Understanding Burnout

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Heal with Grace podcast. I'm your host Grace Secker. And in today's episode, I'm going to share something more personal, a little bit more raw. So it's going to be a little different. I, I share things with you all for sure, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper because I have mentioned if you've been listening for a little bit, big transitions that I've been going through and I want to share this life update with you all.

I know, you know, this is not all about me so much about what I do as a therapist, a business owner, a program navigator, creator, and just wanting to, I just want to share all of this information with people so that You know that you have the power to heal and that you don't have to suffer and that chronic symptoms do not have to be chronic, despite what you've been told and what we're told in mainstream society.

So that's my main focus, but I wanted to share this because I can do it now after I've come out of it, but I don't want to just, put on a front that, you know, everything's great after you regulate your nervous system and you learn how to heal chronic symptoms and, you know, wash your hands and move on.

It doesn't work like that because life happens and we can't control it. And so, you know, we're gonna, we're going to go through difficult times. One thing I've learned throughout this is that even though the past year, for me specifically, has been just insane, for lack of better words, but really, it's been a lot, it's been empowering, I'm proud of it, it's also been a lot of grief and turmoil and burnout, so all the things.

And one thing I've learned is that if I did not know what I know, I did not have the skills that I have, I I don't know where I'd be. I would be pretty scary, to be honest with you, of where I'd be. I'd either be, unemployed, sick, home, living with family, or, I don't know, not here. I mean, it would be pretty bad.

So, and I don't mean to bring it down, so. You know, down in the hole, but here I'm here being honest. So I'm gonna term all of this burnout. Okay, and then we'll talk about it. The kind of burnout. Sometimes it kind of sneaks up on you slowly. And then before you , know it, it's completely taken over your mind and body.

And Today, I just really want to talk to you about what that looks like, how it impacts your nervous system, and how it can manifest in your life as it has in mine. I'll be weaving in my personal story throughout the episode, along with information on what's going on, in your mind and your body. So get comfortable.

Let's dive in.

Okay. First of all, what is burnout? on a physical, psychological, and spiritual level. So burnout is when we hit that shutdown, fight or flight, really that shutdown of the nervous system. What does it really feel like though? It feels sometimes you could be called, I mean, adrenal fatigue, right?

In physical terms, chronic fatigue syndrome, where people can't get out of bed, long COVID, the total shutdown of your nervous system where you're depleted and you can't really move. We can't get out of your bed. You can't do a whole lot of things. It's more than just being tired, it is the state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, where you feel like you've hit a wall.

There's literally no energy left to keep going. The thing with burnout is that in the world that we live in, it's almost too easy to get caught in the cycle of doing and pushing, but when we ignore our body's signals to slow down, our nervous system takes the hit. And it's actually normalized to be overly tired, right?

It's normalized to drink a bunch of coffee or caffeine or energy drinks throughout the day just to get through the day and then talk about it and complain about it and compare yourself or try to one up each other around how tired we are. It's that like acceptable complaining. And actually I would even say it's more so like you're, you're in the in crowd if you are talking about how tired you are.

So it's normalized. Burnout is normalized on some level, on the level of, of just day to day dredging through. So I was in that for a while. And for me, that period of time was, was in, in and out. I will say I had some days of just total shutdown, but then I'd kind of come back and be like, okay, cool. I'm good.

Let's go. You know, I'm going through a hard time. So, and I need more energy to run my business, to run my life, to heal through divorce and move in. It changed my life. So yeah, you know, it makes sense. Like, of course, I'm going to be tired. Of course, I'm grieving. Of course, I'm a little depressed. So all of these things were kind of normal because of the trauma that I had been through.

And I kind of just kept telling myself this, which on one hand, it is true, right? Like we go through trauma, we go through something and our body reacts. We know that you get chronic pain, you get fatigue. this can show up in things like, headaches or migraines or chronic fatigue syndrome or adrenal fatigue, things like that.

It happens.and so I think for a while, I just. Kind of kept saying like I get it. I do. I stepped, I took steps back in my business. I did the bare minimum just to keep things going. I've truly allowed myself sometimes to just be in bed and just do it, just, just be there. And so I was doing this on and off for a while and

it made sense. Then I move, I get settled in a new place. I love my life. I love where I am. And I have a good couple months and overall, I really am like, I'm, I'm loving life. I really am happy with where I am.my body's still reacting. I'm still trying to like get it together and just kind of hold it together some days, but overall, you know, things are all right.

