Going through a burnout in our lives is common for many women. What’s also common is the fact that many women choose not to speak about it and try to deal with it themselves instead of seeking guidance and support. That’s what Cait Donovan and I talk about in this episode of Her Self Expression. We also talk about burnout, resentment as a tool, and creating boundaries that actually work. If you are going through burnout in any form, listen to this episode which I’m sure will help you.

Cait Donovan is a Keynote speaker, one of New York City’s leading burnout experts, host of “Fried – The Burnout Podcast,” author of the book "The Bouncebackability Factor", and an acupuncturist with a master’s degree in Chinese medicine. Her creative burnout recovery solutions have been featured on podcasts and online magazines such as “Forbes”, “NPR,” and “The New York Post” and in companies such as Lululemon and Pepsico.

HERE ARE 3 TIPS TO HELP YOU ON YOUR ROAD TO SELF-EMPOWERMENT

1. Focus on resentment and allow those tough emotions to transform into powerful boundaries.
2. Your first step in boundary building might not have anything to do with saying no - focusing on smaller steps makes boundaries easier in the long run.
3. Burnout is not your fault and there are biological reasons that people interpret stress differently. This allows people to drop the shame, blame, guilt, and judgment around burnout.

CONNECT WITH CAIT DONOVAN

• Podcast Website - www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com
• Website - www.caitdonovan.com
• LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/caitdonovanspeaks
• Instagram - www.instagram.com/caitdonovanspeaks

ARE YOU OR IS SOMEONE YOU KNOW CARRYING THE HEAVY EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE OF A DIVORCE? A WOMAN’S EMPOWERMENT JOURNEY CAN BE STOPPED DEAD IN ITS TRACKS BY DIVORCE, BUT THERE IS A SOLUTION. IT IS POSSIBLE TO TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE AND START YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL RECOVERY.  I WAS ABLE TO, AND YOU CAN TOO!

Curious to know where you are? To know what the answer is? You have to find the place to begin. Your first step is to assess where you are. 

Use this free tool to find out where you are and what’s holding you back from a new and exciting life after divorce. 

Click here: https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/636dab1221d28a0016112d45

Empowerment should be a goal for all women, not just those who have been through divorce. The Her Self Expression Podcast provides critical information and actionable steps to help you on your journey, whether you’ve been divorced or not. 

In addition to this episode, you can listen to all of our episodes at https://herselfexpression.com/podcast

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WANT TO CONNECT WITH BEVERLY PRICE FOR A PATH TO A BETTER LIFE? 

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This is her self-expression with Beverly Price, A podcast dedicated to women who seek self-empowerment. Like many women, Beverly suffered with low self-esteem, and now she is on the other side and is ready to share her knowledge with you. In this podcast, we interview inspirational women every week who share action-oriented tips to boost self-image and self-confidence.

If you'd like to move from self-loathing to self-love, as Beverly did, stay tuned for today's episode that is Sure to help you take on the world. And now here is Beverly. Enjoy the show.

Hi, beautiful. I hope you're having an awesome day. I'm Beverly Price Life Transition and empowerment coach and the host of the Her Self Expression podcast. Most women struggle with their self-image and self-confidence like I did. Her self-expression provides knowledge, support, and insight to help women on their journey to self-empowerment on the inside and out so they can take on the world.

I want you to be able to reach empowerment just as I did after some low life events. Today I have these three questions for you to pond. Have you ever felt resentment at work? Do you think that you're suffering from burnout? What did you do about it? Well, my guess today is Cait Donovan. Cait is going to help us about a serious subject that many women deal with, which is burnout.

Cait is a keynote speaker, one of New York City's leading burnout, expert host of Fraud, the Burnout podcast. I love that. Author, flip the book, bounce Back ability Factor. Try and pronounce that three times real fast. And an acupuncturist with a master's degree in Chinese medicine, her creative burnout.

Recovery solutions have been featured on podcasts and online magazines such as Forbes, npr, the New York Post, and in companies such as Lulu, lemon and Pepsi. Hi Cait. Thank you so much for being my guest today. It's so wonderful to have you here.

Hi Beverly. Thanks so much for having me. It's always a joy to talk about my favorite topic.

Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your own journey to empowerment?

My journey to empowerment involved burning out, obviously, and it took, it took. Being so far away from myself and really losing my lust for life before I even turned 30 to start to turn things around and realize that I had a little bit more control and I could take care of myself a little bit better, and I had a lot more influence over what was happening than I originally imagined.

