Breaking the Cycle of Burnout & Stress

Speaker 1 Welcome to the UConn podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Jolly Jarvis, and today I am joined by the very lovely Jen Wilson.
And she's going to introduce herself in just a moment.

Speaker 1 We're going to be talking around overwhelm and the kind of busy being busy society that we tend to find ourselves in. So Jen, over to you to start off with.
Please introduce yourself to us.

Speaker 1 Hello, I'm Jen and I help women who are overwhelmed and burnt out to get organised, take back control and start living a joyful, happy life again.

Speaker 1 And that's the kind of crux of it, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Is it actually fun? Are you actually happy and enjoying life when you are running around feeling overwhelmed, feeling super busy?

Speaker 1 And I think when we really search for it, most of us are like, no, it's actually not, it's not that nice, it's not that fun. No, it's no fun at all.

Speaker 1 So Jen, tell us a little bit about what got you into this. My own personal experience, I was chronically stressed for over a decade.
And in that time, I experienced two burnouts.

Speaker 1 So originally brought on by work, a really stressful job, but then not having anyone really to tell me it wasn't normal to feel that way, nobody to guide me and say what I could or couldn't do.

Speaker 1 So I just kind of got on the best I could with life.

Speaker 1 Although looking back now, I wasn't really getting on very well with it at all. But I just muzzled my way through being chronically stressed for a really long time.

Speaker 1 I didn't realise at the time, but looking back, I realize that now.

Speaker 1 And then I hit my second burnout as a business owner.

Speaker 1 And that came about when my son was only four. And that was really my turning point because

Speaker 1 it was just really significantly impacting my relationship with him. And I just thought, what am I doing? This has got to stop.

Speaker 1 So I promised myself from that point on that I was never ever going to allow myself to burn out again.

Speaker 1 And I started making lots of changes. There was a lot of trial and error of trying to find ways to manage my stress for the long term to avoid hitting burnout again.

Speaker 1 I then worked with the coach myself because I got so far that I felt better, but there was still something missing. So, I got some additional support.

Speaker 1 And it was during that time that I had a light bulb moment. And I thought, hey, do you know what?

Speaker 1 I could retrain and I could help other people, help other women. And that's my mission now, really, is to help other women so they don't have to suffer alone like I did.
And what was missing?

Speaker 1 Like, can you, can you kind of express that better now? Like, you know, you felt better, but you didn't, there was just something not quite still fitting.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's still quite hard to put into words. So I made a lot of changes.
So I put a lot of boundaries in place. As a business owner, I wasn't very good at that at one point.

Speaker 1 You feel like you've got to be there all the time to please everyone, especially when your business is quite new. Yeah.
So I didn't have boundaries.

Speaker 1 I was always rushing my son to bed because I had had work to do.

Speaker 1 Looking back, I was so stressed. I was incredibly unproductive.
So although I was working really long hours, I wasn't actually achieving very much at all.

Speaker 1 So boundaries was one, sort of saying no, asking for help more from family. Then adding that self-care and trying to take better care of myself.
So all those things added up to feeling better.

Speaker 1 But I was still really, really, I call it unsettled. I just, something was just amiss.
My mind was racing. It just went 100 miles an hour all day, every day.

Speaker 1 I didn't know whether to do my business, whether to get a job, whether to do this, whether to do that.

Speaker 1 It was just,

Speaker 1 yeah, it was a really strange time. When I started working with a coach, what I realized was missing was mindset.

Speaker 1 And we spent a lot of time working on mindset, which I'll say now is still ongoing.

Speaker 1 It's probably one of the hardest things.

Speaker 1 to address. I can see why it's the last thing I address.

Speaker 1 It wasn't a conscious decision. I didn't actually know a lot about mindset then.

Speaker 1 I didn't really know a lot about it, but I learned from Rachel, my coach, that that's what it was.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and then, interestingly, when I went on to do my training, when I decided to retrain as an holistic wellness coach, there's all these elements of wellness.

