Artwork for podcast Sustainable Success: Nervous System Alignment for Burnout-Free Leadership
224: What if burnout isn’t about work, but what Mom & Dad taught your nervous system?
21st July 2025 • Sustainable Success: Nervous System Alignment for Burnout-Free Leadership • Sheridan Ruth
00:00:00 00:12:20

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What if burnout is more about your Mum & Dad, than your workload or type? 

In this episode, we explore:

  • The overlooked link between your early experiences of responsibility and your current work patterns — especially burnout, over-functioning, and decision paralysis.

  • How common parenting styles shape your nervous system’s relationship to responsibility and leadership.

  • Why your body might freeze, collapse, or push harder when you’re trying to make your next big move — and why that’s not a mindset problem, it’s a somatic pattern.

You’ll learn:

  • A breakdown of the 4 parenting styles (Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, Neglectful) and how each one shows up in your work habits today.

  • The Polyvagal Theory lens on how your system learned to either brace, bypass, numb out, or stay steady with responsibility.

  • How to notice when you’re being authoritarian, permissive, or neglectful with yourself — especially when making decisions, leading a team, or running your business.

  • What it means to become authoritative with yourself — holding standards with warmth, ambition with boundaries — so you can build capacity, not just force productivity.

Next Listen: 199: When Burnout Isn’t Just Stress: VAs, OBMs, Your Nervous System, Delegation, Capacity & Control

Further Reading & Sources

*This framework draws on established research and therapeutic models, including Baumrind’s foundational work on parenting styles (1967, 1971), Maccoby & Martin’s expansion of that typology (1983), and Steinberg’s studies on the outcomes of authoritative parenting (1992). It’s also informed by Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges), The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk), Focusing (Eugene Gendlin), Hold Me Tight (Sue Johnson on adult attachment), and Trauma and the Body (Pat Ogden on sensorimotor psychotherapy).


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This podcast explores the intersection of sales, money, and business success, offering entrepreneurial insights on overcoming the inner critic, burnout, and the unique challenges of ADHD and autoimmune conditions, while integrating polyvagal theory, Ayurveda, coaching, resilience, regulation, and trauma healing to support holistic growth and thriving in both life and business.

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