Gotcha. And was your burnout personal or professional or?

Mine was both I, when I was reading through the research on burnout, when it happened to me, I'm a big nerd. So as soon as something happens, I want all and I want all the research. So I was reading through the research and my job when I was, when I burnt out, I was a full-time acupuncturist and it was a job that I loved and was very passionate about.

It was also a space where, just like I am now, I have always been an entre. Most burnout research is based in hospital workers and corporate workers. So I didn't see a representation of myself in the research and I, I can't separate my working life from my personal life. Okay. I'm an entrepreneur. It's, this is just my life.

Right. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about, well, you kind of covered your personal experience with burnout. What actually happened, and then how did you deal with it?

I was going through it for probably about six years, which seems to be fairly typical, especially of people who went through burnout before the pandemic, before it got sort of popular.

Mm-hmm. , for lack of a better term. And so I ended up in a place. , I was resenting all of my patients. I was, every time somebody would call me or my phone would ring, I would think to myself, what do you people want from me? Which is not the space I wanted to Gotcha. Be working from. You know, that's not the generosity that I entered into this medicine with.

Mm-hmm. . And so that didn't feel good. In addition to that, I was gaining weight. My thyroid started acting wonky. I was exhausted all the time. I've been an athlete my whole life and I found myself unable to exercise because my recovery time was so long that I would go do something and then I would need three days to get back to neutral.

And so Wow, everything was just off. Mm-hmm. the coming back to life. You know, I kind of came back to life a little bit after an international move. So I, I left my business, I opened a new one in a new country, had an opportunity to readjust my working hours, things like that. I thought that was the problem.

It, it wasn't . Oh, okay. It wasn't so that, that's interesting. I shifted my hours. I shifted the way I worked. I changed some rules. I rented space out of somebody else's office, so I didn't have responsibility for an entire office. I thought that was part of it as well. It turned out that the biggest pieces of my personal burnout were a, I didn't think that I had any value unless I was being of service to people at all.

which meant that even when I was walking through the grocery store or walking down the street, I was constantly scanning my environment for whose life I could make a little bit easier within the next five minutes, which I don't necessarily think is always a bad thing. It's good to be considerate of the people around you, but I took this to such an extreme that it turned into self neglect.

So I didn't know what my own needs, wants, desires, preferences were. I had no idea because I was so focused on other people all the time, right? That I, I couldn't tap into that. So I had to go through a process of understanding, getting back into my own body, actually energetically getting back into my physical form and saying, what is it that you need?

I, I started this by doing really silly things like drink when you're thirsty. Eat when you're hungry.

Yeah. That sounds so simple. Mm. You know,

but I, until you try and do it, no . Yeah. I mean,

I think, and I think, you know, it takes, what do they say? It takes a minimum of 12 weeks to change a habit, and then you've got that concept of you start it for a couple weeks and then you stop it, and then you start it back up.

So how did you cause it to be a permanent change.

It's something I still work through. And the habit research currently says that you can change a habit depending on what the habit is and what the barriers are to changing the habit and how ready you are to change it. The, the range of time it takes technically, according to research right now is between 21 and 256 days.

Oh, okay. It's a, it's a really big range and it depends on a lot of different factors, but, but for me to make this a consistent part of my life, the thing that I ended up turning to, and this took me about a year and a half to figure out, was that every time I found myself feeling put out, feeling resentful, feeling like I was giving somebody more than I was, Feeling annoyed at something that I made a choice about, that no one else's decision was really involved in.

Every time I found this bubbling resentment underneath it, there was some self neglect. Interesting. So I, I stay on top of this even today, six, seven years later. By paying attention to those moments where I start getting resentful. So for instance, this might sound silly, but as an entrepreneur, you have to be really careful about your pricing, right?

Mm-hmm. . And you know that sometimes you send out a proposal for a project and it gets accepted and you're halfway through it and you're like, that wasn't enough. Mm-hmm. , you know, , we've all been there. Yes. I'm okay with that moment. Because when I start to feel a little annoyed that I'm, I don't feel like I'm getting enough for the effort I put in, that just says to me, okay, recalculate for next time.

Whereas five years ago, I would've dragged out that thought for the entire remainder of the project and sort of started blaming the other party for the problem, even though it wasn't their decision, I made the price. Right. So I, I, I learned to take resent. And look at it and say, oh, there's a boundary being crossed here that I wasn't aware of.

What do I need to do next time to protect myself better?

