Today I am gonna share something more personal, not as a story of look what I overcame, but as a example of what happens when the nervous system finally gets kind of listened to, not analyze, not understood, not managed or fixed or overwritten. This is a story that willing will contain a little bit of information about trauma, but it's not about that.

It's about over-functioning and how we are conditioned, especially as females, um, in today's society to over-function. Especially when we are sensitive, especially when we have big minds, when we're growth oriented, when we are high achieving or neurodivergent and this kind of trap that we fall into, but what happens and what it actually kind of looks like and how it spirals around and feels very uncomfortable and you think that you're finished and that you're not, and what it looks like to undo that and then can just.

To continuously be devoted to undoing 📍 that and protecting yourself from the parts or the ways that it's so easy to fall back into over-functioning, particularly when you have a history of trauma, you're more sensitive or you're neurodivergent.

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I was living in Columbia. I'd moved there when I was 18. Um, from Australia where I grew up. And I had, I graduated with a degree in sustainable aid and community development, and then I found that this nonprofit, it was so, uh, my, my ego really liked it, and I'm really proud of the work that they continue to do.

But they fed, you know, we fed hundreds of people a week and I was in this phase of my life where I feel you felt like a, like a bit of a role model in that community for some people. And I. Would receive a lot of compliments and that was really lovely. But I was, so, I would just collapse after every single event.

You know, we were doing this really important work and it's really noble and it's really wonderful, but I was exhausted. I would spend days in bed just watching Netflix to recover from those days, and it just kept going. Um, I was exhausted, but like a deep level of exhaustion that sleep and rest didn't.

Fix. It felt like no matter how much I gave to myself or how much I gave to other people, there was this gnawing, like offness inside. I was working in finance while I was doing this nonprofit work. Um. And I was like, okay, maybe that they, this is a thing. So I pivoted. I became a certified yoga therapist and an integrative somatic trauma therapist, and I really focused on healing.

Healing myself, healing others, being in that feeling space. So I thought, okay. This will be a job that will be spacious, it'll be sustainable. I have more, more like I'm laughing, like more control over my schedule. Beautiful. That landed into me doing relationship coaching, and I literally just spent four. I loved it.

God, I had so much energy for it. I spent 40 hours a week sitting in the depths of grief and uncertainty and discomfort with humans navigating anxiety, OCD and the ups and downs of long term and relationships. Um, we looked into a lot of polarity, spirituality, tantra, and then the deep sur parts of ourselves that were like asking to be loved and held and seen, and really also very easy to ignore unless you're in a really deep one-on-one space like that.

It was incredibly beautiful. Um, and for a short period of time that really worked. I loved it. God, I had, it gave me energy. It was, I feel like I was on top of the world and I. Then. We went into COVID and it, I just like so many of us who go into private practice, um, burnt out holding space for that many humans.

You know, I got that famous kind of compassion fatigue, but my response to that was like, I'm just gonna nervous system hack my way. To wellness. So I became a certified, a head wellness coach, and I thought like, okay, if I learn enough about balance and health in the nervous system, then I will finally feel balanced and I will feel healthy, and I'll be able to optimize my way to be able to hold space for this many humans again.

Right. That was kind of my goal, like to have that fully booked to practice. But underneath all of that was this, over-functioning of my nervous system. It was like, oh, if I do all these things, then I can relax. If I learn all these things, then I can relax. If I achieve these goals, then I can relax.

Obviously that didn't work. Um. So then I thought, okay, let's just like put all my attention outward, right? Because if I can make my business perfect, if I can do the funnel and the scaling, and I fell into like all that online marketing stuff and the online coaching industry and all that, ugh, if I have the correct mentor, if I have a coach, then if I like organize my money correctly, well then I'll feel I'll get it right and I'll feel that peace inside.

So my approach changed. I, I changed the way that I look at health. I changed the way that I look at burnout. I changed. Everything. And I think from there there was a lot of like wisdom that emerged. And I've been studying a lot of, you know, polyvagal theory and allostatic load, um, stress theories, right?

The difference between challenge versus threat. Um, I've recently been studying more about psychological risk frameworks and how, um, what company's responsibilities are as far as their policies and protocols in. And what you can ask for in a workplace environment and how you can build a workplace environment to support psychological and psychosocial safety.

I've studied behavioral science, habit formation, cognitive load, trauma patterns, A DHD, and neurodivergence. So much of that as well, because of course later on I got my A DHD diagnosis and well, that changed things as well. Right, but I started and I learned, and what I found is that there is nothing. That you can fix.

But there is, and there's nothing that is 100% in your control. There are parts in the world where you are powerless to the systems around you, and I know that you feel that because I know that you're also trying to change them and that I know that the work that we do and the systems we live in make it hard to access this inner a world of wisdom.