Speaker 1 And as I went through my training, I realized that in my own way, I'd muddled my way through all of them over the years. And mindset was one of those

Speaker 1 things.

Speaker 1 And that was definitely the missing piece for me so and mindset it's like everyone else mindset is massive you know like you can be so skilled i've seen some really really talented people whose heads just have not been in the right place to make the most of those talents and it's it's really frustrating to see and it's like people want to be skilling themselves all the time and they don't realize that actually they've got the skills they need.

Speaker 1 It's just their head needs to be in a different place looking at things differently. And that's really hard to do on your own.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think as well, well, I don't think I know when you stress that looking back now, I know that

Speaker 1 mindset's really impactive because you get into this really negative thought spiral and that you can't break free from.

Speaker 1 And as the stress continues and things continue to get worse, that negative thought spiral gets worse and worse, and you get stuck in that really bad place with your mindset.

Speaker 1 So, you kind of got to almost dig your way back out, which is hard work, isn't it?

Speaker 1 I mean, that's the thing is, is whenever you think about mindset stuff, like as you said, it's kind of always ongoing. There's always stuff to tweak and improve and everything else.

Speaker 1 But it's like, it is, it's not easy. No, it's really not.
And you've got to unlearn things that you've

Speaker 1 learned. Years learning that you didn't even know you were learning.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it's coping behaviours that you take on that you don't know you've taken on, that you've taken on to try and manage the stress.

Speaker 1 They're actually not very good coping behaviours, and you've almost got to relearn

Speaker 1 relearn them.

Speaker 1 It is challenging, yeah. But so worth it when you do it.

Speaker 1 So, thinking about the whole because I said at the beginning, like we have this culture of everyone's being quite, you know, people quite stressed, they're quite overwhelmed.

Speaker 1 Like, the word overwhelm, I use so often in my own house, and even the kids will be like, Mummy's overwhelmed, but you know,

Speaker 1 but like, you know,

Speaker 1 why do we, how do we get ourselves in this situation?

Speaker 1 Life,

Speaker 1 life's busy, isn't it?

Speaker 1 I think overwhelm and stress, both those words are thrown around, aren't they? Like people say it flippantly, oh, I'm so overwhelmed or I'm so stressed.

Speaker 1 But it's actually really quite serious, especially when it impacts you day to day. And I think that's the thing, isn't it? It's knowing that when you are, this isn't a good place to stay.

Speaker 1 No, it definitely isn't. And I think that

Speaker 1 I was just talking to someone today when you're there, when you're in there, you're just trying to get through each day, you're just trying to survive.

Speaker 1 Don't really stop to evaluate what you're doing and how you feel.

Speaker 1 And you know, it feels pretty awful because you're not particularly enjoying every day and having fun in life, but you don't have the time to stop and evaluate what you're doing that's making you feel like that because you literally are just trying to get through the day.

Speaker 1 So it's quite scary, isn't it?

Speaker 1 You know, like it's frightening to face up to what might be causing that because it, I don't know, I think it's easy to get ourselves into a situation where you feel like actually it doesn't like I've got no choice.

Speaker 1 You know, like if it's my kids that are making me overwhelmed, and it's my job that's making me overwhelmed, well, I need my job, and I have my children, and I, you know, neither of them are going anywhere.

Speaker 1 And so, it's like, what am I going to do once I know what's causing it? Yeah, it's one of the biggest mistakes women make.

Speaker 1 They think that it's just the way life is, and it's just the way life has to be. So, I've just got to get on with it.
Yeah, get your head down, get on.

Speaker 1 That's that's the card you've been dealt, sort of thing. And I think also

Speaker 1 there's an element of feeling like like it's a reflection on us that we can't deal with it because you look around like social media is not helpful with this but you look around at other people and they seem to really have it together you know like you have the odd one who videos themselves crying on the internet but in general people look like they're on it and they're doing all these things and their houses are all great and everything else and so it feels like it's a reflection on you that you're not able to do this absolutely and nobody wants to admit like that they aren't coping you feel like you're a failure.

