It has been a long time. I stepped away from this podcast,
I stepped away from creating content online I stepped away from a lot of things and you may be saying why what happened girl?
Clinical burnout! Yes ma'am! I got full blown clinical burn out. And the lesson that I had to learn in this process is sometimes burnout is inevitable. Because life is lifing and you can't really control that and it just piles on thing after thing after thing and then the next thing you know you can't function anymore because it's just too much, and that is what happened with me through this pandemonium. That's what I'm gonna refer to it as cause it was pure pandemonium I did all the things during that time I did all the things that I thought I should do to take care of myself was actually career wise just everything was falling into my lap but I was also managing the schooling of four kids and the craziness that that was through that time period and I did it I did it all and may I say I did it a pretty damn good job of it and I made it all the way through the two full years and then I crashed. I got through the holidays that year and I came out on the other side and I couldn't do anything. Like my brain would not work there was this level of brain fog that I like could not get through there was fatigue and exhaustion I constantly felt like like I was in the midst of a allergy head cold that kind of feeling like you have your head is like a helium balloon just kind of floating on top of your head I couldn't think straight I couldn't remember saying I was even having night sweats I thought oh here comes perimenopause no it was burnt out and there was really nothing I could do about it but succumbed to it it wasn't my fault I didn't not take care of myself I was doing all the things that I teach and preach to do and and taking down time and it just got to the point grand life handed me so many things I couldn't handle it anymore and the funny part was I actually made it through the hard times of the pandemonium which was really the trigger of their burnout and I'm sharing this because I am pretty damn sure that a lot of you Mamas out there that went through this pandemonium did all the things you had to do and just buckle down and got through it and then once you got through it you might have fallen apart. You probably have been experiencing foggy, brain not being able to sleep, feeling constantly anxious, not being able to focus. The things that your brain could normally do suddenly you can't do it anymore, like I at the beginning of every year, I would do a major planning for the year on the content I'm going to create I would break it into quarters and my brain was just like yeah no I'm not doing that we're not doing that this year so you could try but I'm not going to cooperate and I just could not get the things done that were normally like so exciting for me and like the creative ideas that I could normally come up with. Nothing! Nothing was going on in my brain. I would literally get in my car to go drive somewhere. I would drive to the end of my street to turn out onto the major street and in that short amount of time. I would forget where I was going. I would literally be sitting there like where am I going for like a good 30 seconds to a minute which is kind of scary. Like how do I get in a car to go somewhere and not know where I was going or I would be in the midst of driving and would literally realized that I was in a trance and had no idea where I was going or what I was getting ready to do. I mean my brain really said I am so done with your girl you got you on your own until you slow down and work with me here I'm just I'm I'm I'm peace out girl figure it out and The funny thing was I kept denying that I was not OK kept denying it and little things kept happening with every time I was like I'm gonna get this together I got it my dog died I mean the dog was sick and it wasn't unexpected or as horrible as it sounded but it still was impacted me and then I we had to move because we were doing a remodel and then I fell and tore a ligament in my ankle it had to be in a booth for six months and it was just like little stuff that you could maybe just like oh it's just life but again life was life and I was getting so many things on my plate and it was like the universe was saying ma'am you need to stop you need to slow down you need to really take care of this because it's not going to get better and I say all that to say that when life is lifing and this happens to you it's not your fault you're not some failure it is just an inevitable result of all the things that you have on your plate and you could be doing all the self-care things taking time out for yourself having girlfriends around but when you just get too much on your plate for too long of a time your brain your mental capacity your social capacity your emotional capacity is eventually going to shut itself down purely out of self preservation so if these symptoms are feeling familiar to you and you're sitting there going Oh my God is that what's going on with me in my burnt out probably you probably are and you know I know everybody can't take time away from work and not everybody has access to therapy and all of the things but the first thing we have to do is acknowledge that we are burned out because until you do that which is what I did there will be no steps taken to to deal with that fact because we're just trying to move on and just could use some sleep but don't have time for that oh but if you can actually acknowledge that this is the space that you are in then you can begin to take some steps to deal with the fact that you are burnt out but you can't blame yourself we can't do that you can't expect it to get better overnight or because you took a day to go get your nails done and get a hot coffee without your kids that that's not gonna be the thing that fixes it this has to be something that you acknowledge and then take long term steps to deal with because what I have learned is once you hit burnout oh you are in for a long time of work I have been working on this for uh year and a half I spent about half a year denying it and kind of trying to deal with it and a good year in therapy I shot I shot a lot of things down I've gotten real good at saying no I've gotten really good at thinking about what I can take off my list what I can give to other people because at the end of the day if I take on everything but that then makes me so that I can't function properly I can't be the mom that I want or need to be I can't be the wife that I want or need to be so it's really serving no one for me to continue to be to appear to be the Super mom that I am not and never will be and when I have tried to do that in the past life says OK I'm shutting down girl you on your own with this superwoman stuff I'm not doing it because we can't we are human and so I want him to check in with yourself and ask yourself am I experiencing these things cause you may be thinking this other stuff but if you have that combination of things I could probably guarantee you that you are burnt out and so the first thing I want you to do is just acknowledge that don't blame yourself for it don't beat yourself up about it just come to the realization that that is what you are experiencing had to do it was not easy Tom sharing this with you so you don't do the same thing I did although you probably are already deep in the throes of denial that you are burnt out because the the number of moms that I have talked to girlfriends people online that have are experiencing or have experienced the same thing are a lot and I know I'm talking to a very small group but if I think about it as a picture of the larger group I'm pretty sure that this resonates for a lot of you so take the time to level on yourself and see if this is something that you are experiencing and I love you and I want you to take the time to practice a little self-care.