93. BURNOUT: Do You Feel Half Alive?

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welcome to we can do hard things

today

Love bugs, we are talking about

burnout.

And the reason we are talking about burnout is that sister and I,

most days of our lives, we talk.

We do that on Zoom now.

And we have begun to notice that every time we talk now, we are just staring at each other,

emotionless, going through lists of things that we either have to do or talk about,

just

dead inside.

Just

like robots of some sort.

Like we have run out.

We used to call it in my family, like mommy's run out of mommy.

Like I have run out of Glennon.

Sister has run out of sister.

We are,

yeah.

And so I started paying attention to friends who are talking to me honestly about their experience in life right now.

And the words they're using to describe themselves are so fascinating.

Zombie, robot, ghost.

It's like

so different than a couple years ago.

A couple of years ago, we had so much kind of fire and fight and fear and

giddy up.

Like

we were scared, but we were alive.

Yeah, fresh out of giddy up.

Fresh out of giddy up.

Just,

and so we started paying attention to this and hearing it more and more.

And we thought that we needed to talk about it.

Sissy, you found a quote that you loved that.

I thought this is just life now.

I was like, well, this is just, this is just life now.

And then I heard this woman, Anne Helen Peterson, she was talking on a podcast and I just felt

seen to my marrow when I heard this quote.

And she said,

It's you go and you go until you can't go anymore and then you keep going.

There is no catharsis, no finishing the marathon.

The feeling of everything in your life flattens into one long to-do list.

That means all of the joyful things and all of the pain in the ass things.

Your life becomes just one damn thing

after another.

And

that's what it feels like to me.

Like that's when it started to get scary to me when it just all felt so flat and there was no differentiation between the things that would bring me joy, the things that are things that I should be looking forward to, and the things that were obligations that I had to meet, that it was all just the same list and never ending and cycling back.

It just feels like when every single moment requires something of you.

And there are more requirements than there are moments.

And so you just feel like there's no freaking way that you're ever going to catch up with the requirements.

And so you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it to try to meet that moment's requirement.

But there's no relief in sight.

There's no ending line.

It's just

more of the same.

It's a pie eating contest and the reward is more pie.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So trigger warning for drug people who can't listen to drug talk.

But so I used to do a lot of drugs.

Okay.

And there's this one drug that I used to do, do,

which I,

I'm about to say a bunch of things and I have no idea if they're true or correct.

This was my scientific understanding of this drug.

And it was probably told to me by my drug dealer.

So

just freaking Google it.

All right.

Just, I don't consider the source.

Consider the source, my drug dealer and me.

So it was this drug where when I took it, it would flood my brain with more serotonin, which was good for me because I didn't have enough serotonin.

This is why a drug dealer said it.

It may not have been good for me.

Okay.

So anyway, it would make me feel amazing.

And then the next day,

the flood of extra serotonin, there would be an equal and opposite reaction.

It would like deplete me so much of serotonin that I've never felt worse.

Like it was awful.

The recovery from this shit was so horrific.

Okay.

And it was because of this direct relationship between the flood and the depletion.

And that is how I feel about burnout right now.

I feel like the flood of constant adrenaline and cortisol that this last few years has required every single day, whether you're trying to like stay informed and keep up with the news and the horrific images and the horrific situations that we have to keep caring about over and over and over and over again, because we actually were not designed to live in this sort of life where we can experience the pain of everywhere at all times.

We were designed to be able to care, to have enough care and enough adrenaline and enough cortisol to make it through dealing with the hardships of the village,

not the world.

So, we actually aren't made for this sort of constant flooding, right?

But because, and by the way, the world is just one thing, then we've got our families or our freaking life.

The state of the world is bad.

You should see my family.

I could save the world before I could look at, save this house.

Point being, I feel like I have spent so many years allowing myself to be flooded that now I'm just fresh out.

It's like, I feel like those days after drug use where I was just like, I've got nothing.

I've got nothing left.

But the difference for me between depression and this feeling burnout is that I keep going.

Yeah.

Like when I'm depressed, there's no chance of keeping going.

It's like not even,

it's not available to me.

But burnout is scary to me because I actually feel like a robot.

I feel like, oh, I can keep going in this empty

existence.

And like what you said about the joy and the heart.

I don't even know the difference between good things and bad things anymore.

Remember when Bobby got diagnosed with COVID?

And like what your reaction?

Yeah, that I think was that was my first sign.

So Bobby's fine, but he,

after, you know,

two years of, thank God, avoiding it,

he got COVID recently.

And I remember that my reaction to that immediately was,

and I'm not proud, but got the diagnosis and I built a spreadsheet of everything we needed to do.

I just immediately sat down and was like, contact the school, find out the protocol when he can go back, figure out how, you know, get the papers from the school, figure out all the people we need to contact that we've been in contact with for the past five days, figure out all the order all the tests we're going to need for everyday testing.

