 Well, welcome to the show, Debbie. It's great to have you. Oh, thanks so much. I'm really excited to be here. I appreciate it. And I know you have a personal story with burnout that might be the impetus for the book. I'd love to hear about your own struggle with burnout and how you overcame it. Oh, yeah. I mean, it definitely is one of those things where you end up learning about something because you care about it because it impacts your own life. I spent the first part of my career as a psychologist on a medical team in a hospital. And worked there for many years very happily and loved it for the most part. But I hit a pretty bad burnout stage where I was just really stressed out. And we know that burnout always happens in the context of chronic stress. And it was just one of those periods of time where there had been some transitions at work that I was dealing with. I had two young kids at home. I was managing a whole bunch of various things in my life. And it actually took me a while to recognize that I was burned out. I think I just felt like I was always behind, always behind. And I hadn't really noticed how much I had gotten to this point of just being really it just felt like a grind, right? I felt really exhausted. I felt just not that spark of passion that I normally feel for my work. And it wasn't until this day I was sitting in my colleague's office and she was we're trying to figure out some administrative stuff. And I just was like, I don't care. I just did not care at all. And that's very unlike me, usually. And because that happened, I had this light bulb moment where I'm like, I'm really burnt out. I had been burnt out for a while and didn't realize it. And at that point, I was able to make some changes to just be more aware of what was going on. And I got to a better place. It eventually, you know, it takes a while sometimes to get out of burnout. But because of that, I got really interested in burnout. And so many of my co-workers and colleagues had had burnout. And eventually, to make a very long story short, I ended up leaving that position later, not because I was burnt out, but just because I was ready for a change and ended up specializing in my clinical practice in burnout. And so most of the people that come into my office are experiencing chronic stress and or burnout. So because of that, I really dove into it. Like, what do we know about burnout? How do you work with burnout? It's quite complex as a psychologist. I was trying to learn as much as I could to be able to help people. And that's really what got me into the book. And then, of course, we had COVID. And so burnout just became everywhere. It was already a problem. But then because of COVID, it just became a huge problem for so many people. And so that led to the book and here I am. I feel like for a lot of people, it's easier to see burnout in others than in themselves. And obviously, being a psychologist and having studied how the mind works, you would think you would recognize the signs almost before anyone else. Why is that when we're in almost this like boiling the frog scenario with burnout? When we're actually experiencing it, it's not obvious to us. But our loved ones, our co-workers, our family might be the first to spot it. My experience, and I don't know if this is true for everyone, but I think one of the things that happens with burnout is that people blame themselves. People think, you know, if I could just catch up, if I could just manage stress better, if I was more resilient, if I was tougher, if I... So I think I fell into that trap a little bit myself, where I just really felt like I always felt like I was right around the corner from being less stressed out. Once I get through this project, once I get these things done off of my to-do list, my stress level will go down. And so I think I was so immersed in that way of thinking that it didn't occur to me that I was burnt out. I just thought, oh, I'm not keeping up. I'm almost through this. And so I think that's part of what it is, is that we just... We think that we're not doing a good enough job of keeping up instead of thinking like, oh, I'm burnt out. And it makes sense that I'm burnt out because of the situation I'm in. So now in hindsight, are you able to identify those work stressors that we're adding up for you? And then can you explain or define some of those for our audience? Burnout always happens in a context of chronic stress. And some of the things that we know contribute. One is obvious, which is just a really high workload where you don't have the resources to keep up with the demands that are on you over the course of time. So it's not just a one-time stressor, right? It's you're always too busy. In my particular case, I mean, I think hospitals are known for this. There's so much administrative work. I was working with trainees. I just had constant patients coming in. I had to be going to this meeting and that meeting. I think that sometimes also feeling unappreciated at work or feeling like you don't have enough support. And because I had been through this transition recently, I think my very close cohesive team got changed. It just happened, you know? And I think that the support I was getting, this feeling of connection was lower at that particular point in time. And I think that made a difference. In my case, I was working part-time at that period because I had very young kids at home and I had reduced my hours. But I don't think that my workload shifted very much. And I think anyone who's worked part-time can probably relate to this. A lot of the demands that you have, you're just trying to do all the administrative work and so on. It didn't change. And so I think that those are the types of factors you often see with people. Some I've heard it called micro stressors before. There's actually a book that recently came out about this, where those little day-to-day things, you know, you get stuck in traffic and you can't find a parking spot and the printer jams and you have to fill up this paperwork that's due today. And meanwhile, you're