That leads to my next question, which is what part do boundaries play in burnout and burnout recovery?

Boundaries are one of the only thing that has been shown in research to actually benefit burnout recovery. Most research that's done is done on burnout cause and risk.

Not a lot is done on burnout recovery because we don't know for each individual person. Burnout was gonna show up a little bit differently, so we don't have a list of symptoms that we can cross off and say, well, these symptoms are, are gone. That means the recovery is getting better. So it's really hard to measure that.

So it's not well studied because we don't have solid variables to. So when I was going through that process and I realized that I didn't really have a good way to measure, I had to stop and think about the things that were different before. So the exercise recovery mm-hmm. , my ability, my anger at situations around me, my sort of all of these little pieces and I think I lost track of the question to be honest.

Well, it was really what part do boundaries play in where boundaries and burnout, recovery. And I find your resentment point particularly interesting because I work with clients on resentments and I teach them to listen to their. Wherever that resentment happens, mine happens to happen in my stomach and in my head, and other peoples happen everywhere.

But I'm particularly interested in what part of the burnout recovery boundaries play.

Yes. So it's boundaries are one of the only thing that has been shown in the research to actually be beneficial. So boundaries are a critical part of burnout recovery. If you do not learn how to do boundaries differently, you will have a very hard time recovering and doing boundaries differently doesn't only mean putting up more barriers for yourself.

Mm-hmm. doing boundaries differently can also. opening gates and letting people in because you need help and assistance. So boundaries are about letting things in and about putting things out. Yeah, and I think it's important that we, that we talk about that when we look at boundaries in a research perspective, we're looking at them on a continuum from integration to segmentation.

So some things need to be better integrated and some things need to be more segmented. Both of those things are fine, but we have to pay attention to what's necess.

I think a lot of people refer to boundaries in relationship to their relationships with other people.

Yeah.

And how do I set a boundary with that person?

Or I'm afraid to set a boundary. I'm afraid to tell somebody what my boundary is. Do you have any thoughts on that?

A ton.

Lay it on us.

When we are afraid to set a boundary, most commonly, we are either trying to avoid conflict, we are trying to avoid guilt, or we are trying to avoid disappointing someone.

Okay.

Those are our three avoidances. This is why we're not doing boundaries. So I tried to avoid in the first stage of teaching boundaries. I try to avoid saying, here's a statement you can use to set a boundary, because you have these whole emotional experiences that's happening when you're trying to set a boundary that we are completely ignoring when we're saying, here, use this script.

So I think it's important for people to practice on like lower hanging fruit. So if your fear is that you're going to disappoint people, Then practice disappointing people in smaller ways until you gather enough data that you can disappoint people sometimes and still be loved and respected and appreciated

Great idea

If you typically are the person, and I know 75% of the people are gonna be like, oh my goodness, this is me, because so many of us do this. If you're the person. When asked, where should we go out to dinner? You say, I'm fine with whatever. And you wait for So , right? And you wait for someone else to make a suggestion and in the back of your mind they say Italian and you're like, Ooh, I was really hoping for Mexican.

But you don't say anything, right? This to me is where we start to get that practice in practice. Little moments like that, just because you are. Going to say something doesn't mean that you're going to get what you want. You might say, oh, I would've preferred Mexican today. Can we get that next time is an acceptable way to go about it.

I think we, we go too far with boundaries and we say as soon as. We're gonna empower you with boundaries, and you're gonna set 'em and you're gonna get what you want and you're gonna not feel guilty about it. And that's just not real life. That's realistic. We're not going to avoid feeling things when we set boundaries because it's a scary thing to do.

So practice with small things. One of the things that I did , at one point, I realized this is a silly, really silly. I realized that when I make sandwiches to go golfing or hiking with my husband, I slice the tomatoes thinner than he does, and I do it because I want the tomato slices to be able to get to all the edges of the bread because I want tomato in every bite, and my husband does it so that it's quick and easy, so it's thicker, but they slide around and they move, and I don't like, And this is a really silly thing, but he was making sandwiches one morning and I said, Hey, would you mind slicing my tomatoes for my sandwich a little thinner than you slice yours?

Because I want 'em to go to all the edges. He was like, you're so weird, but sure. This is me disappointing someone. This is me saying I know that you're doing something for me. And I know that according to the rules of society that we learn, I'm just supposed to be grateful because you are taking over this task.

