Kristen

Welcome to this week's Close the Chapter podcast. We are going to be talking about how to work through burnout today. If you are feeling exhausted, worn out, unmotivated, sick of the day to day grind, you're going to want to listen to today's episode, we talk all about how to work through it, how to identify burnout, some personal stories of our experience with burnout because most people have experienced this on some level in some area of their life. It's an important topic to really start conversations around, maybe you want to talk about it with your partner or a friend or co workers or a boss, start naming it and recognising the impact it's having on your nervous system, your emotions, your thoughts, your feelings, all areas of your life. And I want to introduce you to my guest today. Recently recognised by the New York City Journal as top life coach to watch out for in 2022 Amy Margarita helps people all over the world live burnout free by bringing clarity direction positive habits into their lives by filling the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. A four time entrepreneur was successful acquisitions under her belt, Amy has turned her focus to humans first coaching, a coaching network dedicated to guiding over 300 leaders and organisations on how to build healthy cultures, reduce burnout take care of themselves and put their employees first. She also has a custom jewellery company that creates Fine Jewellery for runners Victoria Coe, Amy is also an author her book, the path to break free from burnout is set to release in early 2023. She's also an avid runner, which we're going to talk about, including a world record marathon holder. So we dive deep into these topics into her journey with burnout. How did she start recognising it? What was her rock bottom moment. And if you want support in this area of burnout, you can get the free healing guide. It's a journal and you can reuse it multiple times you can grab that at Kristen k r i s t e n, d Boice boice.com, forward slash free resources. And you can get that emailed to you also follow along on social media at Kristen D Boice, on Instagram, Facebook. And then tick tock which is as you all know, new to me at Kristen Boice and Twitter at Kristen Boice and Pinterest. The main takeaways for today, I want you to write them down and think about one thing you're going to implement in your life to make change. So it's one thing to listen to the podcast, it's another to integrate change into your life. And maybe you need an accountability partner, someone that also wants to set healthier boundaries, really work on not taking on too much where your nervous system is going to scream at you. So share this with somebody that may be experiencing burnout too. And you'll can talk about the podcast, have deeper conversations. Maybe you want to share it in your work environment, or maybe at home where you might need some more help. Let's have deeper conversations. We're all most people right now are starving for deeper connection. And I hope this podcast can be a catalyst to create more of what you want. So without further ado, here is my in depth conversation with Amy on burnout. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. I am so grateful you are joining us today for this important conversation around burnout. I have had so many clients really struggling with burnout. And I'll have to confess I think all of us at some point at some point in our lives feel burned out whether we're going through grief, maybe a loss trauma. Maybe we're overstressed with work and family systems. There's so many reasons why we're burned out. So I'm so excited to have my guest on today who is coming out with a new book that you're gonna want to go grab because pre sales matter and the book world and so we're gonna put the link down in the show notes. The path to break free from burnout is her new book, Amy and I love I want to make sure I say it right, man get God gayda. Did I get it? Okay. Welcome, Amy to the podcast.

Amy

Thanks for having me. Kristen. This is so exciting.

Kristen

You're doing important work in the world, especially now more than ever. I think anytime throughout the generations we look at burnout and how it impacts family systems. us personally and our families. How did you get started on this journey of working through burnout?

Amy

Yeah, so I would confess that I'm definitely a workaholic. like no chaser of busy. And so I would say getting to burn out myself was a total rock bottom moment, a four and a half years of just grinding and listening to this hustle culture that we tend to hear everywhere. And I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur. So I've gone from like business to business to business. And so it took a rock bottom for me, which actually resulted in some interesting health issues, too. I lost the hearing in my left ear completely. And that was actually the rock bottom moment where my body was like, if you're not going to slow down, Amy, I'm going to make you right now. And so I lost him. And we can totally dig into that more, which I see your face. You're like, Oh, yes. Or how did you lose? Yeah, so I lose the hearing in my ear just popped randomly. One day, I was on a run like I always am. And my ear popped. And of course, I thought probably was a rupture. I went to the doctor and they said, Yeah, we probably think you have a hole in your ear. What not? Well, it turns out after getting bloodwork, my white blood cells were four times the amount that a human should have to the point of we're looking at did I have leukaemia brewing, my body had so much inflammation from the unmanaged stress of this burnout cycle, I was in doctor's orders, where, hey, you lost your hearing, there's nothing you can do about it, you will never hear words again in the left side, but you now can learn to manage your stress. And from that very moment, I went on my own quest to be okay, I need to heal myself. But can I also create a framework while I'm going through this to help other people? That's what ends up in my book. And I was actually blessed to be able to test it with some other corporations and some folks to see, does this really work for other people, too? So luckily, I've had a lot of learnings from my burnout that will help others. But nevertheless, it's been a real murky, scary roller coaster for sure.

Kristen

Wow, I have so many questions. The first one is, don't you like a world record? Marathon holder? I mean, am I getting that you have? Tell me about that? First of all?

