you're listening to the Rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids. We have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches. We now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life. So tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright. This is the Rise up and Shine podcast. Welcome back listeners. We're so glad you're here. So I've got a couple questions to start us off. Have you ever felt so exhausted that even a good night's sleep doesn't help. Do you suffer from frequent headaches and inability to focus? How about feeling disconnected even from the things that normally you feel very connected to people or activities? What about a lack of motivation? Again for things that normally totally motivate you and all of a sudden you have no motivation.

If you answered yes to even one of these, you could be struggling from burnout. Yes, it's a real thing and I know because I'm just recovering from it. So I myself got myself into a state of burnout again, not the first time, it's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I keep burning myself out and I wasn't sure I had covid in early june and so mild, like I didn't even know I had it really if my husband hadn't lost his sense of smell, I would not have even known I had it, but I took a test and so I thought, well maybe this is just still part of Covid, but it really wasn't. It was burned out. I was able to look at it and research and like I've done this again, I'm fatigued my adrenal glands which I've done before. I've had to, you know, get help for that. So I was like, here I am burnout. So I figured if I'm struggling from burnout and it's summer, which is not a fun time to have burnout, then I'm sure I'm not the only one. So today we're going to talk about burnout what it is, how to prevent it and how to recover from and heal from it.

If you are struggling with burnout. This is so good. I mean really life coaches do get burnout. Yes, we do. We know the things we know what to do. Our default nature cancer still creep in. And we were work, work, work, work, give, give, give gifts or whatever. You know. Have you travel, travel, travel. Yes. I know. Actually being summertime, I brought that up in my monday minute email. I talked about this to travel. But it's still stressful. Right? Different bed, different location, different suitcase. It's stressful. Yeah, burnout is a real thing in it. Nobody is immune to it. Especially as moms very crucial. I had burned out so many times. I probably lived and burnout for nine years straight. You know, But it can feel like that really can feel like that because we are doing so much. We try to balance all the things all the roles um and I just remember that point of getting tired of it like just being sick and tired of being tired all the time and I remember talking with someone, my mom actually she's like well you're a mom, you have young kids but it didn't sit well with me granted that was true, but also it didn't sit well with me but this can't be it like this can't just my life now, you know that I'm just tired and burned out all the time and feeling overwhelmed so what gives I mean how can I change it?

And it was so freeing when we learned those practical, when I personally learned those practical is to help um I was actually learning things about healing from trauma and depression and but the things that I learned helped Cure mostly prevent burnout, not 100% obviously we still get there, but it was much, much less and I was able to recognize that I was going down that path and I can turn myself back amazing. So this will be a great topic for all of you to listen to because again it happens to us all, it does and it's funny when you were talking about that when my kids were little, I think I hit burnout as a mom many times and I had four Children that you know young Children work part time volunteered. It seemed like I had so many plates spinning that it would be natural that I would hit burnout. But then as a young christian mom, I just kept doing, doing, doing and going, going, going.

And it's so funny that we're even talking about this because the other night I had some women over, my husband was out of town, I had some women over for dinner and one of them is kind of a new friend that I'm just getting to know and whenever my husband's out of town I decided to do a major remodeling project so I gutted my pantry and redid it and I know he knew he knew I was doing it, but she's like, you know, I just noticed like you're just a doer, you're always doing doing doing and I was like, you know, she didn't mean it as a compliment yet in our Western society we really lift up doing right. We lift that up productivity and accomplished yes, hustle mindset, Yeah, you've got a business, you gotta hustle and that's our Western culture and certainly I'm a product of that. And then plus you take my personality type, which is definitely more of a type A so I'm going to go go go until I hit burnout and like you said, here we are life coaches, I mean we help women, we help teach these tools and then I finally figured out, oh my gosh, I'm in burnout again.

