234: From breakdown to breakthrough

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He doesn't have a great poker face, does he? I would like to play cards with Bruno Fernandes. You can listen to The Guardian Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Hopefully see you soon. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Cani Crystals the podcast. My name is Mart Tweedy, I'm your host, and I'm going to get straight into this week's episode because this isn't going to be one of your typical polished, high-energy, everything's amazing kind of episodes, okay? This is going to be a real one, and I'm going to try and do this whole episode in one take without any edits because I think it'll hit much harder because I think it's kind of a message that we all need to hear, okay? This is— ah, it's really hard for me to say, right? But if I'm honest, I've gone back and forth about recording this episode Part of me has been thinking like, do I really want people to hear this version of me? And even my mum said it the other day, but then another part of us thought, well, this is probably like the most important episode that I could put out right now. Because I don't know about you, right, but over the last few weeks I haven't felt like meself. So you might have picked up on it, you might not have, but I definitely noticed it. Because last week or the week before, I actually went back and I listened to one of me episodes from a couple of weeks ago And I just thought, oh my God, Mart, you sound horrific. You sound flat. Like, the energy wasn't there, the spark of the show wasn't there, and it felt like I was just going through the motions. And the last thing I would want is for someone to start listening to the podcast on me having a downer episode, because as you know, that's just not me. We're nearly 5 years into this podcast. When am I ever really like down or sad or flat? But then I saw a reel on Instagram, and it was from another spiritual business owner, and she was literally sat in tears, right? So I started watching it, and she was talking about how hard things have felt recently. She was saying that emails aren't landing like they used to, that the revenue has dipped, that everything just feels heavier this year. And I sat watching this reel thinking, wow, that's exactly how I feel. And then it hit me. I'd burned out. So, I wasn't a bit tired, it wasn't like I just needed an early night or anything. I was literally burned out. And the mad thing is, I didn't even fully clock this at first. I just kept on pushing, kept on showing up, kept on doing what I always do, which is like providing content to people. Because when you're used to being the one who holds it all together, like whether it be for your friends or your family or your business, you don't always realize when you're the one that's quietly falling apart. And then on top of all that, life, as it does, didn't exactly ease up to give me a breather, because the very next day after I'd had that realization, I was launching my brand new course Abundance on Tap, and that very morning on day one, I got a phone call from my mam to say that my uncle had passed away in the night. Now I don't know if you remember listening to an episode back in January, my uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was given a few short weeks to live, and he passed away the night before my course opened. And everything, everything in my life just sort of collided. So it was work, pressure, grief, responsibility. It was everything all at once. And I just remember sitting there on that Monday morning thinking, how am I supposed to take any more? How am I supposed to hold all of this? Because on the outside I portrayed that everything was fine. Everything probably still looked like it was moving, but inside I was running on empty, okay? And I think the scariest part about burnout is how normal it feels while you're in it, because there's no alarm that goes off in your head. There's no big dramatic event or dramatic moment where your body forces you to stop. It creeps in quietly, and it creeps in through 'Oh, I'll just do this one more thing,' or 'I'll rest after this week,' or 'I just need to get through this launch of me new course.' And before I knew it, I'd built a life where switching off didn't even feel like an option anymore. That was me. I had just worked 97 hours in 7 days, and even saying that out loud now, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but at the time it felt justified. And I remember talking to one of me friends about it, and I said, 'I've just done '97 hours in my business this week.' And she went, 'No, that's physically impossible. There's not even that amount of hours in the week.' And I was like, 'I am being deadly serious. I've been working 14, 15 hours a day for 7 days.' But like I was saying, for me, it felt justified because there was always a reason for me to be working. It might be that I had a launch, or I had messages to reply to, or comments to reply to, or DMs, or emails. I've got people relying on me. I've got an event in manifest in less than 2 months. I've got a business to run. I've got a podcast to record. I've got the Academy to get back to. And when you care deeply about what you do like I do, I think it's so