Like it was, it was like, oh, something

that requires

all of these things to do, as opposed to

normally you would think your beloved son getting diagnosed with COVID would issue some kind of emotional response.

And it wasn't until I had finished the spreadsheet that it even occurred to me, oh,

maybe I should check in with myself.

And that only occurred to me because I was like, what's wrong with you that you didn't have any emotional response?

Because, and that's what I feel

at the emotional depletion

of

having so much emotion for so long surrounding all these things.

And we're just spent emotionally.

There's no more emotional resources to bring to the table.

And so there's only just things to do.

Correct.

Yes.

And you and I started talking about,

you know, really kind of labeling it as burnout because both of us know what.

depression feels like.

So we kind of understood that there was something different going on here.

When we realized that we both were likely in burnout, we remembered this book that we both read a long time ago that we, that actually helped us a lot understand what burnout is, why it happens, and what we can do about it.

And the reason why we liked it was because it was helpful, but also because the authors who are friends of this pod, Emily Nagosky, who wrote Come as You Are, and her sister, who is also an author, Amelia Nagosky, they are just kind of the antidote to like the self-help or self-care.

There's no suggestion suggestion of we can just fix, you know, burnout with a candle or a bath or a manicure.

It's just, or that it's our fault that we're burnt out.

Like we're just not living correctly.

If we had a better organizer or planner, or if only we instituted, you know,

a meal-making schedule that we would have all of this figured out.

Like it's they're very clear that the game is rigged, that the stressors are inevitable, that we are more prone to them than

up the food chain, and yet

have really great strategies that are not self-care-based strategies, but that are ways to activate physiologically the response we need

to run stress through and then get it outside of our bodies.

So the book is Burnout, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.

I appreciate it when anyone can put science-y situations to my feelings.

So much in their work is about patriarchy and racism and misogyny and homophobia and ableism and how all of that creates stressors on human beings that are

sure as hell not our fault.

And somehow we still have to spend a lifetime responding to.

So we thought that we would just out ourselves as burnout,

a burnout outing, and just talk about it because we feel like it's happening

lots and lots and lots.

And as they say in here, not knowing why we're suffering is an added layer of suffering.

So we thought that we would introduce you to some of what we learned in burnout.

And then we have a special treat to have the Nagoski sisters answering some of your questions about burnout.

They refer to Kate Mann, who I love, and she wrote this book called Down Girl.

And she talks about the human, I think it's called the human giver theory, which is if you set up a culture where half of the population gets to be human beings.

And their whole existence is about, you know, being served and getting their needs met and self-fulfillment and destiny fulfillment.

And then half of the population is the human givers.

And they're responsible for making sure that the human beings, all of their needs, they're the supporting actors, actresses, right, in the lead characters movie.

They exist for the purpose of giving of themselves for the ease of other people's lives, for making other people's lives run.

That is her theory is that that is the moral obligation of the givers to give, and the moral obligations of the beings is to be.

Yeah.

So, in that system, which we have,

it makes perfect sense

that women are burned out as all hell because we believe it is our moral obligation to give.

And in a time when you cannot give enough to make things okay

for anyone,

you are going to spin your wheels until you're burnt, right?

Until you have nothing left.

And it's not just because you're losing,

it's because the game is rigged and rigged in varying degrees depending on your lived experience.

So it works intersectionally.

So the folks that are most seen as having the obligations to give and give and not receive are black and brown women.

So it's, there's a hierarchy of who gets to be and who gets to give.

Yeah.

And it does make sense about why when you look at, I mean, this is a journalization, but women do seem more burned out than men.

Men Men are surviving a little bit better because

the

caretaking

of the world still falls predominantly on women, which makes this time unbearable.

Yeah.

I think we should talk about what it means.

What is burnout?

What are the symptoms?

If you're, if you're, like, I think a lot of people feel pretty dead inside and feel like something's off.

So the first one is emotional exhaustion.

This is when you think about physical exhaustion versus emotional exhaustion.

I'll tell you a couple weeks ago, I was just a shell of a human sitting at the table and I told Abby, I'm so tired.

And she said, well, go take a nap.

And I said to her, I am not the kind of tired that a nap will fix.

I just meant I am to my soul, like to my

spirit tired, like bone tired.

Sleep does not fix this kind of tired.

The nagoski sisters uh define that as the emotional exhaustion as the fatigue that comes from caring too much for too long

there's a difference between burnout as it's manifested in men and burnout as it's manifested in women and women are are big on the emotional exhaustion that's the way it shows up more most often with women

The second one is depersonalization, the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion.

And it's kind of just like when you,

you, you want to care, you know, intellectually that you should, but there's just nothing left.

Like I was describing it to John the other day, and he was like, how are you doing?

And I said, I think I'm

really not good.

And he said, what, like, what do you mean?

And the only way that I could describe it was, I feel like I am pulling from an empty well.

Like I'm like trying to keep bringing the bucket up, but there's nothing down there to

bring up.