Amy

Yeah. So I started running marathons actually to process a divorce on 18 year relationship back in 2016. And so I kind of jumped into running is just a way to process this. Because I had a son, there was a lot of emotions. And I was a business owner, I couldn't just crumble, so I had to figure it out. So I started marathon running, I slowly joined this really interesting. It's called the six world majors. It's this three overseas three in the United States. And it's this quest to complete all six, there's under 1000 People that have ever done it. Very few women, I think there's 300 women, I decided I was going to really commit to doing this and it's taken me, I will finish this March, I will finish all of them in Japan of all places. So excited. Running was the outlet to process and I lost this hobby. I started this and I loved the hobby of running. But in the burnout trenches, I did lose the love for running, it became another thing to do, because I had already committed to this feat. And I'm sure it added additional stress, instead of it being the way that I would find spiritual outlet. And so yeah, I'm really excited about this journey gets to end soon. It's a really great accomplishment. But yeah, being a marathon runner has been a great way to challenge myself physically, being able to process all of the things we have to go through.

Kristen

Okay, there's so much to unpack in this. Did you have your awakening while you're running these marathons? Was that part of the rock bottom you're calling? Were you running during this time? Or is this a separate time?

Amy

That is the greatest question ever. So coincidentally, my running this world major series aligns beautifully to all of the buildup of burnout. I think that I would account let's say 2017 to the start of this burnout phase. I mean, this is not something that happens overnight. I do want listeners to know that it is a culmination of years and years and unmanaged stress. Okay. So yes, I am doing this journey and starting this busy hustle this all at the same time. Your body has a way of whispering to you. And I think a lot of the times we ignore the whispers and then suddenly it screams my body has screamed three times. And the third time I lost my hearing but the second time I was running the London Marathon, and I will never forget it mile three came and I started hysterically crying. We're talking about not like, Oh, this is painful. Why am I doing this? This is a it was an emotional release of all of the stress and the frustration that I was suppressing. day over day over day, Kristen, I've never cried like this before. I was hysterical, I could hardly breathe. And here I am trying to carry on for 26 miles. It stopped a couple of times. But I like to tell folks I ran about 21 miles hysterical. And when I ran through the finish line, I don't think that I stopped crying actually, for about an hour after. I knew at that moment that I had to make some small changes in my life that things were not serving me. And this was my way of expressing it. I wish I would have stuck to my guns a little bit more, because I think if I had, I wouldn't have gone back through the cycle to lose my hearing. But know that yes, running actually, this marathon was one of the biggest eye openers that something was wrong.

Kristen

What triggered the crying? Do you remember because this is important for people to recognise what brought it on? The beautiful

Amy

thing about running for anybody out there that doesn't run and those that are probably like, oh, I can't run or running as hard. Okay, the one beautiful part about it is sometimes when you are in a tough state like that you're trying to get through it. If you go up and you resort to your mental give, start to think the ability to just think clearly, you start to surface things that you don't want to tackle. When you're sitting in, you're just living your day to

Kristen

depressed and everything comes to this way.

Amy

So immediately, what came to the surface was, how dare I let myself work the way that I work? How dare I never take a vacation without working? Why don't I have any personal time for myself? Would I ever let this happen to my loved one? No way. I would never let my son or my husband go through I would be standing in front of them. Like, don't you dare let people take advantage of you this way. But I had clients hanging me in the middle of the night sending me emails, no one was ever happy. I was letting people run all over me. And it was all coming to the surface. I was so sad that I had treated myself that way in that moment that I was hysterical. And that combined with the fact of was there anything else for me? Was I going to even be able to get out of this owning this agency or was I stuck here forever? And I think just the feeling of oh my gosh, I can't believe it. So when I was done, I tried to go put some boundaries in place. That was the first step. Like how do I put some boundaries in place? I did totally break those boundaries down. No, I didn't stick with them. But yeah, it was wild how it all came. And I was just so disappointed that let myself I had failed myself. It was self sabotage at its finest.

Kristen

Do you feel some of the burnout? Because I think this is important for people to kind of really look at, do you think it started back in your childhood? And people are gonna go back? Why? Why are you bringing up childhood when it comes to burnout?

Amy

Oh, you bet. I'll say two things about that. Absolutely. I think that I come from a family that kept me busy. I went from school to sport number one to sport number two, it was this mentality in my household of if you're busy, you won't get in trouble. You're going to be getting good grades. And that is it. It was also the feeling of always wanting to please my parents. And so even as an adult in the moments of burnout with my business, if my mom or dad would be like, you're doing so great. And I'm so proud of you and you're so successful. I'd get a surge of energy and be Nope, I gotta stay the course. I'm 41 Why would that still matter? But yes, I think that it 100% goes back I'd say that. And I think the other thing that I say in workshops, a lot that I get that sort of resistance moment from people is a lot of burnout is our choices. We have the power to choose. We don't exercise it enough. And we do put ourselves in some of these situations while burnout is sometimes uncontrollable situations, a lot of it is within our control.