trying to do your day job and you're in meetings all the time. Those kinds of things just start to take a toll and after a while, they just deplete you. You feel fatigued. I think that's important for our audience to realize that it's not the big elephant that is in the room that is adding the stress. Sure, it's making life difficult. You have a lot to do, but it is all the little things that are compounding on the day. And the other thing that you said that I find interesting is that you had lost the people you were connected with when you had changed roles. And those people played a role in allowing you to talk through what you were dealing with, what you were feeling and the little micro interactions that we have day-to-day that allow us to feel good about what we're doing and where we are and what we're heading. And I think along with that, there's a prolonged lack of a sense of achievement. So even as you said, feeling unsupported, those small moments where coworkers would say, hey, great job on that. Thank you for handling that meeting or thank you for moving this project forward. If there's this prolonged sense of a lack of achievement, monotony and being weighed down by things that you don't feel fill you up or allow you to feel like there's growth and momentum in the right direction. We see this a lot in our clients where there's a tendency to make themselves busy and fill space to try to find that moment of control and achievement in their life. And oftentimes that prolonged sense of just overwhelming busyness, but not moving ahead in your career, not seeing a work project to completion, not seeing your kids develop in the way that you want or the household chores getting managed to the degree that you would like, that prolonged sense really weighs on you in that chronic stress environment. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think one thing you're saying is really important there around how we sometimes stay busy and try really hard to focus on getting things done in order to almost to outrun the chronic stress, but that that's the very thing that keeps us so stressed out all the time. We almost feel like, well, if I can just get all these things done and then I won't have to feel this way anymore. But in doing so, that leads to burnout. And so does isolation, as you were saying, it's one of the things that happened to me when I was burned out is that I kind of withdrew from the people that were still there and the new people that I was interacting with. I didn't make time to talk to them because I was just not feeling energized enough, but by being more isolated in the long run, that contributed as well. So you get into these cycles around it, I think, where the behaviors you're engaging in, they seem like what you need to do to get yourself out of this situation. Like, well, if I just go into my office and close the door and work as hard as I can, but then all the joy is gone and the stress is even higher. So in the book, you defined 10 burnout cycles and as I was going through them, I picked out the ones that are most common that we see in our clients and that we hear from our audience, which to me, the busy bee, the perfectionist, the people pleaser, the marching soldier and the over-analyzer. So if you wouldn't mind defining a couple of those for us so that our audience can identify or at least understand if they're one of these identities. The busy bee, I think we talked about, right, is where you just stay busy. Yes. Yeah, the perfectionist, it's funny with perfectionism because if you look underneath perfectionism, it's really all about control. I think often people have this sense that if I can do everything just right and perfectly, then I won't have to feel this anxiety, but you can see how perfectionism absolutely leads to chronic stress and burnout because it's impossible, you know? It's impossible. It's impossible. You'll just never get there and you'll really drive yourself bananas trying. The one that I called the marching soldier, I think we can probably all relate to that a little bit too. It's where you just feel like you have to just carry on and keep going and I can't stop until you're just, at the end of the day, you collapse because you've got nothing left, but that sense of like I can't stop, I can't take a break, I just have to keep going. I have to keep pushing. It's kind of this stoic type of approach to things. Yes, I think that one is the one that AJ and I probably identify with just from growing up in the Midwest and having factory dads. Yes, I could see that. Yeah, and the thought that just hard work can work your way out of it when in actuality it could spin it up even worse. Absolutely. Well, and I think one problem with the marching soldier approach is that there's no room for a break. There's no room to just stop and feel what you feel, which in my opinion is one of the things that can help with burnout is to give yourself that space to just tune into your emotions and to sit with how you feel even when it's hard. But when you're marching on and on and on, you just don't allow for that. These last two are certainly, these come up a lot. We see them all the time. So people pleasing and the over analyzer. People pleasing is big with burnout because I think what happens is that you get a lot of reinforcement for saying yes to things and putting other people's needs first. And it's not a bad quality to have at a certain level because usually we wanna be generous and kind and caring, but I think when you're really stuck in people pleasing, often you sacrifice yourself in order to make other people happy or you have trouble saying no, or you're always running yourself ragged trying to make everyone else happy with what you're doing. And so one of the things I often see with my clients with burnout is that they need to learn how to set boundaries and say no. And it's not that you don't wanna sometimes do nice things for other people or say yes, but you need to be really intentional about it. And I think sometimes people air really far on the side of always trying