And there's certainly nothing like replenishing the stock.

It's just like,

here's your empty bucket.

Check that off the list.

Here's your empty bucket.

So there's that.

And then the last one is decreased sense of accomplishment, an unconquerable sense of futility, feeling that nothing you do makes any difference.

And that is how most men

experience burnout.

Oh, that's interesting.

I felt that.

I felt that recently.

You know, when I did the episode about the landing and I was talking about my eating disorder resurgence, which by the way, I think also when you ever fall back into those old crappy things that you do to hurt yourself,

that's always a sign of either burnout or depression or anxiety, right?

So, me going back to my eating disorders,

certainly a red flag.

But I did those landing episodes, and I was really like, whenever I can be that vulnerable, I actually really do see feel that to be one of my most important acts of service.

So, whether people receive it like that or not, I don't, you know, but I usually that is like a big sense of accomplishment for me.

I know that sounds weird, but like when I can put, when I'm feeling like really low or hurt or, and I can put it into words that I feel like will meet people, some people where they are.

I usually feel really good about that.

And there was an amazing response to that.

People were writing to me.

And I was trying to like feel something about it.

And I just didn't.

I just like people were telling me this big change.

This, I have an eating disorder, this is what I, and I would read it.

And

intellectually, I would think, good, job done, Glennon, good.

But I had no, like,

I couldn't have summoned up a tear to save my life.

Right.

You know,

there's just no tears.

One of the reasons also that we like that, their philosophy is because

we are in this situation, so many of us, where we cannot change our situation.

That's another annoying thing when it's like the solution is either get a candle, take a bath, get a manicure.

right because because self-care has been so commodified and like another to-do list

or well change it just say no just set up some boundaries yeah

we're all just surviving right now like okay so so real quick we're then what you're saying we should just fix racism patriarchy homophobia misogyny the school system the senate the congress our marriages our our mortgages we should just fix that and that'll oh that's what would help i see right yeah so i had just thought of that

if i had just thought of those things well that is what i loved about um what they explained because first of all

shocking to go through your whole life and not know this but that that you know when i would think of stress i think about

stress is

the way I feel about the demands on me.

But that I think it's the demand.

You You just, you thought of stress as just the demands on you.

Right.

But I could at least understand I'm feeling stressed out.

I'm feeling stress.

So I'm feeling a certain way about those demands.

But what they explained that all of the research shows is that when we think about stress, what we need to be thinking about is these two separate, totally distinct buckets.

And one of them is stressors.

Okay.

Stressors.

So stressors are

the issues you're having in your relationship, the fact that you got to get your kid prepared for that test on Friday, the fact that you have something big to do at work, the fact that you're worried if you're going to make your car payment,

the fact that your boss is a racist, the fact that your neighbor is a misogynist, all whatever those things are.

The shitty things in your life are the stressors, the traffic jams, the whatever.

So, the whole giant bucket of things

that tax us, that are demands on us, that are obligations of us.

Okay.

then there's a completely separate bucket that is stress

and when stress is

something that is happening inside of your body so stressor bumps up against you that means bump you're it stress is inside of you okay

so but it's a very different thing it doesn't matter what the stressor was it doesn't matter if it was a little stupid traffic jam or you caught that red light or whether it's a huge gigantic thing in the world.

It also doesn't matter whether it was a good or bad thing, good stress or bad stress.

It doesn't matter if your mother-in-law just called you and said all the terrible things and stressed you out or if you just had this amazing interview opportunity that you had to go in and give.

Both caused your, this weird thing to happen inside of your body that is called stress,

right?

So now the stress is inside your body.

Okay.

You think, oh, well, I took that test.

Well, I paid that bill.

It's finished.

But that very unfortunately for all of us, turns out is not true.

So the stress is in your body.

It is now in a completely different cycle than the stressor.

That your neighbor might have moved.

You don't have to worry about that bill anymore.

It doesn't matter.

Your body doesn't speak the language of bills.

Your body needs to go through a stress cycle, which has a beginning, middle, and end, as the Nagotsky sisters point out.

Like, if you don't complete that stress cycle, all that is happening and living inside of your body and doing damage inside of your body is accumulated unprocessed stress.

Because we think once we've dealt with the stressors, this situation doesn't affect me.

And that's actually not true.

We need every cycle of stress needs to be cycled out of your body.

And there's particular ways to do that, which is amazing.

But I think of stress as

like trash.

So we are living in this world and no matter what we do, people are going to come

and dump trash

on

our home.

Okay.

They're just going to come right up in our house.

They're just going to throw trash all over it.

That's not fair.

That's not cool.

That's a stressor, right?

But

we can't stop that from happening.

The only thing that we can do is either live with a house that is chock full of fucking trash

and pretend like we're not,

or

we can gather that trash up and take it out.

But that is what's happening with our bodies with stress.

If we do not cycle through that stress, we are living in houses that are to the ceiling, filled with garbage.