Kristen

That's a tough one for folks, isn't it? It's a it's a tough one when we have to face the reality of the fear of setting boundaries or making huge changes and getting our worth and value by achieving by accolades by the acknowledgement, lights. All of that feeds this insecure part of us that perpetuates this sense of I need to keep going I need to keep hustling. And we don't even think we're hustling. It's just such a condition part of us so long. And then I'm wondering the marathon's was that part of your hustling has that been part of what you've had to reckon with achieving more goals? I'm just curious about that piece.

Amy

This is so great. I appreciate these questions. Yes. It's so funny though. This was supposed to be the sixth, right? These were six marathons. And then I started to find myself. Well, what happens when they're over? Do I have other marathons? What else and I had to stop myself the other day and say, Amy, get in the right lane and go slow for a little bit. You don't always have to be in the fast lane. So yes, it's still in my book, I wanted folks to know that burnout. Number one, you're not going to heal it overnight. And this is lifelong work. And this is lifelong work. For me, I literally have hit rock bottom, and I am 90%. Better. I mean, I am really doing a lot better now. But just that question you asked me? Yes, of course, these were goals that I had to do. It's almost like when will they end? When Will? Could they calm down? Some? Why do I always have to chase these large milestones? And yes, that was a big red flag the other day was slow down, it's okay. It's okay to slow down

Kristen

and give you that permission. Because there's a payoff when we do well at something or we get accolades for it, there really is there's this younger part of us that says, Man that feels so good, right? I do well at the job if I do well in the marathons, if I achieve these goals? And it's hard for people to say, well, then what am I going to do? So what are some of the things that you've done to address one of the looking outside of yourself, or pleasing others or the accolades, we have so much a part of us that just wants to feel good about ourselves? That's really a lot of what we're all struggling with? So what are some of the things and how do you find that inner peace, to deal with the burnout?

Amy

I think the very first piece of it is being true to your authentic self, I think somewhere along the way, and it's so funny, you bring up childhood, because I think it could even happen earlier. But I think for a lot of us somewhere in our teens, we just ditch our authentic self, somewhere on the side, we're driving, it's just left on an exit. And then the next thing, you know, college comes or whatnot, we enter jobs, and we're starting to more who we are and who we are at our core to meet the expectations of others. And then frankly, we're at fraud, or fraud to ourselves. And I think by far that's the worst. And so when I started my burnout work, my reflection period, it was like, let me go back to my own core values. What do I stand by? I mean, heck, there was even a period of time where I mean, I don't drink alcohol. And there was a period of time where it was, we moved to Chicago. And that was the thing to do. And so I started to find myself drinking on Fridays, and then I would wake up the next day. And it was not that I felt bad from the alcohol, I felt bad because it's not who I was. And so I think if we can strip back and we can go through who do we want to show up as what makes us tick, what our purpose was our passion, if we can go through some of this authentic self, the work, if we can then feel really good about showing up as our authentic self. I think that's the pathway right there to being okay, I'm empowered now to lead at work lead at home, everything from there, though, then we got to sit down and go, whatever our time look like carry spending our time, I think I was blown away. When I did about 45 Days of Our Time auditing coming off this burnout cycle, it was wild, because you think about it. And it's like you don't get your time back. I think sometimes you say that out loud. And whatever mindset you're like, wow, it's not like you can go redeposit time onto your life. So I think it's really important for people to go through and take a week and say, Where are you spending your time for me, I could not believe that I was only giving myself one hour a day to myself. I think that alone, it's like a slap in wake up call a slap in the face, Amy wake up and take charge. So those two tactics are something I totally encourage folks to do just to kind of get that feeling of, it's time to take charge. I think both of those activities sort of wake you up in the right kind of way.

Kristen

Yes. And we were talking about breath work. We did a couple of deep breaths the audience knows I love the breath work. took several deep breaths before we got started. Tell me about your journey with breath work meditation. How has that played in to helping you with burnout?

Amy

Oh my gosh, this is probably to me one of the most life changing experiences. It's so funny because I don't think my family's bought in yet. So they're like, What is she doing? But I'll say that anybody out there that's really in the thick of burnout. It's a lonely place to be, you suddenly feel really lonely. There are things going on in your head that you are probably not sharing with even your biggest confidant so then you have to go where's my spirituality at this point, and for me, it kind of lost the connection with any higher being at all at some point you just have believe something bigger than you has your back. Because you're heading into a deep depression. If you're at the thick of burnout, stage five where I was. And so for me, it was like, You are so busy, you're on back to back calls all the time, can you just step away for five minutes, take some deep breaths, and try to just find peace in silence. That was the mission. It was just how about we just sit in silence for a few minutes. But from that, it was so powerful, just be able to breathe, reset my nervous system, I remember having a couple of panic attacks, where I stepped away from the computer, I sat down and I just did five breaths. And right there, I was like, it's gonna be o k. And from there I moved into everyday at two o'clock, can I step away and just sit in silence and use the headspace app to have like a guided meditation, to be able to just focus on your breathing and not think in silence, it is the most powerful thing I feel from there, I was able to tap into a big spiritual component that was missing. And for listeners, I know this probably sounds so strange. But I remember waking up the next day after meditating for five days in a row and consistently doing breath work upon waking midday and right before bed, I suddenly had this feeling of everything was gonna be okay. I had tapped into whatever higher power somebody had my back. I didn't feel as lonely. And I was like, Okay, this is my time to centre myself. This is my time to tap into spirituality. And I think it is probably the most powerful thing anybody can do. For sure, especially if they're feeling lonely, like I described.

