Breaking Cycles
This post is the most personal, vulnerable posts I have ever made, featuring a personal journal entry from when I was a child.
I’m going to be sharing my personal stories of the “why” I created Burnout-ology and most of my “whys” require multiple trigger warnings.
If you are having a bad mental health day, or don’t have any space today, read this article another time…
This post’s TW is depression and suicide.
*Remember the 988 is available to call/text/chat 24/7*
Did you know that your nervous system dysregulation could have started before you were born? Or that if you didn’t have parents to model coregulation for you, you may have never experienced a regulated nervous system? It’s something that has the be taught, we literally, biologically can’t learn it on our own.
This is why for many people, traditional “burnout management” techniques aren’t effective. Or they may labeled as “treatment resistant” by traditional providers. Because their bodies never knew what it felt like to be safe. I was one of those people for many reasons, and many people like this often thrive in the corporate world because we use over working as a coping mechanism, which allows us to be super successful, but often to the detriment of our health.
This is why I started Burnout-ology; because many of us were never taught how to cope with a dysregulated nervous system (other than overworking, self medicating, suppressing emotions, etc.).
Burnout-ology is here to bring the tools and social engagement to manage the stress to the corporate world so that people don’t have to go through what I went through AND they can thrive in careers they worked so hard to build.
So here is one of my “whys” and one of the many reasons I was labeled as treatment resistant and traditional burnout management strategies did not work for me:
I’ve struggled with a deep unexplainable depression before my birthday since as long as I can remember, and I recently found a journal entry, from when I was child, that I am bravely sharing with the world today.
If you asked a child what depression feels like, the pictured journal entry is a pretty good description.
I never felt this depression any other time other than the week leading up to my birthday. I was a happy, hyperactive kid other than that time.
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties, after over a decade of therapy and trying everything from yoga six days a week, to meditation classes, that I felt like there was something so wrong with me that I sought even more non-traditional help. I started working with my life coach Evangeline Hemrick (the story of how her and I connected will be it’s own blog post!), who recommended TRE and some of the other evidence based body modalities that Burnout-ology utilizes.
I also ended up paying a psychic $50 and asked her what was wrong with me. After checking in with her “guides” she said that nothing was wrong with me. So I asked her “then why do I feel like this before my birthday for as long as I can remember?. Again she checked in with her “guides” and replied “someone very close to you had something very bad happen to them about two weeks before their birthday, and it’s been effecting you, it’s generational”…
I was stunned. My mom’s dad committed suicide about two weeks before her 13th birthday. She never let on any sort of depression. She always made a big deal about my birthday and it was always so much fun. But there was a pattern I either inherited or subconsciously picked up on my moms reflection on her father’s death that she seemed to hid so carefully.
Families repeating patterns until someone comes along to break them… there is a lot of biological and spiritual theories as to why. But after decades of struggling with this darkness, I have finally learned that starting with the nervous system and knowing that your body IS capable of managing big emotions is the first step. Especially if there was nobody around you growing up to model this for you. You could be the first person in generations in your family to learn how to manage your stress with healthy coping tools instead of what most us are taught (suppressing emotions, overworking, self medicating, lashing out, etc.).
That is why my goal with Burnout-ology is to provide education and practical tools on how to manage stress and big emotions that many of us were never taught how to deal with.
This year was still hard. I still had a hard time getting out of bed, still felt these same feelings I felt for decades, but I knew it was going to be ok. I was able to cope ahead, and utilize the many tools I’ve learned. I also gave myself permission to sleep more, I increased my vitamin D intake, and I planned time in nature with friends.
I am breaking this cycle, tomorrow is my birthday, and I AM excited!
