Too Loud to Think: Turn Down Burnout Volume
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[00:00:08] Hello. Hello, this is Danielle Ireland and you are listening to Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs, this is a continuation of a mini series called Put Down The Panic, a Kinder Guide to Stress with this mini series. What I really wanna do is help explore how this type of stress, this acute.
[00:00:26] Burning, burnout, fueling never ending, constantly chasing feeling how it sneaks up on us, and more importantly, how we can set it down. Because what I am looking to access in my life and what I am regularly talking to clients about is what does it mean to give yourself what you know you really need without feeling like you have to earn it, that your pain.
[00:00:53] It doesn’t have to be a badge of honor, that you don’t have to wait until you’re so sick that you can’t get outta bed to give yourself the time you need, or that you don’t have to be so over committed to cancel the plan that you didn’t really wanna say yes to. What does it mean to give yourself exactly what you need and believe yourself the first time?
[00:01:16] That’s what we’re here to talk about. So I had a lot. Prepared actually for this episode, but before getting into that, I thought that’d be fun to share a life update. And by fun, I don’t know why I said fun, but it’s maybe because I love this format and I love sharing with you in this way.
[00:01:34] But yesterday, yesterday was, it was a tough day. For a couple of different reasons, and I think that this is definitely on theme, so we’ll just start with a story. The first was my two kiddos I think are approaching emotional growth spurts, and with that type of emotional change, the more opinionated and the more they become their own individual selves, the more conflict we experience.
[00:02:07] My son is hitting and throwing and he’s a lot stronger than he is aware of, even at two. So that is presenting its challenges. And then my daughter is four and a half going on 14, and she is this beautiful spitfire, incredibly, , passionate little human and. The qualities that make my kids, you know, my favorite two people are also, also the very same qualities that make being a mother feel really hard sometimes.
[00:02:49] And it’s beautiful and it can feel brutal. And yesterday was one of those days for a couple of factors. I can see and know and appreciate that they are on a journey becoming people with opinions and wanting to stake their claim in the world. And they’re too, and they’re for, and sometimes you gotta get your shit out the door.
[00:03:15] Our daughter woke up three times the night before and I had, I had a whole day. I had a whole day. Allocated to doing things that I wanted to do and what I, it’s like playing this internal game of peekaboo where I forget that life doesn’t know my to-do list, that my kids don’t know that their behavior impacts me.
[00:03:44] They’re just existing as they should. But being awoken three times between the hours of two and four 30, and then my rhythm’s getting messed up, having a hard time falling back asleep. My husband has this gift that I envy deeply where he, his head can hit a pillow and he can fall unconscious and stay unconscious.
[00:04:03] My head hits a pillow and it takes about 45 minutes. So those sleep disruptions when I woke up, it’s like. Without alcohol, I felt hungover and my face looked puffy, and there was no amount of concealer in the world or bronzer or like contour video on YouTube that was gonna give me the look. That would help me feel on camera ready.
[00:04:27] And though I try to show up for this podcast and for the work I do, I try not to create any type of image that is so far beyond what you would see if you bumped into me in the street. I don’t wanna live within that much vanity. And yet I also have a little bit like, I wanna feel good and like girl, I, I was a puffy, tired mess and getting the kids out the door, getting them to school, it was like, I’ve never wrestled a pig in mud, but.
[00:05:06] I kind of think that maybe I could now based on how, how hard it was to get the kids in the car and, and also like try to remember all of the good things about, you know, Dr. Becky, they’re good kids having a hard time and I’m a good mom having a hard time and my husband’s a good dad having a hard time.
[00:05:26] It’s just like I try all that stuff. Sometimes it just goes out the fucking window and. Some days were just hard and it was a hard night. It was a hard morning. It was hard to get them in the car. Thankfully, by the time we got them to their destinations, they were in a new environment and they were around new people and a different mode kicked on and they somehow got through the day pretty well.
[00:05:52] But I come eight o’clock, eight 15. Quote unquote, ready for the day. I felt like I had been just like scraped over those old timey hand wash in the river. Things that you see in like little house in the Prairie movies that like metal tin grate, that you just scrape clothes on. That’s when I felt like my whole body was just sort of like beat in the river with, and and then I was like, uh, I don’t think this is gonna happen today.
[00:06:25] My to-do list. I just don’t think it’s really gonna happen. And I saying this now, I felt it at the time. I knew I was doing the right thing because once I sat in front of my computer, all I felt was this internal rebellion of I don’t have it today. I don’t have that extra zip, I don’t have that extra mode.