to make other people happy. So it's a big skill I think when you're talking about burnout prevention is learning to say no. What I've also noticed here is and perhaps this was you're the wording that you wanted to use, but these are identities that people can feel good about. Who doesn't wanna be the busy bee? Who doesn't wanna be the marching soldier who can take on anything? Some of the other ones you mentioned was like the do-gooder, right? Well, who doesn't wanna be a do-gooder? These are all things with a perfectionist. Who doesn't wanna be perfect? Who doesn't want to put their best efforts in? So these are identities that people can take on and where as their badge of courage and honor and ability to feel good about themselves. But again, these also then lead you astray in how you're viewing the world and your work and how you must go through it. Yeah, and it is such a double-edged sword I think with some of these where it slips past the point where something that actually is a good quality caring about your work, wanting to do a good job wanting to put a lot of effort into your work can slip past the point. Actually, Joan Halifax, I cited this in my book. She's a Buddhist scholar. You might have seen her name around. She has a few books out there and she describes them as edge states. So for instance, actually we'll go with the over-thinker because we didn't get to that one yet. It can be really helpful to use your mind to solve problems and to think things through and to be rational and smart about things. But it can easily slip into this edge state of just the wheels constantly turning trying to solve your problems by overthinking. And the next thing you know, you're preoccupied, ruminating, worrying and you're just stuck up in your head and not really getting anywhere. But you could see how that can be a helpful trait in some circumstances, but if you go too far with it it gets to the point where it's contributing to burnout. You're just constantly up in your head and you're maybe even having trouble just being really centered and focused on what's going on in the moment. And listening to your body, right? I think a large part of this is the disconnect from all the warning signs that your body is sharing with you around how the chronic stress is appearing, the lack of sleep, the lethargy, the inability to do the things that you normally enjoy doing. Maybe that's working out, maybe that's seeing friends. You talked about withdrawing and sometimes it's drawing you into really negative patterns and habits like a couple extra glasses of wine to take the edge off, maybe some drug use to get away from the anxiety. And of course, when it's coming from our body, if we stay up in our head and we're only listening to the signals and thought patterns in our head, it's very hard to even recognize those warning signs that we're on a path to burnout. Absolutely, you can just miss those indicators of, okay, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I'm too stressed, I need to exercise, I need to get some more sleep, I need to prioritize some of my own self-care. And yeah, absolutely. What you just said makes me think of a scenario where someone might realize, okay, there's burnout in my life, I need to slow down, I need to bring some self-care in and have that then be an added stressor to the entire situation where now, not only do you need to do your work and take care of the family and all the other tasks, now on top of all of that, you also need to be in bed by 9 p.m. You need to read 10 pages in a novel you like, you need to watch this show on Netflix and you have to have some ice cream. And I can imagine that this is something where people are trying to solve a problem a certain way, but they're just adding to the already existing problem that's there. That's right, I think that that is a lot of conventional advice about burnout is about these quick fixes. Well, take time to do yoga, take time to do more self-care, get more sleep. And those are fine, those can be really good in life enhancing. But first of all, they're a little bit, maybe not gonna solve the real problem, which often has more to do with the context that you're in, just the chronic stress of the world we're living in. And yes, it can start to feel like one more thing, you have to already add to your busy plate. And often people do those things and they might feel better for a while, but it doesn't necessarily solve the burnout. And this is where there's a lot of controversy you might have seen these days around things like mindfulness interventions that workplaces sometimes put into practice. And the problem isn't so much that they're doing those things. Oh, we're offering free yoga, free mindfulness, free five minute massages. That's great and fine, but what's not happening is any change to the conditions that are driving burnout. So your workload's still the same, you're not getting paid more, we're not reducing the number of meetings you have to sit in every day, we're not changing anything about the environment, but now you're supposed to add this. So it's not really addressing the real problem. And if you still struggle with the issue, after all those fancy interventions, it's obviously your fault because you should just meditate a little bit more or a little bit harder. Yeah, you're not doing enough. It could feel like a Chinese finger trap where you are pulling to get more of that space in your life. Maybe it's the meditation, maybe it's adding the exercise, but it's actually just creating even more tension and pressure on that already busy schedule of yours. If the actual chronic stress that's coming from communication at work, workload, meetings, the way that people are treating each other, the culture, working out more, sleeping more, doesn't actually address what's going on in that environment. And I think along with what you were saying earlier, it can be very difficult for many of us who are overachievers to not only ask for help, but in an environment where people are being laid off, people's performance is being judged