But I think my true nature is to just keep going and pushing because I, I have goals that I want to meet and I'm trying to keep up with societal standards, even though I really have healed a lot of this expectation in my, in my, in my life and myself, this expectation to always go and do a million things at once and have a full business life and personal life.

spiritual life and do it all right. I really did leave some of that behind when I started healing. but some, but it kind of creeps in like this, the, the ideas of what we should be doing and if you're a business owner, especially as a business owner, there's so many messages out there about just doing it and doing it fast and doing it all that.

I, it kind of seeps in and it started seeping in. And so I think after a while, I just. I started to have more and more symptoms, but I just kind of was like, this is normal, you know, for what I've been through and I'm still healing and grieving and it just makes sense and I would use my skills and kind of manage things until those things stopped working.

Now I hit a wall, I hit a period, I mean, a true nervous system collapse. Where I, there were days I was not leaving the bed. I just couldn't. I just couldn't. my mental health took a deep, deep toll. And when I tell you I have not mentally and emotionally felt that way in, probably 10 plus years, it scared the out of me.

if you know anything about my story, you know how I was put in therapy in high school and really, really valued it. And it, it's made me the person I am today. It's the reason I'm a therapist because I was dealing with really deep depression and anxiety and high school and college. And I really moved through that and I'm proud of it.

And since then, and I'm very honest when I say this, I have not felt depression in that way since until this year. And it was humbling. Because I think there was some level of me not super conscious because I'm truly aware that, you know, life, life, it just happens and like, we can't control it. But, I think I had this expectation, this perfectionistic expectation that, oh, I healed depression.

I don't get depressed anymore. And the universe was like, nope, you're going to learn this lesson again. So, I was going through a lot, depression, fatigue, chronic aches and pains again, and I really started to question everything. Like what is happening? I could not understand. You know, I was doing all the things I know to do that I teach people to do because I really hold that truth.

I really don't ever want to teach or preach or what, you know, I don't want to share things that I'm not doing myself. It's very, very important to me. And so I was like, I'm doing all the things, you know, what's going on. And I started to question, am I an imposter? Is this really real? Like literally questioning everything.

And if you're more on the spiritually inclined kind of person, or just have the more existential questioning. the term Dark Knight of the Soul entered into my world and I've heard about that before I've listened to it or I've read about it and learned about it, but I never actually connected truly with it because I don't think I'd ever been there until now.

And when that was, that term came up again, it hit me and was like, Oh, this is it. And what that really means is that, One, okay, on a physical level, nervous system is shutting down. Your fight or flight is happening and shutdown is in full force. You might experience things like chronic fatigue. brain fog, emotional numbness, physical pain, sleep disturbances, cortisol spikes, avoidance strategies, you might be shopping more, watching more tv, zoning out, you might have things like brain fog or blood sugar issues are really common when we have high stress.

and fight or flight. So when we have blood sugar issues, our bodies are not registering, whether maybe that we are getting the nutrients that we need no matter what we're eating, which also impacts cortisol and vice versa, right? Cortisol And I'm going to be talking about how it impacts blood sugar and when we are just going, going, going and in fight or flight, those mechanisms are not able to regulate in our body.

So that's what I was going on with me. I would be there be shut down, or all of a sudden I'd wake up in the middle of the night with this huge cortisol spike and I, my heart would be pounding. And then I would be super hungry, but then I'd eat and I'd still be super hungry an hour later. It was just all over the place.

My nervous system was like, I picture, I picture little, like a cartoon of a fuse, like about to blow, you know, it's just like freaking out and not knowing what to do. And finally it did blow of May of 2024 and, I hit that, that true shutdown and, and the emotional space, at least for me. This is different for everyone, but for me, I, my automatic can go to what's wrong with me.

Why can't I manage this? Why can't I do this? I do should on myself. Should meaning like I should be this, I should be that, right? I blame myself. I'm usually very self critical. And although I have worked very hard on all of these and still I mean, again, if I had not used the skills that I know to use, I'd be in a very different place.