easy to blur the line between passion and pressure, isn't it? You tell yourself that you're driven, or you tell yourself that you're building something big, or that it'll all be worth it in the end, but your body doesn't care about those justifications. It just keeps the score. There's a great book on this called The Body Keeps the Score, and mine was starting to show it. So I was tired all the time, but I couldn't properly switch off on a night. So I'd be going to bed and I'd be on my phone scrolling until 2 or 3 in the morning. I was showing up for work, but the energy just wasn't there. Little things were starting to get to us that normally wouldn't even touch us. But then something happened that, if I'm honest, It probably shook me way more than I expected it to, and I had a lot of tears about this as well. I got a 1-star review on the podcast. Now listen, I've had negative comments before. It's part of putting yourself out there, isn't it? Usually I can brush it off, no problem. But this one, it said that all I do now on the podcast is sell, sell, sell, and that I was disgusting for just trying to basically take people's money and they were going to stop listening to the podcast and I'd lost a follower. And I don't know why, right, but this really, really got to me. Like, really got to me because I was sat there thinking, how does someone see it like that? Okay, there's a free podcast every single Friday, there's a free blog on the website with hundreds of posts, I have a free 21-day challenge about manifesting money on my academy, I have free subliminals, free meditations on Insight Timer. I put daily content out across social media every single day, and yet that one comment made me feel like I'd done something wrong and that I wasn't helping people in the way that I should be doing. And that's when I knew that something deeper was going on, because I think when you're in a good place, feedback like that, it doesn't shake you, it just bounces straight off you. But when you're already running on empty, it hits differently. It doesn't just land, it lingers and it sticks around. And that's when I started to realize this isn't just a busy week, like something is definitely off here. So I'm already in this place where I'm stretched thin, I've clocked that something's not right, and then life just kept on going because it always does, doesn't it? It doesn't say, "Oh, you're a bit overwhelmed right now, Mart, let's slow everything down for you." Nah, doesn't. It piles everything on tenfold. And the day after I realized I was burnt out, like I say, I was launching Abundance on Tap. And if you've ever launched anything, you'll know it's not a quiet day. I had hundreds of people in the WhatsApp group. I had people that had put their email address in wrong, and I was trying to sort them out so that they would obviously get the emails. There was energy, there's pressure, there's people messaging constantly, there's little things to fix, things to tweak, things to respond to. I was switched on. And then in the middle of all that, I get the phone call about me uncle, and everything just stopped for a second. You know when it's like time sort of pauses and your body doesn't quite catch up with what you've just heard? It was like that. And then almost immediately, me brain kicked in with, well, what do I do now? Who needs me? How do I hold all this together for me family? Because that's the role I've always played. I'm the one who goes and sorts things, or the one that shows up. The one who keeps things ticking and keeps people moving. So I did what I always do, I kept on going. I took the day off from me business, I went and spent it with family, obviously. We were all just trying to process the news, making sure everyone was alright, but even in that space there was still this quiet pull in the background of everything that I had going on. Like, work didn't stop, life didn't stop, and that week ended up being one of the strangest mixes of emotions I think I've ever experienced in me life. There was like grief, but also responsibility. There was sadness, but also lots of excitement and pressure. I was wanting to switch off, but I was always feeling like I couldn't. Because it wasn't just those two things. I had a business networking event on the Tuesday. I had to travel down to Grantley Hall in North Yorkshire later in the week to deliver an EFT session and a crystal talk. We are less than 2 months out from Manifest, so that's constantly ticking away in the background. And all of this is happening to me while I've got realistically about 3 and a half days worth of work. And again, at the time I was just thinking, right, come on, Mark, get your head down, get on with it. I wasn't pausing, I wasn't processing anything, I was just telling me body to move. And looking back now, I can see it so clearly, like I wasn't giving meself any space to feel anything. I was just stacking things on top of something that already felt heavy. And when you do that for long enough, it doesn't just stay manageable, it starts to spill over. And I think deep down I knew that was coming, and I just didn't realize how it was going to show up for us. So out of everything that week and everything I'd taken on, everything I was juggling, there was one