So I should just accept, however, whatever form it comes in. But it's okay to make a request. It's okay to ask for something. So I ask people to, to practice. Getting your wants and needs out there in small, safe ways. And over time you build more confidence to do that in bigger ways and in bigger situations.

Well, it's funny you're talking about food because my husband and I have this thing about restaurants and he'll ask me what restaurant I want to go to and I'll say a name and that he will always come back and say something else.

Of course. And so we end up going where he wants to. But what I've found is if I say, can we go here tonight? He's okay with that. And then as a little time goes on, I can say, do you wanna go to your restaurant tonight? But part of that is, I hate his restaurant, but I give in occasionally so that he's happy and his, you know, needs are filled, but Right.

I like going to like non-chain restaurants and he likes Southern cooking chain restaurants. That's kind of funny.

Yeah. And the compromise is, okay. That's a beautiful example that you gave, right? Because it's not, boundary building is not about always getting things the way you want them all the time.

Right. I know a lot of people struggle with burnout at work, and I also struggled with bullying at work. Yeah. What, what suggestions do you. For boundaries in a bullying or toxic work environment?

Quit.

Yeah.

Honestly, there's not, and if you are in a workplace with a bully or a narcissist, an actual narcissist, not, we throw around that word a lot in the world.

Right? But it's, it's less there's a lesser percentage of that than, than we talk about on an everyday basis. But if you. In a workplace with a narcissist or a bully, or a combination of both, you're not gonna fix it. That's true. You're not going to fix it, and you cannot layer yourself up with enough protection to not be affected by it.

I think there's this idea in the world of life coaching and individualistic views on life that is really, this is a very American trait to look at everyone as only a, you know, a soul island, a little individual. The fact of the matter is we affect each other and we can't even avoid that if we want to, you can measure the energy that comes out of your.

Eight to 10 feet outside of your body, possibly more. So far, we know we can do a eight to 10 feet outside of your body. That means that if you're within eight to 10 feet of someone, you're gonna be absorbing their vibes no matter what. So you can't protect yourself enough to not be affected by toxicity in your environment.

That would be like telling a chicken that's in a pot to not get cooked. Gotcha. It's gonna get cooked eventually. If the heat is on, it's, there's no way around it. You can't avoid it. So I, I think we need to take a little bit of individual responsibility away here and say, you, you can't fix this situation and you can't protect yourself.

And then put a little bit of individual responsibility back on and say, your job here is to leave, to remove yourself. That's your boundary. Mm-hmm. .

I so agree, and I wish I had done that in the past. Yeah, yeah. What support do you wish you had had on your journey dealing with burnout?

Burnout is actually one of the only times that I got support.

I am a DIY individualist, highly responsible, independent woman in all the worst ways.

Hyper achiever, superwoman.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and I've always been that way. And part of that is childhood trauma, and part of it is personality and burnout was actually one of the first times in my life where I first had a therapist, then I had a coach, and then when I had enough energy to handle other things, I had a functional medicine practitioner who helped me with diet and supplements and getting the rest of my energy back because of.

Nervous system involvement in a burnout situation. I don't believe that people should go through burnout on their own if they can avoid it. I know that not everybody can afford help, so you do the best you can with what you've got, but if you can afford help, get every bit of help that's available to you, because there is something about community that reenters our nervous system in a way that doing things alone just cannot correct.

Everybody. This is a great time to take a quick break. Please stay tuned. We'll be back in a moment when Cait will share her three actionable tips to help prevent and deal with burnout. We'll be right back. Hi, beautiful Beverly Price here again. Thank you for listening to my podcast. Are you or is anyone you know stuck carrying the life numbing emotional baggage after your divorce?

I call this the divorce hangover. Whether you are newly divorced or divorced many years ago, this happens. Do you want more? Want to feel happy, worthy, confident, and successful? Want to move on? Many women invest in attorneys and accountants, but ignore their emotional recovery. Some because they don't feel like they.

Others won't invest in themselves like we do for others, and others decide just to stuff their emotions and trudge through life. If this sounds like you or someone you know and you want more out of life in my divorce recovery coaching program, maybe just the answer with one on one personal support.

We'll work together to cure your divorce hangover with a customized so, Join hundreds of women that have walked through divorce with me to the other side. Schedule a free confidential divorce recovery breakthrough session to learn more and say yes to thriving for your lifetime. The link to schedule this session will be in the show notes.

Now let's get back to the show and we're back, Cait. I can't wait to hear, what three actionable steps would you give to the women in our audience to deal with burnout and burnout recovery?