[00:06:51] To show up in a way that I’m going to feel proud of, and that actually mattered more to me than my to-do list for the first time in ever. So what I did, and this is, I’m skipping to the end of what I had planned for this episode, but I promise it’s all on track. What I ended up doing was writing down all of the things that I had.
[00:07:20] In fantasy land thought I was going to accomplish and looked at those things and was like you get one. Thankfully, I didn’t have therapy clients. If I had therapy clients scheduled, that would’ve been the one, , I’m not gonna cancel a therapy appointments, my litmus tests are my rule.
[00:07:37] What commitments have I made to other people? And thankfully, thank God, yesterday, I didn’t have a meeting. I didn’t have a lunch scheduled. I I didn’t have anyone I had to show up for other than myself and my work. And let me, I’ll just do a little side note. Asterisks. The, the freedom of that in my life is.
[00:07:59] Probably one of the things beyond my family that I treasure more than anything else ’cause that that was a journey to get there. That road, I actually, I’m immensely proud that I can say that, but to go back to, had I had a therapy client that would’ve taken priority, I would’ve shown up for that and not done anything else.
[00:08:17] But what I knew was that the version of me that would have a hard time going to sleep at night would sleep better. Knowing that. Which one thing, if she got done, would she be able to say, okay, I did that. The rest took a beat. The rest took a beat, and that I didn’t earn that. It was an undeniable state that I didn’t try to deny and over caffeinate my way through or punish myself for
[00:08:52] where I had the freedom and space to give myself what I needed. That is what I did. And I’m now able to sit here today, and granted, I do, I can’t predict all of the outcomes and ripple effects of what that actually means, but wildly, like almost whiplash. I called my husband, this morning, shortly after drop off.
[00:09:17] He had to leave a little bit earlier. He actually helped me get the kids like 90% ready to get out the door, but he was gone and it, it was cartoonish how both my kids were completely dressed. No, granted, same kids that I talked about just a moment ago, shoes on, sweater buttoned backpacks on, sitting by the door, reading a book together
[00:09:46] everything was smooth sailing and the most charming little anecdotes. The whole way.
[00:09:51] Did we all just need, did we all just need to cut ourselves some slack? We had our big feelings. The feelings needed to be felt, they needed to be expressed in the way that they did. And then we went into our separate corners, came back together, and we all had a pretty great morning.
[00:10:11] And so I. I’m, this is only anecdotal, right? We could call this a qualitative research study, but I offer that to you before going into these next talking points about how we can try to turn the volume down on overstimulation because,
[00:10:31] because there are days. Where it just feels like you’re living inside of a Best Buy showroom and every TV is on and it’s on a different channel, and you’re carrying a child in two ice coffees and then someone asks if they can pick your brain for a minute. It’s just so easy for that overstimulation to fuel the burnout that we are trying to avoid.
[00:10:53] And what I wanna talk about is how we can turn down that volume so that we can hear ourselves again and. My example was as close to in real time as I could possibly do apart from documenting my life. That was yesterday and I’m recording today. And you may not meet, need as much of a break. You may not need to take as much off of your plate, but, overstimulation
[00:11:19] it’s not weakness and it’s not a malfunction. It is a, that is a result. Of something that is a dysfunction of how we operate a lot of the time. There are so many, and this is not a bashed on technology by the way. I’m, because of technology, I’m able to record this beautiful show and share it with you.
[00:11:41] And I think that’s a gift and it’s incredible. So just don’t feel like you’re getting set up for a tech bash ’cause it’s not, but when it comes to your brain, your mind burnout, overstimulation. Our brains and our meat suits that we live in have not evolved to the point of technology where we can keep up with all the tabs.
[00:12:01] That’s just not how that part of us is meant to operate. And so overstimulation is not weakness. It’s a natural result of too much going on at once. Our nervous systems were actually built for campfires. And blue skies and trees and bird songs.
[00:12:17] When you feel overstimulated, once you can start to identify it. Take a nap from technology, shut the laptop down, put the phone away, and I’m gonna actually be really prescriptive. This isn’t about turning off notifications and keeping your phone with you. It’s just too tempting.
[00:12:37] I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put my phone down in another room and. A couple minutes will go by and my brain has been so trained to be responsive to the alerts of technology, I know roughly the time of day when daycare for my son is gonna send an update. I know roughly the time of day when I’m gonna get, various notifications.
