390: 6 Steps to Alleviate Burnout with Sahara Rose

Namaste, it's Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the Highest Self podcast. A place where discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. And before we get started, I have an announcement for you. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to make an assumption about you. You are that person that your friends come to whenever they need advice, especially on something related to spirituality or purpose. Am I right? Well, have you ever thought about how to make this huge aspect of your life part of your career? Maybe you're longing to one day write books and have a podcast like this and coach with people, but you don't know where to start. Well, if this is the case, I have a really special opportunity for you. Imagine being TR trained by me for 6 months to become a certified sole purpose coach. Not only will you graduate as a certified sole purpose coach, but also a double certification as a spiritual life coach. Well, this is possible for you at Dharma Coaching Institute. We are officially accredited by the International Coaching Federation and so excited to be offering you our six month training program to get give you everything you need to hit the ground running with your coaching practice. If you're curious to learn more, head over to dharmacoachinginstitute.com we are enrolling this month, October 2021. Class starts November 1st. So take this opportunity to say yes to launching your new career where you can help others live a life of purpose. Head over to dharmacoachinginstitute.com that's D H A R M A coaching institute dot com and you can find that link in the show notes. I'm really excited to come back to you again today with another episode all about overwhelm, Burnout. Feeling fatigued because the past two solo casts I've done on that have become the top most shared episodes on Spotify. Which is just like this has never happened to me before in the four plus years that I've been podcasting. And what it really tells me is that a lot of you guys are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. And the reason why I even created those episodes in the first place is because I was feeling it too. So glad we're on the same page of 2021. Still being a lot on the nervous system. And that's okay because we got tools, we got podcasts like this and we're gonna work it out together. So this morning I was really sitting upon the word burnout and thinking about what are some tangible steps that we can take to help alleviate it. So I came up with six steps which In a really fun way, I added the word re to every single one. So they all have a re, such as reassess, replenish, et cetera. So I'm going to be going through what each of these steps are. I encourage you as I go along to write them down and then to also write down some examples in your life of how you can practice that. Because for each person, it's going to show up a little bit differently, even though they are overall characteristics. But just so you can walk away from from this episode with a clear plan of six steps that you can take in your life right now. Getting started with it today to help alleviate burnout. So first of all, what is burnout? Burnout to me is that feeling of exhaustion. It's that feeling that your mind has just been going 247 and you just can't take it anymore. You literally don't even have the energy and the capacity to take in more information and more stimulation. Now for some people, burnout turns into a physical depletion. They literally can't function anymore. They need to sleep all the time, they can't exercise, they can't move. They just feel super physically exhausted. Now for other people, they're more like high functioning burnout. So they may be able to go through all their tasks. They actually may be like working out even harder and going out their tasks and being even more productive than ever before. But it's coming from this place of overwhelm and burnout. So it really has to do with how you respond to stress. Stress. Are you more of the fight, the flight, the flee, the fawn? And I really encourage you to look more into these different survival tactics if you'd like. I can do an episode specifically on those. But to really have the awareness of what burnout looks like for you. For me, I am more of the high functioning burnout. I never stop what I need to do, but I get a bit angsty while I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, I have so much I need to do. So like, I literally can't rest and I can't stop because I need to keep going. And if I'm not going a million miles an hour, it's all going add up and I'm going to fall behind and I'm never going to be able to get on top of it. So it's sort of like, are you the type of person who's like, your email inbox is like 20,000 emails unread or is it 0 emails unread? And that kind of will tell you how you deal with it. I am a zero unread. Like, I will either open and respond or like, delete every single email. Because for me, the way that my nervous system works is like, I need to get ahead. I need to be ahead of the game, otherwise it's going to be too much. Whereas for other people, it may have reached that point of burnout that they're just like, I give up again. You can kind of look at this with the ayurvedic doshas. People who are more kapha earth energy tend to be those who are just like, I'm exhausted, I can't keep up anymore. People who are more of the fire, the pitta energy, like