and we see in the economy that maybe the job prospects aren't that great and there's a worry that if I raise my hand and say, hey, this isn't working for me or this is a stressful environment that I'm not able to operate my best in, the simple solution for the company may be to say, okay, well, might be time for you to find another job. Yeah. And I think that that economic framework, let's just call it that, right? This culture in which we live is a big part of the problem here because I think we're all afraid of that. We all feel like we have to earn a living, of course, and provide for ourselves and our families if we have one. And so there's this pressure to keep our job and when that becomes the expectation and the norm, and then you feel like you have to keep hustling away to just to keep up. And so this is where it really is more of a cultural problem and people end up feeling stuck. They feel like, well, what can I do about that? Because I can't quit my job or if I don't achieve at this certain level of performance, I might lose my job and that's really scary. And so it's a really a bind for people. Yeah, and I've witnessed this in my wife's situation and it's, again, easier as I said earlier to see it in others where some of these concerns start to be brought up and the promises are, well, let's just get through the holiday season or let's get through Black Friday or we're gonna make those changes in Q1 of next year. And Q2, don't worry, we're hiring more help and it can just feel like you're staring into the abyss. Like, hey, I raised this concern. I've tried to communicate it in a way that's team focused, not just about myself and the solutions just feel further and further out and don't actually feel, as you were saying earlier, get at the root of the problem. Free massages sound great, a little bit extra help with childcare sounds great at the surface but if your workload and chronic stress is at an all-time high, those are just handling some symptoms and not the root issue. Yeah, that's right. In that regard, I'm curious, would you say that a burnout in these days is over or under diagnosed even if we include self-diagnoses as well? Oh, you know, that is a great question and I don't really know the answer to it because I do think there's a lot of talk about burnout and I actually think sometimes people use the word burnout to describe things that aren't very severe and there's no real criteria for this. So I don't know if it's right or wrong but people say, oh, I'm so burnt out when they're just having a couple of rough days and I tend to think about it as more of a chronic thing like burnout has a big impact on your life when it's really extreme burnout and it tends to last a while, it's kind of hard to move out of it. So in that sense, maybe it's a little bit overdiagnosed which is that people are using that term pretty freely but I also think at the same time there's a lot of people out there who are chronically stressed and probably at least teetering on the edge of burnout who aren't really saying much about it. So that's a great question, Michael and I don't know. I think we're seeing more conversations about it and more acknowledgement of it which in my mind is a really good thing because that is one thing that could potentially move the needle on this a little bit is for people to talk about it and some of the conversations we're seeing in the media these days about things like quote, quiet quitting where people are just saying, I'm not going above and beyond at work anymore, the cost is too high. I think that those kinds of conversations are actually helpful even though some people might have an issue with that they don't like that concept, that's fine but people are just talking more about it and in my mind that's a really important step is let's just discuss what's happening here culturally that might move the needle more than we realize. Well, regardless of it being people identifying it and then way too much or under diagnosing it there are great tools that you've put in the book to deal with this either or. So we should get into those and the first part of that and we've talked about this multiple times on the show but it's incredibly important which is psychological flexibility. So if you can define that for our audience so we can go from there. Yeah, psychological flexibility. This concept comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy which is my book is an act for burnout book. I think that there's a few different pieces of psychological flexibility that are important here. It's really about being able to feel your feelings and have your thoughts come and go from a place of awareness and openness and being really present with what is instead of struggling against it it's allowing it and being sort of open and aware of your inner experience. And I think there can be a bit of a transformation there when it comes to burnout which is again instead of detaching or disengaging it's allowing yourself to feel all of this but from a place of openness and awareness instead of getting caught up in that internal struggle. And then it's also about moving toward your values and toward whatever a meaningful life is to you in an effective way. So very centered on your values and what's going to give you a sense of purpose and noticing when you're caught in some behavior patterns that might not be so helpful so that you can respond effectively to whatever the situation happens to be. And that can look like all kinds of different things. I mean all kinds of behavior patterns that might not necessarily be helping with the problem of burnout. So in looking at those personas earlier it sounds like a lot of those personas move you away from your emotions and give you a reason to disassociate or not engage with them whether it be perfectionism or people pleasing or being the busy bee we're doing activities and taking actions that don't actually deal with the emotions that we're feeling we're acting out of a sense of trying to fulfill this identity or trying to fulfill others' wants and needs of