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Okay, so how I was thinking about that, you and I are so ridiculous ridiculous because we have to have a secret metaphor about everything we're reading.

So the way that I was thinking about it was not as good, but I'm going to say it anyway.

You know that quote that dad used to always say, I think we had it on our wall that was like, all the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside.

Yes.

So that's always pissed me off because I am someone for whom the water always gets inside.

Like, that's awesome that you somehow have these steel ships where nothing gets inside.

But like for me, things that happen

make me feel a certain way.

You're like, my ship is a sponge.

I have no ship.

I live on a large sponge.

That's correct.

Okay.

So

what the theory here is in burnout, though, is that it's actually not the goal to not get any water inside your ship.

You couldn't live an absolute stress-free existence.

That's not human.

But the good news is that that

what we just have to make sure we're doing is,

what's it called when you like scoop the water out?

It's called like,

it's like shoveling water.

It's not a billing ship.

It's bailing, bailing the shovel.

Bailing.

Bailing.

So what we have to do is make sure we're bailing the stuff that the water comes in each day.

We bail it out.

The water comes in each day.

We bail it out.

If we do not bail,

we sink.

And right now, sister, sister we are sunk you you are sunk and i am living in a fuming trash infested kitchen yes i am sunk and you stink

so

that's okay okay that's okay i think because

there are things we can do

Well, can we talk about completing the cycle?

This is an important thing that they talk about.

So the issue is the bailing, the bailing or the detrashing each day

the sisters much more scientifically than us yeah they say call that completing the cycle yes can you tell us a little bit about what because that's something that we in our

do the thing about the the lion yeah yeah go ahead

do the lying that anyway yeah okay so they give this analogy in the book our bodies are made the way they are our cycles are made the way they are because it's evolutionary okay so we

our bodies are doing a thing to help keep us alive.

Yes.

That is what our bodies are really always trying hard to do, notwithstanding our efforts to the contrary.

So in

early times, what would happen was, and they tell this story in the book,

you're being chased by a lion.

Your response to that is one of the body's natural responses, which is fight, flight, or freeze.

So, so in that situation, you're probably gonna flight, right?

You think you're hopefully going to be able to run away from the lion.

So, you run, you run, you run, you run, you run, you get to safety.

The way we would be thinking

is that

the fact that you've got to safety

is what's removing your stress.

But that is not the case.

What has removed your stress is running.

So it is your body is experiencing a body function, which is a cycle of stress.

And the only language that your body speaks is body language is something within your body that helps your body process, move through the cycle and finish it so you can be without the stress.

Our stressors now don't look like that.

You know, we don't, a bill doesn't look like a lion.

So we are experiencing it, but we're not, we're writing the check.

That is not, our body doesn't understand that the danger is gone.

Our body is still living in that heightened state until we process through the whole cycle.

And there are

a lot of ways that they give in burnout, which are really practical ways to cycle through.

And in fact, I've been using some of them with Alice because she's really good at explaining when she's feeling stress.

And so

we've started using them.

There's obviously a lot of physical ones in there, which are harder for me because complicated relationship with exercise.

But physical body movement, any body movement, walking, running,

any of that will help you complete the cycle.

Were there any in there that worked for you?

I mean, I, well, a couple of things I want to say.

One is I want to talk about the fight or flight or freeze just because

fight

offers you the relief because you're physically responding.

So that's a physical completion of the cycle.

Flight offers you

relief because of the flighting, because of the flight running.

Freeze is a tricky one.

And I want to talk about freeze for a second only because

I think the more I learn about freeze, the more I want to talk about freeze as a legitimate,

wise body strategy of survival, because I have so many friends and trigger warning for sexual assault.

I have so many friends who have been in situations where they have frozen.

Okay.

Or even not sexual assault, but physical assaults or verbal assault or times when.

They look back on a moment and they're like, why didn't I fight back?

Why didn't I say something?

Why didn't I?

Why didn't I?

Why didn't it?

And they see it as weakness.

And so, what I want to say really clearly here is that freeze is actually a very wise survival strategy.

Freeze means your brilliant mind has figured out that the best way to survive this moment, and maybe the only way to survive this moment is to go dead.

Animals use it to survive, that it is, that was yourself taking care of yourself.

And it was likely the wisest thing you could have done.

So, I just wanted to say that, even though it doesn't completely relate to, and then what I also want to say about the difference between the stress and the stressors is it reminds me of what Alok said to us.

And when Alok talked about, if you want, if you look at my autopsy,

you will see

a collection of bills, of laws, of oppression.

You will see the result of the stressors

inside my body.

It reminds me of Yabba when Dr.

Blay talked to us about Belle Hooks and about how she says they killed her and they'll kill me too.

These are people for whom the stressors of the world,

they have identified that the stressors of the world translate directly to the stress that builds up inside their body.

And in fact, in the Western world, you are more likely to die from your stress, you're built up inside your body than you are from the stress source outside of your body.

