more often given to people who experience trauma they couldn't digest as children.” (18:51-19:08 | Dex) • “We really do need to do some work on psychological safety, because it really makes a big difference.” (23:05-23:10 | Dex) • “I think what men in burnout, the message that I would extend to them is that they are wonderful, well intentioned, big hearted human beings who are suffering intensely for reasons beyond their control.” (40:46-41:00 | Dex) • “I have to realize I'm a valuable and worthy human being before I'm going to do anything about the experiences of burnout.” (43:35-43:43 | Dex)    Links Connect with Dex Randall: Website: https://dexrandall.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachdexrandall/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coachdexrandall XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Even if you do not think you have experienced childhood trauma, there are many ways that childhood experiences can impact your ability to regulate your emotions. Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs include both events that happened to you like abuse or neglect and events that you simply witnessed. Trauma impacts child brain development at an epigenetic level, causing deficiencies in the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning and emotion regulation. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, host Cait Donovan discusses the link between ACEs and burnout.    Adverse childhood experiences impact the brain in a way that is very similar to the effects seen from long term stress. These experiences have a direct impact on the neurochemicals and hormones that are needed for regulating stress. Since your stress system cannot function the way it is supposed to, you are more prone to burnout. This further demonstrates how burnout is systemic and not the fault of the individual.    If you have a higher ACEs score, such as one that is at a 4 or above, you are more likely to have a higher level of emotional dysregulation. Any adverse events that happened in your childhood physically changed the way your brain developed and caused you to be more susceptible to burnout. Remember to be gentle with yourself, because burnout is not your fault and it may take longer for you to recover from stress than someone with a lower ACEs score.    Quotes  • “You don't have to be the ‘direct victim’ of abuse or neglect for it to affect you and your physical and emotional and mental health later on in life.” (6:54-7:06 | Cait) • “I truly believe that if we spend more time helping families to live healthier with one another that is the way we eliminate burnout long-term. That's the way we really hashtag end burnout culture.” (8:21-8:35 | Cait)  • “There are interruptions to proper brain development when you experience adverse childhood experiences. These changes in brain development are nearly the same ones as we see with long term chronic stress.” (9:10-9:30 | Cait) • “Adverse childhood experiences have various effects on the actual neurochemicals and hormones of your stress response and the structures that they attach to, and that interrupts your stress cycle somehow.” (15:32-15:50 | Cait) • “If your stress response system is not working the way that it's supposed to, you are going to be more likely to burn out.” (23:24-23:33 | Cait) • “Burnout is not your fault. You do deserve better.” (25:04-25:06 | Cait)   Links  Burnout Recovery Group Coaching Summer Cohort: https://bit.ly/summerFRIEDgroup https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/aces/pdf/vs-1105-aces-H.pdf Supportive Research for a Correlation between ACEs and Burnout    XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Kelley Bonner experienced burnout while working in what she thought would be her forever job. Since she was a little girl, she had dreamed of becoming a prison social worker. As a Black woman and daughter of an immigrant mother, she was inspired by her desire to help Black and Brown people who are disproportionately harmed by the prison system. After nearly three years of working what was supposed to be her dream job, Kelley found herself having a full blown panic attack on the floor of the prison complex. Approximately six months later, she quit her job with no plan. Now, Kelley is a company culture strategist and licensed therapist with over 15 years of experience, as well as the host of the Black Girl Burnout podcast.    Kelley’s burnout experience helped her to realize that she had the wrong impression of what work was meant to be. Fundamentally, work is just work. When you look to your boss or co-workers for validation, those boundaries between life and work can become very blurry. Therapy can help you to learn how to center joy in your life. Once you center your life around joy, everything else will fall into place. The intersection of racism and burnout created additional challenges like unlearning the unconscious biases that she had been taught by her parents, such as, that as a Black woman, she needed to be better than the best at all times.   Putting aside her perfectionism as a high achieving Black woman was challenging, but it also freed up so much more space for joy in Kelley’s life. Remember to build joy into your days and shift your mindset around work so that it does not take over your whole identity.    Quotes • “You cannot heal from a place of shame.” (11:05-11:08 | Kelley) • “I really put a lot of my identity into what I could do being competent. And not just being competent, being the best.” (15:47-15:54 | Kelley) • “Fundamentally that is what work is. It gives you the opportunity to express what matters to you and express your values.” (22:45-22:51 | Kelley)  • “I don't think you should hate work. I don't think you should be apathetic toward work. But you need to remember, it's just work.” (33:23-33:30 | Kelley) • “When joy is at the center, the money comes, the relationships come, the ease with which you navigate your day, it all comes from what you center.” (36:11-36:21 | Kelley)   Links Connect with Kelley Bonner: https://www.blackgirlburnout.com http://instagram.com/blackgirlburnout/ and https://www.instagram.com/kelleyabonner/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelleybonnerlcsw/ https://view.flodesk.com/pages/63a215d8531f97890ef2a34f XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