[00:13:00] And it’s gross when you really think about it. How my body and my brain, that circuit feedback loop knows. Before my conscious awareness can keep up with of when my hand is gonna reach for my phone. There’s also a connection too, of when I feel a dip in energy, when I probably need a little bit of dopamine or I’m just getting tired from the day and I wanna pick up an open social media.
[00:13:25] And this isn’t me judging myself, nor am I judging the technology because there were probably many times in my life and during my day where. That feels good or it was fun, or it was the absolute right thing I should do. This is a call to action when you’re identifying that you are feeling overrun, fidgety tissue paper, crunchy, overstimulated, and you need to take a break.
[00:13:51] Campfires blue skies, bird songs, trees, hearing the hearing, the rustle in the trees. Take a break from your screens. Close the tabs, leave the best buy of your mind that has too much going on, and just acknowledge I need some nature and I need a breath. Your brain actually burns energy. When it’s inputting energy.
[00:14:17] I don’t know if how recently any of you have been in school or a student, but sitting and reading, digesting new information. Like being in a country where you don’t speak the language and you’re trying to interpret everything in a new way, whether you’re talking about little bits of information all over the place, or one big place like a tome of a textbook that takes energy, so you’re actually burning energy, burning calories, burning fuel.
[00:14:48] By taking all that information in. And my God, if you work in an office with other people where people are knocking on your door constantly, this is something my husband talks about a lot. That even if it’s a welcomed interruption, a conversation you would want to be having, this isn’t about desire or good or bad, it’s just a function of the brain.
[00:15:07] When your mind is tasked with one thing and that gets disrupted and interrupted, the amount of energy it takes to get back on track is so much greater than if you had just continued doing the task. So if you get interrupted 15 times in a day, my friend. You are going to be so depleted by the end of that day.
[00:15:27] For example, how do I know if I’m feeling overstimulated? There’s some other symptoms you could look for, brain fog, drained after days where you’re like, I’m drained and I didn’t do anything. If I go back to the story I had just shared, I was driving back from dropping off my kids.
[00:15:45] I already felt the brain fog words had fallen out of my brain and I could not find them. And what I really wanted to do was bury my face in a bucket of coffee because what I was trying to feel again was that zip and energy that just wasn’t there.
[00:16:02] Yesterday, even though I took so much off my plate, I’ll say that fatigue you feel when you have a quote unquote day where nothing happened. I doubt that’s actually the truth. Even though I took so much off my plate by the end of the day yesterday, I was still tired because yesterday the break I gave myself wasn’t about reinvigorating myself.
[00:16:26] It was repair. It’s the tender ache. When you’ve pulled a muscle, you’re not gonna jump right back into an aggressive exercise, but maybe you’ll do some light gentle stretches, you’ll warm yourself up, maybe get a massage or go to physical therapy. That is what yesterday was for me.
[00:16:43] So the break I gave myself didn’t. Put me in a position to run a mental marathon today, but it did prevent me from injuring myself further. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you may feel like, okay, why does she keep talking about, physical metaphors for an emotional, mental experience?
[00:16:59] I find that to be more accessible and something I can wrap my head around in a concept that yesterday. Was like, okay, I put ice on the tear. I put some icy hot on it. I, elevated the leg so it didn’t get more swollen. It was a repair day, but it was from my mind and my body.
[00:17:19] If you’ve been nodding along and thinking, wow, I really do need to slow down, I’ve got two resources I would love for you to check out. The first is The Treasure Journal. It’s a seven part guided journal and meditation series. That I created to help you pause, reflect, and find a little more space in your day.
[00:17:36] And if like me, you’ve got little ones in your life. My children’s book, wrestling a Walrus for little people with big feelings is a playful way to help kids. And honestly, adults too make sense of their big emotions. Both links are waiting for you in the show notes. And stay tuned because in the final episode of this miniseries, put down the Panic Kinder Guide to Stress.
[00:17:56] I have a special gift just for listeners that I’ll be sharing only in the audio. So please stay tuned and check that out. What I wanna now move into are tiny ways that you can turn down the volume. Maybe you don’t have the freedom space.
[00:18:09] Flexibility, flexibility, or capacity to put a massive break in your day like I did. That’s okay. I don’t always have that capacity either. But there are things that you can do. There’s tiny things you can do starting today to turn down that volume on overstimulation. Just enough to help you hear yourself a little bit better.