myself are more like, okay, let's get to it, let's go faster. And like, as we're burnt out, we do like the hardest things that we've ever done before. And it's perpetuating that feeling of burnout, which we may even be addicted to, funny enough. And then for that vata, it's like looking at all of the tasks that need to be done and like, I'm going to book a trip. I'm going to do something totally unrelated because I really want to write my book or create my Etsy store or apply for all these jobs, but it feels so overwhelming. So I'm just gonna do something totally else. So get to know what burnout looks like for you. Because I think in our society we so quickly label an experience of like, burnout looks like XYZ, like the WebMD definition. And that's really not what it looks like for, I would say, most of us. And also different levels of burnout, different times of burnout, different types of burnout in your life. Like, you may be burnt out from, like a relationship, you may be burnt out from your career, you may be burnt out from the state of the world and the news. So there are also different things that you may be burnt out from. It's not like a overarching thing that you may have for everything. You may be really excited about some areas of your life, but burnt out from others. So overall, when I'm speaking about burnout, I'm speaking about you don't have the same energy, inspiration, motivation, overall pizzazz that you normally have. You're not as sparkly. And I think for a lot of us, this began at the beginning of 2020, like, a lot of things began. But I think actually, no, I'm going to say it began before that. It was a different type of burnout. It came to surface. It's like, you know when you're so tired and you finally give yourself a chance to rest and you're like, oh, shit. I was exhausted, but I was moving so fast, I didn't know how tired I was. I would say our lives before 2020 were that we're doing a million things. You know, like so many people who like live in New York are big cities. It's like they're going to the 9 to 5, they're going to the happy hour, they're going to this event, they're going to that. Like people who are moms, they're driving to a million places, they're doing all these tasks. So we were, I think collectively like a very, very high functioning burnout. But also a lot of us were like, I mean, do you guys remember? We were like, oh my God, I wish someone would cancel plans with me. Like that was like the meme going around of feeling socially exhausted, like, you want to cancel plans, you want to be by yourself. That was the thing that everyone wanted then. So we were really at this cusp of doing the most and feeling like we really want this chance to rest, to be alone, to integrate. But we didn't have that now. Then 2020 rolled around and it's like, okay, that's what you wanted here you've got this. What started with a two week quarantine which is now moving into, you know, a two year quarantine. So we got that chance to be by ourselves and to be in our own energies and to rest. But then a different type of bur out started showing up. First it was that layer of exhaustion that we weren't looking at before. Like all of those times that we overrode our intuition that said, please give me some rest, please give me some self care. But we were like, no, we got this to do, we got that to do, we got fish to fry. So finally that had its space to come to surface. So we were like, holy crap. I have been running on overdrive for the past X months or years of my life. Finally now I'm even able to hold space for it and see it. So it's like when you finally sit down and lie down to sleep, it's like that wave of tiredness comes over you. And I feel like that's really what that first collective stage of burnout was now. Then there became the burnout of the news of, you know, especially at the beginning of 2020, we were just always on the news, always on social media, always trying to figure out what was happening. So there was this burnout of confusion, of overwhelm, of the state of the world, of panic, of uncertainty. Then there was the burnout of lack of work, life, balance, of, okay, I used to know that I would go to the office and come home, and, like, that was my time to be home. But now I'm always home. So, like, I don't really know when to stop. And that's when this. I feel like this new wave of burnout really started was people just kind of working around the clock. There was no more separation between work and life. It all just became like this one continuous thing. I think a lot of people, too, the things that were the most exciting in their lives were no longer available for them anymore. Going on trips, going out, going to concerts, Those things were gone. So burnout really happens when the things that once gave you joy and once gave you energy are no longer available or you're choosing to no longer do them. Burnout also happens as a result of not living your purpose. So for a lot of people, too, they saw that, wow, I'm living the same day again and again and again. And now with the collective awakening that's happening, that's starting to really bother me because I'm realizing that I am a soul having a temporary human experience. So I don't want to be doing the same shit every day that I don't even like doing. That is in no way using my gifts or my skills or my knowledge or my wisdom, et cetera. So there became that gap, that separation of, like, what does my life look like? And what is. What do I