Yes.

So when I think of the completion of the cycle, I know that many of them are physical, that for a lot of people, it's running.

It's a lot of the examples that they give for completing the cycle are physical.

For me,

because what you mentioned, because I actually don't want to do any more exercise that

makes me feel like I'm triggering my parasympathetic anymore.

I don't want to feel upset.

And when I mean upset, like, I don't mean upset in a negative, I mean disturbed, like heightened.

That's the last thing I need anymore is to be heightened.

I don't want to be in a class where someone's screaming at me to get my

heartbeat up.

Like, thanks.

I do that at home on the couch.

Like, I don't need anybody to fucking scream at me to get upset.

I need the opposite of that.

I'm screaming at my own own self constantly.

I'm upset enough.

I guess I just think about it a little bit differently than the book does, okay, in terms of what I need for completing my cycle, which is

I just need to feel safe.

Stress is a threat and makes me feel like I'm not safe.

And by the way, I can't tell the difference anymore between a good and a bad stress.

Both feel to me like a lion is attacking me.

You're activated.

I'm activated.

Okay.

So what I have to do to complete the cycle of stress is to do things that remind me that I am actually safe, that I'm actually not being attacked by a lion at the moment.

So for me, it's like five minutes of deep breathing exercises, completely still, or yoga every freaking time.

I don't, I won't do it because I'm a moron, like because I can't.

I know what will help me and I refuse to do it.

So that's a whole nother thing.

But yoga always helps.

Then,

or a short walk with and by the way i have to have my feet like in i i i can't wear shoes because well shoes are foot coffins and i hate them so much but also

it is true that something about my feet touching the ground

tells my brain

gravity is working you're okay no one's chasing you You're safe.

That's another thing about running.

How does running make you feel safe?

It feels like someone's chasing me.

Well, everyone has a different way.

I mean, but when you say that about feeling like you're safe and home, that is the function of

a lot of what they say in the book.

I mean, a 20-second strong hug, that isn't because of the physical act.

It's because the physical act is telling your body.

that you are in a safe place.

The 20-second hug, that's right.

The 20-second hug is huge.

It is an awkward ass amount of time to be hugging someone

because Alice and I do that one a lot at home.

I mean, when you really do it, when you hold someone tight for 20 seconds, it's long.

That works.

Oh, you know what I love about that one too?

I remembered this, is that the important part of that is that you are both on your center of gravity.

So the hug doesn't work if like one person is leaning too far on the other person or one person is like doing all the holding them both centered.

Is that not a beautiful metaphor?

Like the only thing that makes us feel safe when hugging someone else is when you are both on solid ground, when you are both steady.

Every once in a while, I do some stretching thing with Abby or like yoga or something.

And because we're standing next to each other, I will use her.

I'll forget and I'll use her as the, I think it's called the drishti, the point where you have to look at to remain balanced.

And the second I do, I fall over

because she's freaking moving.

And it reminds me every time in a relationship, like, no, no, no, no, no, you do not use the other person as your touch tree.

You each have to have your own touch tree.

So that's an important part of the hug is like,

think about that with children too.

Like we grab them.

We pull them into us.

Like the 20 20-second hug that will help your kid is when your kid is on their own two feet, is on their own center of gravity and you are both getting from each other what you want, but not what you need,

right?

To keep each other steady.

Because it's the difference between I will protect you and you are safe inside yourself.

Exactly.

It's the difference in untamed of Tish saying to me every night, mommy, tell me that I'm never going to lose you.

And every freaking night, I'd be like, you're never going to lose me.

Like I'd just lie to my child, like the only thing I know, I don't know anything about parenting, except that that kid's going to lose me until we figured out, oh, what I need to be saying is, baby, you're never going to lose you.

All we want to say, really, the whole point of this episode for all of you is what, first of all, if you are feeling this robot vampire ghost dead inside existence, that is actually

what's going on for much of our culture right now.

It is not just you.

And I just find a little bit of hope in the idea that even if we cannot change anything, while we continue to try, of course, but even if we cannot change anything, we can help ourselves.

survive this by finding

small ways to complete the cycle, as the Nagoski sisters would say, or to what I guess I would say is like, just remind yourselves of some level of safety on the earth each day after the fight.

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So what's really cool about this episode is that we have the Nagaski sisters here with us to answer your pod squad's questions about burnout.

So let's get to them.

And then I want to come back, even though this is unusual for this amazing pod squatter of the week that I just feel like we need

this week.

Take it away, Nagaski sisters.

I am the Emily one.

I'm the Amelia one.

And we are excited to have the opportunity to answer some amazing questions about burnout.

Okay, let's hear from Kylie.

My name is Kylie, and I'm calling because

I've always felt this deep calling to make a difference and help in the world and I have this strong empathy and like you say I feel things deeply and I'm deeply affected by everything going on in the world right now and for years and years I've wanted to help and make a difference and I'm just wondering how you don't get overwhelmed by that feeling to help out in so many different areas and how are you able to choose what's most important to get your focus or where to start first?