Kristen

Yes, I think we're in a lonely epidemic right now, for so many people feel like there's something wrong with them. They're defective, they're not good enough. So they feel they have to do these workers, so many hours that don't feel safe enough to set boundaries, how have you been able to set boundaries for yourself? And tell me about your journey with that peace

Amy

boundaries are hard, everyone, and you are not going to do it right the first time. So one thing I like to always say is I like 1% improvements, what's 1% better each day. And that's sort of how I live. So the first step I did for boundaries is I paid attention for a few days of all of the stress triggers that were going on in my life, what was causing the anxiety, sometimes we forget that part. So I remember waking up in the morning having major anxiety when there was five new meetings on my calendar, I remember getting anxiety when I started to see the white space on my calendar reducing and back to back to back meetings loading up, I got anxiety when people would take my lunch break, I started to get that flustered feeling when I would get slack messages all night long, and all given hours that I'm feeling of always on. And so I think the first bit for me was what is causing the stress, where is there an opportunity for a boundary. When I did that, I started small, and I prioritise them to say which 1am I going to get the biggest bang for my buck, right? In my time, if I put this in place. And I started really small by doing a no back to back meeting boundary, I wasn't going to do that anymore. And so what I would do is I would put little tiny spaces, blockers on my calendar for 15 minutes that would let people book 45 minute meetings, but they couldn't book an hour anymore. And they were not able to book 230 minute meetings anymore. Gave me a little bit of time to go do some breath work, go eat lunch, have a life beyond this, go go, go go go. There was so much research I had read about the stress your brain goes through going to back to back meetings. So that was the action. But I think folks, the biggest part is you have to communicate the boundary. So I had to reach out and kind of say to my team, I'm not going to be taking back to back meetings anymore. It's causing me a lot of stress, and it's not allowing me to be as productive as I'd like to be. So going forward. If you notice that I have blocks, please respect those blocks, then it was putting it into practice. So when folks would put the meeting over the block I had to decline the meeting with a note that said sorry, this is my blocked time. Here are some alternative times did I take a few meetings when I shouldn't have Yes. Did I regret it immediately? Yes. And that then fuels you back to the top where you go okay, I'm gonna stick with this boundary boundaries are practice boundaries are for you. And boundaries are so important because every single time you can execute a boundary I feel like you put on armour of resilience You become more resilient, and you become stronger to say no more often. And that's what we need in our lives, we have to be able to feel comfortable saying no, and protecting our time. So I hope that was a good example of just kind of how I started. But I've put about seven or eight boundaries in place since then that I've stuck to very well.

Kristen

Good for you. Because I think the sticking to it can get in the way sometimes, for example, my husband, I walked downstairs before our interview, and he's laying on the couch. He's like, I feel so guilty. I go, why you work so hard. This weekend, we volunteered at our daughter's event, and it's okay to take the rest butts and kills from his childhood, we have to be productive all day are are lazy, that negative belief that I'm not doing something that I'm lazy, how do you work through your own guilt and shame that can come up from not being productive? Because we're so conditioned? And to be busy? be doing something produce hustle? How do you work through that?

Amy

What a great question. Well, first of all, I think we have to shift our own narrative, I think that rest is now part of your responsibilities, period. So if you want to be more productive, you would find tonnes of research out there to show you that if you do take time to rest, you will be more productive. All of this burnout, hustle culture leads us to getting sick more often, we're getting burned out, we're getting depressed, we're starting to become cynical at work, we're losing our soul, and therefore we are not going to be productive period. So I think we have to do a better job at slipping the narrative. And I have to say, this was super hard. My mind was being like, you gotta be at the computer, I just start changing who I was paying attention to, on like social media and content creators. I started to follow folks, Adam Scott, who has a really progressive mindset as it relates to productivity and work. He's got research about the four day work week, he's got a tonne of advice about it's okay to take breaks. And so I think what we are absorbing also matters. And so for me, it needed to kind of be okay, there are big thought leaders out there with research showing that this is okay. I started to do it. And I started to see the benefits. And then when I was coaching clients to see their improvements, okay, I'm sold. And so I think this whole entire piece is another moment where you got to shift the narrative. And I think this is where journaling regularly is so helpful. Because you can go through and say, Okay, this week, I'm gonna instil to rest breaks, you can totally track back to what your day look like, Did you drop all these balls at work? Or did you actually feel recharged to tackle your day? And I think that's where the answer comes. So I just challenge all of you to practice rest needs to be practised, and the narrative needs to be changed. This one gets me a little feisty,