I would go there and I would say, what's wrong with me? Why can't I heal? Am I a fraud? X, Y, and Z. And then I'd move through that and remember, no, I'm not. I'd give myself compassion. I'd give myself grace and I'd move through it. But those automatic things started showing up when they hadn't shown up in so long.

And for a while, yeah, I just, I didn't know what to do. I was going in and out. And I think I shared a tiny bit here and there. If you follow me on Instagram, I never really shared too much personal cause I just didn't want to, and wasn't ready for it. And also I don't, I don't need to share all of that.

Right. but there'd be a little hints here and there. And I slowed down a little bit more about what I was posting and changed things up. but you know, behind the scenes, I was really struggling. And on one side, on one hand, I love my new life. I actually started dating again. And I think that also kind of brought up a lot unconsciously.

So regardless of this, this being me, I want to bring it back again. Let's check back in with just burnout in general and what happens with our bodies and the nervous system. You can have, there's many different symptoms that can happen when you dismiss what is actually needed for your physical, mental, and emotional body.

So if you're constantly doing more and more and it's not Great for your body. You're gonna start to notice these symptoms popping up. You're gonna start feeling a little bit more anxious. You're gonna need a little bit more caffeine. You're gonna be more tired. You might have more aches and pains that pop up in your body and feel like you need to go to the doctor more or just things like that, right?

When those things happen, and maybe your mental and emotional mind and body are taking a toll, you might notice that you're questioning a lot of things. Like, why can't I do this right? Why am I not as good as X, Y, and Z? Or you're comparing yourself a lot to people around you or on the internet. you're not feeling very confident about yourself.

There's a lot of low self esteem. Maybe you have some days of really high anxiety or some days of really low depression. A lot of these things can happen when you are doing more than is appropriate for yourself and for your life. And, or, I'm going to say and, because usually they go together, but, and if you've been through something difficult.

For me, it was divorce and it was traumatic, just because divorce is traumatic, regardless of the situation of it. and you know, even though it was my choice and I'm very proud of that choice, doesn't mean that it's not hard. So I went through this pretty difficult time where I was managing my personal life.

I was working with clients and in my therapy practice and maintaining a program. And for a while, I thought I could handle it all. And I'm used to being the one who holds space for others, but I don't think I was fully allowing myself to have the space to mentally and emotionally lean in to caring for myself.

So, slowly I started noticing the cracks. My energy definitely wasn't what it used to be. I was mentally and emotionally drained, but still I pushed through and told myself this is just a phase, it'll pass. And then over a few days, actually really one month, it just made it very clear that I was done. My body was done.

I was forced to take a step back and it was one of the hardest things I've had to do admitting that I was completely and utterly burnt out. And part of this, if you have been following me on Instagram, you know that I posted a little bit about mold. So let's talk about that. As I was knowing that I was going through this period and doing all the skills to help myself, I was managing, right?

Like. Wasn't having the best time, but I was managing using my skills and tools and getting the support that I needed. And then, like I said earlier, there did come a time where those things just weren't working. I think I kind of was just, I was kind of keeping the worst at bay because I don't think I was truly acknowledging the deeper emotional component that I needed to acknowledge.

And Mold was the thing that broke, the straw that broke the camel's back. I moved into an apartment that had, hidden mold. And this is a controversial topic because mold toxicity, on one hand, is, is not good, right? Like, objectively, this is not good for our bodies, and it affects our minds and our bodies in horrific ways.

Truly, truly horrible ways. And also we know that many people react differently. So there's a huge nervous system component here. And the reason I say this was, is because I want you to understand how this all impacts. So I do contribute a lot of my shutdown to mold, but again, I truly believe it was the straw that broke the camel's back, meaning it would have been something else.

Probably if it weren't mold, there would have been something else that happened or some environmental toxin or something that. again, I say that because someone else could have been living in that place who had not gone through what I went through and didn't have a super stressed out nervous system and probably would have been fine living there.

But for me, I was not. And on one hand, when I recognized it, it really helped. It actually very much so validated like, Oh, there's truly something outside of myself environmentally that I cannot control. It's affecting me. So no matter what I do, mind, body, spirit practices, this is still going to affect me.