moment that cut through all of it. And it wasn't a big business thing, it wasn't the launch, it wasn't the travel to North Yorkshire to spend the day there. It was just me sat on the couch with me boy Jake, right? We were coloring in together, just something simple. He had his bluey art book, he has some felt tips and some crayons. He was using some crayons and I thought to myself, you know what, he's absolutely fine, he's sat beside me, I can see what he's doing, let him use the felt tips. So he got the felt tips out, he was happily doing his thing, and I just remember thinking, right, he's settled, I'll just quickly jump on and clear a few emails in this 10 minutes that I've got here. That's all it was meant to be, 10 minutes. I look up and he's drawn all over the couch. Now this makes me really sad because without even thinking, I just snapped. I just shouted something like, "Oh my God, Jake, no!" And it came out sharp, it came out loud, way more than it probably needed to be. And the second it left my mouth, I knew, because he just froze. That little bottom lip of his came out, his face dropped, he put his head down and looked like he'd done something really bad. And then he turned to me and went, "Sorry, Daddy working." That absolutely broke my heart. Honestly, it broke me, because in that one sentence I realized something that I hadn't wanted to admit to myself. He could see how stressed I was. He could feel how stressed I was. He could feel how much I was working, and he could feel that my attention wasn't really there, even though I was sat right next to him. And he'd already started adjusting himself around it. Now, that's not something that a kid should have to do, and I just felt this huge wave of guilt come over me because for me it wasn't about the couch. Like, the couch is fine, you know, I washed it, I couldn't care less about the couch. It was more about who I'd just been in that moment. So that reaction wasn't really about him drawing on the couch, it was everything that had been building up in me and coming out, spilling sideways. And I think that's the one thing that no one really talks about with burnout, because it doesn't always show up as you just lying in bed unable to move. Sometimes it shows up as you snapping at the people that you love, or being short, or distracted, or not fully present. And in that moment, I just thought, this isn't it. This isn't who I want to be. Because what's the point in building all of this if the people that I'm doing it for are the ones who feel it the most when I'm not okay? So that was the moment for me. It wasn't the 97-hour working week, it wasn't the pressure of me workload, or the comment that that woman left on me, one-star podcast review. It was that. That was the moment that I knew that something had to change. So after that moment with Jake, I knew that something had to change. But if I'm being honest, I still didn't actually change anything straight away. I think I just became more aware of it. And sometimes awareness comes before the action, doesn't it? But it doesn't stop the crash. Because later that week, like I said, I had to head down to Grantley Hall in North Yorkshire to deliver an EFT session and a crystal healing talk. Now on paper, this is one of those moments where you think, "Oh my God, this is amazing! 5-star hotel, beautiful setting, free spa all day, doing the kind of work that I love." But the reality behind all that was that I had to get up at 4 AM to get there. So I was meeting my friend Julie in Sunderland at her house at like basically 5 o'clock, so I had to get up get a shower, get me clothes on, go over to Sunderland, which is like a half an hour drive from me, and then we were driving down together to get there for 7 AM. So by the time we got there, I was already tired and I'd already been running on empty. I think I'd had like 4 hours sleep that night, so I was already mentally behind on everything that I needed to do. And so I did the session, the EFT session. I showed up, I delivered, I smiled, I spoke to people, I networked From the outside, you'd think that everything was absolutely fine, but by the afternoon, I'd really hit a wall, like properly hit a wall. And I remember them saying like, oh, we're going to go and do a mindfulness walk outside. And I just looked over to Julie and I said, do you mind if I just go back in the spa? I just need some time on my own. I just need maybe half an hour to an hour sat in that hot tub outside just to like switch my mind off, basically. I just needed a minute. So I went and sat in that outdoor hot tub thinking, right, I'm just going to switch off and just be present in the present moment, just be here right now and be grateful for where I am. And do you know what me brain did immediately? It didn't relax. It started listing everything that I needed to do. Emails that I hadn't replied to, things I needed to do once I got home, messages that would be waiting for us when I got home, tasks that would be stacked up when I got home. Even in a place designed for complete relaxation, I couldn't switch off. And then it just came out of nowhere. I started crying. Ugly crying. And I mean ugly crying, right? So I'm sat there in this hot tub in this 5-star grand estate hotel, in this hot tub outside