I think I've totally fatigued my adrenals again, notice this keep happening. So today we're going to talk about preventative and we're also going to talk about healing from burnout. But I wanted to define it really quick. Just a simple definition, burnout is a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. This can hit any time. We encounter too much stress over a prolonged period of time and that's part of it. It's we're all going to have stress, right? That's the human experience. We I mean unless you're living on some tropical island on a trust fund sipping margaritas every day, we're going to encounter stress, right? So, but it's when it's too much and it's over a prolonged period of time, just go, go, go and push and And you know, I have to say is a Christian woman. Sometimes I've read some of these scriptures and I've twisted them, you know, deny yourself. And so we push like our bodies or hearts are telling us to slow down or in my case many years ago, my husband, he would tell me, I think you need to slow down a little and I was like, well I'll rest when I'm dead.

I remember saying that to him 20 years ago, I'll rest when I'm dead and then I ended up in the hospital for a few days with multiple series of issues. But um that's the mindset that can plague some of us and that's why we end up in burnout. So yeah, and you know, as you're talking about stress, stress is inevitable, it's part of life. However, when it's prolonged, there's probably an issue with our management stress and that is one thing I have learned is when I reached burnout then I'm just not managing my stress well like I'm doing, doing doing and not being just to have a balance that I'm not saying just be and don't ever do, but there needs to be a healthy balance. And another thing that personally for me cause burnout was I just lost myself and all my roles and Ashley wasn't having some time to herself. Ashley was not getting as much care.

Ashley was being neglected. Ashley was being hard on herself, right? So all these things and I was critiquing myself and I was feeling guilty or shame and tired and um you know, just trying to balance it all, but feeling like a failure and those things will lead you straight to burnout straight to burnout. Yet we feel it's truth, we feel this is my life, this is, you know, this is just the way it is, but it doesn't have to be that way. It's so good and I like that you say managing it because I think even for me again, um being a christian and having become a christian at a young age and learning the scriptures early, I didn't have it as a child. So it was a young adult, but even things like anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it since, so I thought oh my gosh, I must be doing good all the time and I shouldn't sit around and watch tv or read books for pleasure like there's very, yes, yes, that's definitely I can have a guilty conscience.

Um you know, in the Courage Club, we just finished freedom from guilt and shame in july. So that was a really good topic. It was really good for me, you know, I'm like teaching it and have worksheets and video classes and I'm like, oh this is me, this is me great. But it's good once you know, you can grow once you know, you can grow another bumper sticker. But um yeah, so managing it really learning how to manage and even with that like there is a lot of good for us to do as moms as wives, as daughters, as friends, as christians, but it's managing it like it doesn't have to be all done in one day or one week or one month, like I remember as my kids got older, I had to learn how to manage it after that, I ended up in the hospital for a time, but I remember thinking if I get dinner on the table, I've had a good day, that's how I had to manage it for me like okay, I don't need to do 37 things like I just need to feed my family today and hopefully, you know. Yeah, Yeah.

And when I got overwhelmed with that, I'd come my best friend who had seven kids and she had to make dinner for nine, so it's all relative but learning to manage our stress so it doesn't go on over a prolonged period and their seasons in our life. And I didn't understand that in my younger age, I felt like I needed to do everything all the time and all at once and now that I'm right. Yes. Yes. So much unnecessary stress. And so now that I'm older and wiser And wiser, hopefully I've learned to manage the stress. And it's funny because now that I'm even older, like I can do even less and I don't say that in a negative or down way, it's just accepting my limitations. My 57 year old body doesn't perform like a 35 year old body. My it once did, like, that came to life as I did my pantry remodel and I'm like, okay, this might be it, this might be my last physical project, because this was a lot. It was a lot and I did it, you know, by myself and my son came over, but it still was like, yeah, I think I'm taking on too much part of managing our stress too, is just setting healthy boundaries for ourself again, like if we're doing too much and especially for others, which we feel we should be doing and we're neglecting caring for ourselves, whether that's caring for our bodies, our mental health, our emotions, all those things, um setting boundaries, perhaps we're saying yes too much, perhaps we need to say no a little bit more and that was my issue.