So I left the situation and moved out. I started treatment and that was two months ago, almost. Yeah. And I kid, you know, I I'll back up to, to tell more of the story, but I kid you not, I feel so much better today. I am coming out of it. I feel so much more like myself. My mental, emotional, physical bodies are, I mean, so much better.

I feel great. And that's a pretty short amount of time. And I even started feeling better maybe three weeks ago. That's a very short amount of time to heal from something like mold toxicity. So I say that because it wasn't the only thing, right? Also because I am resilient and I have the skills and I have the tools and I've been using them.

And so it's helped me move through this difficult time, even though there was a period of time I was questioning it all, not going to lie y'all. I was like, what am I doing? Am I a fraud? Am I sharing this information that isn't even true? Now those were a few days that wasn't most of my existence, but it was a question.

And so I share this because I want you to take the mold as this could be anything from mold, an injury, an accident. This could be, you're told you got a parasite. You know, there could be so many things that impact us that we think attribute to all of our symptoms, but it doesn't. It's just not, it's only one.

And more often than not, it is a stressed out nervous system and a danger oriented brain that impacts our health. Whether that's mental, emotional, physical health, when I say danger oriented brain, if you have not heard that term or understand what that means, it means that when we are stressed out and our nervous systems are on high alert, our brain is sending a bunch of danger signals to our body that impacts things like IBS, chronic fatigue, migraines, fibromyalgia, things like that, pelvic pain.

So my nervous system and my brain were on high alert because of what I'd gone through I will be honest, even though I was using a lot of skills, I can reflect back and I can be honest with myself and I can realize I wasn't emotionally probably giving myself what I truly needed. I would work with my emotions, but I will say that's one of the things that I have a hard time with.

I talk about it, I teach it, I know the power of it, and I do it myself, but that it's, it's like my unconscious is so defensive when it comes to my emotions. So it'll do anything other than want to feel. So I have to really be conscious. And in those really difficult times, like, you know, it's just, it just is what it is.

You're not going to want to go there. Then that's because you're too stressed out. Your nervous system is shut down too much that you, you can't go there and that's okay. Now I'm able to. And I want to give you another example of something that just happened recently. So, I just went to the, PPDA conference for the past few days, the Psychophysiological Disorders Association.

It's actually going to change names, but, that is what I went to. And the president of it, or I think it's the president, yeah. The president of it, Dave Clark, who I actually just had on my podcast and this episode, you probably will have actually heard before this one. So that's great. So you'll understand who he is.

And he just, him and this whole conference really reminded me of this work, of how powerful it is after I'd gone through a really tough few months of kind of questioning a lot, to be honest. And so I was in this room with all these people talking about how our neuroplastic symptoms, which is our brain based symptoms.

Our brain based symptoms such as chronic pain, chronic fatigue, IBS, long COVID, pelvic pain. There's a whole list and I'll link that, I'll link the link below that shows you all of that.

That it is a true and real diagnosis. It does not mean the symptoms are not real. They are 1000 percent real. It's just not coming from a structural root cause. It's coming from a. brain based root cause. And so it just, Oh, that felt so good to remember all of this. And so for example, the past two to three weeks, I've had this pain come up in my body.

And this is one that pops up a lot. It's in my neck and shoulder. And there are structural things there that I have been shown years ago on an MRI. I have a bursitis, I have a labrum tear, I'm hypermobile. And so my C1 goes in and out a lot. Like it's, it's there. If I go to a practitioner, they put their hands on me and they're like, Ooh, you're really tight.

Or like, Oh, wow, you're all over the place. You know, my rib is high, like all these things that a structural practitioner might tell you. So On one hand, I, I have, and I share this, have healed so many physical chronic pains. And I mean, truly, there are things that I still have not experienced to this day after, when was that, almost 10 years ago when I first started this work?

And I'm proud of that, and I've really learned how to work with my physical body. Now, I'm not going to lie, this issue, I think I started to question. I think that over time, I kind of got sucked into some societal messages about the body and about physical issues and about what the, Western medical field and culture and business wants us to know, wants us to think is that there's a lot of structural issues and you need to keep getting help and paying for help and medication. And although you should probably know by now, if you listen to this, I, you know, I don't prescribe to a lot of the traditional medical treatment, but our, those messages are everywhere.