[00:18:30] One is a one minute reset, I love offering a one minute reset for this main reason. Everybody has a minute. You have a minute. And the other reason why I love it so much, a minute where you are doing nothing but sitting and breathing or trying to notice the sensations in your hand for one minute, one present minute time expands when you really sit with it, time becomes expansive.
[00:19:03] And it feels so much longer. Or if you have a clock that has a second hand and you can watch it doing nothing but watching that second hand a minute that felt like a millisecond will expand to three in no time, just with your presence. A one minute reset is something you can do anytime, anywhere.
[00:19:23] One of my favorite ways to do it when I’m by myself. I have meditation app that I use called Insight Timer. It’s free. Think there’s also like a paid version of it too, but anybody can use it and it has a notification and sounds that aren’t like a stress inducing alarm clock sound.
[00:19:40] I’ll set one minute timer sometimes I’ll actually do three oh scandal, but I’ll set the timer. And then I trust the timer’s gonna take care of time management for me. I don’t have to worry about how much time is left and I’ll close my eyes, or maybe I’ll just look at a nice view outside my window or even step outside.
[00:19:58] All I will do is just sit and be present for that period of time. The other is creating some sensory white space. What I wanted to do was create solutions you could fit within your day if you’re not in a place to change your day. For 10 minutes, you can access 10 minutes, trust me.
[00:20:14] And if that makes you anxious, maybe try five . Give yourself a sensory white space. That could be a walk with no headphones. That could be putting your phone in another room, but you’re going to detach yourself from technology. Take your smartwatch off if you wear one, and for five minutes or 10 minutes, be in your own body.
[00:20:36] And then my favorite, favorite thing to do. This is the catchall at the end of any of these little breaks that you choose to create for yourself. Ask silently, aloud, or write down What do I need? And something will come to you, and for me it’s usually water, a bathroom break to pet my dog.
[00:20:56] Hunger. Or other times it might just be like a little stretch. Maybe I’m holding tension somewhere in my body I didn’t notice before. But ask yourself, what do I need right now?
[00:21:06] The point of turning down the volume of the world and the interruptions of the world is so that you can hear yourself again, because nobody knows you like you, and nobody knows what you need better than you. Silence isn’t emptiness, it’s not even loneliness. That is when your voice shows up in ways that you never saw coming.
[00:21:29] Small pauses mean big. Clarity a new client, started working with me in therapy, and this was somebody who, in their own words, was really resistant to talk therapy, which. By the way is fine. It’s okay if it’s not for everybody, but they were really resistant to talk therapy because they just didn’t see how talking about themselves or their experience would be helpful in any way.
[00:21:53] That’s not gonna make my anxiety go away, that’s not gonna make me function better at work or function better at home. I just don’t see the point. What is starting to emerge. And I believe it’s only, I think they’ve only had four sessions. This is the magic. Of being able to turn down the noise of the world.
[00:22:11] When you give yourself enough clarity and space to hear your own voice, there is this connection between you and you that all of the answers you’re searching for, the piece you’re looking for outside you, the connection you’re maybe looking for in other people, the answers that you’re looking for from an expert is living in you and what, either a journal or a therapist’s office or a great walk with a friend. When you have enough space and clarity to hear your own words, you realize that’s when the ahas come, that’s when the connections are made. That’s when the next right step makes itself known to you.
[00:22:57] That pause has to come before the clarity and just be reassured. You don’t need to go to an asam. You don’t need a silent retreat unless you want to. And maybe I’ll go with you . One little notch down in the volume makes it that much easier for you to hear yourself, the truth of your own experience.
[00:23:16] Thank you so much for listening to put down the Panic, a kinder Guide to stress, this mini series of Don’t Cut your own bangs. Remember, you don’t need to earn your piece. It is waiting for you in the pause. Please remember to share this episode with a friend who may be living in noise overload too, and make sure that you subscribed so that these resets will find you automatically, because let’s be honest, you don’t need another thing on your to-do list.
[00:23:41] Let that be one less thing for you to worry about. Subscribe wherever you catch your podcast. You can also watch the full episode on YouTube. And there is a special gift waiting for you in the final episode of the series. This is episode three. We’ve got two more coming and that’s where the gift will be.
[00:23:56] Thanks for being here and hope you continue to have a wonderful day.
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