Kristen

does because it affects us. When my husband said that I said, Who's the voice in your head telling you, you're lazy? It's so important to examine, like, who is driving the bus? Is it you? Or is it somebody from your past that to blame them to take your power back to go, it's healthy for rest, that wasn't the message I got as a kid. And in order to be the best version of myself, I have to rest and take care of me. Often. That's not the message we got. So I love asking who's the voice in your head, and he was able to identify, oh, it's my mom. And I was able to say, yeah, and now you can say, you know, Mom, I can rest. And that's what I need in order to feel better, and to do our jobs and to function. So I think it's important to identify that the second piece is this idea of caregiving can be a lot of burnout for people, if we've caregiving our children with Oh, yeah, they need us and have a lot of needs are families, maybe someone's sick or a loved one sick. How do you help people with burnout when their caregiving and feel like it's hard to have other options?

Amy

That's another really tough one. I have a couple of self care pillars that I like to have folks go through because at the end of the day, if you cannot fill up your own cup, you're going to be virtually useless to anybody or caregiving with. The other thing is to I think a lot for moms that are sort of they're taking care of the kiddos, they always feel they have to be sacrificing everything for the kids. It's always so powerful when you see that transformation where they start to put themselves first and the kids see what they're doing. And they're like, Wow, one of the best stories with one of my clients recently, who was a mom literally had given up everything for her kids. She would not even take the help from her husband she was as go go go every school event, but she wanted to start exercising regularly and just to get her to do that was very, very difficult, but she started Did running, and she started to just do little by little, do you know that the other day her daughter was at school and the teacher said write down three goals you have for yourself. And the little girl wrote, gotta make my bed more often, I need to walk the dog and I want to start to run. If we remember that there is a reason why in an aeroplane, we have to put our oxygen mask on first to help other people, I think we can start to understand why this is so important. And so I really believe that anybody who's caregiving has to just find that one small moment or two each day to take out for themselves. And usually I recommend we fill it with something we love. And then we fill it with something that we can take care of us. And so I think once you start putting that in practice, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then you've got the little kiddos that are seeing your example, which is amazing. It is

Kristen

so true. Because at night, sometimes I'm like by nine o'clock, I'm like lights out. I'm fried, it's I can feel my body wanting to rest and then the kids want to come in and like get the dog riled up. And like, jumping in, like not jumping on the bed. But like, everybody seems to find my bed our bed is like the the base. And for a while it was like, okay, and then I could feel myself getting irritable, like irritated. And then I just said, Hey, I love you guys so much. And I love our time together, I can feel myself starting to get irritable. And I think that's my sign that I've got to rest in, go to bed soon. And me owning that, I think empowers them to own what allowed, they need an advocate for themselves. I feel like when we model like, what we're doing to advocate for ourselves, that gives them permission to do that and other relationships that they're going to carry on and carry out your example with your client.

Amy

Yeah, I think I think it's so powerful. You're right. Yeah, I do, I think and taking accountability and just being like, hi, guys. This is my time right now. It's okay. Yeah, I think that's fantastic. Yeah, because

Kristen

we feel guilt, like, Oh, I feel like I should be that should when we shame ourselves. Like I should be playing with the kids at nine o'clock at night. And you know, and that. And when I just gave myself permission to go, it's okay. And it's healthy for me to name it. Let them know and communicate and acknowledge what they want and acknowledge what I want. It's an and and both. It is yeah. I think that helps when you're feeling burned out you have to do you feel like you have to go go go? Or you have to do these things change the narrative to your point? Do you really have to? Where's that coming from?

Amy

Yes, yes, a lot of times the self reflection is the winner in all burnout scenarios, you can just stop and self reflect, you oftentimes will identify that it's probably not necessary. And you've created this from some place that it does not apply now. And I think the other thing, just to this point that makes me think of is so often we get trapped in like what we used to do, who we used to be, but seasons of life are magical, in that we are not who we were even five years ago, we are not who we were in our 20s. And so getting to know ourselves regularly, is another awesome self reflection piece. It's like sit down and get to know yourself. Maybe you don't like the thing you liked five years ago, that's okay. And if you don't like this career path anymore, that's okay. Nothing is lost. You just carry it forward and a new season of life. And I think especially, you know, you and I growing up like that just didn't seem to be the way the narrative was. It was like, here are your options in school of what you want to be when you grow up. And there is the path. You know, AdSense? Yeah, that's all you got.

Kristen

Yes, I agree. And I wondering for you, there's, you mentioned like stages of burnout. Yeah. What are those? What are the stages? And then where are you at in the stages?