Take care. They're truly everywhere, never, no matter whether it's Western functional medicine, whatever it is. And so I leaned into, Oh, this is more structural, not mind body. And I'm hyper mobile. So that just is what it is. My body's going to feel pain. I was humbled this weekend, you guys, I really was because there were two different talks Transcribed And honestly, I really hope to have them on here because one was by a PT and one was by a doctor who focuses on hypermobility and both just truly validated my symptoms are not structurally based.

They are not, despite what is on that MRI, despite what is on that x ray. Yes, there are structural issues, but that doesn't mean I need to have pain. One person next to me can have the exact same x rays, can be hypermobile, and not have pain. There's plenty of professional athletes around the world, Olympic athletes, who are hypermobile and don't have chronic pain.

So why me, am I here sitting having this pain, right? So it makes you question these things, which is really important. We need to question. So, okay, I started to think, and, and to be honest, there's a huge part of me that knew, but I think again, my, my defenses, my mind is really strong and my defenses did not want me to go look at the emotional issues.

So I just kind of kept thinking like, Oh, it's most more structural. Yeah. Even though I truly did know if I just really, really worked on the emotional side of it, that it would probably relieve it. So during this conference, I'm sitting here listening to all this, and I start to use the practices on my neck and shoulder.

I start to really imagine Myself being safe, telling myself my nervous system is safe, start to tell my brain that I don't need these symptoms anymore. I start visualizing and imagining the muscles in my neck and my shoulder all being healthy and relaxed and subtle and my spine is all aligned and My shoulder and neck are so safe and so healthy, and my body is so strong.

And then I also started to look at the emotions around the past few weeks. There's been a lot, and I dug into those, and I evaluated them, and I accepted them, and I released them by expressing those emotions. I'm reminding myself that I'm safe during this as well. Now another thing that I recognized was that if you've seen my Instagram, you know that my dog, Ollie, hurt himself.

And that's the only way I know to describe it. he has an inflamed disc in his back, his shoulders were all messed up, his spine was totally misaligned. I mean, he was dead. Barely walking. And this, my issue popped up around the same time. And I didn't really connect the dots until now. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I think I was kind of taking on his stress.

you know, I was feeling so responsible and also so helpless. I didn't know what to do. And He's feeling a lot better now. It doesn't really make sense what happened to him. He seriously was just running and kind of collapsed in a way like I didn't really see, but it just kind of happened. So I.

Recognize now that both of our issues, one, I think we're kind of feeding off of each other, but two, we've been through a lot in the past few months, right? As I got him, we about two weeks later moved out of my apartment because there was, I found the bolt. And then we've been moving around ever since. We haven't had a stable home.

I mean, he was dropped off at a shelter by a family who had him for four years. So who knows what he's thinking or feeling? And I recognize a dog is different than humans. They don't process emotions the same way we do. I understand that.they have an unconscious, they're human. I mean, they're not human.

They are beings, right? So I can imagine his nervous system was under a lot of stress. So this was probably just kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back for him and same with me. So okay, yesterday was the last day of the conference and I actually talked to one of the practitioners there who, who spoke about structural issues.

He's a PT. Charlie Merrill, and I will link his information. We started talking, I talked about my shoulder and neck, and he pretty much just validated, yeah, no, that's not structural. Like, I mean, yeah, you probably need to work with what's going on, look at the sports that you're doing, look at where you're having more pain, you know, we kind of went into all of this, and it made me question.

And so I started to really reflect, and I was like, you know what? I do. I do know that this is truly, This is truly brain-based. I know that I can go ride my bike and be okay, whereas the past couple weeks after I've ridden my bike, I mean, I literally could barely hold. I would, I sometimes started crying because my neck hurt so bad and I attributed it to my neck is weak.

You know, holding your neck up while your bike riding is difficult and I couldn't turn very well and I was like, I'm gonna go ride my bike and my neck is going to be fine. And I did. I left that conference a little bit early. I came home, I got on my bike and I rode while the whole time I was looking around being like telling myself how grateful I am to be able to do this.

And I was imagining and visualizing my neck and my shoulder completely healthy and safe and breathing into my body. and reminding myself that I don't need any pain to cover up any symptoms or emotions I have. And I just kept writing and kept enjoying, and there'd be a little tightness or stiffness, but I wouldn't really pay too much attention to it.