surrounded by people having a lovely relaxing spa day, and I'm there just sobbing to myself thinking, what the hell is going on with me? Because it wasn't just about that day. It was everything that had built up. It was the pressure, the grief, the exhaustion, the constant doing. It had all just caught up with us all at once. And the mad part was that it still didn't fully stop. So I left there at about— I think we left at about 5, half 5. I got to Julie's for about half 7 at night. I got to my house for about 8 o'clock, half 8. And instead of resting, and instead of giving myself a break, I opened my laptop to start work, and I worked until 4 AM. So basically, I'd been awake from 4 AM on the Thursday morning till 4 AM on the Friday morning. I'd been awake for 24 hours working. And saying that now on this podcast, right, this sounds fucking ridiculous. I won't lie, it sounds like something that you'd hear and think, why would you do that to yourself, Mart? But when you're in it and when you're in the midst of it, it doesn't feel like you have a choice. It feels like you have to, and that's the trap that I was in because you start believing that if you stop, everything is going to fall apart around you. But what I was actually starting to realize was that if I didn't stop, I would be the thing that was going to fall apart. So after that week, something shifted in me, and I started looking at how I've been living, how I'd been working, how I'd been showing up in me life, how I've been showing up in business. And I realized this wasn't just about a busy week. This was a pattern. This was something that had been going on for ages. And one thing in particular that kept coming up for us was that I was over-giving. So what I mean by that is I was saying yes when I probably should have said no. I was being available to everyone all at once, all the time. I was replying to everything, everyone straight away. I was feeling responsible for things that, if I'm honest, aren't fully mine to carry. And I think when you're someone who genuinely cares about other people like I am, it's very easy to dress that up as a good thing. You could say like, oh, I'm just supportive, oh, I'm just dedicated, I'm just showing up. But trust me when I say this, there's a line, and I'd cross that line without even realizing. Because when you're constantly giving your time or your energy or your attention without any boundaries, whatever, eventually there's nothing left for you. What's that saying? You can't fill up someone else's cup before you fill your own up first. I had reached that point. My cup was empty. It didn't even have a few dregs in the bottom. It was absolutely empty, bone dry. And then while all this was going around in my head, I started reflecting on something else that, um, something that I'd heard from a few people, like what they'd told me over the years. People say that I come across like a high-functioning autistic. So I know Denise Duffield-Thomas, for example, she mentioned it to me because she has the same thing. She says it's her superpower. I've had a few other business people, one of me old business coaches, someone on that TV show that I was part of last year kept on saying it. Now I'm not medically diagnosed, so I'm not going to sit here and label myself as anything officially, but I did start looking into it. And I'll be honest, a lot of it resonated. It's like the hyperfocus, the all-or-nothing work patterns, the difficulty switching off, or the tendency to go all in on something to the point of exhaustion. And whether that's what this is or not, it helped me to understand something really important, and that's that my brain doesn't naturally do balance. It does intensity. It does keep on pushing, Mart. And that's been a massive part of why I've been able to build what I've built, but it's also the exact same thing that left unchecked, it's going to run me straight into the ground. So that was a bit of a reality check for me because for a long time I've almost worn that as a badge of honor. Like, I'll just work harder, I'll just push through. People rely on me, people depend on me. I'm doing this for me academy students. I love yous to bits, you're me community. But pushing through only works until it doesn't. And I think for the very first time I actually stopped and I asked myself, "At what cost, Mart? At what cost?" Because what's the point in building a business or growing a brand and creating all of these opportunities if I'm exhausted, disconnected, and not even enjoying it? That's not success, is it? That is survival dressed up as success. And I knew that I didn't want that anymore. So instead of just noticing the patterns, I started to do something about them. So after all of that, I decided that I needed to actually do something different. Not just think about it, not just say, "Oh, I should really slow down this week," but physically remove myself from the constant noise for a minute. And the first time that I did that was on my birthday. It was 5 years of having Canny Crystals on the 30th of March, a couple of weeks ago, and that was my 39th birthday. Now, I'm not really a big birthday person anyway, But I woke up that morning, I had a couple of messages from family, and I mean a couple, and instead of