Amy

Yeah, so I usually go through when I'm when I'm coaching to help folks identify where they might be in burnout. It is five stages. The first one is like the honeymoon stage. And I'm sure you can relate to this, because this is actually the stage where we are like willing participants of like diving into our job or diving into whatever we're doing full force. Like we thrive off the chaos. We're like, oh, yeah, I've got to cancel again. I've got another meeting, you know, because I'm trying to show my worth for whatever the goal is, is it this job, this leader, I'm trying to be this great superhuman. And so that honeymoon phase just like in marriage wears off. And you move into that like onset of stress stage where you're starting to get those like bouts of the juggling act. It's the imbalance starts to happen, right? You're starting to see, okay, too much is happening over here too much is happening over here a little bit bouts of unmanaged stress coming and you're probably starting like your, your phone battery, it's starting to like too many apps are operating at that time, then I would say stage three is like chronic stress. And that's where you noticeably are going to start to have like, changes maybe in your emotional, physical, mental health, you might start getting headaches every day 2pm You're, you're cancelling something with your husband, because you you know, you've got stuff going on, you've lost control now probably have your boundaries completely, you're headed in that cycle like I am of service to whatever. I'd say the the fourth stage is the onset of burnout. And that's where we're kind of like, I love to think of this as quicksand. We're like, starting to like, we're on the bridge, right before the quicksand, we're almost falling in. And we're like, we know something's wrong. But we don't know how to get out. And because of that, we tend to start to have more on the mental health side, we might have anxiety coming more frequently, we might be depressed, because we're like, something's got to change. But I don't know how. And the interesting part about stage four and stage five is you do reach a decision fatigue situation, that is a real thing. It's like little decisions become really hard to make. And so if you are faced with like, what does the future look like, for me, it might be impossible for someone in stage four, five, to even look for a new job. They can't process that their brain is so overloaded with everything going on. And they're probably completely not present at this time, either. I know when I was in stage four, I started to my family started to be like, Amy, you're like, it's like you're not here. You're not You're not with us, even though you're here. And then I'd stage stage five is where we're in some trouble, right? It's probably our burnout moment. Our rock bottom, it's, for me, stage five looked like I had some major auto immune health issues. At that time, I was pretty much in deep depression. I had no idea. I didn't think anybody was there to listen to me crying a lot. And also, I was starting to have like, nightmares, insomnia, a lot of physical symptoms. And so those are kind of how I break them down. I do have a checklist though, on my website, and it's included with the book, you can kind of go through some of these questions, and it will kind of give you where you might be and then kind of your path to go forward from there.

Kristen

Where do they go? Checklist?

Amy

Yeah, yes. And then your question, Where am I now? Yeah, I would say right now, I'm actually not in the stages of burnout any longer, I think we do escape the trenches, we have to understand those stages to know for going back through them. I would say a couple of months ago, I started to tip toe back into the honeymoon stage. And I quickly realised like you got to stop these behaviours. Um, I was starting to do that. Starting to do this again, where I was like, No, I'm just gonna go back to back for a couple meetings because I can get this out of the way. And that's the mentality I didn't want to bring back in my life. I also realised that I was having anxiety slowing down. I was the busy was going off the busy, busy, busy. And so that was another indicator that I could be headed back into the trenches. But I'm safely what I call the burnout free bubble. I'm in there right now. And I plan to stay in there. Do not want to go back to the burnout zone.

Kristen

What is the burnout free bubble look like for you?

Amy

Yeah, the burnout free bubble for me looks like saying no a lot more often. I've got some boundaries in place that are pretty non negotiable for myself. And so that's number one. Number two for my burnout, free bubble is being true to myself always and making sure I'm living my purpose. And so for me, my purpose is it was funny, I started my career off as an educator, and I quickly moved into like self taught marketer, and then that was where I grew my agency and everything like that. When I did my self reflection and my authentic self work, I realised that my core I am an educator, like that is who I am. And I after even getting feedback from others, they were like, you know, we you're a teacher, that's who you are. And so I think living out my purpose is really important. And so when I'm offered an opportunity now, I have to stop and ask myself is this aligned with my future vision is this is this where I'm headed? So I'm there. I am a lover of rest now. So I try to spend a good amount of my day resting. I also start my day very differently than I used to. I don't start until about 930 or 10. I like to run decompress. Do some headspace math dictation eat my breakfast away from the computer. That that's kind of in my nighttime routine, it means that all my apps turn off at 8pm. It means I do not pick up my phone anymore for emails and slack messages. And I communicate that to others that this is not something that I'm going to do. I'm not available. If it's an emergency, obviously, you have to call me. But nothing is an emergency is what we realise. When we put boundaries in place, we realise that all the emergencies that once were really aren't emergencies, they can wait typically. The other thing I would say, and my burnout, free bubble is a more present person I am, I find myself decompressing off of social media a lot more I don't want to be in the comparing criticising world that social media can bring. That also triggers my busy metre, where I'm like, oh, so and so is doing this, I should probably pick it up, you know, I've got to be busier. They're a bit they look busy. So I really do have very set restrictions on social media. And when I'm eating with my family, or I'm sort of like I do Saturdays, no tech Saturdays now, but when I'm eating with my family, I like go phone free. I want to be present for those moments. I want to hear what my family is saying to me. And really listen and engage in conversation. So that's that's what my burnout, free bubble looks like.