I could not say no, it was so hard for me to learn to say no, it took years, years and tears of tears for me to learn to say no and that it was okay and not be ashamed or guilty for saying no, that it was healthy, that it was something I really needed to do and it allowed me to show up for others really, to my full extent with my best because I was giving scraps. If I'm defeated and overwhelmed and burned out, I'm giving scraps. So it seems counterintuitive, but hey, if Ashley can come out a little bit, Ashley can have a little fun or say no sometimes or have a bath or you know, go out with friends, whatever it looks like for you. If I can care for myself, then I can, I have the energy, my craft is being filled and I can serve and give and show up in my responsibilities, my roles in a whole different way and that's really what we want and so how do we do that?

Well, we know how to do setting boundaries because we actually did an episode on an episode 30 three, it's quite a while ago, but if you want to hear the importance of boundaries for happier you go back to episode 33 I think that is so important and definitely I did not learn how to set boundaries. Gosh, I want to say late forties, early fifties definitely didn't even Yeah, it was like yes, yes, yes to everything right. And we feel like we're being good christians when we say yes to everything. And then like yeah, yes. And then we, like me end up in the hospital going, oh what went wrong here? I guess I'm supposed to learn another lesson that it's okay to say no, it's okay to pace ourselves and burn out. Doesn't benefit anybody, right? Because once we burn out then we can't give anything at all. So it's kind of like the turtle and the hare, right? It's better to give a little and pace ourselves slow go and slow. And then the fast and you know, burn out like the rabbit, the hare, the hare, the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise and the hare.

And it's been a long time, many years removed from nursery school. So and the tortoise was had the slow pace. The hair just gunned it in the beginning. Yeah, I think the hair burned out. Exactly. That story is relatable to even Adults, they were trying to teach us at five, we just did not catch on. Oh my gosh, it's so true, So claudine, what are some steps we can take to heal from burnout? Okay, so I literally recently just recovering from this. So one of the first ones identify the source, really, just spend a few minutes and figure out where this is coming from. Is it from work from expectations from others from ourselves? Is that, you know, for me, I had put a lot of, I tend to put a lot of expectations on myself and I fill out my weekly calendar of all my two DUIs and it tends to be heavy and um I think I'm not doing much, but in essence it's too much for me at this stage of my life. So um self expectations.

So identify the source. Where is this coming from? Maybe it's work. Maybe there's too much work. Maybe you're taking on too many things at once. Maybe you're working and you have Children and you have um husband and you have church responsibilities and you have volunteer work and you have activities and before you know, it it's just too many things. So identify the source. Another one that I'll speak to is just ask for help. So this one is really hard for me. I don't like asking for help. I like being the helper, like being the helper, right? I want everyone to come to me, which is, again, not helping doesn't help burnout when everyone comes to you for help. But I like that, Right? And so I had to identify why is it that I don't like asking for help, what do I think it says about me, right? So for me asking for help because I don't like doing it, I had to go introspect and think why do I not like asking for help? What am I making that mean about me? And so once I figure figure out um what it meant to me that wasn't healthy, right?

It's not a healthy thought, then I could just ask for help. So I did, I actually um hired someone to work part time in my business because I needed that and then um with my other responsibilities, I also asked for help. So it's been it took so much off my plate and of course everyone else is happy to help. You know in some ways it's probably healthier like some of our responsibilities, we don't need to do it all my husband and I we can tell and it makes people feel useful and needed themselves. Like I don't need to be the only useful needed person. Like other people are useful and needed to and willing and willing happy. And it's so important to remember that asking for help is not weakness. It I know for myself, even when the kids were young asking a family member to babysit or just take them for a few hours break. I always felt it was me admitting I'm failing and I can't handle it and it is such a huge step in humility to be able to ask, but it is so rewarding because as you said, people are so willing, you know, I believe my mother in law wanted me to include her early on and I just was stuck in my head that you know, we could, we could do a whole episode on asking for help because it does like as you were talking, yeah, listen, in the next month or two it'll come up but we feel like we'll be indebted right?