Speaker 1 Like everybody else is getting on just fine. So why aren't I? Well, I'll let you into a little secret.
Everyone else isn't just getting on just fine.

Speaker 1 Everyone's really good at putting a front on. And I am one of those people because I used to put a front on.
And it was only really close family that actually knew how serious things were.

Speaker 1 People at work, when I was first signed off, when I first had the first burnout,

Speaker 1 they had no clue. They were like, whoa, where's Jen gone? What's going on? Because I just put this front on that everything was fine.
And we all,

Speaker 1 every woman that I work with does that. I've got a friend, you would have no idea.
She's so outgoing, so happy. She's always laughing.

Speaker 1 But underneath, it's a mess.

Speaker 1 And we're made to feel like we can't say that life's hard or we're not coping or we need some help. Because, like you've said, society has

Speaker 1 programmed us to believe that

Speaker 1 that's not allowed.

Speaker 1 It's not allowed. You shouldn't be a failure.
And it's normal. Like, it's, this is, this is the normal.

Speaker 1 And I think that's the thing is, is when you look at different generations, actually, people used to take longer to do tasks. Like, it's all so much quicker now.
You're fitting so much more in.

Speaker 1 And like, there's that.

Speaker 1 There was, I've read some sort of, there was some sort of statistic on like, you can now at your fingertips, you've got more information than people used to have in a lifetime, which you can access just there and then, thanks to the internet and everything else.

Speaker 1 We're processing so much more than our ancestors ever used to.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my mum actually asked me the other day, she was trying to, she said to me, Why is everybody so stressed nowadays? You know, like, what's different?

Speaker 1 I gave up that conversation quite quick because I couldn't quite put it into words to explain to her, like, pretty much what you've said. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I couldn't find the words to put across to her: that yes, women are still being mums like they were, but then they're going to work.

Speaker 1 But it's all that other stuff that piles on top of it that makes it so much worse.

Speaker 1 There is just so much information. There's just, it's the noise, the world is so noisy.
It's a noisy world, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think what comes from that is all these things that, especially as a parent, that you should be doing this and you should be doing that.

Speaker 1 And oh, I better stop doing that because it might cause some damage to my child when he's older. And oh, how should I start behaving? And, oh, I should do that.

Speaker 1 And then before you know it, you've added all this other stuff on your plate that you've got to deal with. And you're already overwhelmed.

Speaker 1 Like that adds to the negativity you you were feeling because you already feel like you're failing and then you're failing at all this other stuff that all these people online tell you that you should be doing yeah it's it's crazy it's it's a lot isn't it it's a lot it's overwhelming

Speaker 1 and i think that's the thing is is i because i was in the in last week's episode i was sharing kind of changes that i've made with my business and the episode before that we were talking around planning and looking at like what you want to achieve in the next year and you can do that as a business owner or not but it was when we sat down to do the plan was when i realized how much i was expecting myself to do in still the same amount of time as i'd failed to do things so far going forwards and it was like actually something has to give

Speaker 1 and and i think that's the thing is is sometimes

Speaker 1 we can't like i you can comes from the idea that you can you can have it all you can do it all but it's understanding what your all is and and it's prioritizing and i sat there with what i wanted as my all And I realized actually that isn't, that isn't feasible.

Speaker 1 It's not doable if I want to do things well. And I think that was a really,

Speaker 1 I was quite impressed with myself that I'd actually done that because I think we so often we just plow on and we're like, oh yeah, makes no sense. Don't know where I'm going to magic that time.

Speaker 1 And we say it. I hear people say, I don't know how am I going to magic that time out from

Speaker 1 nowhere. But, you know, I've got this, this, and this to do.
And so I'm just going to have to crack on and do it.