want it to look like? So on top of that, with the state of the world continuing to get crazier and crazier with the elections and then with these mandates and then with the Middle east situation and with natural disasters, and the list goes on. Now it's become this burnout, which was the one I did a solo cast about a few weeks ago called if youf're Feeling Overwhelmed, Listen to this. I highly suggest that one, too. I'll have that linked in the show notes. But that burnout really came from this feeling that every single time I open my phone, I turn on the news. It's a series of unfortunate events. And it keeps getting worse, and it keeps getting worse. And I feel out of control. And I feel like, what can I do to help? I can't keep donating money. I don't have any more money to donate. I don't even know if what I'm doing, if the people I'm voting for, et cetera, are actually really here to serve me. So it's this feeling of lack of control and feeling completely overwhelmed by the state of the world. So I think right now we're at this precipice of all of these forms of burnout adding up. I also want to add the burnout of social media. I think that's a very, very big one right now. You know, social media used to be something fun for all of us. Do you guys remember that? We used to be like, oh, I want an escape. I go on social media now I would say Pinterest still feels like that, but no other platform where people are actually posting their opinions. It feels like that Instagram is officially Facebook. I'm just going to be the one to say it. It has become Facebook. And now instead of going to social media to distract ourselves from our lives, we actually go on social media and we're like, we're distracted from our lives in a negative way. We're like, oh, shit, things are a lot worse than I thought. Whereas social media 2017 was like, you go on Instagram, everyone pretends everything is perfect. Now everyone goes on there to, like, spew out their political beliefs and hate on each other and cancel and blah, blah, blah. So there's this burnout of social media that we are reliant on social media at this point for our businesses, for connection, for the fact that so many of us still are in quarantine and at home, especially in many parts of the world, so we still really want that connection. And a lot of people are not in paid containers, like in membership communities. So social media is your only human interaction. That's why I created Rose Gold Goddesses, because we have our own social platform where it's like completely sacred, high vibe, incredible conversations being had. But most people don't take that initiative. They believe social media is just this free thing that I tune into. But then when something is free and available for, you know, the 1 billion people that are on there, of course it's going to have the mixed bag of what the collective is feeling. And what the collective is feeling right now is a lot of anger and hatred and this accumulation of being cooped up. So this burnout is really coming from all of it. We get on social media, we work, we look at the news, we this, we that. It all feels like so much. It feels like our nervous system can't handle it anymore. It feels like we're being fried alive. We'll take a quick break. 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In fact, Recent research by Monster.com found that 95% of people in the workplace are experiencing burnout right now. 95% are self assessing themselves as that. So it's basically all of us are feeling it to some extent. If this burnout continues and worsens, what's actually going to happen? Well, what's going to happen is we're no longer going to have a productive society. We're no longer going to have a society that's creating beauty and good and bliss and truth and art and solutions. We're going to give up our power and our sovereignty and then the forces that be that are still going forward full steam ahead, that have more negative agendas will continue. So we actually need to feel replenished and rejuvenated so we can create the solutions, so we can create the new world. It's not just about you feeling better, but it's actually the whole point of you feeling better is so we can create a better future for the collective, which includes all of us. So that being said, now what can we do? So I've outlined this into six steps to alleviate burnout and I love this topic so much I'm thinking about actually creating a course about it. So if you are interested in that, be sure to head over to my website iamsaharose.com and join my email list on the bottom so you can be notified. So that first step is reassess. Start to reassess your priorities, reassess your decisions, reassess your daily choices. Where is the burnout coming from? So if I were to ask you Right now and write this down. Reassess. Where's the burnout coming from? Write down the first thing that comes to mind. So you may instantly have said my work. You may have said social media, a certain friendship. Where is the burnout coming from? Now? Burnout happens as a result of not living your purpose. So where are you not living your purpose? Not living your dharma? If you want support with this, I've written an entire book about it called discover your dharma. So if you head over to the show notes, Amazon, wherever books are sold, check out discover your dharma. So where are you living out of alignment with your true natural gifts? And how is that creating that burnout? Burnout is also a result