Because

I'm feeling defeated because I haven't fulfilled that yearning inside to help and make a difference because I have so many areas I'm interested in.

And I just wonder, where should I start and how do I stop from letting this overwhelm, how to overcome this overwhelm?

Thank you so much.

I love

this question

because meaning in life is one of the most important resources.

It's one of our most important energy sources.

So knowing what your something larger is in the book, we call it your something larger because all the research is just like engage with something larger than yourself.

So how do you figure out what your something larger is?

And I wanted to ask this question because I got some great advice from a therapist when I was trying to figure out what even to do with my life.

My therapist, Lisa, says, Emily,

the world is an infinite sucking vortex of need.

It is not your job to fill all the needs.

It's your job to do your part.

And that is how I learned to deal with my overwhelm.

I figured out which part was my part.

And let me just address, I heard that, how do you choose what's most important?

And I want to make sure you hear this.

It's all

important.

So Howard Thurman, the minister, said, do not ask what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive and go do that.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Yeah.

I'll give you the concrete, specific, sort of like just actionable thing that I did to figure out what makes me come alive.

The two questions I ask are, one, what kind of problems do I enjoy solving?

And two, what kind of people do I love?

working with.

Write down or talk through answers to those two questions.

What kind of problems do you enjoy solving?

And what kind of people do you love working with?

And then go do that.

Because the reality is that your aliveness is the antidote to the overwhelm.

I'll add one other specific resource.

You describe yourself as a highly sensitive person.

You may also be an introvert.

And if you are either one of those, you might be a good fit for Lisa Renee Hall's Inner Field Trip, which you can find, you can search on the internet for inner field trip.

It's a process of doing the inner work to protect your energy while you work for justice.

Do you agree?

Yeah.

And now we get to talk to a nurse.

Next is Amanda.

My name's Amanda and my question's kind of random.

It kind of pertains to what I'm going through in my life right now.

I'm a nurse.

I've been working in COVID since

February of March of 2020.

So it's been a long haul and COVID's starting to pick back up again.

And I'm just seeing all of my friends dealing with this incredible burnout and this compassion fatigue and I feel it too and I'm wondering what other questions do you have that can maybe help me through this really hard time for me and my coworkers where we we went into this profession trying to help people and it's hard when you're burnt out and and you see people around the world that don't take COVID seriously.

So that's my question.

Thank you so much.

It's really important to me to start the answer to this question by saying thank you, Amanda, for the work you're doing.

And I'm hoping Amelia will give you the gift of singing a little song in a minute or two.

Yeah, because this is pretty dark.

Like, I get that it's pretty dark, but like a song.

This is a really difficult situation.

I am going to sing a song.

Yeah.

So let's start with the people who are not taking the pandemic seriously.

I hope that everyone listening to this knows that the people not taking it seriously are factually incorrect.

Nearly a million Americans have died, including a disproportionate number of people of color and the most vulnerable people.

Plus, there's people like Amelia who have their lives altered by the disabling health consequences of long COVID.

And so when you feel angry about those factually incorrect people,

boy howdy, am I right with you?

Yeah.

And those factually incorrect people did not invent their denial.

They are trapped in a system that manipulated them into believing incorrect things.

The real enemy is not the people who don't take COVID seriously.

It's the system that trapped us all here.

I am not saying don't be angry.

I'm not saying don't feel hurt.

It is hurtful.

It is scary to me to see people working in opposition to everything you are trying to do to just help other people.

But the enraging, hurtful, scary enemy isn't those individual, factually incorrect humans.

It is the larger system that is using those individuals as weapons against you.

Target your fear and your rage toward that.

That's my first piece of advice.

And the second one, because that is absolutely not enough to get you through the transition from pandemic to endemic in one piece.

You're going to need what we call the bubble of love.

The bubble of love, bubble of love, is a protected space that includes only the people who take your well-being as seriously as you take theirs.

Did you get that?

Not as seriously as you take your own well-being, because don't we all put our own well-being last?

People who take your well-being as seriously as you take theirs.

These are the people who notice when you're exhausted and overwhelmed and they say, you've had a hard day, go take a bath, have a long nap, we'll make the dinner, and when you're ready, come on down and we'll sit around and talk about our feelings.

Remembering who the real enemy is is how you protect yourself out in the world.

The bubble of love is where you go to heal.

Amelia?

So here's a song that tells that story.

I want to do and be everything

that the world has demanded of me.

Sometimes I feel I won't deserve love,

not until I'm productive enough.

That's when I need supplementary help to reinforce my boundary

in my bubble of love,

I am enough

in my bubble of love.

There are people who care about my well-being as much as I care about theirs.

Sometimes I fear I don't deserve love, not until I'm successful enough.

That's when I need supplementary help to mind what gives a life meaning

in my bubble of love.