Speaker 1 And it's like, we kind of set ourselves up for the stress, for the failure, for the overwhelm, for the anxiety before we've even started.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We place too many expectations on ourselves. Yeah.
Straight away. And I don't care.
Anybody says something has to give.

Speaker 1 If you're overwhelmed, something somewhere has to give. Because if it doesn't, nothing's ever going to be

Speaker 1 any different. Right.
And it's like you said before, like, you know,

Speaker 1 you can take on these things and you can pretend to be being all right, but you're actually being really unproductive and you're having that, it's negatively impacting you physically and emotionally in the process.

Speaker 1 Yeah, massively. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I achieve more now in less time. I work a heck of a lot less hours and I achieve a lot more.
Yeah, because I'm not completely stressed and overwhelmed all the time.

Speaker 1 When I look back, the hours I was working and what I was actually producing was

Speaker 1 laughable now. It's like, what was I doing?

Speaker 1 But like, I was working so hard, you know, but nothing was really happening. No, because the stuff wasn't flowing and you weren't actually able to think straight.
No.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 how did people know what's normal? So we're talking about, oh, you know, like we're normalizing. And you're right, like people do like, I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed.

Speaker 1 And it's like, it's just a normal thing we say.

Speaker 1 And actually, before we started recording, we were talking about like the whole, I'm busy, you know like my default for anybody used to be you know if somebody said how's things or how are you i'd be like oh you know busy yeah and everyone would be like oh yeah yeah

Speaker 1 me too i'm so busy and it's and it's it was like that we feel like

Speaker 1 i think as business owners as well but also in employment you feel like oh if i'm busy i'm i'm doing a good job i'm doing well I definitely feel like, I think as an employee, you have to justify what you're being paid to do.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I think I know me for me as a business owner, it's like, well,

Speaker 1 who's she floating around going for all these walks? Like, you know, she's sat at a desk working really hard. So you've got to say, I'm busy.
I'm working really hard.

Speaker 1 I don't anymore, by the way, but that was how I used to feel. Because as a business owner, surely you've got to work every hour God sends to get to get what you want.

Speaker 1 Well, I think there is that when people,

Speaker 1 you've got two camps with it. The people who are going, it's really hard.

Speaker 1 It's a massive slog.

Speaker 1 You've got to do like 80-hour weeks, which I was like, well, that isn't not going to work, is it and then you've got the other lot going oh you know i i just you know it's like three hours a week and i've i'm a multi-millionaire um which also doesn't work um and so it's kind of that's the thing is is it's difficult isn't it to see because i struggle like i haven't got my mum used to work but she didn't work like like we do with the you know it was just a different it was a different world so you're struggling with ben like reference points of people who are doing it who are doing it in a healthy way way

Speaker 1 yeah and i don't think there's there's no absolute right or wrong because everybody's limits are different and everybody operates differently don't they so what might stress really stress one person somebody else could just sail through it and that that was really easy but i think like

Speaker 1 knowing when it's too much there's sort of

Speaker 1 like key things to look out for in terms of how you're feeling whether it's like physically mentally or emotionally over Overwhelm is caused by all these daily, what I call the micro stresses, all these little things.

Speaker 1 So, when we think of stress, it can be like a really big event, can't it?

Speaker 1 I don't know, maybe there's an accident and somebody's seriously injured, that's really stressful, and we have the stress response to cope with what's happening and get through it. That's like normal.

Speaker 1 But then, once that event has passed and things are okay,

Speaker 1 the body's back to a calm state, and the job's done.

Speaker 1 You know, go back to survival mode, chased by a tiger, stress response kicks in, you get to safety, you get to your cave, you're safe, body goes back to camp.

Speaker 1 The way we live now, we're exposed from the minute our alarm goes off in the morning, because the alarm is a micro stressor in itself, is it not? When that starts,

Speaker 1 you know, from the minute we get up to the minute we go to bed, we're exposed to micro stresses all the time.

Speaker 1 So, from messages, emails, phone pinging, getting the kids to school, doing this, doing that. There's just something every second of the day, isn't there?