I just kind of noticed it and breathed into it and relaxed. my shoulders and reminded myself that I'm safe and told my brain that I really don't need that pain being sent there. I'm totally okay. My neck is okay. My shoulder is okay. And I just kept doing this over and over and over again. And yeah, I noticed some soreness.

I noticed some stiffness. I noticed some fear. I had to really work through the fear of, oh my gosh, like, what if I wake up tomorrow and I can't move or, you know, what's been happening. Like, what if this really not, what if this isn't going to work? And then I'm back at square one. I was so afraid of that.

So I worked through the fear. I breathed. I listened to my music. I told myself I was safe. I did this over and over for about an hour and a half, got home. And it's 24 hours later right now. And I'm fine. I'm great. I noticed a little bit. little, maybe kind of a little bit of stiffness. Whereas earlier the past two, three weeks, I mean, truly like I'd wake up in the middle of the night because it was so painful and I'm fine.

And I'm just so grateful for this work. It was just a huge aha moment to bring me back to what I know and teach. So I'm saying this because yes, I do this work. And sometimes I have to be reminded because I can get distracted by outside influences that, Oh, maybe it's not mind body. Maybe it's actually, maybe you need this red light, or maybe you need this adjustment, or maybe you need this kind of massage, or maybe you need this X, Y, and Z.

You don't, you don't need that. I don't need that. I'm completely fine today, so I want to normalize that, and that's just one example of everything of the mind and body, right? And so I'm coming out of this burnout. I'm working through all my skills, and again, I would not be where I am. I truly probably would still be in bed if I did not have my skills and my tools and what I know about the nervous system and what I know about the mind and the body.

Our mental and emotional health is everything. If I was still sitting here talking crap about myself and telling myself, well, I can't believe you let it get that far, you know better, I wouldn't be where I am. Yeah, maybe I know these things, but I can't be perfect at it. And you can't be either. We're not going to be perfect.

So how do we heal from burnout? It's not an overnight process. And it requires a lot of compassion for yourself. For me, the first step was learning to listen to my body again, which is something I talk so often here, but like so many of us, I wasn't doing it for myself. In some ways, healing from burnout means learning how to bring your nervous system back into balance from the constant fight or flight state to a place of rest, repair, and safety.

I talk a lot about these skills on this podcast and in my programs and with my clients. I cannot talk enough about them. And honestly, what actually could have helped me to remind myself of all of this? I could have just gone back through my program, watched my own videos. And although I was doing it, listening to it, hearing it again would help even more, right?

And, okay, this is, this is so not, this is not an episode to like, to, to broadcast my program. But I just have to say, I mean, so much of what I've talked about here and way more is in there because I wanted to give you everything that I didn't really have. So. And my mind body healing method is where I talk so much about chronic symptoms and what's truly possible when you can heal mind and body and to give you all the skills and the practices and the tools that I still do all the time today and again, would not.

They helped me get through all of this and to be resilient. And I'm not, I'm not healed. I'm not done. I'm not, you know, all of a sudden back to normal. I still have my times. I still have my days. I still have a lot of stress, but I'm working on it. It's always a work in progress. Life's always going to hit you at different phases.

And it's more about how you manage it, how you work through it and how you get the support that you need if you really need it. One of the biggest lessons that all of this has taught me is that healing doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from letting go.

I'm still learning how to find balance between doing and being. It's a constant process. But I'm committed to making space for rest and self care in my life. If I don't, I would not even be, I would not be functioning.

And if you're listening to this and thinking, Grace, I'm in the middle of burnout right now. I want you to know that you're not alone. I see you and I know how heavy it can feel, but the good news is our bodies are resilient with the right tools and a lot of self compassion. You can heal. You can see the light and feel the light.

And it starts with small intentional changes, like giving yourself permission to rest, taking a break when you need it, and tuning into your body signals.

As always, I'm here for you on this journey. If you have any questions, please reach out. I would love to see you in the mind body healing method. I would love to see you as a client. If you need that extra individual support, find the links below. And if you're struggling with burnout, know that you don't have to go through it alone.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If this episode resonated with you or if you're going through your own experience of burnout, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram and remember that healing is a journey and you're exactly where you need to be right now until next time, take care of yourself and keep healing with grace.