I am enough

in my bubble of love.

Applause, applause.

That is so much more cheerful, but they're both important.

They're both necessary parts of the answer.

All right, let's hear from Marlena.

My name is Marlena, and I am a third grade teacher from Orlando, Florida.

And I guess my question or comment to you would be: being that I am a third grade teacher

and I'm only in my second year of teaching, I'm already noticing, I don't want to say teacher burnout, but I am already so tired.

And I don't know if it's the pandemic or the fact that schools give us way too much to do as teachers because you're not only a teacher, you're also a mother and a friend, and you're a guidance counselor, you're a therapist, you're all these things at once.

And I know this is what I want to do, but even in my second year, I'm already seeing that this might not be for me forever

because I feel like it's already taking so much from me.

So I don't know.

How do I prevent myself from hating what I do for a living?

Yeah.

Like I said, love you guys.

I've been a teacher my whole adult life, teaching in private schools, public schools, middle school, high school.

When I taught at that level,

I barely lasted five years.

And as of

today, we know that about half of teachers

only last as long as I did.

Like I was totally average.

And then during the pandemic now, a new survey says that 60% of teachers currently in the classroom are thinking about leaving.

And I understand why.

I know that feeling.

I know it so well, that feeling you're describing.

But I think the answer that's going to help you continue to do work that you love, as you say, is to remember human giver syndrome.

So here's a quick refresher.

Human giver syndrome is the belief that you have a moral obligation.

You owe it to the whole world and your family and your job and yourself to be at all times pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others.

You have to be there for your students, the administrators, for the parents, for your own family.

And believing that any failure to be at all times pretty heavy, calm, generous, and attentive makes you a failure as a person.

And it's important to notice that it's not giving itself that's the problem.

Giving, as you know probably from your best days of teaching, you know that this kind of service can actually fuel you and you can leave at the end of the day feeling like you have more energy than when you started.

So the problem is not giving, it's giving in the context of an organization, a system

that feels entitled to take from you everything that you have.

And you're expected to say yes.

But eventually, if you say no, they will just keep pressing and it'll become less work just to do the thing that you were trying to avoid.

And that is less work than trying to keep saying no and defending your boundaries.

So

here it is.

The cure for human giver syndrome.

In addition Yeah, there's a cure, there's a cure.

In addition to everything we've talked about, the bubble of love and remember who the real enemy is and doing what makes you come alive.

And

also notice what it's like to interact with your fellow givers

compared to what it's like to interact with people who feel entitled to your time and energy and body and life.

And

as you notice which people have which kind of energy, as much as you can, shift more of your time and energy to the givers.

It's not always easy.

It's not even always possible.

But the entitled people are going to probably object to your doing this, which means that you're doing it right.

And your bubble of love.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Can be the ones, like your bubble, the people who care about your well-being as much as you care about theirs, the people who care about your well-being as much as they care about theirs.

See?

Yeah.

Those are the ones who are going to be like your protective barrier to help remind you that you deserve those boundaries, that you deserve care and time for yourself, and that you deserve to say no when you are at your limit.

I have a sort of like Instagrammable quote, if you want one.

Oh, easy to memorize thing.

I like this.

When you feel you need more grit,

what you need is more help.

And when you feel you need more discipline, what you need is more kindness.

Right.

Because when you're exhausted, the solution is not to work harder.

When you're exhausted, you need help and more rest, and you deserve those resources.

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For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex.

All right, let's get to our final question.

Let's hear from Julia.

My name is Julia.

I am the parent of two beautiful young kids, one of whom is five and was recently vaccinated, thank God, and the other who is almost 20 months.

You may hear him in the background.

Anyway, I just was calling to question about parenting burnout.

Both my husband and I have kind of reached a fever pitch i would say in the last month or so

and as covet rises keep rising and and their schools keep shutting down alternately and both of us work full-time

it's just it's sometimes it just feels completely overwhelming so i guess my question is like how do you

how do you communicate through things that feel especially challenging, especially when they feel like you're not sure

when they'll change.

My husband is a feminist.

He's a great communicator, and we've worked really hard to be as

equal as possible in how we divide our life and share our life.

But it's been hard on both of us.

So I would love to hear whatever tactics, strategies, or sympathies you may have in that regard.

But thank you so much for doing what you do.

I really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot.

Oh, I love this question question so much.

It is so hashtag relatable to so many people.

Because in the best case scenario in the pandemic, you're locked in your house with your very favorite people in the world, which sounds great.

Too many people were stuck entirely alone.

One in three American households is a solo individual.

And there were too many people stuck in unsafe situations, right?

But even in the best case scenario, you are trapped at home with your best friends.

So if parenting preschoolers in a pandemic while working from home with just you or just you and one other person felt too hard, that's because it's too hard.

It is not because you were failing or falling short.

It's because it was an unrealistic demand to make on you.

So there is a specific book on parenting burnout.