us. So if you're in that situation this idea of like okay well recognizing these emotions understanding and bringing some empathy and compassion to myself around these emotions that can feel very intimidating for someone who's worked very hard to avoid feeling and recognizing emotions. So if you're in that situation what are some of the steps we can take to start to identify, recognize these emotions and process them in a more healthy way than getting more busy being more of a perfectionist or procrastinating? Yeah, I mean every single one of those examples has at its root some sort of control or avoidance component, right? So you're trying really hard to reduce your stress or to feel better or to in the short term a lot of these things do feel better. And so the first step you really need some awareness first you need to notice okay I'm in this cycle it's not really working for me maybe it is driven by some sort of control or avoidance. So having that awareness and then here's the hard thing this is maybe the bad news for people who are listening is they also have to be willing to face that discomfort that's showing up that you're trying so hard to avoid. There may be some sense of I don't really want to do that because the thing that's hard for me is really uncomfortable. It might be stress, it could be anxiety, fear in some types of roles it could be sadness or just your own fears about your own abilities or something like that. And so when you're starting to shift some of this sometimes it's pretty uncomfortable to step out of those patterns. For instance if the perfectionist lets go and says okay this is good enough I'm gonna submit this and go home they might feel a sense of oh I don't know anxiety around whether it was good enough or not and I think that can be really hard for people or the people please are saying no for the first time to their boss I can't do that project. Ooh that's gonna be really painful and so that skill of willingness to feel that's probably the primary thing that I'm suggesting. And that is so counter-intuitive as well. I mean I can imagine that right now everyone listening is like face-palming and going like what are they telling me? Like I should feel all of that yucky stuff I've been working years to get away from it if I'm finally productive enough if I'm finally competent enough then I don't have to feel that stuff anymore but here's the catch if you busy yourself day in and day out running away from that stuff you can't move towards what is really important for you what is really giving meaning to your life because most of the time you're just trying to numb out run away, avoid and control all of these emotions and what you are saying correct me if I'm wrong is to open the door and say hey look I have a lot of important stuff to do I know that I'm going to feel perfectionistic or anxious or stress out about this but why don't I allow that stuff to just sit there next to me while I'm doing those things that are very important so we don't add that struggle against the thoughts against the emotions to our goal pursuit and our value pursuit. I think in a lot of our clients that we work with directly anger is one of those emotions especially as a man that they're trying to control and move away from and unfortunately that those actions that they're taking whether it's working hard or packing their schedule or maybe it's numbing with some substances the anger then spills out in other areas it might be in your personal relationships it might be towards your spouse it might be towards your coworkers in a very passive aggressive way in your communication style and oftentimes it's really hard to identify I'm just feeling angry about the situation that I'm in I'm angry that I'm not achieving I'm angry that I hadn't gotten that promotion this year I'm angry that that project failed and we find ourselves trapped by that anger but it's really scary to admit that you actually are angry especially as a man. Yeah and I think that anger is such a fascinating emotion actually as I going on my career I'm more and more interested in anger I would say because I think that yeah people have to use their anger effectively I often see people with burnout who are very irritated just very frustrated and angry but if you ask yourself and you know it can be unhelpful when people get really stuck in anger but if you ask yourself what's my anger telling me about what's going on here? I mean sometimes it's just random like I don't like that person cutting me off in traffic or something like you know it's not that deep but sometimes it actually can be deep like if you're chronically angry in your work role there might be some sense of injustice or there's something about this situation that's not working for me or maybe your boundaries are being violated I actually love to tune into it in a sense of is there some wisdom in my anger? And if you can step back from anger a little bit and get some distance from that hot you know adrenaline feeling of anger you can actually use it to think about okay what needs to change here? Do I need to speak up about something? Is there something going on here that's just not working for me and if so what am I gonna do about it? With that I think the problem that we see time and time again and we talked about act and we are huge fans of act but when some of our listeners here act for the first time they hear acceptance and it's like well I just have to accept the situation I have to accept what's out of my control and acceptance isn't actually in that definition what we're talking about here around what's causing the burnout sometimes accepting the things you can't change might actually mean you have to make a change in terms of changing career changing location, changing environment it's not just a blanket statement of well take whatever the world sends your way and be a doormat level of acceptance. It's certainly about creating change if we don't accept the situation and have a radical acceptance of it then how can we begin to take responsibility to do the things that we