From Burnout to Bliss

Tanya Gill: 00:00:00

Hey friends, so I decided I am just going to go for it. And what does that mean? Well, here we are, I am in a place where I've been going through some stuff. And the truth is that I've also decided that you're probably going through stuff too. And the good news is, we can do that together. And so where I'm going with this is that I'm going to be inviting you into something that I think we all need. But before I go there, I want to share with you a little bit about what's been going on for me. You know, we know that we're in a mental health crisis, and I found myself in a mental health crisis. And so I have been working with a psychiatrist and with a therapist, and I am taking medication. And I am working through some trauma shit. And what I'm realizing is that a lot of it is fear based. So let me be straight with you right now, the amount of courage it is taking for me to be able to just be here and record this, and commit to putting it out there is a big fucking deal right now. Okay, I just, I'm just putting it out there because that's where I'm at. And as I sip my tea I've also realized that I've slipped back into some perfectionist stuff, which has meaning for me that I'm not feeling as authentic as I really, truly want, and deserve to be. And so I have a few notes that I'm going to refer to in this podcast. But for the most part, I just want to speak to you from my heart right now. I just want people to know that I see you and I hear you and I am here for you. And I am you. The reason perfectly imperfect life coaching exists is because of my own issues around perfectionism. Today, today, I was on a live launch call with Mel Robbins, because every coach should have a good coach. And I believe that Mel's mission and my mission are very aligned. And so I was on a call with her. And when she talked about perfectionism, it absolutely hit me at the core. And when I say it hit me at the core, I'm saying that what she said was that perfection is just kind of like fear. And it was like, Oh my God, it was like the wolf in sheep's clothing feeling that I had. And I was like, This is what I've been challenging, and I've let it slip back in. And some of that may be the mental health stuff, I acknowledge that. Another piece of it, though, is that I'm also working through some trauma stuff. And here's the thing about life. It is about growing and flowing. It is about moving through the hard stuff so we can get to and enjoy the good stuff. But we have to be able to be willing to see the good stuff as it's happening. And so for me personally, three weeks ago, three weeks ago, I decided to host a pop up retreat. And it was called from burnout to Bliss, a women's restorative retreat to create harmony and joy. And I was nervous as fuck. I also because I was doing med changes was going through some of those changes. I was like, What the fuck am I doing? And I had no time to promo it. And I was like, but I'm going to do this. Because this is this is an opportunity for me to serve some people who are feeling that. And so I was joined by nine amazing women. And we had an absolutely beautiful day that went way too fucking fast. But it was nurturing and, and the basis of what we were talking about was this season of your life. And you know, the here's the thing about burnout. So, this is what I love. I'll never forget this. The term burnout was coined in 1974, which means by the way, that it's about 49 years old because I was born in 1974. So, knowing that, for 49 years, the word burnout has existed. And the way it's defined by Freud and Berger, who's the one who coined the phrase is that it's a combination of three elements. The first is emotional exhaustion. And it's that feeling of just being emotionally wrung fucking dry. The second one is depersonalization. So what is depersonalization? It's actually kind of losing that empathy and compassion for other people. It's where you're like, wow, that's happened. That sucks. But that real true empathy and compassion seems almost muted, or stuffed, or tucked away, in a back pocket safely. And then the third one is a decreased sense of accomplishment. And it's that feeling like, I'm on that fucking treadmill. Here we go again, and again, and again and again. And it all kind of feels futile in the process. So if that's what burnout is, I wrote hosted basically six hours with nine women to take them from, from burnout to Bliss. So is it actually possible to move from burnout to bliss in six hours? Hell no. I'll be the first to say that you know what, you can have moments of bliss, but you're not going to shift completely from burnout to bliss in six hours, unless you take those tools and do something with them. Right. And so we talked about the season of life that we're in, and these women got very, very honest about what was happening for them. And we had generation differences. We had grandmas and great grandmas, and we had young women who were starting families. And we had people with teenagers, we had a variety of women come together to talk about their experience of what burnout feels like and what is happening in their lives. And then noticing the season coming forward, ie this summer. What do they want to create for themselves in that time? So why do I care? Why do I care? Why does it matter to me, that you listening to this podcast starts thinking about the season forward? Well, I'll tell you why. Because in the last few months, I have had the worldly light extinguished from a friend, an uncle, my best friend's dad. And most recently, my first mother in law, John's mom had a stroke. In addition to that, I have family members who are palliative. This may be their last summer. And so as I think about how life moves and how the seasons change, and how we see it in nature all of the time, but we don't slow down to see it in our own lives. It became really important to me to help others consider just the next season forward. Because before we know it, we are going to be sitting on a patio on September 21. Thinking about the summer that was and sharing the summer that was but are we intentional about what we want to create, especially if we are experiencing those elements of burnout. If we feel that depersonalization and lack empathy, if we feel that emotional exhaustion, if we're in a space of feeling futile, of feeling like you're on a fucking treadmill The question becomes, what do you want? And why?

Tanya Gill: 00:09:28

And when I say that, I mean it sounds so super fucking simple. But you know, we can automatically jump to I want to experience this. I want to get this done. I want to clean out some closets. I can tell you some of mine. Right? I mean, some of the practical things I want to do this summer are getting my front yard cleaned up, get my backyard tidied up, spend some more time in the backyard to go on a couple of short vacation. times with my family, reconnect with my mom. There are things that I definitely know that I want to do this summer. But the point of it is to go a little bit deeper. And recognize, okay, so those are some of the house of what you want to do. But the real, why the real why needs to be that heart centered, why? That heart centered why which is around? How do I want to feel? At the end of the summer, how do I want to feel at the end of this next season? This is a season that is a gift to me. I mean, the truth is, is I have palliative family members, I don't know if they're going to see through this season. And, and my dear friend Lauren, who passed away, he was intentional in his life, to his last fucking breath. He was so intentional that when he found out that it was a matter of months that he had left, he opened his door and asked as many people as could to come and see him before he was gone. Like, does it become any more intentional than that? I would argue, not a fucking chance. But to his last breath, I had the privilege of seeing him a week before he died. But to his last breath, he was living with intention. And when I asked him about his message to the rest of the world, the his message was about acceptance. And he was like, you have to accept where you are. And you have to move forward with grace. And it was for him, it was all about communicating that in his own actions and way of being to his children, the legacy of it. And you know what, that's what I that's what I'm so passionate about is like, we also are creating legacy in the choices that we make for ourselves, and for our futures. And ultimately, for our families. Oh, I got a lot of energy in there right now. I'm just like, only fired up, I'm fired up. I am fired up. And why I'm fired up is because it's time like, it's time for you. It's time for me, it's time for all of us to truly step into a fucking self love summer, a summer where we're intentional in how we're going to love ourselves, how we're going to enjoy the moments how we're going to embrace what is happening, even as we're moving through the muck, because the muck is going to be there. That's part of life. But really, like, how are we going to love ourselves through it, so that at the end of the summer, we know that we did our best and we showed up as our most loving selves for ourselves, for ourselves, to move through the season that is ahead of us.