Like I think for me as you were talking, I was like no, I'm gonna owe someone which so many times we help other people. I don't expect if I watch someone's kids, I'm not like well now they owe me like I don't think that ever but yet we think if we ask for help then we're going to owe somebody and they might want to come get paid back when we can't do it, which goes back to boundaries, we can't say no, it's all intertwined. It's all intertwined. So third one get support and talk it out. Hello, this is what Claudine and ideal we are. Life coaches huge coach, a mentor, an older wiser woman Help, get the support. It's so crucial because we can be stuck in that burnout. We don't see a way out, we can even have a hard time believing there's a way out. Sometimes we need someone to offer perspective to help show us some steps that we can take to get out of this stage of burnout or even prevent it in the future and being able to open up and honestly talk about it, this is huge because again, accepting that it's not weakness and being vulnerable can be scary, but getting that support of someone who can walk with you through it and give you kind of like a guide and a friend to help give you those steps and encourage you to keep walking, keep walking forward and through it, it's great, and speaking of walking that is another one, let's do that, number four, get some moderate exercise.

So when you're in burnout it's not a time to go do a spin class or do something very uh strenuous because your body needs time to kind of heal, but it is time to exercise moderately, so walking, preferably in nature is a great, great tool. So um as a matter of fact this very morning, I got up early, it's been really hot here in northern California. So this morning about 7 30 my husband and I got up and went on a walk for about an hour while it was still cool out by the creek real close to our house, so it was just so peaceful and it does so much good for my soul was a great opportunity to go on a prayer walk to catch up with each other to just exercise and just breathe and just be Yeah, absolutely. Nature is so therapeutic for me. Yeah, so moving on to number five, practicing self care if you even followed me on my website um or even a lot of what I talk about self care, especially as a mom, especially with young Children, but really at any age and we talked about earlier in this episode that when we're not caring for ourselves, we can't fully give our best, we can't show up as best and we just don't feel good, we're burned out, we're overwhelmed, we're stressed and we just sit in that space for way too long.

Um but practicing self care and what does that look like for you? You know, be introspective, ask yourself questions, what do I need, what does my body need, What does my mind need, what do my emotions need and that could be journaling. One thing I did, especially in the wintertime, was friday nights would be my bath night and I would literally be in the bath watching a full movie, taking a bath because you know, no one can say no to you taking a bath. Right, that was my escape to when my kids were young, I'm taking a bath now. Love you. Dad's available. Um making sure to spend time with friends going out in nature. I love hike hiking, I love camping, I've done it once this summer, but hiking, being out in nature is like I said, it's so therapeutic. It just kind of washes away. All my worries, at least for a few hours. So those are just a few examples of self care. And again, think about what that looks like for you. And a big thing about self care, don't allow yourself to feel guilty.

It is okay that you get some care as well. Yeah, that's great. That's great. I found this scripture that I loved Mark 6 31 in the N. I R. V. It says jesus says come with me by yourselves to a quiet place, you need to get some rest. I'm like, oh look, he's even telling me to get some rest. Like I read that and I'm like, yeah, I need some rest, I need to go to a quiet place and get some rest. And um like you said sometimes the bath when you're a mom of young Children, that's a great place to get. Hopefully it's a quiet place for you. It was my quiet place because I had two doors between how my kids could get to me and now that I'm older and they're grown my quiet places in my home. Um you know, or yeah, it's usually in my home, I have enough rooms right now where there's no other Children so I can pick a room any room and go have a quiet place, but I hope this has been helpful to you, Ashley and I have a resource if you want to get a copy of it on our websites, it's healing from burnout in it.

We also list six super foods you need to eat for burnout and what to avoid during burnout. So um I know I think of this quote, it says an empty tank will take you nowhere fast, take time to refuel. So hopefully this has been helpful for you. Hopefully you don't ever suffer from burnout, but if you do, um here's some great tips to help you heal quickly because it can be fairly quick. So until next time. Take care. Alright everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today, here on the rise up and shine podcast if you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode and while you're at it share this episode with a friend who you know it can bless today if you want to visit us as well on our websites, you can catch Claudine over at Claudine Sweeney dot com and Ashley at mind over chaos dot com. Our links are in the description, We also have some free resources there for you as well.

So remember ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life