Speaker 1 It's just constant, it's just a constant onslaught of things happening and throw in the mix a few more stressful things than your day to day and then that adds on to the top of that because you're already you're already at your limit just trying to get through the day

Speaker 1 and if you like that day in day out that leads to chronic stress because your body's constantly preparing for that fight or flight for all those little stressful things which means

Speaker 1 your nervous system is just constantly on with adrenaline and cortisol which is like really bad for your health you never get the downtime you never get the time to stop and take a breath or do anything to like calm your nervous system.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that's the difference. That's that's what I call bad stress when you're constantly switched on, as opposed to that big event where stress is on, stress is off, it's done.

Speaker 1 And like some of the danger signs, obviously, feeling overwhelmed is one, but you might sort of feel irritable and impatient a lot of the time, racing thoughts like you can't switch off, which is one of those I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 1 Constantly worried or tense problems, sleeping, digestive problems is one.

Speaker 1 Constipation, diarrhea, stomach pains, and then things like finding it hard to make decisions, being forgetful, and finding it hard to concentrate. They're like real sort of key warning signs that

Speaker 1 something's not right. You've been overwhelmed for far too long.

Speaker 1 And the thing is, if you carry on on that trajectory, like, what is the

Speaker 1 what is the potential? The potential is that you'll burn out. So, you'll just get to the point where you've got nothing left to give.

Speaker 1 And I can tell you what that feels like because I've experienced it twice. And burnout, really, so for me, physically, this is my interpretation.

Speaker 1 If you Google it, you'll get different ways of reading what it is. But my interpretation, how I experienced it, physically,

Speaker 1 you're just so utterly exhausted.

Speaker 1 It's a challenge to get through the day. Like, you can literally just get through the day.
Emotionally, I would say that you don't feel anything much about anything or anyone.

Speaker 1 I know when the first time my husband said to me, how would you feel if something happened to the dogs? And I just shrugged my shoulders. That's quite serious.
You know how much I love my dogs.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 there was nothing. There was just nothing there.
I can't even put into words how it felt now. And mentally.

Speaker 1 You just can't take anything else in. I remember being at my job before I was signed off and people would would speak to me and I could see the mouths move, couldn't tell you a word that said.

Speaker 1 And I told my doctor and he said, you just, you just can't take any more. Your body is just shutting down.
So that's what burnout feels like. And

Speaker 1 I'd like to say that burnout takes a really, really long time to recover from. It's not like, oh, well, let's get signed off for a few months.
I'll go on holiday for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 I mean, some people might hit burnout quicker if there's been a really serious, stressful event, but for most people,

Speaker 1 it's over a period of time. So if you think how long it's taken you to get to that point, you've got to think how long it's going to take you

Speaker 1 to undo.

Speaker 1 Which is a bit like the learning of new habits, isn't it? It's like I've programmed myself to do this and then you've been doing that and reiterating it for years upon years upon it.

Speaker 1 Which is what I said earlier. You've almost got to, in a way, reprogramme.
And you haven't purposely developed bad coping habits.

Speaker 1 It's just, they just kind of evolve on their own as you're trying to get through what you're getting through.

Speaker 1 It's not until you, well, not until you stop. I can't even say that.
It's when you've kind of got through and look back. You're like, yeah, that didn't really, that didn't really serve me.

Speaker 1 But just quickly for people who are wondering, signs of burning out are withdrawing from people.

Speaker 1 So you might just not want to see people, go out, can't be bothered, just kind of shut yourself off from the world a bit.

Speaker 1 Being uninterested in life generally

Speaker 1 and like losing enjoyment in things that you once did enjoy.

Speaker 1 Muscular aches and pains, headaches. I had a headache every single day for two years.
They kept thinking it would go away and it never did. That was the buildup.