Kristen

I love those. Those are a lot of what I do too. And they're so powerful. I want to circle back to a couple of pieces that I think are important for the listeners. One, did you get your hearing back? Because I'm curious, or do you still have not have it?

Amy

My hearing will be gone forever? Yeah. It's permanent. Yep.

Kristen

Okay. There's so much here. The second piece is the emotions I believe emotions are essential to connecting, processing, nurturing. And if we don't, what are we running from? Like, we have this metaphor. I mean, you're a runner. What are you running from? And what do you want to run towards? So like, what do you think you are running from? What question I want, like the listeners to do so if might help to hear like, your perspective on what you might have been running from?

Amy

What I was running from during like all of my burnout. Yes, yes. Okay. I actually do know, a couple of weeks ago, I don't know if I would be able to answer this for you. I can answer it today. I was running from so in my early 20s. I was an early mom had my son when I was 20. And we had nothing to our name. It was a very disruptive period of time where I was scrambling to survive. And it's so funny. You asked Austin right now like, what's one thing you remember when you were a kid? And he goes, the power going out? Okay. So as a young mom, so scrapping to survive, I think what I was running from is not having anything, being able to support my family, I was so afraid at any given moment, if I turned a client down, that the whole business the next day could go under and I would be back in that place.

Kristen

Beautiful. Yes, that makes so much sense. That's what I was running. Yes. And so underneath burnout, I think is so much fear. So much fear, fear of not having enough fear of feeling fear of abandonment, rejection, fear of being not looking stupid. I mean, the list goes on and on so much fear, so much fear because you are in a survival state. And it's important for people to recognise Am I in a survival state and a survival state? It's like, think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Like we need electricity, we need food, shelter, and of that. And, and sometimes it's, you know, early in our lives, even though we might have had experiences like that, that can lead us to burnout. Because we never want to experience that again.

Amy

Yes, yes. And that's where even faith has got to come in. Like, you've got to have, like the faith to say, Hey, I'm making this leap away from this business now. And I trust and will do the action necessary to get me forward because yeah, you're right. Any given moment, I would ready to make the right decision. I'd go back to that fear and be like I can't the family, we're going to be you know, scrapping. Again, we can't do that.

Kristen

And I don't want to do that. I won't do that. And so that survival instinct says your protector part says we gotta go we got to do it. We got to do it. We got to keep running. We got to keep going. Right? It's so powerful. So I really wanted the audience to hear and ask yourself what am I running from? And what am I trying to run towards so what do you think you're running towards now?

Amy

You know, what is the most interesting part is this like almost a complete in some ways? It's like the complete opposite. Obviously, I don't want to have to scrape anymore but in this whole, in this whole experience, I really like Miss animalism it's made me like really think to myself, like all the money you were bringing in? What did it do at the end of the day, besides deteriorate your health and make you lose moments with your family? The answer really is, there's not one material thing that I own, that even is worth it, I would take my hearing back and give up everything. So what I am trying to understand and appreciate is, I'm doing just fine. In this slower, right lane of the traffic, I'm driving my own car, they're just fine. And I am driving towards more minimal life that's filled with greater connections. Not Not all the stuff you have to have, or all this societal norms of things that make you successful driving towards a minimalistic approach, and letting people

Kristen

pass you on the road. And that's fine. Hey, you're like it's okay. Go ahead. Go around me. Go on. Yeah. And when you are unattached to the outcome, and letting go the stuff, you realise what matters most which connection? Yes, it's like so deep. And I think that is so important to when we're looking at burnout, like you had some grief in the middle of it, like you lost your hearing. I'm glad that is a lot of grief and loss. When we lose a sensory part of ourselves. It's grief, and I want to acknowledge that for you. And for one. And two, when you're doing this work of working through the burnout, it's okay to like you're gonna have sad grief bursts. You might have some things that you didn't process from the past that need to come forward and come out like you running and crying. I'm like you go. I know that sound was probably really overwhelming for you. But I know then there's things moving when we're feeling yes, we're moving through the burnout, then.

Amy

Yeah, it's oftentimes when change needs to happen. You do need those moments of acknowledgement or meeting it to yourself. And that crying was a big meeting to myself. Something's not right.

Kristen

It was your body begging you to release, release, release, and you couldn't stuff it down. It wasn't possible. You're like I can't I'm crying. I'm running. And I'm crying because you couldn't put it back in. Yeah, yeah, that's really big. What are the three biggest takeaways you've learned about burnout, that could be helpful for the audience.