doing what I'd normally do, which is check emails, get straight into work, reply to everything, I just didn't. I didn't even open me cards. I got meself ready, I got me dog JJ, and we went to amble for a walk. I had no podcast in me ears, I had no music on, no notifications. I put me phone on airplane mode. Just me, JJ, and a bit of fresh air. I cannot even explain how different that felt. So at first, obviously, I got out the car, it was a little uncomfortable, I'm not gonna lie, because when you're used to constant input, silence can feel loud, can't it? Your brain starts to automatically fill the gaps, so you start thinking about everything that you should be doing, everything waiting for you when you get back. And I think that's one of the reasons that I always am listening to something. You know, I was saying in last week's episode with Clare from The Harmonic Egg. I was saying I'm always listening to a podcast or music. I hate silences, but I think that's why. I think it's my brain subconsciously trying to distract me from everything that I've got going on in my life. But on this walk, after a while, that softened, and for the first time in what felt like absolutely ages, and I mean ages, I felt like I could actually hear myself think. So I was just there in the present moment, and that walk probably lasted a good few hours, but in my head it felt like 5 minutes. That's how long it had been since I'd properly switched off. But the interesting part of all this is that as soon as I got home, straight back into it. Emails, messages, tasks. It was like my brain had just been waiting for permission to, like, have the green light and go again. And that's when I realized something really uncomfortable: that resting isn't just about stopping. It's about retraining yourself to be okay with stopping. Because I'd got so used to being switched on that even when I give myself some space, I didn't fully allow it to land. So I thought, right, I need something that forces me to switch off. And that's when I booked me little flotation session. So you've probably heard me talk about this in the early days of the podcast, and when I say early days, I'm talking a good 5 years ago. That was probably the last time that I did sensory deprivation. So no phone, No light, no distractions, just me, late in silence in a tank of water. And I went into this thinking, there's no way my brain's going to sit still for an hour. But guess what? It did. Within a few minutes, everything just quietened. There was no to-do list, there was no pressure, there was no noise, just nothing. And honestly, it was one of the best things that I have done in a very long time because it just reminded me what it feels like to not be constantly thinking about the next thing. To not be planning or fixing or doing or responding, to just be me. And that's when I started leaning into more of that. So when I got home after that, I opened my Instagram. There was an Instagram ad for this thing called Phoenix Fire Breathwork, and it was like a breathwork session, is like 3 hours at St. James's Park here in Newcastle. So I thought, you know what, I'm gonna give myself a bit of a birthday treat. And I bought it for meself. The next night I went to the Harmonic Egg, I went to experience that. The next night after that I started journaling again, like properly journaling, not just writing out me gratitude list. And slowly I just started reconnecting with all the parts of us that had been completely drowned out by everything else. Because if I look back at it now, like, the truth is I hadn't just been busy, I think I'd drifted away from meself a bit. And these moments, they weren't just nice things to do, they were actually necessary parts of my life, necessary to make me feel sane. Because I was starting to understand that if I didn't intentionally fill up my own cup, I'd keep on pouring from something that was already empty. So once I had those moments of stepping away, like the walk, the flotation tank, the breathwork, the journaling, I started to see things a bit more clearly because I think when you're in the thick of it, you can't see— what's that saying? You can't see the wood for the trees. And I think doing all of these different things, I started to see things more clearly because space gives you perspective, doesn't it? And one of the biggest realizations that I had was that it's not just about adding in self-care, it's about removing what is draining you. And that's where I just had to be really honest with myself. Because I think it's easy to say, "I need more me time," but if you're still saying yes to everything, still making yourself available all the time, or still over-delivering at the expense of your own energy, then nothing's actually going to change, is it? So I started putting boundaries in place, and I won't lie, it felt really uncomfortable at first. I closed a couple of my WhatsApp groups down. I put those boundaries into play just so that, you know, it was less pressure for me I had 7 podcast recordings booked in on one day. I cancelled 3 or 4 of them. My partner was going away to Northern Ireland for the weekend. I knew that I was going to have Jake, my son, on my own, and obviously nursery wasn't there as well because it was Good Friday and bank