need to do to make those changes and the other thing about anger I find it utterly fascinating is that anger is one of the emotions that pushes you outside of your natural behaviors because it is a survival mechanism it is there to protect you so you're going to do things when you're angry that are uncharistically you which freaks people out because they're going into the unknown they're using behaviors that they're not comfortable with and they're going to see a side of them that they've never seen before and that can scare them but I think for some it could actually thrill them a bit as well and so because of that it can be scary but if we're going to need to create change if we're going to need to do things and go into the unknown for the first time well anger is a great motivator anger is a great place to start to push you into the arena so you can do the things you need to do I think most importantly though you just don't want it to consume you to where that's all you see is anger yeah I think sometimes people get so stuck in that righteous anger and it can as you're saying it can feel really powerful and sometimes actually feels kind of good to be in that place I just read a study about this recently and I can't remember the source off the top of my head but about how people who have a little bit of anger often will be out in the world doing important things right it can drive social change so it can actually be really channeled for good but you do have to be a little careful there because it can also get you into all kinds of trouble of course I'm sure everyone's aware it can be problematic but you know if you channel it effectively it can be your friend so when we think about acceptance commitment therapy for our audience who may not be familiar why do you believe it's such a great way to make our way through and manage burnout if we're actually feeling some of those symptoms and frustrations we've talked about earlier well there's a couple of reasons why I really think to me it's the best clinical fit for working with burnout and for helping people prevent burnout in part because it's very contextual and so in the acceptance and commitment therapy philosophy and framework all human behavior makes sense in context and I think that's very much true for burnout you really have to look at the situation and the context and what's driving it and it makes sense to have burnout if you're in a chronically stressful situation and so I think it actually adds a dose of self compassion because people can say it's not my fault it makes sense that I'm feeling this way and that this is happening to me and then also acceptance and commitment therapy is really about helping people engage in their lives in a meaningful way and that's what it comes down to that's the ultimate goal in acceptance and commitment therapy and because burnout one of the hallmarks of burnout is the sense of detachment and disengagement I think the goal is the same you know if you wanna get out of burnout it's because you wanna enjoy your life you know you wanna live fully and when you're burnt out you're just not and so I think that the philosophy of ACT and the goal of ACT really fits with what's happening with burnout and we can add here because we're using ACT so much in our coaching programs as well that I feel like there's so much to talk about when it comes to ACT like there are six core processes of change and we've just talked about one we've talked about experiential avoidance or acceptance so it's important for our listeners to not have this idea that ACT is all about exactly just one thing that make room for your emotions but there's like five others and they're all intertwined and they work together and I think maybe we can put a little bit of a spotlight on dealing with unhelpful thoughts for in my own experience I found that that is something that clicks with the end user if you will a little bit faster because we're mostly dealing with over thinkers and over analyzers that are paralyzed by that and to look at the thought process that's going on and how to disarm that a little bit and make it more useful in the service of our values and our goals can we take a little detour and look at that facet of ACT as well maybe? Absolutely I think that's an important one because often people do get in that pattern of overthinking of self-criticism we get into some narratives around our work roles that where we might be experiencing burnout so for instance, I have to achieve to feel worthy I can't take a break we have these beliefs that add fuel to the fire of burnout so to speak so often people are cynical negative fixated on blame or I mean all kinds of interesting things can happen at the level of your thoughts when you're in a place of stress and burnout I mean you're up all night worrying about all the things you have to do or just you can think of your own experience of how your thoughts are going in terms of their content when you're really stressed out you don't really see things in a very balanced point of view and so with acceptance and commitment therapy we work on what they usually call it cognitive diffusion which is about getting some distance from your thoughts seeing them for what they are taking a step back from them so that instead of being so consumed by those types of thoughts and narratives and beliefs we can see them for what they are so you might say something like wow I'm being really hard on myself today or I'm really feeling like it's the end of the world if I don't get this project done perfectly on time and we can take a step back and say well you know the world will probably keep on spinning and at least see that for what it is and there is something about the process of doing that that can be really helpful I think to get just a more balanced perspective on things because when we're in that place it just it feels like that's the truth you know and so I think that when people are in that place and they can start to do a little bit of that work they can really see a big transformation and if anyone is listening to this