of not giving yourself time to be human. So those human things that we do are like walking in nature with our bare feet, being naked, singing a song, playing the guitar, lazing around, drawing. Just like basic human things that we take for granted. When we're like always in this like hyper productive achieving mode, do, do, do. And we don't give ourselves time to be human, that's when we get very, very cooped up and disheveled and out of touch with our true selves. So how can you bring more humanness to your life? Now, the second step is replenish. So write this down. Replenish. What does replenishing look like for you? So for myself, I've noticed the number one replenishing practice is breath work. I love breath work so much because I can literally feel a physiological shift that happens in just five minutes. And there are so many great breathwork YouTube videos and apps and platforms out there to check out. So now I am doing breathwork in the morning and at night, literally five to ten minutes even, and it changes my state completely. And there are breathworks to energize you, to help you sleep, to help you release and cool off. Like, there are breathworks for everything. So what is that practice that is replenishing for you? I also love to follow breathwork up with meditation. So I think meditation is such a powerful practice that we can either jump straight into the meditation, it may be a moving meditation, a walking meditation, an art meditation, but having some meditative form to connect your true nature as bliss, this is extremely important to remember who you are. Now the third step is rest. What does rest look like for you? Write this down. Now the obvious is sleep. Are you getting enough sleep? Enough sound sleep? So for Most Americans, about 80%, the answer is no. So can you wear a sleep mask? Can you put on some noise canceling? Earbuds. Can you get some blackout curtains? Can you use social media less at night and put on some blue blocking glasses or turn your phone on the red mode so you can sleep earlier? How are you using those nights? You know, there's this thing called revenge. Revenge scrolling. Revenge scrolling is when we feel like we were out of control of our days. So at nighttime we suddenly start scrolling, scrolling, scrolling because it's like our way of taking back our time. And if you're noticing yourself doing this, which I definitely notice myself due too, at nighttime, I like become a TikTok monster. I notice. Is this actually bringing me more rest? Like there are some times that I am enjoying my time on TikTok or social media or whatever I'm on. I'm enjoying that time on rest as a rest. But there are other times that I'm like, no, I actually am literally stuck in a loop of scrolling and I don't even know what I'm looking at and I couldn't even tell you what I just read. And I'm just a zombie right now. So notice that. Catch yourself in that. And there are so many apps to help you. First of all, creating a timer on your app. So you only have each app for a certain amount of time. So let's say you give yourself 30 minutes a day or an hour a day or whatever it is for you to be on different social platforms. And also when it's says time up, don't be like 15 more minutes or turn off for today. Honor it. Another one is this app I found called Freedom, where you can actually set different not only apps, but also websites that you might go on. Maybe you spend a lot of time on like Reddit or whatever, tmz, I don't know. But you can actually set those different websites too. And it will block it for however many hours that you want. So you could be like, next 12 hours I cannot get on Instagram or whatever it is that you're going on. So that app is called Freedom. Also just deleting those apps from your phone. Like, you know you can delete apps and then you could just download them again. Like they'll still be there. So giving yourself that chance to rest. Rest can also look like yoga nidra. It can also look like sound baths. It can look like placing crystals on your body, taking a bath, taking a walk, spending time in nature, a beach, but having practices every single day where your body can go into that parasympathetic state of rest. Now the fourth one is re energize what does re energizing look like for you? Write that down. Re energizing to me looks like movement. And I think for a lot of us, movement is medicine. And if it's not yet, it will be because that's how we were designed as humans to move. Movement is life. So what type of movement feels re energizing to you? Is it dancing? Is it cycling? Is it lifting weights? Is it Pilates? Is it yoga? Is it Tai Chi? Having different forms of movement to experience different forms, different textures of your aliveness. This, to me has been, I would say, the number one thing that has kept me sane and healthy and vibrant and thriving through this entire, you know, Covid experience. The fact that every single day I have continued to move. No matter what was happening in the world. Whether it's following along a YouTube video with some booty bands or doing some yoga or taking a walk or dancing, just keep moving your body. You know, sometimes we feel like I don't have energy, so I can't exercise. But actually it's exercising that gives you energy. The more you move, the more you create energy. It's like a self fulfilling machine. So even if you don't feel energy and you feel like I can't, I used to wait to feel energized to exercise and then guess what? I would