holiday Monday. I knew I had to put like boundaries in place there as well. I was saying no to things that I would have usually just said yes to. I started not replying instantly to every message. Like, I'm sure people don't mind waiting an hour or something for a response to an email. They don't have to have it the second it flashes up on me screen. And I've started creating space in me day where I'm not accessible. So over lunch breaks, for example, I was putting lunch or dinner in my diary every single day between 12 and 1, and I don't think I've ate lunch or dinner in the last probably 5 years, if I'm totally honest. Because I always just skip that meal because I never get time for it. Now, even putting space in me diary for that, that even that felt strange because I've built me business on being present, being responsive, and being there for people when they need us. But I think there's a big difference between being supportive and being constantly available, and I think for me personally, I'd blurred that line. So I rubbed it out and I started to redraw that line. I also looked at how I'd been running things over the last few months. So, for example, from December right the way through to last week in April, I'd been running back-to-back courses live, which meant constant WhatsApp groups, hundreds and thousands of messages every single day. Anyone that's in these groups will tell you how wild these WhatsApp groups are. People needing support, guidance, responses. And again, I love that. I genuinely do. It's my passion. But I hadn't built in any breathing room for me. It was just one thing straight into the next, into the next, into the next. There was no reset. There was no pause. For example, on the Academy, I had the 25 Days of Manifestmas in December, then we did the 31 Days of Gratitude in January, then we did Magnetic Self-Love in February, and then Abundance on Tap in March. There was no pause there, no space to actually integrate anything myself. And on top of all that, like I said earlier, we've got Manifest coming up in less than 2 months. So even when one thing finishes, there's always something else ready to take its place. And I think for the very first time, I stopped looking at it like, how do I keep up with all this? Oh my God. And instead I started asking myself, what actually needs to change here? Because when I think about growth, it's not just about doing more, is it? Sometimes it's about doing less, but doing it better, with more intention, with more presence and more energy behind it as well. And I started to realize that if I want to show up as the version of me that I talk about and visualize all the time, the one who's grounded, clear, energized, aligned, then I can't keep going on and living in a way that pulls me further away from that. So the shifts that I started making, they weren't massive overnight changes. They were small, intentional ones. So I was just protecting me time more, creating space in me days for breathers, doing things that actually fill us up, you know, not just ticking them off as self-care. And then most importantly, starting to recognize that my energy is not an unlimited resource. It's something that I need to start and look after because everything I create or everything I build and everything I share, it all comes from my energy. And if my energy is depleted, then everything else is going to feel way more harder than it needs to be. So after everything, you know, the burnout, the pressure, the grief, the tears in a hot tub, the snapping at Jake, the guilt, the constant doing, I had this quiet moment inside, and it wasn't during a big meditation, it wasn't during doing breathwork or journaling or anything like that. It was just a quiet thought that landed one day, and it changed everything for us. I realized I haven't actually been building a life. I've been building a machine, but this machine needs constant input and constant attention. And the scary part is it works. Like, my business grows, it makes money, it helps people, it creates opportunities. But the one thing I hate about it the most is that it doesn't stop. And somewhere along the way, I'd made myself the fuel for it. So the fuel for this machine is my time, my energy, my attention, everything was going into keeping it running. And I think for a long time I just told myself, that's just what it takes. This is what it's like to be in business. I've never been in business before. I don't know these things. I worked for 15, uh, 15 years in the NHS. But the truth that I landed on was that if the life that I'm building requires me to constantly run on empty to sustain it, then that's not success. That's misalignment. And I think that really hit hard for me because I don't want a life where I'm constantly playing catch up. I don't want a business that only works if I'm exhausted. I don't want to be so busy building something that I then miss the actual life that I'm building it for, especially not moments like sitting on the couch with my son. That was the whole point. That's why any of this matters. And I think the biggest breakthrough for me was realizing that I don't need to do more to get where I want to go. I just need to do it differently, with better intention, better boundaries, and with a bit of space built in. Not as an afterthought, but as part of the plan. Because the version of me who has everything that I want, he's not burnt out, he's not overwhelmed, he's not constantly running around in circles chasing his tail. He's present, he's clear, and he's grounded, and he actually enjoys the life that he's created. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. I'm not fully there, I'm not perfectly balanced, not suddenly fixed overnight, but I'm aware of everything. I'm making small changes and I'm choosing things differently. And if you're listening to this right now and you felt even a fraction of what I've just described in this episode, I want you to take that as your reminder. You don't need to run yourself into the ground to build something meaningful. You also don't need to prove how hard you can push, and you definitely don't need to wait until you break to give yourself permission to pause, because sometimes the most powerful thing that you can do is stop, even if it's just for a moment. Just ask yourself, is the way that I'm living actually working for me? Because that answer is going to tell you everything that you need to know. And I think that's probably where I want to leave this episode, like not on a huge kind of— how do I put this— like a big dramatic everything's changed note, because it hasn't, not fully. And I don't think it ever, ever works like that, does it? Because this isn't one of those huge overnight transformations. Like I said, it's quieter than that. It's just noticing, being aware, and being honest, and catching yourself when you start slipping back into the old patterns, and choosing differently even if it feels uncomfortable at first. So for me right now, I'm still in it. I'm still figuring my life out. I'm still unlearning things and still putting boundaries in place that, if I'm honest, I probably should have done a long time ago. But I feel a lot more like myself again, and that right now is enough for me. So if you've been feeling flat or overwhelmed or stretched too thin, or if you've been pushing and pushing and pushing and just wondering why it's not feeling how you thought it would, just remember that you're not broken. You're probably just burnt out, and that doesn't need more pressure. It doesn't need you to try harder. You just need to give yourself some breathing space and just be honest with yourself, because it really needs you to actually listen to what your body's been trying to tell you. So if anything from this episode has landed for you, take that as your nudge. Maybe it's to slow down a bit, Maybe it's to put a boundary in place and protect your energy, or maybe it's just to take an hour for yourself without feeling guilty of doing that. Like I said, it doesn't have to be big, but it does have to be intentional. And just before we finish, I just want to say thank you, because whether you've been here from the very beginning of this podcast, or maybe you've only just found it and this is your very first episode— I'm so sorry for going off on a rant— the fact that you are here though, and you're listening, and you're taking all this in, and you're just listening to me ramble on It genuinely means a lot from my heart. I don't take that lightly, and I promise you this, like, I am not going anywhere, but I am going to do this in a way that feels better for me and for you. So I truly hope that this episode has resonated. I'd love to hear from you. Please screenshot, share this episode on your stories, pop it into a Facebook group that you're part of, pop it in a WhatsApp group, tell your friends to listen. It really, really does help more than you realize. Uh, but yeah, tag me, let me know what landed. And if you know someone who needs to hear this message right now, like, send it to them. If you think that someone might be burnt out, send it to them. It might help because chances are they're feeling exactly what I've been feeling as well. Okay, so thank you so much for being here. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I'll see you all next Friday for another episode. Speak soon, guys. Bye! You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70% off during Wayfair's Fourth of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget, plus surprise flash deals July 6th. Don't wait, shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. A photographer in Texas earns an extra $47,000 a year shooting Star Wars cosplay portraits. A teacher in Maryland turns her woodworking hobby into a 5-figure side income without leaving the classroom. And a couple in Pennsylvania will rent you backyard chickens for the season so you can try the egg-laying life without commitment. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I'm the host of Side Hustle School. I share these kinds of stories every single day in detail with full transparency about the numbers, the The point isn't just to inspire you, it's to show you what's possible. Proof that ordinary people are quietly building extra income in surprising ways, including a few ideas you can borrow. Less than 10 minutes a day, every day. Subscribe or follow Side Hustle School wherever you get your podcasts, or find us directly at sidehustleschool.com. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.