is wondering what are those beliefs or narratives or feelings that they're tied to that they need to diffuse from or get some space from well we went over five of those personas earlier the busy bee, the perfectionist, the people pleaser now you may not think of yourself initially as a people pleaser but if you're one of those people who is at work and you wanna do all of these things so that everyone around you is happy and in a good mood and feeling good that is a belief that you are holding to yourself that is creating these stressors. Yeah and it can be so subtle I think even the way that our work sometimes becomes a really big part of our identity and we start to think well I have to do a good job at this in order to be accepted or acceptable to others so it really kind of comes down to a fundamental sense of worthiness and wanting to feel valued by others and a sense of belonging but it can become so extreme that it's like well if I don't perform at the top level in this particular role then it's almost like then who am I and that's where again that slippery slope like it's okay to have work that you care it's great to have work that you care about and to be attached to your work but if you over identify with your work role then your life gets pretty upended and that's not going well or we lose other parts of ourselves and we lose again psychological flexibility if all I am is my work role what about the other parts of my life? Right and with that we've seen in a lot of our clients that identity take over to the detriment of relationships and community in their life and when they join the X Factor Accelerator Community or they work with us and they find other people are also going through this burnout are also recognizing that work identity has grown in such a way that they've let relationships slide time with their spouse significant other slide they've chose to focus more on the things they can control than just be open and honest and vulnerable with people in their life it actually creates that isolation that we talked about earlier that can be very fertile ground for the burnout and can actually make the burnout worse and I think right now I'm very curious as someone who sees a lot of patients with burnout is there a seasonality to it? I found in working with our clients that there is a lot of sense of I didn't achieve as much as I wanted to this year or I didn't see those goals that I had and now they're reminded of that and they're feeling really overwhelmed with this sense of dread or the sense that they didn't make the year that they wanted happen and with that making more and more choices that lead to further burnout or don't even recognize that part of the reason they're feeling that at the end of the year is due to burnout. Yeah, that's a good question I definitely think that they're back to this idea of context that there are situational factors above and beyond just the regular work that you do that can contribute to burnout so yeah, holiday season, end of the year a lot of jobs are very busy during those winter months and then of course you have the darkness and the cold and that kind of thing. We also live in a world where there's a lot happening in the news and that fluctuates over the course of time and here at this particular moment that we're recording this there's just it's winter a lot of people's jobs are very busy short staffed and then you look at the news and read about all kinds of just really distressing upsetting things happening and maybe there's always some level of that but I think you almost get into this perfect storm situation where you have these moments in time in your life where it just feels like a lot and so absolutely depending on the seasonal nature of your particular job that can absolutely be the case. As much as you go on any social media and see all the incredibly terrible things that are happening at all times all around the world how much is actually affecting you and your day to day every day life? Sure, you wanna be involved sure you wanna get feel like hey I have a hand in helping this or any of those things and that's great but at the end of the day you have yourself and your obligations and your responsibilities that need pretty much a lot of your focus if not all of it. Well for many I think the slippery slope is that escapism that the media and the news provide of like hey let me just scroll a little bit more feeling overwhelmed let me get some digital dopamine and of course the news headlines can be negative and compounding to that stress that you're feeling. I think for those in the audience who might be feeling this way or now recognizing it I'm curious to hear from you what the road to recovery looks like. I know it's different for everyone and I know it's more complex and sometimes simpler for others to untangle themselves but when you do find patients in this state of burnout you could just paint a rough picture of what it looks like to get yourself back to normal and feeling good and moving forward. Well we talked about some of the internal things that you can do already. I think that sometimes it can also be worthwhile to take a look at okay what needs to change how can I reconnect to what matters to me to purpose to vitality and so I think sometimes we can do that in small ways and sometimes we can do that in big ways sometimes people wanna make a really big change like leaving their job sometimes people need to leave a situation like a very toxic workplace or something like that. Sometimes people maybe it might be a smaller scale thing like reaching out for more support than they have been it could be setting a boundary like for myself I'm not gonna check the news after 7pm it doesn't do the world any good for me to be doom scrolling so that's maybe a boundary that someone might wanna set or it could be taking a look at how they're using their time and making a shift there. If people are finding that they're just maxed out they might need to kind of redistribute things in terms of their schedule and it can be sometimes some of those daily habits