It's called mommy burnout.

Sorry for the gendery stuff there.

It's from pre-pandemic, so it might not feel immediately relevant to this situation, but I want to make sure people know that there is a more targeted resource for parents.

Burnout is not just about work.

It is definitely about all of our different relationships.

But ultimately, the solution for the situation

is,

I'm procrastinating, saying it out loud.

It's kindness and compassion.

Yeah.

I know, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

When we made a feminist survival project 2020, we made this podcast.

The moral of the story, after 50 odd episodes, was turn toward each other's needs and difficult feelings with kindness and compassion.

We said kindness and compassion so often, it actually turned into, I apologize if people need to bleep this, but kindness and motherfucking compassion.

Yeah.

So toward the end of the podcast, we asked people to send in an email with like, just tell us one important thing you learned after all these episodes.

And one of the emails was from a guy who listened to the podcast with his wife, and they were having all the same fights that people were having during the pandemic about time and kids and energy and attention and householding and sex and all the things.

And they had started incorporating kindness and motherfucking compassion into their fights.

And so they'd find themselves stuck in the exact same like frustrations and judgments and arguments over and over.

One of them would notice and they would stop and go,

kindness and motherfucking compassion.

And they'd use it as this repair, a reminder to turn toward each other's needs and their difficult feelings with kindness and compassion.

So when we say kindness and compassion, please do not think we mean sweetness and light.

No.

We do not always mean, oh, tell me more about that.

That sounds really hard.

Compassion and kindness can be brusque and a struggle and not amazing.

That's okay.

We all want to be kind all the time, I know, but it is not always easy, not even in the bubble of love.

No.

Yeah.

I also want to address, because as you say, one in three households is a single person household.

And we also get a lot of questions from people who are in the opposite situation.

They're not in a partnership where this is an issue.

Their problem with kindness and compassion is that they think,

I don't have anybody in my life like that.

And this is actually one of the most common questions we get.

And it seems like the answer is, well, get better people.

But like, you know,

find a better person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We.

are identical twins raised in the same household.

And anything you're assuming about what our relationship was like because of that is not true.

We were raised with an alcoholic, narcissistic father and a mother who was understandably anxious and depressed.

And in a family like that, the rules are you take care of your own needs.

You don't even talk about your needs or feelings or that you have feelings.

Feelings aren't real and they don't exist.

You don't say the truth out loud.

You don't tell the stories.

But we started writing this book.

We were reading really difficult science, the active, affective neuroscience and the psychophysiology, difficult stuff.

Although really hard science,

It was, the answer is connection.

The answer is love.

Talk about your damn feelings.

And we were writing this book.

So we had to try following this evidence-based advice.

And it was so awkward, but we did it.

We started telling each other the stories that we were both there for,

but had never discussed, like

four decades of hard stuff.

It was, it was not easy or fun.

One time I remember we were just both sitting on your couch, right?

Staring at the wall across from us next to each other, but not looking at each other, just crying and telling the stories.

It was so, so awkward.

Oh my God, it was so awkward.

Anyway, what I'm saying is, if we can do it, people think, well, you can do it because you're twins.

Nope.

Nope.

If we can do it, Anybody can, you know, raised in this household.

Oh, and we also discovered recently that we are both autistic.

So the undiagnosed autism was also another layer of making it difficult to connect with other people.

Literally, if we can build that kind of connection, anyone can.

And there they are.

Those are our answers to the questions from listeners.

They were fantastic, and I hope this was helpful.

Thank you, Nagoski sisters.

Thank you to Emily.

Thank you to Amelia.

You all should really pick up their book, Burnout.

Helped me a lot.

And don't forget, Come As You Are, Emily's book that rocked our first silent sex queen episode that if you haven't listened to, you definitely are going to want to go listen to now.

Okay, everybody, for our pod squatter of the week, let's hear from Sarah.

Hi, Glennon and Abby and Amanda.

My name is Sarah.

I am an elementary school art teacher in Denver, Colorado.

And I don't have a hard thing.

I have kind of a nice thing.

The other day, a little girl fell asleep in my class at the very end of the school day, a little second grader at the very end of the day.

And normally I would intervene and wake them up because how dare you fall asleep in my class.

But the other day when she fell asleep,

I felt like Glennon came out of my body and all I said to the little kids who were trying to wake her up was let her rest.

So Glennon, if your ears were burning the other day, that's why.

I love you guys.

Thank you for what you do.

Thank God

for elementary school art teachers and all teachers who, by the way, are more burned out than most right now.

Let's just this week embrace that idea.

Let her rest.

Whatever you need to do to remind yourself of safety, of love, of worthiness, of any sort of joy.

any laughter you can find, any rest you can find, any walks you can find, any long hug you can find.

Let's just grab it this week because it will continue.

It will help us continue to do these freaking hard things that I am pretty sure are not going to stop coming.

I love you.

I love you, sister.

Love you.

We'll see you next time.

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