During burnout, it’s common to not use your resources in the most efficient way. An important step in burnout recovery is to look at how you are using your resources like time, energy, money, and community and see where you could be resourcing more sustainably. In today’s #straightfromcaitandsarah episode, host Cait Donovan and FRIED Burnout Recovery Guide, Sarah Vosen, discuss how to assess, access, and assemble the resources you need to optimize your burnout recovery.    In Sarah’s burnout recovery group coaching, she leads a resourcing exercise which compares the human body to a tree using resources from the Earth to survive. A tree naturally uses its available resources in a sustainable way. For a sustainable burnout recovery plan, you have to be really intentional about budgeting your resources and seeing where you might need to prune the tree a bit. If you put all your focus on one resource like money and neglect others, your tree will be unbalanced. In order to re-resource, look at where you are spending your time and energy and see where you can make space for recovery and rest.    Burnout recovery requires rest. If you do not budget time and energy appropriately, you will be too busy to make adequate space in your day for rest and may find yourself trapped in a repeating cycle of burnout. Be honest with yourself and assess how you are using your resources and how to re-assemble them so that your tree can thrive.    Quotes • “During burnout, you're exploiting your resources the same way we're exploiting the resources of the Earth.” (5:14-5:20 | Cait) • “If you're only focused on money, and you're only doing things that make you money, and you're ignoring all of your other resources, you're probably not going to feel the greatest.” (15:02-15:12 | Sarah) • “Burnout is a valid reason to take a break, to shift some things in your life, to meet your own needs and ask for help getting your needs met from other people if that's what it takes, and to recover.” (24:01-24:20 | Sarah) • “Having other people to support you in your life and working with other people doesn't dilute your ideas. It makes you more resourced.” (30:25-30:35 | Cait)    Links    https://caitdonovan.as.me/sarah-group bit.ly/summerFRIEDgroup   XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Karina Schneider spent nearly two decades working in a corporate environment prior to setting up her own private coaching and consulting practice with a focus on helping workplaces become spaces that support employee wellbeing. Now, as a reintegration coach, Karina consults with employees and their leaders as they navigate a return to work after a mental health leave. Karina is uniquely qualified to help both employees and employers through this process, as she has prior experience in the HR field and navigated her own return to work after seven months of leave for burnout recovery.   Whether you are returning from a longer FMLA leave, or even a shorter period of time, it is important to understand that your return to work is actually still part of the recovery process. Those first few days and weeks will be all about figuring out if you can apply what you learned during your time away to your work environment. You should not expect to have the same amount of energy that you had prior to your leave or try to push yourself too hard too fast. As part of recovery, those initial days are mostly about learning how to show up again and re-training your body for your work routine. Before even considering when to return to work, take time to think about what you have learned about yourself and what really matters to you. When you know what is most important to you, then you can set proper boundaries and advocate for yourself to your managers and HR team.    Pay close attention to signals from your body when you think about your return to work. Is your body telling you that now is the right time or are you feeling pressure or guilt from outside sources? It is critical for your burnout recovery and the prevention of future burnout that you go at your own pace and do not jump back full swing into work too quickly after a medical leave.   Quotes • “We're not going to talk about day one until we're clear what you've learned about yourself and what matters to you.” (15:03-15:09 | Karina)  • “We should create an environment where people feel like it's okay to just put a name to it that I struggle with ADHD, or I live with depression, or I went through burnout.” (23:48-23:59 | Karina) • “As much as I advocate for the employee owning the planning, HR and line managers play a crucial role. And if they can do that together, even better.” (33:26-33:36 | Karina) • “One of the biggest challenges they face in their first weeks is energy.” (34:44-34:48 | Karina) • “I don't say that as a weakness of ‘I only can work three days a week’, but rather, ‘I choose to work three days a week’, because that's what's right for me and for my family.” (42:28-42:39 | Karina)   Links Connect with Karina Schneider: Website: www.karinaschneider.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karinaschneider_ccs/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/karschneider Website: https://www.karinaschneider.com/returntowork XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