It's like hard to stay in alignment with ourselves, with our work. And we feel that every single day. And so many of us, our response is to do a lot, the therapy, the coaching, the nervous system work. Um, but what I've learned to be true is that. The place where things actually begin to flow, where you do feel that you have access to more energy, uh, and where you are able to change and influence the systems around you so that the world looks like the one that you want to live in, is when you do something that's a little bit more integrative.

You look at how your unique brain and body work with the realities of modern work and money. Then you redesign your role and your rhythm and the way that you make money. So revenue without. And you designed that so that you can have less burnout and it's highly individualized, but it's more of a Venn diagram where on one side there's like your inner system, you understanding your inner system, nervous system regulation, how your desires work, how energy capacity works, how your trauma responses.

What you want, how your brain works, your neurodivergence, your sensitivities. And then on the other side, there's the outer system, there's the workplace structures, there's the policies, there's the law, there's the economy, there's the political stuff, and there's the roles that you play. Like, are you a mother?

Do you care given some way? And right there on the inside of that Venn diagram is integration. That's where you feel your best, and we can kind of. Play with and tweak the inner stuff and then play with and tweak the outer stuff. That what's not helpful, which is what I did, was falling into playing and tweaking one and focusing on that and thinking, well, this will fix everything.

Or playing and tweaking the other and focusing on that and thinking, well, this will fix everything, and we fall into this more than we realize. So much of therapy is like, oh, this is all just in your head. Um, even like mental health First aid here in Australia for workplace is, is so focused on that and it can be.

Pathologizing or it can be, you can be like, you're taking on too much responsibility that it's not yours to hold. Then we have like the same place you can put their hustle culture that assumes it's discipline. And then we have the other side, which is just like the blaming and the fixing. It's all the system, it's all them.

It's all the politics. It's all economy. And like that focus on how everything else is wrong or how everything else needs to fix. Denies how much power you have. So what I enjoy doing more now and where we've come, and the place that has allowed me to access my energy more and feel resilient, especially in the uncertainty.

Wow, there is so much uncertainty. The one that allows me to sleep deeply and where work feels clean and I feel like I'm flowing between all the things that I love and to other people it's like, what are you doing? You're doing so much. But for me, that feels so correct or, um, where I feel like motivation is reliable, where I can sense my limits and rest before I'm completely crashed, where I can achieve my goals, where I have amazing, incredible relationships where I feel very, very safe.

And where my business is pretty simple, but, and growing sustainably, um, you know, we have our ups and downs, but I trust myself and I trust my business and it feels like a true expression of me. And I always kind of, you know, 90% of the time feel like, oh yeah, we're gonna get to the goals that we need to get to.

That is more when you look at, that happens when you look at both sides of that Venn diagram.

So today where I wanna go with you, where I want us to go together is a place where every single person is able to feel like they can be themselves when they do their work. Like they can create and receive an income that feels in their body, abundant, in their body enough. And well, we actually create that together because decades of organizational research.

Tells us what our body already knows, which is that in order to feel that flow and that safety and that predictability and see yourself performing and doing and creating the things that you want, you need that autonomy. You need that support. And we also know that that genuine change happens both within the individual and then within the system.

They influence. Influence each other, but most of all, the internal patterns that shape you when you change them, you shape that actual external system. You have that power. All those little shifts that you make pausing before you say yes to something to check in with your body, breathing deeply into your belly before you reply, structuring rest in as seriously as you structure in the deliverables.

The deadlines of your deliverables create real big lasting change and impact. This is the practice that we have of, and the place that we have the power to build the world that we want. And I would like you to continue doing that. I would like us to go on that journey together and figure this out over the years as they come.

Because when every time one person learns to work with their nervous system, it ripples outwards into teams, into workplaces, into culture, and you know that that makes a difference in families. You know that that makes a difference in so many different things. This is collective redesign. It's how diversity and inclusion move from ideas to embodiment and how burnout being the norm goes into balance being the norm.

And I wanna go on that path with you. The way you can support that is by sharing this podcast with a friend, sharing one of the other ones. I'll share one of some of the popular ones down in the show notes with a friend by reaching out and connecting with me on LinkedIn, on Instagram by sharing my burnout chat DPT with a friend by sharing my book with a friend by.

Doing the work yourself by booking your curiosity call, by having the courage to say, okay, I know that there are some changes that need to happen, and I might be a little bit concerned. I might be a little bit afraid. It might feel like a stretch financially, it might feel like a stretch with time, but I'm committed to myself and I'm committed to the future of what I'm creating and what I'm leaving behind.

Share these things. Let me know what lands. We're doing this together. We're in this together. My healing is to support yours, and yours is to support mine and we're all creating something better. Um, I really appreciate your support and I would love to continue working with you deeper when you are ready.

Please find all those links below. If you can't find something, send me a message on LinkedIn or Instagram or via email. You'll find that in the links below or my website. Send you so much love. I.