like, day in, I'd be like, okay, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. It would just never happen. Until I just decided I'm just going to show up for this every single day no matter how I feel. And now it's been years, that it's no longer a question in my mind anymore. Am I going to move today or not? Like, I will go out of my way to make sure I move, even if it's at an airport. I will pull out my yoga mat and do stretches in the middle of the airport. Because I know how much better it's going to make me feel. I am that person on the back of a flight doing quad stretches and belly dance moves. I don't care anymore. I know it's going to change my entire state. So what is your movement practice? And again, it can change according to your day, according to your menstrual cycle, according to what your body needs right now. But I find for me, if I just get myself to start moving, I'm like, okay, I can just do a floor Pilates class. It'll be really easy. But the moment I start warming up, then I get more energy. Then I'm like, ooh, maybe I'm going to do some Weights. Then I'm like, ooh, maybe I'm going to do a whole hiit class. Because the energy continues to expand and expand and expand. So honor that. Don't burn yourself out of doing, like, an hour of hiit a day or pushing yourself to the extreme that you feel like you're gonna vomit or you're getting dizzy or you can't eat. That is too much. That's gonna add to the adrenal fatigue and the burnout, but move in a way that feels good. The fifth step is refill. Refill yourself with joy. So burnout doesn't just happen when you're doing things that you don't like to do, but it also happens when you're not doing enough things that you do like. So what are the things that fill you up with joy? What is your daily joy practice? Is it singing some karaoke? Is it painting watercolors? Is it dancing to some Shakira? Is it spending time with your plants? Is it writing your book or poetry? Having a daily joy Practice something that you do sheerly for joy. It doesn't need to have any productivity or calorie burning or anything tied to it. Doing this to fill up your joy cup. This will refill your body with beautiful, sparkly water. So then that murky, condensed burnout water will naturally just pour out. So refill yourself up with joy. Now. The sixth step to alleviate burnout is realize. Realize who you are. Live your purpose. When we realize how powerful we are, how magnificent, how magical that we truly are the magician, the alchemist, the creatrix of our own reality, we no longer let little things bother us. We don't throw ourselves off for weeks just because someone wrote us a mean comment or we had this conflict with our colleague or whatever. The thing is that that felt very overwhelming and real for our nervous system. But then we start to zoom out from a higher lens and see it for what it is, just a little wave in the entire ocean of which you are. So realize that this life is your creating, that you exist on a canvas, and you are the painter. So what types of paints do you want to use? Do you want to use bright neon colors? Some pastels? Some sparkles, some rainbows? You get to decide. No one else can decide for you. We cannot wait for the world to be solved and all problems to be gone to then be joyful. Joy is a choice, and it starts now. So realize the immense power and gratitude that exists within you for even living this human experience. Yes, you get to be here. You get to fulfill your dharma, your soul's purpose, the big reason why you are here. What a gift. What an opportunity. What a blessing. And when you realize this, there's nothing that can ever burn you out because you realize that you are the fire that creates it. All that that energy is flowing through you, it is not from you, it is not limited, it is limitless. That you are always tapped into a vessel of consciousness, of love, of light, of ideas, of creativity, of imagination, of consciousness that you are streaming through at any given moment. And all you have to do is say yes. So realize this and burnout will be a word of the past. Thank you so much for tuning in with me. If you would like more of my practices or my free Discover your soul purpose masterclass, head over to my website iamsaharrose.com or the show notes and you'll be able to receive that. I am so grateful to be here in this experience with you. If you loved this episode, I would love to send you a free gift which is the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for your mind body type. This is a different book than Eat Feel Fresh, my first book ever which is not released anywhere and I am gifting it exclusively to those who leave a review of my podcast in the itunes store. So all you gotta do is head over to itunes where you may be listening to this podcast and leave a review. Take a screenshot that you've left it and email it over to me@saharaatfeelfresh.com again that's Sahara Hara S A H A R A@eatfeelfresh.com and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for your mind body type which goes all into Ayurveda, doshas, plant based nutrition, body types, all of the things in a really fun and engaging way. So this is my gift to you for free for supporting the podcast. Every single review I personally read. It really helps the podcast be listened to by more people so we can raise the vibration of the planet together and I am so grateful to have you on this journey. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. Namaste Sam.