Speaker 1 Feeling detached, that utter exhaustion,

Speaker 1 no amount of rest or sleep helps you feel any more energized and just kind of feeling a bit defeated with life. They're real classic signs that that you're burning out.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then what's what should they do if they find and and you do have a resource on this, don't you? Yeah, I've got a quiz that helps people identify how stress is affecting them.

Speaker 1 So it'll either say, no, you're not stressed, you're absolutely fine, or yes, you need some help. And there's a bit in between as well.
But it just, it asks questions

Speaker 1 based around how people are thinking and feeling and behaving. And it gives you really good indication.
Because if anything like me,

Speaker 1 I didn't know, I didn't know what stress was. Like, I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what.

Speaker 1 And I thought something was really seriously wrong with me, but I couldn't pinpoint anything to go to the doctor.

Speaker 1 And I stumbled across an article on stress that listed all the symptoms. And I had them all.
And I remember being like, yes, I'm just stressed.

Speaker 1 Like, rather naively looking back.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's only that.

Speaker 1 Stress was really rather foolish. But at the time, I was so relieved that

Speaker 1 I had nothing, what I thought wasn't seriously wrong. Looking back, I now know it was seriously wrong, but just I didn't have something else seriously wrong.
I felt relieved.

Speaker 1 But then, as the years went by, and now I know how that affected me long term physically, mentally, emotionally, I'm trying to help women

Speaker 1 get to that before it gets beyond, as it did for me.

Speaker 1 I really want women to understand and be aware so much earlier on than I was.

Speaker 1 And I think that's the thing, isn't it? Is it like, yeah, it's like, oh, it's only, it's only stress.

Speaker 1 And it's like, but actually, you could have had other serious illnesses that you'd got over quicker than

Speaker 1 they just it just doesn't have such a buzzword it's just been normalized a lot more than it should have been yeah totally because people just throw the word around don't they it's not taken very seriously unfortunately

Speaker 1 my seven-year-old tells me she's stressed before going to school in the morning because she's going to be like i'm stressed and it's like really

Speaker 1 no you're not the thing is i don't like you should know what stress is but the thing is is you know like it is and it's good to open up the conversation and people be more aware of how they're feeling, because I think that is another thing is, is there's that whole suck it up and just get on with it, which obviously it doesn't work, it doesn't help.

Speaker 1 So being able to talk about it is great, but it's understanding that being stressed in a moment and feeling like that all the time are two different things and things that we need to work on.

Speaker 1 Totally, because life is stressful and there's always going to be stressful events and you're never not going to have stress.

Speaker 1 But there's a difference between short-term coping within a stressful event and constantly feeling like you're

Speaker 1 going through the motions every day, a bit robotic, like life's just, you know, you're just trying to get through and do what you can.

Speaker 1 That isn't normal. Nobody should feel like that.

Speaker 1 No, and that's the thing. You're numbing, aren't you? Your body's actually numbing itself to what's going on.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So your quiz is free.
Where can people access it?

Speaker 1 They can access it on my website. It's in my Instagram links bio.
It's on the LinkedIn profile page.

Speaker 1 And where is the best place to find you? So LinkedIn, Instagram?

Speaker 1 LinkedIn and Instagram. Yeah.
Brilliant. Okay.
Well, thank you so much, Jenny, for coming along. It's been a really nice.

Speaker 1 And called you Jenny as well, then, Jenny.

Speaker 1 You didn't hear that.

Speaker 1 Where did Jenny come from, Jen?

Speaker 1 It's been serious, serious conversation. But no, it's been really lovely to have you along.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us.

Speaker 1 And, you know, guys, don't just assume that this is normal. Don't feel like it's something that is a reflection on you.
Things get too much. And it's about acknowledging that and taking action.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Yeah.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 So that's it for me this week, guys. I look forward to speaking to you again next week.

Speaker 2 In the meantime, please, please do like, rate, follow, subscribe, share this podcast far and wide so we can get as many listeners behind us as we can so we can support each other and keep growing together.

Speaker 2 So that's it for me, guys, this week. I will speak to you again next.

Speaker 1 Bye for now.