When people think about self-care they often picture soaking in a bubble bath, but in reality, self-care is so much more than that. Self-care is an absolutely critical part of burnout recovery. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout speaker, shares the three types of self-care that are crucial for both burnout prevention and recovery.   Cait explains that the number one type of self-care for burnout is foundational self-care. This means that you must take the time to learn how to recognize your body’s signals and actually respond to them. As you do this more, your body learns that it can trust you to meet its needs such as needing to go to the bathroom or being hungry or thirsty. Once you have invested in foundational self-care, you can move on to self-advocacy, which requires you to start speaking up for yourself and asking for what you want. This is much easier to do after building up your sense of self worth with foundational self-care. Lastly, Cait shares that sometimes coping mechanisms that used to be beneficial can become maladaptive and need to be revised. Take a look at your coping mechanisms to see which ones might still work for you and which may need to be upgraded.   You know that self-care is much more than just taking a bubble bath or meditating for a half hour. True self-care is all about investing time into taking care of yourself both physically and mentally and realizing that you are deserving of having your needs met.    Quotes • “Taking self care out of the burnout recovery equation is doing a massive disservice to everyone who needs to recover from burnout because you can't actually get out of burnout without some sort of self care.” (1:20-1:34 | Cait) • “If you do not ever learn how to speak out loud the things you want, need, desire and prefer, you are very unlikely to get those things.” (7:35-7:44 | Cait) • “If you want to recover from burnout, you must engage in the self care of self advocacy.” (9:19-9:25 | Cait)  • “This unwinding of your current coping mechanisms and keeping the ones that work well and upgrading some other ones that maybe don't work so well, is an absolutely necessary part of self care.” (12:13-12:32 | Cait) • “Coping mechanisms sometimes become maladaptive and they need to be upgraded.” (14:19-14:22 | Cait)   Links  Heather Hansen (Self Advocacy):  https://www.instagram.com/anelegantwarrior/   XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Rebecca Kase is the Owner of Rebecca Kase & CO, LLC as well as a licensed clinical social worker and author of Polyvagal Informed EMDR: A Neuro Informed Approach To Healing. You may remember her burnout story from a previous episode of FRIED. Rebecca began studying polyvagal theory at the start of the pandemic and is now an EMDR consultant and trainer. Today, she discusses the science behind polyvagal theory, how EMDR works, and how to use neuroception for healing the stress responses of the autonomic nervous system.   Polyvagal theory was developed by a researcher who was studying the heart rate changes in NICU infants in response to both safety and stress. This study was a breakthrough in seeing how stressors impact the autonomic nervous system. The symptoms of burnout all come from the autonomic nervous system. When you’re experiencing burnout, you may think that your nervous system is out to get you, but in reality it is just doing what it has adapted to do to–keep you alive. When you experience trauma or toxic stress, those memories can get stuck in your autonomic nervous system and cause physical symptoms every time the memory is triggered. EMDR can be used to unstick those memories and remove the stress response.    Toxic stress, or stress that continues for a long time and overwhelms your abilities to cope, can lead to a slew of serious and chronic health issues. When you take the time to befriend your autonomic nervous system and retrain it to recognize safety cues, you can reduce unwanted stress responses. Quotes • “The symptoms of burnout are all held within your autonomic nervous system.” (8:41-8:45 | Rebecca)  • “Toxic stress is really about those experiences that overwhelm your capacity to cope with and often, not always, have a pretty big dose.” (14:49-15:00 | Rebecca) • “These circuits are all adaptive. They're not your enemy. They have worked, or you wouldn't be here.” (23:48-23:54 | Rebecca) • “There's a humongous, overwhelming correlation to toxic stress and degenerative diseases.” (34:27-34:34 | Rebecca) • “You don't just think about your memories, you feel your memories.” (41:35-41:38 | Rebecca) • “When we can consciously appraise neuroception, we can increase the autonomic nervous system’s awareness of safety.” (50:14-50:21 | Rebecca)   Links Connect with Rebecca: Rebeccakase.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/69036196/admin/, Buy Rebecca's Book, Polyvagal-Informed EMDR: A Neuro-Informed Approach to Healing: https://www.amazon.com/Polyvagal-Informed-EMDR-Neuro-Informed-Approach-Healing/dp/1324030313   XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Shelley Kemmerer is a parent, a board certified physician assistant and the founder of Run Tell Mom, LLC. During her clinical year to become a physician’s assistant, Shelley became pregnant. She chose to keep her pregnancy a secret, even while enduring constant sickness. Her child was born right as she was taking her boards and afterward she threw herself into work, extending her hours so that she could work fewer days. This very quickly led Shelley right into the dual role collision of the responsibilities of being a mother and working outside the home. Today, Shelley discusses parental burnout, burnout prevention as family planning, and her own advice for already burnt out mothers and expectant parents.   