like I really need to stop with the alcohol at night that's not helping me I need to get more sleep or I don't know some of those little kinds of day to day things that can help you recharge but the main thing I would say if I was gonna give one blanket piece of advice really does go back to that thing we've talked about multiple times already which is getting support. I think often when people are burned out they're not necessarily asking for help or talking to anybody about what's going on it could be coworkers maybe you need them to pitch in and help you out it could be just someone in your personal life to say I'm really struggling I need support it could be a professional you know you could if it's really bad burnout you could reach out to get some professional help from a therapist or a coach or something. So yeah I mean again it really kind of depends on your situation but I do think one thing that burnout can do is make us take a look at what's working and what's not working and what needs to change. And from there we can maybe get to a better place. That room for reflection around so many of those key areas as you talked about and I know one of the pieces that we do with our clients is look at habits and either positive habits and their negative habits and sometimes those negative habits can take over like having one too many glasses of wine that then ruins their sleep and doesn't get into the gym in the morning and a helpful visual of okay what's going on with some of these habits that I've worked on are my letting them slide are they in the yellow are they red for time for a long period of time can really be that warning sign of like okay I'm putting myself vitality wise in a state where chronic stress is really going to put me in a place potentially for burnout or actually I'm in burnout. And also recognizing that there are small steps we can take now maybe it's some vulnerability maybe it's even sharing this podcast episode with some friends to open a discussion around how you're feeling about it as a way to say hey are you feeling this way too are you maybe recognizing some of these signs in me that I myself I'm struggling to see I know for me and my wife that was really key in moments where I was really struggling with burnout or her recognizing like I'm not the type of person in traffic to use the horn and screen obscenities but a couple of weeks in a row of me getting really bent out of shape in traffic it's like what's going on well I'm really stressed at work and I'm really stressed that I'm not meeting the deadlines that I have for myself and letting down my team and it's allowing me now to act that a character in traffic and LA those are the simple conversations that we can start to have with our loved ones too and I know it can be delicate I'd love to just hear your perspective on if we recognize some of these signs and symptoms in others how can we maybe start to have that conversation to help support those around us who are struggling with burnout if we ourselves might not be feeling it. Yeah, I absolutely think so I mean this is where a little self awareness but also checking in with people who might notice the signs in ourself is really key and so having that ability to look at yourself I'll give a personal example just this morning so I'm leaving on a massive holiday road trip tomorrow I have a really long to do list I knew I had this interview today I have a few clients and I was sitting there I could just feel my nerves buzzing in my body and my mind was all over the place and I said to myself I did not have a whole lot of time this morning before my first appointment at 9 a.m I said I have to exercise it's only gonna be 20 minutes it's gonna come at the cost of doing my hair and all that kind of thing I just, I can feel the stress in my body and so I did it and I think that that's the moment where we can maybe do something different that's gonna help us recharge a little bit help us through that situation versus my instinct would be to say I'm gonna do as much as I can possibly get done in this 20 minutes but it's that intentionality and so yeah, absolutely and I hope conversations like this one help prevent burnout because I think if you can catch some of this earlier you don't get to that point where you hate your life you hate your job you're completely exhausted for months on end that's my hope anyway because I think I found since that period in my own life I can catch it earlier talk about it make some changes set some boundaries take care of myself and then it doesn't get to that extreme point That is certainly the ideal outcome and thank you so much for taking time with us today from your busy schedule we love asking every one of our guests what their X factor is what do you think makes you unique and extraordinary Debbie? I think I'm pretty brave I don't know if this is that extraordinary but I think sometimes I'm willing to kind of go for it with things like starting my own podcast or just kind of putting this book out there or something like that I don't know if it's anything I'm doing is truly that extraordinary but I do I think I have a certain level of courage that I'm proud of so I'll go with that Well, we're proud of your courage as well in writing the book and I sure it's going to be very helpful to a number of members of our audience who might be feeling some of these warning signals we talked about on this episode Well, thanks I really appreciate it Thank you so much It was great having you Where can our audience find out more about you and the book? Yeah, I mean the book's pretty easy to find Act for Burnout so who are you like to buy your books? I'm online at drdebbysorenson.com as my webpage I have a blog there and I'm also on some social media and then of course my podcast Psychologist Off the Clock which I think is kind of a cousin of yours because we have had some overlap quite a bit especially Michael's engagement in both so if you like hearing the sound of my voice there's plenty more on Psychologist Off the Clock Thank you, Debbie Thanks so much Thank you