Number one, throw out your gratitude journal for the time being. Focus on resentment instead. Interesting. Gratitude doesn't work when you're burnt out.

You don't have the brain connectivity that you need in order to engender feelings of gratitude that you feel in your whole body, and those are the feelings of gratitude that actually help you get healthier. So if you can't feel that, stop trying to force it. Look toward resentment. Find the boundaries that need to get fixed.

Okay? That's number one. Number two is fix the boundaries that need to be fixed. . Once you've looked at them and you've figured out what needs shifting, make the adjustments, make the easy adjustments first. Start with the small things. Start with the easy things. Make the easy adjustments first so that you buy yourself some energy to use for the bigger adjustments.

And number three is reach out for help if paid help is not available to. Reach to your friends, reach to your community. There are, I mean, I host a Facebook community that's free. There are other places that will hold you in the meantime, but don't go burn out alone.

Absolutely. I know a lot of people, sometimes the superwoman or others kind of feel shame, blame guilt judgment around burnout.

What suggestions do you have for them?

This, to me is part of why reaching out to your community is so important. We, when we name shame, Brene Brown says this all the time, right? When we name shame out loud, it ceases to hold power over us. When we receive validation from other people, we can drop guilt and judgment.

I think that the answer to these things is to not be isolated. Getting rid of shame, blame, guilt, and judgment requires other people.

Right. I, I totally agree. Sam, how do you think taking these steps impacts a woman's journey from self expression to confidence and self-empowerment?

The thing. Happened for me, I'll say it from, from my perspective, is that I realized that I could take care of myself in really basic ways.

I could avoid self neglect and the world would still love me, that I was still valuable. So I think when you treat yourself, yourself, Respect, and by meeting all of your basic needs, drink when you're thirsty, eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired. When you start doing this slowly over time and you stop overstepping your own energetic boundaries and you really respect what's happening in your own body, what happens is you start to value yourself more.

By, as a result, as a byproduct of that. So I don't necessarily believe in looking at a mirror and saying an affirmation and saying, I love you today, and then having it all work. I do believe that when you actually value yourself enough to take care of yourself, that value naturally builds you. You build that self worth.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. By action instead of by belief, you convince your. Of that. So I think that the, the biggest shift is a shift in your ability to see your own value and your own worth.

Absolutely. I have something that I talk about and that is believe in yourself and it's believe in yourself no matter what, and believe in yourself.

If you don't believe in yourself, then find someone that you believe. And ask yourself, what does a person who believes in themself look like? And then act like that person until it comes. So I totally agree with you there.

Yeah, I love that. So, Cait, how can our listeners find you? The best way to find me is to go straight to Fry the Burnout podcast.

That is the top of everything that I do. It's easy to find, it's easy to use, and that will bring you to all the links, all the places, all the things.

Wonderful. And is there anything else you'd like to add that we didn't cover?

Give yourself a little bit of grace, please. Burnout is not just about you. This is a, an intersection of external and internal factors, some of which might, the external things might be bullying and narcissism and lack of support. So don't take this all on yourself because this is not only about. Grant yourself a little bit of grace, please.

Beautiful. Thank you so much for being my guest today. All of for having information will also be available in the show notes. Please connect with her to learn more about, to get to where Cait describes, we need insight, willingness, and. I believe that we need both outside and inside strength to come together to make our empowerment journey complete.

Thank you for being with Cait and me on this episode of her Self-expression. I hope you can see the direct connection between preventing burnout and recovering burnout and empowerment. I love connecting you with incredible women that can provide actionable steps for you to take on your empowerment journey.

You can find our podcast through links at Apple, Spotify, Podopolo, and more. Please download the episode and share it with your friends. The more people we have listening, the more interesting topics and impactful guests we can bring to you. Remember, the more you express yourself, the better you. Self expression doesn't have to be a mystery.

It's your key to navigating life's changes and self-empowerment both inside out, but most importantly, remember that you don't have to go it alone. I struggled with self-esteem. I struggled with confidence. I struggled with. Not feeling self doubt and I got to the other side. No matter where you are on your journey, I'm here to help. Thank you and take care.

Thank you for listening to the Her Self-Expression podcast today. To listen to past episodes, visit www. Dot her self-expression dot com. Once there, you're going to want to take our quiz to see where you stand right now on your journey to self-expression. If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts with Beverly and other like-minded women, join our Facebook group, the Her Expression Sisterhood.

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