The Peaceful Home

Episode 23: Cultivating Joy and Healing Burnout with Sara Fischer

April 28, 2022 Pamela Godbois
The Peaceful Home
Episode 23: Cultivating Joy and Healing Burnout with Sara Fischer
Show Notes Transcript

"It's okay to not want to do (the inner work). And nobody wants to do it and it doesn't have to be fun to make it worthwhile."


Welcome to Episode #23 of The Out of Your Mind Podcast. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to show up for yourself and tune in. 


In this week’s episode, Sara Fischer is revealing all of her insight on burnout recovery and cultivating more joy in your day-to-day. There is a common misconception that burnout is a passing stress that will go away on its own, or that you can heal with a few deep breaths, a day off, or even a vacation. But the truth is, true burnout requires true healing, deep personal healing, and it is something you need to cultivate over time through practice. So if you have ever felt like a vacation is just not enough for you, this episode is for you! 



Sara is the founder and CEO of Innerwork Institute, and runs a flagship program called Inner Professor, helping academics recover from burnout and rekindle the joy in their work. She is a Ph.D. candidate herself and through her own burnout recovery journey during her Ph.D., became inspired to share her story and the tools that she used with others in a similar position.



What inspired you in this episode? I’d love to hear from you. Take a screenshot, tag @pamgodboiscoaching and @innerprofessor on Instagram, and share something that resonated with you from this week’s episode with Sara Fischer.



Here’s a quick glance at this episode…



[00:02:35] The tricky truth about burnout, and how sneaky it can be, as often we have no idea we are burnt out. 

[00:08:55] Sara shares about the danger of our own stories and how to we sabotage our own peace. And explores the work that needs to be done to get there. 

[00:12:45] Her path out of burnout, and the vigilance that it took to get there. 

[00:15:05] The shift from focusing outward to looking at self in order to heal.

[00:22:10] Are you suffering from burnout and feeling totally stuck, maybe that’s because you are not doing the right level of work for your level of struggle. Sara shares the difference between prevention and recovery and brings hope on this journey.  

[00:30:40] The process to actually heal and recover from burnout. 



Links: 

Guest Website: http://innerprofessor.com/blog



Let’s connect on Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok



If you are loving these episodes, please consider donating to support the show. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=3ST6F3UZ86P6U


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The best thing you can do for yourself and your kids is effectively regulate your nervous system. And a great place to start >> to wire the brain for gratitude. Research tells us that gratitude increases happiness and a peaceful mindset. Make the shift and watch how things in your life start to change. Sign up today! www.pamgodbois.com/gratitude

Have you ever felt like the weekend is just not enough? To recuperate so that you could return to work on Monday. Or maybe your vacations. Just don't seem like vacations because you still returned. So overwhelmed. I have some news for you. You might just be burned out. And if that's the case stay tuned because this episode is for you. And today's episode of the out of your mind podcast. I had the opportunity to speak with Sarah Fisher, who is an expert on all things, burnout and specifically burnout recovery. So if you are looking to finally heal and find joy in your life stay tuned

Pam:

I'm so excited. Sarah, that you're here with me today to share your story and all the work that you've been doing around both your own personal work around recovering from burnout and helping people to either, not get burned out or recover. And I would love for you to share. Why that's so important to you? What is your story that brought you to

Sara:

here? Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. This is actually my first podcast guest appearance, so I'm really excited to be doing this. I think it's really fun. And yeah, so I I had I had a really strange sort of. Experience with burnout because I was completely at my edge. I was completely burned out and I had no idea actually. I didn't know that's what it was. I got physically ill. I was like on the teetering on like depression and panic, like anxiety that bordered on panic. And I was just feeling completely like, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to work. I don't want to do anything. I just want to lay in bed and watch Netflix and ignore the world. And that's where I was at. And then when I got home, so this happened during my during my PhD field work which is already like a stressful enough situation to be in. And then I burned out on top of it and. When I got home I just took a couple of months off and I was like, it'll be fine. I'll take a couple of months. I'll recover. I was like blaming field work. Right. And I was like, then everything will be fine. I'll just go back to work. And then, two months later I started to work. Literally the instant I started working again, like I just, it was back in the exact same place, right? Like I had started to feel better and then it was just straight back and I was like, what the hell is going on? And in this process I had decided actually that the problem was academia and that the problem was the structure and the external things. And that no one can be happy because I looked around at all of my friends and all of my colleagues and all of my mentors and every single one of them was stressed out was overwhelmed, was working. Seven six or seven days a week. I'm working nights, replying to emails with like crazy hours of the day. And I was just like, this can't, this cannot be my life. I'm not okay with this. I have gotten to a point where I need to have some semblance of a work-life balance. And so I started looking around for something else. I was like, okay. I spent my entire life thinking that I wanted to go into academia, that I wanted to become a professor. And. No, I don't. And this is the first time in my life that I'm like, oh shit, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. And so I started looking around and I ended up joining a coaching program, like it almost on. Not on a whim, but almost I was I don't know what this is, but it feels like something I need. And I went into coaching and everyone kind of was like, what are you here for coaching? And I was like, I need to figure out what to do with my life after I'm done with my PhD, I'm going to finish the stupid thing that I started and then I'm out and I need to figure out just basically what that is. But at that point I was like, sure, that this was it for me, that I was just, I was signing off on academia and saying see a suckers. And And through the process of doing my own coaching and doing my own inner work. I can look back now, first of all, recognize that what had happened to me was burnout. Second of all, that it was not something external that I got to blame. It was actually a lot of it. Most of it was coming from within myself and third that I didn't actually want to be anywhere else, but I do love academia. And I was just so deeply burned out that I had lost all of the joy in my work and in my daily life. And so. Through doing a lot of this work, I have been able to completely reshape my life the way that I run it, the way that I work. And it's just completely changed my life. Right. I'm much happier. I'm much healthier. And I've just, I've set better boundaries. I'm just better. I'm just better at everything basically through, through doing all this inner work. So I think it's one of these things that everyone resists because. Terrible to do, but on the other side of it is just pure magic.

Pam:

Yeah. And I think two things, two things popped up for me, as you were saying, as you were sharing that it was one it's isn't it. So. So often that when we are burned out, we don't recognize we're burnt out because usually, I mean, I was a therapist for 20 years. And so working in community, mental health, everyone there is burnt out too. And so when everyone around you is functioning at the same level and the same in some people have a little bit more resilience, or maybe you're doing some work or have some sort of balance that maybe you do or don't have, but it's one of those things you look around and you're just like, I guess this is what this is. And when there's no, once you put a label on it, though, that label gives it gives you power to do something with it.

Sara:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And it's crazy because one of the first blog posts actually that I wrote when I decided that like I needed to share this with other people was it was entitled. This is just how it is, because that's what I thought I was like, this is what I signed up for. This is academia period. And it wasn't until like retrospect, right? Hindsight is 2020 as they say. And I didn't recognize, how deeply depressing it is that's what so many people think. They think that this is just what we signed on for. And in some ways it is true. Yes, we're all expected to do way more than a single human should be able to do in a normal amount of work a week. But at the same time, I think burnout is so pervasive and the fact that people don't recognize it or they're in denial or some for some other reason, B maybe there's a stigma around it. No, I need to just work harder. And we get trained. It's trained into us that. We need to say yes to everything and we need to push a little harder and we need to it's okay. It's okay to stay up all night and write a paper because you have a deadline or whatever it happens to be. And I think it's just so detrimental. And there's a huge, like mental health crisis in academia that, and I'm sure in many other fields, but you know, in my field in academia, yeah, no one is really putting it front and center. Like I see articles about it here and there, but it doesn't really change anything. So it's sad and.

Pam:

Yeah. Yeah. I bet. I think that is something that resonates with a lot of people that have had conversations with about when, once you decide to do your own work, right. You start to see things and you start to go, oh, damn, that's rough. Like why is that? And why is it from a structural, like larger society thing? Why is. Why is this an okay thing, right? That we say, and that this idea, this mentality that we have in our culture, where if you just work harder, if I just like, if I muscle through the burnout, somehow that's going to do something for it. And all that does is just amp it up more. Right. It's like adding gasoline to the

Sara:

fire. Yeah, exactly. Totally. Yeah. I mean, I I had a client of mine who said She was like, yeah, if I can just get this thing done now, then I could turn to all my other important things. And I was like, but is that true? Would you, and she oh shit. You're right. If I got this done, it wouldn't open up any more space because there's 55 million other things behind it that you could add on top. And it just becomes one of those things where we've been telling ourselves these stories in our head for as long as most of us can remember, honestly. And it's not until we start to look at that. And confront them and say I see you. And I know you for what you are like not today, asshole. And then we get to shift away from those and we can start to recognize them for what they are. We can start to take back some of our own power because that's a lot of what happens is we just give all our power away to all of the external influences because. Let me tell you in any industry. I think if you just let it happen, like people will take, you will be extracted from, until you are nothing more than a shell of a human. Right. And I think that's probably true in almost every industry and frankly, in some of the industries that are meant to be doing this work, like caring kinds of industries it's like the worst. And so it's really a lot about taking back your own power and, being like, no, I have to take control of my life of my time of my energy. And like you end up having to put your foot down on some things and just be like, I'm not going to do that and know that it's okay, to do that. And nothing really terrible is going to happen, which I think we. Tell these stories about what will happen if we say no, or if we put our foot down and and it's just not true. Yeah.

Pam:

Yeah. So I'm listening more and more to the work that you've done, because I mean, one of we joke all the time that my, my team and my people that are in my community are like, yeah, I just couldn't like, see as the therapist in me. Right. I can just see underneath. I know I can see the story playing out. Right. As you're speaking it. And so I'm super curious. I know you said you participated in a coaching program and did the inner work, what was that work like for you? What kind of work did you do to first recognize that you were burnt out and second to fucking do something about.

Sara:

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Of course. So actually I think it's it's three separate things that all kind of work together. So the first thing is actually physical. And I had while I was in the field, I had This really serious bout of guest Stratus. Basically it was like someone was stabbing my stomach with millions of knives and I was laid up in bed for almost three weeks. And I could barely eat. It was like I was eating like brown rice and that was it. And like maybe an occasional banana and everything I ate. Hurt. And they tested me, of course, for all of the crazy things that, you might have gotten. And they were like, oh, you don't have H pylori. That's weird. And I was like, no, it's not it's stress. Like I knew it. I even knew then that it was stress. And I still didn't say shit, you know what? This is. This is burnout, right? I was just like, no, I'm in the field. I'm stressed. This is my PhD. My hypothesis fell apart as it does, by the way in everyone's field work. And and I just, I couldn't handle it at all. Right. And so I started taking really good care of my body. So I started eating. Ridiculously well, like unbelievable amounts of, fruits and vegetables and healthy grains. And I was already a vegetarian, so that wasn't really an issue. But a lot of times when we're overwhelmed, when we're stressed, when we're burned out, we reach for the fast thing. Right. And that's, it's just making it worse for your body. It's just making it harder for your body to be able to cope with the stress that it's under. Right. Because it's a physical. Stress actually, and we know that now scientifically, right. I'm not just making stuff up. And so, and then I started, I really launched back into my my yoga practice. I had been doing yoga on and off a little bit for years, but it was never really every single day, no matter what I do yoga sort of thing. Until this burnout and something in me was just like, this is what you need. And I started doing yoga every day. I would take a day off, obviously here and there, but. It really became like a moving meditation. And with that, then I started doing seated meditation as well. And that usually for very long, like sometimes it was like five or 10 minutes. And even sometimes it was like putting my hands over my heart and like naming the panic that I was feeling and naming the deep, horrible feelings that I was feeling sometimes that sort of emotional. Work also it was necessary. So I did that physical work. I did that emotional work, but I think the biggest shift for me. With those two as really nice foundations was the more mental work. Right. And this was a lot of challenging all of these stories and trying to figure out, like, why do I have these habits of behavior, of thought of whatever. And a lot of. It was just like journaling actually. It was like in the coaching practice for the most part, it was like, they would ask me questions. And a lot of times I would roll my eyes and be like, this has nothing to do with my situation. My situation is I'm trying to figure out what I'm good at so that I can get a job. Right. And I was being this like petulant like bad poaching client. Right. And I think to some extent, we all have to go through that because it's so hard to like, look at your own self and see all of the terrible things that we do to ourselves in our brains. But once I started to get all of these like crazy revelations oh my God, why am I, why do this to myself? This is nuts. I remember during this coaching, I had a woman whose name I shall not reveal mostly because I don't remember it actually, but she she was she was an academic, she was retired and she was in coaching to try to figure out what to do post retirement. And I was like, can, she was like, I'd love to talk to you. Like someone in academia and the young, fresh face, that would be so nice. And so we had this conversation and I was explaining to her like why I wanted to get out of academia at that point. And she was just well, do you think if you got a different job, like if you got a different kind of job in academia that anything would actually really change or would you just do the same thing there too? And I was like, like my head exploded, actually. I was just like, oh my God you're probably right. And that was like the moment when I had to like, sit the fuck down and be like Okay. It's not academia, actually. Sarah, it's you so sit down and figure this shit out because this is not cool. You are going to carry this with you everywhere you are, because you have a tendency to say yes to everything. Why is that? Why do you do that? Right. And it was like the ongoing asking myself why I do that. Finding that deep story of basically unworthiness and challenging it and being. That's a really stupid reason to do stuff cause you, you don't need it. Right. And so like it was small revelations like that, and there were many of them, this was just one just happened to be the biggest. But there were many things like that where it was just like writing and writing until it all came out and I could start to really see my own patterns. And I could really figure out like where, where I've got a little twisted around for awhile. Right. Because it's you're pulling out all this stuff that you didn't even know was in there for awhile. But then, like I said, on the other side of that, it was like a totally, I was like a totally different person. Like things started to happen organically. Right? Like I would, I learned to set boundaries because I knew that I needed to write not because. I felt like I should not because someone told me that I should set boundaries, but because all of this deep inner work said no, you don't need to do that. You need to do this. Right. And it just happened. And that's really, that was like the powerful thing that I was like, whoa, like you can literally change your life just by figuring out what's going on in your mind. Yeah.

Pam:

Yeah, the mine's pretty powerful. I mean, our mind creates our reality and I said, yeah, all the time. It's like our inner worlds what's going on with me inside. Really does create for us the world that we have on the outside. And so if you're running around saying yes to everything and feeling unworthy if you don't right, if you put a boundary in place that somehow that means people are going to not find you valuable are going to reject you or or judge you or whatever, the, whatever our, each individual stories. When then that perpetuates that fear perpetuates the behavior of saying yes. And then that builds on and creates more burnout because there's not enough hours in the day. Yep. So how has all of your own story, your own work? How has this informed what you're doing now? From moving into the coaching world and doing some of this burnout prevention and recovery, which are two different things. Right. And you do both of those things.

Sara:

Yeah. Yeah. So I, at some point, once I realized I was I kinda it was almost like I woke up one day and it was. I was burned out and now I'm not anymore. Holy shit. And it was like, it was almost that it was almost that stark. Like the day I noticed was like the day I noticed it was not. It was a gradual processing getting to that point and then starting to realize that actually a lot of stuff wasn't right. But I still hadn't quite, I mean, it was like the coaching program was like three or four months over when I actually realized when it at all assimilated and settled into this point where I was like, oh, huh. And then I had a semester That went really smoothly. And it was also the semester, actually that I had decided that I was going to launch a business to help other people do this because pretty much, as soon as I recognized it, I was like, nobody knows about this and they need to, nobody's doing this work and they need to be. And actually, since I've done a little bit of market research is not entirely true. There are some people out there who are doing the work. And, but, very specifically for academics there aren't that many right. And a lot of people don't talk about it. And a lot of people push it aside and go, oh, type like another thing on my plate. Like I don't have time for that. Right. And so a lot of the work has actually been trying to kind of twofold thing, which is one. Try to explain to people, try to educate people on what it actually would mean for them to spend a little bit of time upfront. Right. Imagine how much time you'll get back. And it's hard to convince people that this is true because it's impossible from that place to see it has been possible. Right. So the other thing was that I had two. Live by example, actually I recognized that more than anything, I needed to show people what was possible through my own example. Right. And And to start like little by little, just showing up as that in the same space that they're in. Right. I haven't quit academia to start a business for academics. I'm still in academia. And I started a business, which means I've added yet another thing to my plate. And yet I'm still happier and healthier than I've ever been. And so figuring out all of this stuff about burnout means. And better. First of all, at listening to my nervous system, which I attribute a lot of that to my yoga practice actually, but the embodied S half of the practice is, has gotten much, much more honed. And I am really thankful for that because it has saved me a few times, like when I start to Teeter on the edge, because it's a constant process, right. Of not going back to those old habits and to catch yourself and go, oh, you don't want to do that. Take the weekend. Stop pause. Right. And so now I'm trying to balance these two things, which is the academia and the business. And both of those are very burnout, inducing things to do. Right. And I'm doing both of them at the same time. And it's really just like figuring out the kind of balance and being able to show people that like, as long as you're able to be in that awareness, All the time that it is possible to do anything you want. Right. And it's possible to be whoever you want to be. And yeah, you have to give some stuff up and I'm putting that in air quotes because it doesn't feel like you're giving stuff up, but when you're in that place, it definitely does feel like that. And so, yeah, I just feel like it's so important for people to recognize that it's. That it's possible. Right. And that it gets easier actually write that first, those first few months during that during, and right after that coaching. Yeah. That's it was not easy all the time. It's not easy work and no one ever said it was, and that's why we all resist it because it's not always fun. But again, it gets, when you keep doing it, when you keep practicing. It definitely gets, it gets easier. It gets more manageable and it makes everything a lot kind of funner and lighter. And I don't see the, any of my work, actually the business or the academia as like a thing that I have to do, or that feels really hard or really heavy. And if it does. I don't do it, actually. I just pause, and not, it doesn't mean everything I do is like super fun and rainbows and unicorns all the time. But if it starts to feel heavy, like actually, that feeling of being put under under a suffocating, I don't know what I think about the bell jar that book from Sylvia Plath, which is one of my favorites. If you start, if I start to feel like that, like I'm just going to say, I'm going to reevaluate what I'm doing because something's not working. Right. And I've learned enough through this journey to prioritize myself above all that. I think it becomes super important.

Pam:

Would you be willing to share with our audience the difference between prevention and recovery as we're talking burnout?

Sara:

Was that totally? Yeah. And I think There is a big, there's a big misconception, actually, a lot of the stuff that you see on the internet and in general popular culture about burnout people are like, take five breaths and take a week off and like super five minutes in meditation. And today, like your burnout will be recovered and it's no, it won't. I'm sorry, but no, it won't like, you don't just need a vacation because if you just needed a vacation, you're not burned out yet. And. All of those things that you see on the internet are wonderful things and they should be done. Yeah. We should stop and pay attention to our breath and we should take time off and take vacations and spend time, with our kids and our families and our pets and being outside and eating healthy and moving our bodies and all of these wonderful things. But that's all prevention. That's all wonderful things that have to do with prevention. Right. So if you're not at that place where you're already burned out but you feel like, okay, if I took two weeks off I'd be good. Right? Like then that's great. And all you need is a vacation and you should just continue to do all of those wonderful things that are going to support your. Life as a human, right? So a lot of the, a lot of times, what I talk about in my program is how we have to try to avoid becoming a work robot. Cause that, that ends up being what it is. It's like you are a human, a full, entire human with a life that is not just your work and there's something about academics. And I think I'm sure that this is true of entrepreneurs actually. Now having spent time with a lot of them since starting my own business, but we get sucked up into this identity. Like I am an academic or I am an entrepreneur. And I think there are a lot of, there are a lot of, vocations in the world where that's not the case, but with certain ones, like these two, they definitely are. And so people get so wrapped up in that being who they are, that being their life, that it's like really impossible to see life as like more right. And to see that there is like humanity. And I remember. A lot of times during my PhD experience, people would be like, so what do you, what are your hobbies? And I would just be like hobbies. I'm a grad student. What are you talking about hobbies? And at some point I used to laugh about it. And now I'm like, that was so fucking sad because I did, I used to have hobbies. What do you mean? Why would I just give those up? Because I happened to be doing a PhD and it just feels like you can have one or the other, but not both. And so I think the recognition that we have this. Humanness is really important. And so. Yeah. Prevention is really important. And it's doing all of those wonderful kind of, sometimes it sounds really like cheesy and cliche, but those self-care activities, right? The taking time for yourself to be a full human and to not become a work robot. And if you can just maintain that all the time and they say you can. That you can't, fill up a jar with an empty cup or something like that. Whatever, if you fill up your own cup first, right? You have more you have more energy, you have more ability to do things both for yourself and for others, right. But once you've crossed over once you've crossed over into that terrible place where you're actually legitimately burned out. And I think burnout is one of those interesting terms that has. In some cases is completely underused and in some cases it's completely overused, right? So a lot of people who are burned out, wouldn't say it, but a lot of people who are in burnout are like, oh my God, I'm so burned out right now. And it's well, you might be. But a lot of them, I think a lot of people are not legitimately, truly burned out. And when you've been there, when you've been inside the depths of despair of what deep, true burnout feels there's nothing. There's nothing quite like it. Right. And it's a very interesting feeling, but once you're there, like doing these little self-care things is very supportive, but it's not going to, it's not going to heal you. Right? The only healing that I managed to get was from. From this deep inner work, right. It was being able to it was almost like I like unhooked my brain and went digging, right? Like dumpster diving in my brain and trying to figure out what are my like habitual thought patterns and feeling patterns and not pushing them away and not like allowing them to exist there as truth. They still exist there, but no longer as truth. Right. And I think that's one of those things they say, oh, the imposter syndrome will never go away. And it's well, maybe no, but I also know it's not true. And so I can see it there. I can wave hello. And then I can go about my day and I don't have like crippling fear and anxiety. Right. And that's one example of many, but that it could be The truth is actually that the inner work, even if you're not completely burned out, we'll help anyone. Actually, I honestly think that every single person on the planet needs much more of this. People need to be more in touch with their bodies and people need to be way more in touch with their minds. Because we, as a society and in particular, Western society are so disconnected, we're completely disconnected from our bodies. We're completely disconnected from nature. We're completely disconnected from our own minds and it creates the society that we have. It creates this crisis that we have, which is this crisis of overwhelm and overwork and burnout and not being good enough and not doing enough and needing more pressure. All of these things, that's his connection or the disconnection. Yeah. And

Pam:

When you're disconnected from self, there's no way in hell you can connect with another human being.

Sara:

Yeah, of course. And it creates a lot of really sad and. Anxious people. And that's what you see when you look around the world, honestly, you see sad, anxious, lonely people and it has to start. I'm sure of it now in retrospect. And I knew it before, I think theoretically, intellectually, I knew it. Right, but having lived it now, I know for sure that it starts with that, getting to know yourself, your own mind, your own hearts in a much deeper way than. And we want to write because it's scary to go in there to see what's going on in

Pam:

there. Yeah, it is scary. And I think, as you're talking about this this idea, this, like what true burnout actually is, I think that we were at a mental health crisis in this country right now, right in this, in the culture that we live in. I closed the therapy practice at the end. Yeah. 2021 and didn't feel guilty doing so because I put it off from the beginning of 2020, like right around the time. But you know, that our goal pandemic hit and I was foreseeing that there was going to be lots of mental health. And I was like, okay, I'm not going anywhere. I'll hang out for a while longer. But I think that what's happening is that people are getting burned out. In life in work in giving because they're not doing, they're not doing the self work, not doing the inner work and their path to, to do that. Healing is they show up and they knock on the therapist's door and they sit by the way and wait for three months to get into a therapy appointment. And then they come in and they speak to their symptoms because we live in a Western culture that talks about symptoms, medical symptoms, I'm depressed, I'm anxious. I can't sleep. I have physical health issues. And going back to that, The identity that we hang on to is this like identity of illness instead of being like, oh, instead of recognizing holy shit, I'm burnt out. And there are other paths I don't have to go to my primary care physician and get put on an SSRI to help with my depression. And if that's your path and you have actually have depression and you need a, an antidepressant to help. Like then do that. Like I'm mental health professional. I've been doing this for a long time. There are people that need that, but there's a lot of us that don't need that, that just don't know what else to do. So they're like, let me, okay, let me take this pill kit, let me go to therapy and do some work. But then the other issue, this is my soapbox. I'll stand on this for about 30 seconds. The other issue is that the mental health providers that you're going to see are also not doing their own. So we're just like, it's like the blind leading the blind apparently. Unfortunately. And so if more of us can embrace this idea of actually stepping in and doing exactly what you're saying, doing your own work, recognize, doing the prevention work, doing the, getting to yoga and meditating and journaling and, taking walks and being in nature and connecting with people that you love and taking vacations and all of those things, then it's going to help. Us from getting to a place of burnout. So was going to allow us to be more connected and then be of service when we're talking entrepreneurs, right. We're here to try to be of service in some way. And so then what, so how do you take all of this stuff that you've been doing and like, how can the people that are listening, take this and start applying some of this kind of work to their own lives.

Sara:

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that's where the rubber meets the road. Right? That's what it all boils down to because it's very easy to listen to something like this single yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's nice. You're right. Man, this country, this society, we're so fucked up. Yeah. That's true. And they wouldn't be wrong, but if you're not going to do anything about it, then it's not going to be helpful. Right. And so. I think that small steps is always the way to go. Right? A lot of times, it's the same thing. New year's resolutions, right? You're like, I'm going to go to the gym every day forever. And you haven't been in the gym in four months. It's no, you're not. Right. And so we do the same thing sometimes with self care, it's all or nothing kind of thing. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm going to be better starting on Monday. I'm going to meditate for 30 minutes a day. And it's like, if you've never meditated before, do you have any idea how tough it's going to be to sit down and meditate for 30 minutes a day? I do not think you do. And so starting to set more realistic ideas of what that looks like. Right. So I always think that it's really nice sometimes to just take a moment, like maybe on a weekend or I don't know, a moment that you have whenever that happens to be, maybe it's not a weekend, right? Maybe your kids are at home. Maybe it's a Monday morning and just spend like 15 minutes, 30 minutes and think about, just make a list of the things that. That bring you joy and that make you happy, like little things, right? Sometimes it can be like having a cup of tea going outside, reading uh, reading a trashy novel. I don't know, like it can be different for everyone. And having that list handy somewhere for, so when you feel like you need something, you can pull out of that list. Right. And these are like really tiny steps. Right. But the other thing that I think could be so helpful. Is to start a journaling practice of some kind. And I used to be one of those people I'm going to put my hands up. I used to be one of those people that was like journaling big eye-roll that's so dumb. And so lame. And I don't wanna, I don't want to do that. That's so dumb. Like dear diary, I feel sad today. No, right. And so if you're one of those people who's sitting there going like journaling, I'm not going to do that. That's so stupid. I would offer that. It doesn't ha it doesn't have to be, it's not dear diary. I'm sad today. It can be dear diary. I'm sad today, if that's what you feel like writing, but it can also be anything, and you can write that and then immediately throw it in the garbage, burn it, whatever you don't have to save it. You don't have to read it again. You don't have to show it to anybody. A lot of times you just sometimes have to process whatever is going on in your head. Right. And so. You can start with how you're feeling, but you can also just start writing anything and just see what comes out and see what comes up. And there are millions of prompts on the internet. If you feel like you need a prompt to get started. Journaling prompts. And you'll find like a list of 50,000, like instantly, right. And some of them will resonate with you and some of them will not, but you can give them a try. And you can just set a timer for literally like five minutes if you to start, right. You don't have to sit for two hours and write out all of your deepest, darkest secrets. Like you don't, that's not how it has to be. But starting to even get connected with the thoughts that are going through your mind. It's like such a wonderful practice in itself. So it doesn't have to make any sense. You're not writing the next great American novel. You're just writing down stuff that's going on in your head. Right. And you might be surprised we're just writing anything. We'll take you. And I find this sometimes to just be so helpful, and. Feel any judgment or shame or anger or fear around what comes out when you're writing. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't, that you shouldn't be allowed to feel those feelings. Like sometimes they'll come up. Right? We get afraid. We get angry. And I think that suppressing negative emotions is one of the. Terrible things that has come out of this yay. Everything's positive movement. And I don't think that's what it is at all. I think we need to look at those things. I'm talking about in terms of what actually comes out of your pin, if you write, I hate my children. Don't that does not make you a terrible parent. It does not make you a terrible person. It's this crazy thought that happens in your brain and that's okay. And of course I hate my cats right now because they're running around and ruining my podcast interview. Do I actually hate my cats? Of course not. Do I judge the fact that I had this thought like, no, it's just a thought, right? Like you can start to think of it. Like thoughts are. You attach the meaning that they have. And so sometimes just getting these things out on paper, I hate my job might be a beautiful thing. I don't want to do this anymore. It's such a great release. Right. And it doesn't have to, it doesn't mean it's true. It doesn't mean anything about you. Um, But just getting it out is an amazing thing. And then, like I said, You can shred it. You can burn it, you can flush it down the toilet, maybe not depending on your septic system, but you know, whatever it happens to be. It's not for anyone's eyes. It's not for anything. It's just to start getting these things out and getting more connected to what's going on in your brain. And you might come up with some crazy things like. I'm not worthy of XYZ or I don't deserve to have a business. I don't deserve to make any money. I'm terrible at helping people. Everybody hates me. That might be stuff that comes up for you. And like we've all been there. We just, we all have, and we just have to start admitting it to ourselves that these are the thoughts we're having. And only until we do that, can we start to challenge them? Can we start to recognize that we can create our thoughts, that we can become aware of them and then shift that. And so that would be my, that would be my go-to. If I wanted to explain to people like how to actually do this is to just get started, just start writing. I like it first thing in the morning that everybody does maybe it's right before bed. But what whenever works for you is the best time to do is time that you do it. So,

Pam:

right. Yeah. And I love I have some well, I am a mom. I have a 13 year old, almost 13 year old and. She's in middle school and that's the year that they leave town and they go to another town for middle school. So that's 20, I don't know, 20, 25 minutes to the school. And it's one of those things. They have bus, busking, shortages, and whatever, all these crazy things. Right. And so everybody picks up their kid and I don't normally pick up my kid, but sometimes I have to pick her up to be able to get her to the thing that she has to go to after school. And and the days that I have to go and pick her up, I have to be there 15 minutes before I'm supposed to be. And then, otherwise you're like three miles away and you can't get to the school. And so the whole process is a 25 minute process to pick her up. And so I like to keep a journal in my. Because it's a great time to just be like I'm sitting. My car is in park, was all you moms out. There are dads out there. They're sitting in pickup line, you know who you are, like throw your throw journal in the center console and you can just be, take a little bit of time then if that's the time, the piece that you have, if that's it then utilize that time.

Sara:

Yeah. Yeah, totally. And there's something so. Beautiful about being able to physically with a pen and a paper, especially these days when we do so little on pen and paper to write it out to really get it out with your hands. Right. But if that doesn't work for you, You can also just take a voice recording and then immediately deleted, right. I'm sitting in traffic. This is so annoying. Dah. And you can just whatever comes out, I prefer pen and paper and I think pen and paper is more effective as a mechanism for the sort of thing, because it helps you to slow down a little bit. But yeah, totally, exactly. Whenever it works for you write it, I would have never thought that three 18 in the afternoon, while you're sitting in line waiting for your kid is a good time. But like exactly everyone has a different life and everyone has to figure out how to make this work for their lives. And that's a perfect example of that.

Pam:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this idea of. You talked about writing pen to paper. I, so as a therapist, one of the things that I have been having people do for years is started journaling practice. And I give them lots of, direction on how to do that. And I had someone. I've been working with it for about three years. And for three years, she would go through the process of journaling I'm air quoting this like journaling because she would take whatever it was that she was supposed to ponder and she would ponder it and her in her head. And she would process through it in her head and try to like hold onto the information or do whatever with the information. And then she would come back then, two weeks later we talk about it and I would say, you really should, give it a try, write it down. And she came back to me one day and she said, so I just decided that I was going to, that you keep saying, just grab a notebook and write. And so I wrote and something happen. And I said, what happened? And she's like, I didn't feel the need to carry all this shit around in my head anymore. Cause now it was on paper and I was like, all right, guess you're done with therapy, but there is something, and there is research that says it's a neurological process that happens and all the things and if you're listening and you want to go do the research to do it Like you have a, you have an academic and a licensed therapist telling you, write it on a piece of fucking paper with a pen or a pencil and, go about your day. It really does make a difference, a huge difference. It really does. And it's such a great place to start because you're right. You can do what I call like a brain dump. What am I thinking? And you just write down your thoughts and then recognize that when you attach meaning. To those thoughts. That's you attaching meaning to those thoughts? Because like you said about your thoughts are neutral. It doesn't matter what they are. They're still neutral. They don't have any they don't have a positive or negative until you put one on there.

Sara:

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Pam:

Super cool. Any other things that you would you're feeling like I really want to share this. Any questions I didn't ask you anything magical later?

Sara:

I don't know. I think it's just, I think the thing I would like to stress most and it's nothing new. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, just because I think it's so important is but it's okay to not want to do. And nobody wants to do it and it doesn't have to be fun to make it worthwhile. And Again, on the other side of it, right. I keep saying this, but you have to recognize you have to trust the process, I think. And I think that's where people get caught up, right? Because you could have a line of 15,000 people and all of them could tell you I did all this inner work and on the other side, Wow. Like my life has changed, but it's so hard from that place of not having done this to believe that you're just like, no. And I think that's, I think that's my biggest struggle as an entrepreneur is to be able to express how true this is. And to get people to just trust the process. Right. And the people that I've had who have gone through the program have had like exceptional breakthroughs and really I mean, they've literally called it life-changing. And I think in any space that you're in, this is the life changing work. Like this is it. And if you take anything away from this, it's just trust the process. Do it, take the leap and start doing the work like a little bit, right? Like I know what we keep calling it work because it is right, but it doesn't have to be a full-time thing. And you can spend, you can start with five to 15 minutes, like in the morning or at night or while you're waiting for your kids at school. And just take what little time you have and just start somewhere. Because little by little, you're going to start, you're going to start having these revelations and it's going to create a life of its own, I think. And you'll see how much easier it becomes once you get into the habit of doing some of this stuff and you'll start to see slowly how much better you feel and how different your life can be. And it all starts with just that little bit of trust and faith and just. Just trying it out, just be at the scientist, right? Like just say like, all right, these crazy women say that this is what's going to happen. Let's see if it's true. Let's see if I can try and prove me wrong. Actually. You know what? I would love that. Try and prove me wrong. Try it for a month or three months and tell me how you're feeling after. And if I'm wrong, call me out. But Whatever you need to do to get started. Like just do it because I'm telling you it's so much better on this side so much better. My life is so much better. It's completely changed. And that's the kind of transformation that I wish for literally everyone on the planet, so, yeah.

Pam:

Yeah. That's amazing. And you were spot on there, you've got to trust the process. You've got to have faith that something, I think oftentimes we're wired for negative, right? It was what we're wired as human beings. And so we sit here and they listened to you and I have this conversation and there are people out there. I know this. I see you people out there that are listening that are saying, yeah, that's nice that it worked for them, but it won't work for me because. Right. And we have all these qualifiers that like, oh, that's only, and we do it in everything. It's not just this, that person's, that entrepreneur over there is so successful because they were lucky because they had this because they're that because they're, I hear often cause because I'm a yoga teacher, I hear often from some of the women that I work with. My teacher, my like the teacher that I've worked with for years is male and. I often hear well, he's so successful because he's a guy in the yoga world. That's like a unicorn. And I'm like, actually though, if you stop and listen to his messaging, it's got, ain't got shit to do with the fact that he's a guy it has to do with the fact that he knows. He knows how to show up as an entrepreneur. He's done the work and he's done the work to be able to be there and be of service and all of those things. And so there is this we don't want to take radical responsibility for it. We don't and the truth is if you're walking around, out there listening, going, yeah, that's nice. That's not me. You're not taking radical responsibility for yourself. You're blaming other people.

Sara:

Yeah. And I think that this is, I mean, it's so easy because there's so much shit to blame. I could blame academia until the cows come home and I did. Right. And I think. Can I blend the mental health system, the mental, the society broken. Yep, exactly. And like our culture and society and our workplaces. They're all broken. I'm not saying that they're not, I'm not saying that academia is a joyful place and I just didn't see it. I'm not saying that at all. But when I finally took that responsibility for my own wellbeing within that structure, I'm better for it. And now I can start to create the change within the structure itself as well. I can start doing that work. And for all of you disbelievers out there, I want to tell you a short story, which is that my ex's roommate at the time, one time told me this was over a decade ago, but it stuck with me. He told me that I was the most negative person he had ever. He was like, oh God, you're always, you're so negative. You're always complaining. You're like the most negative person I've ever met. What is wrong with you? Wow. And that's where I'm coming from depression. And I have burned out and I have had panic and I have had all of the things. Right. And I have felt overwhelmed and I have come back from all of that. So if you think that it won't work for you because. I'm sorry, it's just not true. I'm sorry. It works for everyone at the end. Just if you do the, if you do the thing, it works for everyone. Yes. I love that.

Pam:

That's amazing. I love that so much. Sarah, how can our listeners find you if they want to track you down? If they want to read your blogs, they want to connect with you on social

Sara:

media. Totally. So you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at inner professor. I don't have a full fledged website yet because that's not my priority. Um, But you can find me@innerprofessor.com forward slash blog. And you can take a look at some of the blogs that I've written and you can get on my email list from there as well.

Pam:

Perfect. I will link all of us up in the show notes. People can find you easily just click the button down. Yay. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you and your sharing, your story and coming on and sharing your wealth of knowledge. It's been amazing. Thank you so much.

Sara:

You so much. It was a lot of fun and I hope that if it even helps one person in your audience, that's good enough.

Pam:

Yeah, that's awesome. And guys, if something in this episode really resonates with you, I want you to tag both myself and Sarah on whatever platform you're showing up on Instagram, Facebook and let us know, because we would love to hear from you. All of that is linked in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here and listening today, and I will see you guys next week. Take care.