S2 E26: Using your body to guide your burnout prevention or recovery
with life and career coach Dr Lara Corr
Key Takeways
That's when my body decided it had enough. And there was no pushing through and I was excellent at pushing through. And so for me, burnout was not so much about cynicism and disconnection as complete total and utter exhaustion. Just that idea of not being able to push through, which was incredibly difficult for me to accept.
That perfect storm of mixing together, the culture in academia, which is very competitive, which is very much about don't stop. There's always more to do this. You've never done enough. That mixed with how women are socialized mixed with, whatever childhoods and backgrounds that we've had and our own beliefs and thoughts was just the absolute perfect storm for me.
And so it does take a while to recover from, but I would say what speeds it up a lot, which I didn't do is to really lean into your recovery. So grieve what you need to let go of. And just know that it's this point in your life. Like it's not actually forever. Just to know that this is a season of life.
There's a saying that I really love, which is your body starts with a whisper and it ends with a sledgehammer. And, my body was whispering and boy, did I ignore it. I ignored and I ignored and I ignored until the sledgehammer came. And obviously we'd like to have people avoid being burnt out, but it's an incredible opportunity to actually connect with your body and start to really work out what you want and who you are instead of going on automatic pilot.
Our bodies don't let us down. Our minds, have let our bodies down. And what's really happened is we have ignored, whatever bodies have needed for so long that they just have essentially a tantrum and say, that's it! Sort your shit out.
One day I just found myself on the coaching website. And my whole body was screaming, do it. And my mind was just saying, no, this is a ridiculous idea, and in the end it was the only thing that I could really focus and engage with. It was quite clear that my body was saying to me, this Lara, this, can we just do this? See how I've got energy for this. See how we can engage with this? And I thought, oh my gosh, if this was my life, that would be the most delicious existence, to be able to coach.
I like to think of the things that you cannot help but love. That your voice does light up, that your body moves differently, that you get that's sweet energy, not the manic hyper it's just this kind of peace or joy. You link in with that to find out what you actually want, what you actually need, what you're actually drawn to, what's actually draining you. And then you use mind management to bring those things into life. It's quite thrilling because every person has a completely different path. Their bodies want totally different things. And often they're actually what they've got, but just not in the exact formation they've got right now.
The phenomenal thing about therapists and I have such deep respect and adoration for therapists is that they bring you really from not functioning and from huge suffering to functioning. And the wonderful thing about coaching is that it really takes you from functioning to thriving. And I think that so many women function. We're wonderful at functioning, no matter what is happening to the point of ridiculousness, really. But we're not so great at thriving and we're socialized not to thrive. We're socialized to not trust ourselves to not trust our bodies.
We can rewire our brain to think different thoughts. We might have this super highway at the moment, this thought that I'm not good enough, or that I'm an imposter or people are gonna find out I'm a fraud. But we can create this new little side path. That might be a little bit like going through bushland at the start and can feel difficult, but in the end, you'll have this lovely path to walk through instead of, which is nourishing and useful, that gets you the results that you want in your life instead of that stable highway to suffering and all the results you don't want. And we all have that option of rewiring our mind body connection.
But it's essentially just do you want to go to that party or not? Yes or no. Your mind will tell you 17 reasons why you have to go. And your body doesn't give two hoots about all the reasons, right? Your body's just like no, or yes, please. So it's as simple as that. You can apply it to any part of life and it really gives you such insight and it makes your energy go through the roof, fulfillment go through the roof, just joy, you get to know yourself.
I used to work with this brilliant professor that says we need men to start working like women. And what is meant by that is this idea of let's put a cap on working hours. Let's actually look at the evidence which shows that our quality of work decreases rapidly the more we work. And let's look at that. When you combine caregiving with work, you need to work even less to maintain your mental health and physical health. So let's make everyone not just mothers, but everyone work less. If you're giving me a magic wand, I'm saying four days a week, and some countries are starting. There's so much evidence Jacqueline! That's what drives me bonkers is the lack of use of evidence.
I feel like the obvious thing for the States is paid maternity leave. I mean the culture of having to go back to work when you are quite literally still bleeding and, creating milk and your hormones going like crazy. It's just, it actually makes me want to cry for all the women that are doing that. And just the complete lack of social protection in America. It's quite terrifying in terms of free health care. It really is a systems level thing. It is a tragedy and it's not okay. And it's not political, it's just human rights.
Start with the premise that there is nothing wrong with you. You have not failed in any way, because you were burned out. You have actually been socialized to be in this situation to give everything to never rest and never stop. So it is not your fault.
And there's a really nice little trick that you can do, which is basically I call it, run it through a mediocre white man filter. And it's basically would a mediocre white man worry about this? So next time you think, oh, I really should've done X, Y, and Z. Or what if someone's thinking X,Y and Z. So I just think would a man be worried about this, and often you find yourself instantly relieved.
For companies, I would invite companies to stop resisting the realities of working mothers. Can we just stop acting like this as a strange phenomenon that has never been seen before and that we're still trying to work out? It is so normal. So that mind shift would open up a whole world for companies. Just really making your workplace as supportive and attractive to working parents of all backgrounds as you can. So just going through and looking at everything in your workplace through that filter.
I always say with coaching that even if you can't afford to have a coach, just follow people that you gel with online, and you get so much free coaching just from reading posts. There's so many free Facebook groups. So just persist, find someone that you gel with and follow along.
Bio
Dr Lara Corr is a certified life coach and award-winning researcher in work and women's mental wellbeing. Lara helps women love their work, reach their goals and get free from the work-life stress cycle. She lives in Melbourne (Naarm), Australia with her daughter and furbaby, Milo.
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