Amy

The first one is that when you're feeling burnout, I want you to go back and see are you causing the burnout from the choices you're making. And remember that the greatest power we have is the power to choose, we get to choose not only the choices sometimes, but the way that we react to things, our attitudes toward things we get to choose. And so that's number one, that's what I've learned about burnout is I was to blame for a lot of it, I could have gone back and erase some of that. Number two, I would say, I've learned that when we are on the other side of burnout, we realise that a lot of the stuff we were doing wasn't even worth it. And so in order to understand that more in a current state, it's just really, really looking at your time and seeing like, what are you giving up? What are you sacrificing who is taking your time and energy. And then that would actually cascade me into my third biggest revelation, I talk about it in my book in its own chapter, but I call them energy vampires. We really have to understand who our tribe is. And when we are in the thick of burnout and we are struggling, we realise that even some of our loved ones like our mom, and our grandma might be an energy vampire at that moment in time. And so I think understanding who is stealing our energy away, and not giving anything back in return is really, really important. And I know that experience for me has helped me to create additional boundaries, where I can still have relationships with some of these people, but they're more protected relationships. Because I know that too much of that relationship. They're going to suck energy away from me, and I'm going to be left depleted and starting to get again back in that wave of like, I need to going back to childhood. I need to do go go go go go. So and actually it's really funny. I was listening to a book the other day on my run, and I had listened to four chapters of it and something about the guy mentality being that he didn't rest. He didn't believe in rest. He didn't believe in tapering after a workout session I said to my husband, I can't listen to this anymore because this is the opposite of where I'm headed. So I do we just have to really be cognizant of who's taking our energy and what we're surrounding ourselves with. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Kristen

You're able to recognise that that doesn't align with your beliefs anymore.

Amy

It started to get anxious again, you know,

Kristen

yeah, noticing that feeling in your body. And I can imagine that sleep and your sobriety, like being sober also contributes to not getting being burned out. Yes, yeah, fair to say from your experience.

Amy

Yeah, I, one of the things that I cherish the most is sobriety, I will say, because I just feel like, I always get a good picture of like, who I am and how I feel all the time, without that layer of it. And also, it does allow me just naturally to feel like I'm living a more healthy lifestyle. Overall, I think you make I'm making healthier choices about what I'm eating and what I'm putting in my body. And I think if we're trying to change the narrative, sometimes that's really positive, because it does promote rest. It does promote, you know, movement in our body and those healthier choices. And I would say my Achilles heel now is not enough sleep. So I'm kind of a stickler for like the 9am, or 9pm. Lights out 5am, early riser, because I do feel like waking early, and starting your day is a nice way of just getting slowly started. And it's quiet. So yeah, sleep, you've got to sleep.

Kristen

It's got central to emotional mental wellness, oh my gosh, giving a lot we feel like we sometimes we can't help it. But if we are mindful of our sleep, and I kind of like tuck yourself into bed, because it's so important. I'm trying to get my kids in that mindset, too. And they notice now so how do you feel when you didn't get sleep? And they're like, I didn't feel good. My brain didn't work that well, I didn't feel I felt sluggish. And I think that can lead us to feeling burned out and whatever we're doing as well. And then when we're self medicating with alcohol, or other vices like social media, I mean, we all have something Yeah, towards, it can be an energy, like, I like to call it Energy Vampire as well. So just noticing that and then having self compassion for all, all that we're dealing with now. I mean, when we can go you know what, it's, this isn't easy. And it's okay that I am sad sometimes. And it doesn't, you know, make me a bad person. If I don't get XYZ done today, the laundry the dishwasher unloaded the house, is it clean? Whatever it is for you, whatever that looks like going, it's okay.

Amy

Yeah, I think that that last statement bleeds right into even the idea that some folks do use alcohol to like, push the problem aside, it only pushes it aside for a little bit, right, and it's there the next day. And I think what you just said it's like to face it, it's okay, if it's hard, it's going to be hard. But like being more present to solving it is going to actually be where the change lies. And I think a lot of times when we're self medicating or even even down to our asleep, like, I remember being in the thick of burnout, using natural sleep aids to be able to sleep had I just sat and addressed the issues at hand. The Sleep came naturally after that, right like I addressed them. I haven't had a nightmare sense. I haven't had insomnia sense.

Kristen

Yeah. Cuz you faced it.

Amy

You processed it. Yeah.

Kristen

It's so key. So this has been such a wonderful conversation. Where can people find you Amy if they want to know about your book, the checklist? Yeah, that you mentioned. Where can people find you?

Amy

Yes. So um, you can follow me on Instagram at Project AMI that is a great places to keep up with everything. And then my website Amy mom data.com And I'll make sure you have all the links because the spelling of that can be tricky but ma n g e i r a.com. And that's where everything will be book launch all the information and all my checklists will be there too. So go

Kristen

grab the book The path to break free from burnout yet my my cut name on my company's pathways to healing counselling so I love pathway I'm a big yes I love like the path we want to be on the path. So thank you so much, Amy for your heart, soul energy. I so appreciate you being on the podcast today.

Amy

Thanks for having me.