Mom burnout is incredibly common, especially in places like the United States where there is no federally mandated parental leave for working mothers. When moms experience parental burnout it differs from the experience of workplace burnout in that it involves a sense of detachment from one’s own child and a feeling of ineffectiveness as a parent. For those already at that stage, reaching out to an integrated care team can be a great help. If you’re not quite at that stage yet, but are looking to prevent burnout, it is important to analyze how your time is being used, reassign household tasks, and prioritize your own self investment.   Juggling the responsibilities of parenthood and work can lead to a lot of physical and mental exhaustion. Before hitting the tipping point, lean into self strategy and figure out what you can do to regain more time for yourself throughout your day.    Quotes • “You're asking people to take care of other people, but not taking care of yourself.” (11:12-11:15 | Shelley) • “What I would love is if burnout prevention was considered a real component of family planning.” (20:30-20:37 | Shelley)  • “There's a lot to be said about burnout prevention or burnout strategies. Instead of saying self care, I'm talking about the self strategy of how to clean things up and lean into what is most necessary for myself right now.” (33:31-33:46 | Shelley) • “Prior to that boiling point, you need to start thinking about your time and how much of it is consumed with all the tasks and responsibilities that you have throughout the day, in comparison to the time that you have to rest.” (36:33-36:48 | Shelley)   Links Connect with Shelley Kemmerer: https://runtellmom.com https://www.instagram.com/runtellmom/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelleykemmererpac/ https://runtellmom.com   https://www.katemangino.com/media-page/print https://www.fairplaylife.com/the-cards https://www.amazon.com/Real-Self-Care-Transformative-Redefining-Wellness/dp/0593489721 XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm  

Monica Monfre Scantlebury is a certified life coach, health coach, and yoga instructor, but she did not start that way. Monica spent 8 years working as a teacher at the university level and then another 15 working as a highschool teacher. Even though she loved being a teacher, by year 7 educator burnout was having significant effects on her health and wellbeing. She decided to walk away from teaching and turn her side hustle of being a yoga instructor into a full-time job. Today, Monica discusses teacher burnout and how she used her side hustle as a way to pivot from teaching.    Teachers encourage students to take proper care of themselves and to follow their dreams, but they are not allowed to actually model what they teach. Neither teachers nor students can go to the bathroom or eat when they need to, and teachers are penalized for taking sick days. Monica received her first ever low evaluation score her final year of teaching, not because she was doing anything wrong, but because she had dared to use 9 out of her 10 sick days to have a hysterectomy after discovering cancer cells in her fallopian tubes. With teachers not being given the ability to take care of themselves, it is only natural that educator burnout would occur at extremely high rates. Although Monica was nervous to pursue her side hustle full-time, she is now making more money and experiencing a much more manageable level of stress.    Sometimes teachers worry that all they can do is teach, but being a teacher requires a slew of skills that can translate over to other professions. Teachers spend all day marketing ideas to their students, trying to persuade them to do what they want, and they also have a lot of experience as speakers. It is easy to feel stuck after being in the same profession for a long time, but there are always opportunities to pivot.    Quotes • “I walked away from a $106,000 salary in New York City, because I was burned out.” (7:34-7:40 | Monica) • “80% of teachers are women. The time off that it takes us to recover whether you're having a child or you're having a health condition, I don't think that people do it from a place of, ‘I'm out to get you,’ but 10 days off is not enough.” (8:24-8:42 | Monica) • “We can't say that we want our teachers to be well and that we want them to practice social-emotional learning with their students when in fact our teachers are unwell.” (9:05-9:16 | Monica)  • “A lot of teachers don't take their time off because it goes against our evaluation, and it costs more work to actually prepare to be out of the classroom, which leads to more burnout.” (15:25-15:37 | Monica) • “If you tell your students that they can chase their dreams and do the things and take care of themselves, then we have to model that.” (21:57-22:03 | Monica) • “People say if you can't do something you teach, and I would tell you that we teach, because we can do all the things.” (33:54-34:00 | Monica)   Links Connect with Monica Monfre Scantlebury: https://www.monicamonfre.com https://www.instagram.com/monicamonfre/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamonfre/ https://www.monicamonfre.com/reliablerevenuetraining   XOXO, C   If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait   https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz   Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm