S4E15: Connections are the Antidote to Feeling Burned Out

Welcome everyone to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. Sy Wakeman here. This season I'm working to connect you with all of those experts in my inner circle that are helping all of us emerge evolved from our current situations, not traumatized, really using the experiences we're in the midst of to grow and to transform and to sort out, set boundaries, just become better people and curate more, um, effective and, uh, peaceful lives. So this week I'm bringing you Dr. Sasha Shilkut, and what you're about to hear is actually an episode we recorded together when I was a guest recently on her podcast. And after we were done, We just knew it was amazing content that my audiences deserve to hear as well. So we talked about resiliency, burnout, well-being, compassion for one another, and how great professional relationships and friendships can help us do more than we ever thought possible, be more than we ever thought possible. So I know you're just going to love this episode. Sasha's been a guest on No Ego before. She's one of my She's a colleague, a friend. But in case you forgot, she is of course an MD but also an MS. She's a physician, an author, a clinical scientist, a national educator, a writer, a speaker, a mom. But my favorite thing besides Sasha as my friend is that she is the founder of an organization called Brave Enough, and that is where she lives out her passion, which is empowering and encouraging women to be brave enough in their careers, in their lives, at home. Her book, Between Grit and Grace, amazing. If you haven't read it, you need to. Check out her podcast, check out her organization, Brave Enough, and enjoy the following chat we had when I was a guest on her show.

Hi everyone, welcome to the Brave Enough Show. It's your host, Dr. Sasha Shillcutt. For years as a full-time physician and mom, I constantly struggled to find work-life balance and learn how to lead my Then I finally became brave enough, brave enough to be myself. Now, as the founder of my own company, I interview changemakers and leaders, but most importantly, authentic, gritty, real people, all with the purpose to encourage you and allow you to learn to lead your own life on your own terms. Because that, my friend, is truly the most brave thing you can do. Here we go. Welcome to the Brave Enough Show. I am so excited about today's guest. She is amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. And I'm super excited to have her on. on because every time I talk to this woman, I learn so much. We are going to be talking with the incredible Cy Wakeman today. I want to encourage you, if you are in need of a reset, I want you to head on over to becomebraveenough.com. I have so many great free resources there. I have downloadable PDFs on how to get hours back in your time, how to stay encouraged, how not to burn out. If you're feeling lonely or isolated, just head over to becomebraveenough.com and check it out. Sign up for my Friday newsletter. I want to encourage you to do that so that I can just send you a little something every Friday. It's a 30-second encouraging read. So today's guest, she is phenomenal. And she is someone who I literally count every minute I get to spend with her or listen to her as a blessing in my life, because she is so wise. And yet she is also so humble. And that is— those are 2 attributes that to me are really rare in the world. And so my friend Cy Wakeman is a drama researcher. She's a keynote speaker. She's a thought leader. She wins leadership awards, worldwide leadership awards every year. She's a phenomenal author. And I've asked her to come on today because she is all about and has been all about restoring sanity in the workplace well before COVID-19, well before all of the obstacles that we are currently facing in the workforce now, specifically in healthcare. And she's been on every show imaginable. And I'm just honored to have her on the Brave Enough Show today to encourage us and talk with us a little bit and share her Sai pearls of wisdom. So thank you for coming on today, Sai.

Oh, Sesha, you're so welcome. I love my time with you, and what a beautiful introduction.

So talk to us a little bit about— this is what— why I love hanging out with you, because you are Very equipped with your research. You've done tons of research on the workplace, on leadership, on drama, about efficiency. When you say— because anyone that follows you know that you always talk about drama— when you say drama in the workplace, like, can you define what that is? Because sometimes I don't think people realize that they're bringing drama in, or that they're— they don't recognize it.

Yeah, most people think, oh, it's like the drama king or queen, like that one person in our workplace that we love to scapegoat go. Drama is any ounce of energy that is not heading in the direction of peace, happiness, and outcomes, results. Like any ounce of energy that isn't about your own happiness and about the results we're looking for, whether it's outcomes for our patients or results for our business. And scientifically, We came up with a definition that it's a type of waste. It's emotional waste. And we talk a lot about waste in, you know, rework or waste in like readmissions, or we talk a lot about waste, but very few of us understand that there are ways to move through the world more skillfully that are also happier and more peaceful. And the world is the same, the same messy world. You can move through that world with little effort as if you're, you know, like walking through air. Or if you don't know how your mind works, you can move through the world like you're swimming through mud. It's the same world. It's the drama is the difference. We have hard jobs, but the drama is the suffering we add into that backpack we carry through life. So one of my favorite topics.

I know, and I love it because this— one of the things that you really helped me do is, I think, Following you, listening to your podcast, reading your books, it has helped me recognize that I'm in the control. I feel it like in control, and I like being in control. So, you know, as an anesthesiologist, I might walk into one OR one day and work with a surgeon, and I can do the exact same— I can know the night before the exact same case but with a different surgeon. And before I really understood that I was in control of the day and my feelings and how I interacted with people, I would go, oh my gosh, I have to work with him tomorrow or her tomorrow. And I would come home at the end of the day being 10 times more exhausted. And now I'm like, okay, wait, I'm going to be working with someone tomorrow that maybe isn't like a super easy relationship. Like it's not one that I just fall into, but doesn't mean that I have to bring drama. It doesn't mean that I can't have a good day. And it doesn't mean that I have to accept the drama that may be flung at me.

Exactly.

I can still stay in control.

And I love that. And the weird thing about being in control when it comes to drama is the way you gain control is through a ton of surrender. And most people confuse acquiescence, like I have to suffer through this, you know, surgeon today, with surrender. Acquiescence has a motive. It's like I will overgive and I will overtake and I will risk burnout. I'll outsource my emotional well-being to other people, whether it's administration, whether it's a surgeon, whether it's, you know, patients who aren't compliant. Like, but the control comes when you stop acquiescing and you instead surrender. And the surrendering sounds like this. Perhaps if I were in your shoes, the story would be like, oh, I have to work with them and they think they're all that and a bag of chips. And I— am now gonna revisit the past 5 years and every case I ever worked with them, and I'm gonna make sure and I remember from the past every, um, insult. And then I'm gonna go into the future and see all the things that they probably will do to me tomorrow. And then I'm gonna exaggerate and see insult where there isn't any. And, you know, before long, like, I've pre-suffered, I'm gonna suffer, and then I post-suffer. I'm still suffering from things 10 years ago, and I think it's the surgeon I'm doing the case with. And that's where our ego will have us so confused because 'Cause drama is what's happening whenever you're seeing the lens through the world of ego. If I edited my story, if drama is when you're in the not now, you're remembering the past or you're looking into the future. Anytime you're in the not now, you're also not with the real person you're with. You're with your vision of that person, or you're with your preconceived image of that person. So even if that person changed 100%, you couldn't experience them. at all in a new way because you're not even with them. And so if I went in and I looked at my case scheduled for the next day and I say, oh gosh, I noticed in me an ego reaction when I saw such-and-such's name on my board. Interesting. Why don't I release that? Because all I know is that there have been times in my life where he or she has talked to me in ways I don't prefer. Mm-hmm. But our ego wants to go, oh, they yelled at me and they never say please and thank you. And they always— and I'm like, all I know for sure is I prefer people talking to me in other ways. There's no insult there. They tend to not make small talk. And it's also not accepting or acquiescing that that's okay for me, 'cause my boundaries aren't just concrete. Boundaries aren't just, um, You know, my deal breakers. That's— too many people think boundaries are that. Boundaries are my desires. What can I ask for? My preferences. Um, they're also my limits. You know, here's as far as I go. Um, you know, and, and, and they're my deal breakers. And so the world, whether— if we're seeing it through the lens of ego, we are the victims. We have so few options. We can't even see how to make a difference. We can't see our part in anything. We just have completely outsourced our wellbeing. But when we're beyond ego, when we're in brain coherence, when we're using good habits and dedications, when we figured out how our mind works and we stop believing everything we think, then we can see the world in a whole different way. And that's, you know, I tell people, I know you talk a lot about burnout, but, um, David Whyte's poetry is so beautiful. And he says, you know, when, um, your eyes are tired, the whole world looks tired. Like, it's about, you know, if we're projecting onto a screen in front of a classroom and there's a dot, most people go up to wipe off the screen and hardly any of them go to look at the lens of the projector.

That's so good. That is so good. That's so good because it gets into— it gets into something that I coach a lot of people on when they come to me. Like just this morning, someone came to me at the hospital and said, um, I'm so burned out. And I always say, okay, let's talk about what you can do right now. Like, you can't fix yesterday, you can't fix what— but let's talk about what we can do right now. And I always encourage them to find some time alone. And they look at me like, but I'm burned out that I don't have time. And I'm like— Yeah. And it's my victim.

I can't have time. I'm like, really? You go to the bathroom with other people? Like, what?

Right. And the reason I have them do that is to wipe— look at the lens. Because I think that if you don't have self-awareness, then you will never fix your burnout. Like, and I'm not saying— a lot of people misinterpret that to mean that there's not systemic issues. I'm not saying that. And it's all your fault that you're burned out. But I do think the only thing that you can control is yourself.

Yeah.

And if you're not aware of what is actually causing you to burn out, how can you fix it? I mean, I talked to so many women who say, I'm just so tired at the end of my day. And I don't know how I'm going to do the next day. And then I'm so tired. Well, have you ever asked yourself like, Why are you so tired? Like, what?

Contemplation and self-reflection and solitude is the surprising prescription for burnout. Like, people are like, what?

Okay, say that again. I love that. I love it.

So, um, self-reflection, which is in this moment, it redirects me. I take my own energy back and I choose intentionally where I put it. Self-reflection. Contemplation is when I look at the themes in my life Why do I always end up here? So that I can know what to fix. And solitude— this world health crisis for many of us, well, it's revealed, I think, something for everyone. But what it's revealed for a lot of people I'm coaching is their relationship with solitude and their relationship with uncertainty and their relation. And so I love what you— Mm-hmm. coach the person to do, because so many people have outsourced their well-being. And there are some hard things right now. We're asked to do hard things. But if it were the circumstances, then everyone would be experiencing burnout in the same way. If that were the truth, like if it were just preordained that you have this day, you shall become burned out. Like we know in our research, there's a flaw in the logic if people are not experiencing something in the same way. We can't blame the external substance. Now, are there some systemic things? Yes. I once heard a physician who talked about, like, the link between alcohol and breast cancer and the link between, you know, all these things we know. And a woman stood up in the audience and she was mad. She goes, you are blaming me for my breast cancer? And she goes, I'm not blaming you for your breast cancer. I'm holding you accountable to your recovery.

Hmm.

And I'm holding you responsible to your health. If you're gonna work in a dangerous world as a physician, in a tough world, then if I were you, I would get the skill sets to be a master's level evolved self, you know, respected person going forward. So I love that you say the technique you ask people to do is called come close in. So that's what we would say as a counselor. So when somebody comes, like I'm in a morning huddle in healthcare and people are like, I'm like, how's everybody doing? Oh my gosh, it's just, it's a nightmare and it's unsafe. And we have so many patients and we have so many admissions. We get patients dumped on us. And no one even calls ahead and they do this crap on— I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout. Okay, take a breath. We forget breathing. Like, breathe, breathe, breathe. For right now, in the next 10 minutes, do you have what you need to care for the patient you're about to enter in relationship? Well, yeah. Okay, let's go a little— we come close in. Let's go A little bit out, the next 2 hours. Do you have what you need? Yes. How about the next 4 hours? The next week? I take them out to the point they go, oh no, no, because that's when we should have the new grads in. And if we get out to May and there's this and there's that, I go, then all we've just discovered is the point you can no longer do it alone.

Mm-hmm.

That's it. Don't get into the future. That's the point that we have to understand that our genius is collective, that we can't base our confidence in our own abilities. Our confidence needs to be based in that I'm confident that collectively we're genius and that we have— we can bring other people in. Because so many times what people are doing right now is they're intellectualizing their feelings into grievances.

Oh, 100%. And then you almost feel like— and it's— and don't you feel like it's contagious? Like,

yes,

I go to work and I'm, I'm like in a good place. Like, I've slept, I've had 8 hours of sleep. I had time with my family last night. I exercised. I went on a nature walk this morning. I'm feeling good, like feeling pumped. And I get to work and I am not stressed, but I see that everyone else is focusing on this thing. And I'm like, well, maybe something's wrong with me that I'm not stressed. Maybe I should be stressed.

It's like survivor's guilt, right? People are like, sigh, everything for you seems so easy. And I'm like, life is as easy as you let it be. But sometimes I have survivor's guilt. And then I think, well, maybe I haven't had hard things happen to me. And then I think about, the last 56 years of my life. I'm like, I've had really hard things happen to me. I think for many of us, we can't just go in to protect our energy. We've got to learn to manage the energy of the moment and the energy of the situation. So like, I come, my, my energy managed, but modern leaders, what I'm teaching now in my newest research is not about managing people. It's about managing the energy of people. And it's like alchemy. It's like how to transmute. So a lot of people want to put energy into why we shouldn't have to and why we can't. A great leader says, you know what, um, why don't we talk about what would be amazing and what if we could and what's our part in that? Let's talk about how we could. Yeah. What could each of them bring to the table? And you're just— when people come in, a modern leader needs to translate around them. We just got 3 cases dumped on us. I'm like, we We have 3 new cases.

You

know, the idiots in IT, you know, just put a new template on. I go, our colleagues in IT have updated our system. Like, the language is so important. Even so, one of the ways I manage the energy of seemingly unmanageable people is I repeat back to them in appropriate language everything they've said.

Hmm. Yes.

You know, give me the— give me the effing blank. I'm like, oh, you would like the, um, tubing? Absolutely, my pleasure. Like, just— you're not correcting them, you're just repeating in a better way for your energy.

I love that. I love it. And it's so actionable and simplified. Like, this isn't like you need to read 700 books and You know, undergo this. I mean, you just need to take simple strategies to change your mindset, which will change your thoughts, which will change your actions, feelings and actions, and so on. And and I think there's this definitely for me. I'm seeing a lot of the women that I coach and the women that take my classes. There's just like this there there there's like this frenzy. Right? Like, like, oh my gosh, I don't know what's gonna happen with school. And oh my gosh, I don't know what's gonna happen. I can't plan a vacation. Oh my gosh, I, I feel like I, I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. And I'm like, I keep saying, in your view, what is in your view? Maybe that's coming close. I don't realize

that's coming in close. Like, what's in your view?

What is in your view? Take a deep breath because 90% of what you just said you cannot control. You need— you don't need to worry about actually today. Like, you, you need to just do what is in your view right now. Like, breathe, take care of you and yourself, your family, your patients today.

Yeah.

Don't feel this huge guilt like you're not stressing out about next week or tomorrow and somehow that doesn't make you a good human. So, you know, I've really— I don't know about you, Sy, but I've had to limit my Oh, totally. So I have like, I've cut down according to my phone, I've cut down about like 80% from last year, which I'm very proud of because I've had to from just so that I can stay in the now.

And we have control over our view, folks. Like, it's like, um, I curated my Instagram feed based on what I'm working on personally. So right now there's a lot of things on Bound. I follow people on Instagram intentionally. It's my therapy board. Like, it's my, like, virtual therapist. And we can compartmentalize and put on the shelf anything that's not now. Like, if it's not now, it will keep you from being you. So you won't be you, you won't be in the present moment. And the, um, the outcome of being totally present is, um, you know, the harvest of that. David Whyte talks about is beauty. Like, if you're— only when you're in the present moment can you really see something for the beauty that it is. Like, your beautiful walks in the country. You know, people are like, what should I do? I'm like, when's the last time you've been in nature? Make it a habit. When's the last time you've been in silence? Make it a habit. When's the last time you read poetry or you listened to music that makes you cry? When people start to worry, they're resisting getting in touch with their own vulnerability. And so what I love is your question, like, what's in your view? I would add to that like a question for self-reflection, like, is it true? I can't plan a vacation. Is that true? You're— if you believe your thinking, you will believe lies. The ego holds you prisoner to illusion.

I

love that. And, you know, it's— is it true? And who am I when I believe that? That's Byron Katie's work. Like, we have got to be students right now, not figuring out how to just impact the world and not how we're being traumatized by the world, but how we can allow ourselves, which is active, not passive, to be evolved by the world.

I love that. And I— okay, this is so good. This is— this is— I love that I haven't talked to you in months and we're like on the same thing, because what you said about being aware of avoiding that solitude and avoiding and resisting that is so important because is so many times when I tell people you need to spend time alone, they don't want to. It like stresses them out. Yeah. Because it brings up things that they may not know what to do with, thoughts, feelings, actions, questions that they don't, that feel more stressful to them. And I always tell them the story when I was learning how to do echocardiography, nobody in my department knew how to do this certain type of echo. And at first it was really stressful. It was like an addition modality that I was using. And everybody would come to me and say, can you do this on my patient? would be like, oh my gosh, I have my own patients, like, how am I going to do this on your patient? But now that I know how to do it, I'm not afraid to look. I used to be afraid to look. I used to—

Such a good example.

Like, I don't wanna— I don't know what I'm gonna find, you know? And now I'm like, okay, I am finding myself negative today. I'm finding myself anxious. I'm finding myself nervous or tearful.

Get the probe out.

Get the probe out. Like, get the probe out. It's gonna be so much better if I just Stop what I'm doing and take 20 minutes to reflect on why I'm feeling this way.

Yes. When you're venting, when you're complaining, when you're worrying, that is you resisting vulnerability. And you— most people just need to stop everything and grieve. So many people want to figure it out, and it's like those Chinese finger puzzles. The more you pull, the tighter it gets. You know that? Have you ever put your fingers in those? They're like little woven things. And whenever I'm like, Working everyone's side of a relationship, like, here's what my partner should do, and here's what, you know, my colleagues should do, and, and, oh, I've got an answer, and let's talk some more. I'm like, stop and grieve. What we're resisting is some sort of feeling or grieving, and the ego wants us identified with the external world so that we're victims. And the way to move into solitude is on, on the wings of your breath and And, you know, Eckhart Tolle and all the great teachers talk about, don't live disembodied, live embodied. And the way that you get out of all of the external identification is you follow your breath into your body, and you feel your feelings, you actually feel all the feels. And people are so scared of that. And you'll be fine. It's like Dante's Inferno, you can fall to the bottom, and you realize that that you'll soon, as you're falling, you'll be moving up. It's like, it's so counterintuitive, but in this moment of connecting in with your feelings, one, your feelings have really good information for you.

Hmm.

They're telling you what you're ignoring, what boundaries you aren't setting. Like everyone wants to seek the truth externally. You know, they're like, I'm a believer in truth. Well, go internally and find what that truth is. But as you get embodied, people are worried that it won't end. And as a social worker, I worked in healthcare as a social worker in my early years. I would tell you, working with a patient's family to let them know that their loved one had died is everyone's worst nightmare, those difficult conversations, right? And we all try and avoid it. We all get the— but sitting in it, here's what I found. It's so predictable. I gently, lovingly let you know that your loved one has passed. And then for exactly 20 minutes. You cry or be mad or— it only lasts 20 minutes. I swear to you. I've talked to chaplains who knock on people's door and say, your husband was killed in a car accident. It's 20 minutes. That's it.

Mm.

I've never really, as a counselor, seen people that can cry real tears, not angry tears venting, can cry real tears, sobbing, for more than 20 minutes. And then what they tended to do is they're like, can I see them? Where are they now? Like, inquire— Right after the sobbing is inquiry.

Mm.

Can you tell me again what happened? Where can I see them? Can I be with them? Where are they now? Like, move through those feelings and you'll get inquiry, but you also get so much space. And I think so much dis-ease, disease, is caused by this lack of feeling. I mean, to hold a feeling inside, all you do to a feeling to experience it is just add breath and, um, it frees up. But to hold feelings inside It takes so much energy and they come out all at once 'cause you don't have enough energy to hold it all in, which is rage. And then we send you to anger management school and then you have to spend 2 years cleaning that crap up. Like, people need to release feelings. And I think the energy it takes, the cortisol that it pumps out, the dopamine and serotonin it suppresses is, is so— it's so important. Yeah. And combining solitude with questions. So many people that are coming to me now, unfortunately, are like, do I stay in medicine? Do I leave medicine? Do I stay? Do I go? Do I stay? Do I go? I'm like, first of all, what a horrible question.

Right, right.

A horrible question. It's conditional. I had a good weekend. I think I'll stay.

Right.

I had, you know, 3 patients today that all declined on my watch. I think I'll go. Like, And then should is all about my conditioning.

Mm-hmm.

What's external? What will people think of me? What will— you know, should I throw away my medical degree? And, you know, can I, you know, become a better quitter? Like, internally, whenever I'm faced with something, should I stay? Should I go? Internally, I have to stop the question or the conversation that's exhausting me. Because most people have had this conversation for 7 years. If you're in a conversation that exhausts you, don't, don't do the Chinese finger drill. Stop trying to fix everything. Just stop and grieve. Like, go inside. And the questions that you're asking, just like in our research— I was so upset at my master's work when people spent months on my question. I wanted to, like, murder people across the street from you at Clarkson. I'm like, I— they're like, we haven't passed your question yet. I'm like, it's a question. They're like, if you get the better question, your research will just fall in place. And darn it, they were right. So we have to ask better questions. So I was working to make a big decision, and I went inside and I just— I'm like, this took months. What's a better question? Because I can't do this. Should I stay? Should I go? I was always looking for evidence. I was obsessed with it. It was exhausting. So So I started asking a different question. What does my soul crave? Am I fulfilled? And the question that was, am I fulfilled? What do I need to be fulfilled? What does my soul crave? When I answered that, then all I needed to do is follow the simple instructions and go out and ask people, this is what my soul craves. You're in direct relationship with me. Is this something you can give me or not?

Hmm.

And they're like, no, I can't give that to you in this role. Then I had to believe their answer. Right.

And

say, then I— this world is made to be free in. I, you know, anything that's too small for me, I must shed. And then I had to do the very thing I feared, which is say, you know what, thank you for your honesty. I'll go create that differently in another place. And then I came up with the question, am I willing for other people to be wrong about me to live the life of my dreams?

Oh, and that is That question is so good.

So big. If you're not in solitude, your feelings— where do you find these questions? In your feelings. What is this revealing to me? I'm so angry. Well, sit with your anger till it tells you its name. And it's never anger. It can be heartbreak or disappointment, or— but sit with your feelings until they tell you their name. And once you know their name, you'll get curious. You'll feel your feelings. You'll ask Ask good questions. Soon you'll know what to do. And then you go ask the world if in this moment with these people you can get that, if it's something you need, and then believe the answer they tell you.

Yes. And don't you—

Is that your place then?

Yes. And sometimes— and, and I, I get this question all the time when women are burned out and they're wondering if they should change their FTE or change their job or change the institution. And it's like, I can't give you the— like, I tell you what to do. You, you really have to ask yourself, like, what do you want? What do you know to be true? Because you're— if you, if you are burned out in institution A, you're going to be burned out in institution B.

Because you take you with you. In fact, um, you have this new book coming out in March called Life's Messy, Live Happy, where I talk about this more personal stuff. People always ask me, you know, beyond work, like more personal, and And you're in the book, actually, Sasha. You told me once that you had looked up the meaning of retreat, like a retreat from the enemy, right?

Right.

And that made so much sense to me. I have to retreat from— but I changed it a little bit— my perceived enemy. And what I found out is I take the enemy with me most of the time. The enemy is my limited thinking or my lack of willingness, you know, to grieve. If I had to give a one-sentence definition for burnout, it is, I'm arguing with reality, which is an argument I will lose, but only 100% of the time.

Wow. That is—

I want to be here but not have to speak up. I want to be here but not have to change. I want to be here but never be vulnerable. I want this position and I want to be a doctor, but I don't want administration to ever ask me for any reports. Or I want to be in medicine, but I don't want anyone to worry about money. I just want them to worry about patients. I'm like, well, what's your reality? Well, we have to worry about money. I'm like, well, then stop the argument with reality. Stop all of these conversations, especially in medicine today, that they're exhausting. Let's just stop them and start new conversations. How can we help people? What's an ideal workplace look like? How can I be a better person? Like, there are so many conversations that are about changing reality. And those are going to be exhausting. And I'm not saying we can't have impact, but not from the place of argument. That's a victim place.

I love it. And I, I think it's actually what— it changes the way that you see people, and it changes the way that you— that they're not your adversary. They're not, you know, when you get curious. But you have to get that solitude to really reflect, like, why am I— what am I bringing here? Why am I constantly finding myself Exhausted. Like, I know—

what's my invitation here? Why do I consistently dread working with these types of people? Well, I can limit working with them, or I can get curious and evolve myself to be, um, free from the hook of ego, free from the ways they hook my ego in. If I grow beyond them, their insult to me falls away, because most of what we're insulted by never happened. We— our ego sees insult where there isn't any.

And, and also, I think it gives you— when you get— when you start asking yourself those questions, you realize that you do have boundaries, but they aren't— they're living in your head, and you have to actualize them. You have to verbalize them. You know, we go into the workplace and we get, we get like angry when someone calls us and asks us to do something because we are trying to get out the door to get to a soccer game. Well, Well, have you ever told that person that you don't answer your phone after 5? Or better yet, don't answer your phone. You know, I'm like, they're like, well, they're angry that the person's calling them. I'm like, because I don't like to talk on the phone after 5. Well, does anyone know that? And if that's true, why'd you answer it? Like, you know what I mean? Like,

how do you expect other people to do that for you, which you're not even willing to do for

you?

Like, that's the— that's how the ego makes you crazy. Like, the ego has pulled a coup on the palace of your imagination, your curiosity, your mind. Your ego has a purpose, and it should occupy about 1 inch of your brain,

right?

Like, make friends with your doubt and your fear. It's what keeps you humble or keeps you— but joining the human race is really Um, and not just setting boundaries like, don't call me after 5, or I never answer my phone after 5. Well, that's a ridiculous boundary, right? Um, I might say, I need to let you know I am not very attentive to my phone after 5. So here's how to tell me something that's urgent,

right?

You know, text me or or have me page, you know, whatever the method is. But don't lock yourself into, I never. And also just notice how you don't follow your own boundaries. Like, when I'm mad at somebody, I'll make a list of everything they should be doing or not doing. And then I go, I'll start with me. And I take the advice for myself and I read through the list. I'm like, sigh.

Yeah.

You know, instead of don't call, You know, I don't— they shouldn't call me after 5. Like, I shouldn't allow myself to be called after 5. Like, I shouldn't pick up the phone. That technique is called looking at the other side of the question. A lot of us are filled with bad questions, like, why do they treat me like crap?

Hmm.

The other side of the question is, why do I stay in this relationship? Or why am I so silent? Or why do I smile back at them? And why do I forgive them and go, no, that's okay. I know you were upset. We can be kind and compassionate, um, and, you know, limit our relationship to somebody. When we're in ego, we get into all or nothing. Everything is polarity. Everything is either or.

Better than that.

Yep. 2 skills you need are transcending polarity. Many things can be true at once. I can love you totally and be mad at you and still be willing to help you. And I can not like you at all and and still help you. I mean, how many patients were kind of like, you know, gosh, have the vaccine out there and we'll, you know, intubate you. Like,

Right.

We think, I love you, I say yes to everything, or I don't like you, I say no to everything. The world's just— you got to get off that polarity, out of duality. It's so painful. So transcending that and then getting really good at impermanence, welcoming the new and letting go of the old, and knowing that you're not in control. What's meant for you comes, and what isn't meant for you leaves. And you base clay are just the open space. And so stop grabbing onto things you don't want to let go and stop, you know, resisting what's coming. If you can learn those 2 things, almost every spirituality talks about this. Those are the 2 basic things to learn, and your life will become more effortless. Well, you can conserve all your energy to have impact.

Well, I— one of the things I wanted to say that you helped me this This winter, I went through a really difficult time where I faced a lot of online criticism for a decision I made to step back from some responsibilities. And I was getting all this criticism and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm like getting PTSD with my phone. Like, I don't even want to turn it on. And I remember you said to me, why are you, you know, why are you getting upset? I'm like, well, these are words like these, they're saying these words to me. And you said, They are to you, they are not for you. Those words are not for you.

Yeah.

And that has helped me so much. Whenever I get criticism, I instantly ask myself like, okay, um, what do I know to be true?

Look at it.

Right? And is this— is the person really have my best interest in mind? Because if they do and they're giving me criticism, that's a gift, right?

Yeah, that's

for But is it? If it's not, it's not for me. It's just to me, and I don't have to accept it. I can just go, thank you for your feedback, and move on with my day and not let it hijack my amygdala and not let it like freak me out and rile me up and create drama and start the narrative and start the story. And it's really, I think, such a simple question, like, what do I know to be true?

Yeah, well, and I think it was Martin Luther King that said, you You can call me whatever you want. I don't have to answer to it. You know, he said it more eloquently. But one of the things when we're talking about burnout is that I see people get so specialized where it's just like 100% one topic, Chinese finger toy that they're trying to figure out. And there are so many tools out there. And then they ask me, they're like, you know, is it just yoga and meditation? How do I like get out of burnout? I'm like— Read great literature, fiction, biographies. There's so much information. Read poetry. Poets, um, can give language to something that you've needed that name forever. Um, listen to music. Like, you know, study history. Like, get out. If you're in medicine, just like get out of medicine. People are like, should I leave medicine? I'm like, yeah, for, you know, 12 hours a day, I would totally leave medicine.

Right.

Most of our prescription is in our question, but we haven't yet got it quite right. Should I leave medicine? Yeah, I think when you get in your car, you should leave medicine.

Yes, I think that's so interesting when you're talking about sometimes there's words that you have needed to put a name to how you're feeling. Like, I— when COVID started happening and people were dying before the vaccine and we felt so helpless I was really experiencing grief. And I read— I don't remember who said, what is grief but not love enduring?

Oh, yeah.

And when I read that, I was like, oh, so what I'm really experiencing is love. Like, the reason that this is hurting me is because I love people, and I want people to be well. And I love humankind. I don't have to look at this in such a negative— like, yes, it's terrible. People are losing their lives. lives, but like, I'm actually like experiencing deep love.

Yeah.

And reframed that. So I wasn't so afraid of the grief, and I allowed myself to grieve, and I allowed myself to grieve many times throughout the last year and a half instead of running from it. Like, I just need to be more resilient and gritty and not ever—

Exactly. Or turning it into venting and a grievance, like,

you

know, all these idiots. It's like everything The answer to everything is love. We most often don't understand love yet. Love is not doing. Love is not— it's not doing more. It's not over-functioning. It's not rescuing. Help that wasn't requested isn't help. The help is like the sunny side of control. Like, all the ways when I ask people, how do you love? How will you love today? They're like, oh, well, I'm gonna do this for somebody. I'm gonna do this for— And like, what if how you loved was simply being open-minded and open-hearted and being a good channel When I leave my door, I have a quote from Danielle LaPorte, and it says, there are many ways backwards, but only one way forward, and that's with love. And I just think we are like a car that's stuck. We go backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. It never dawns on us that the way out of this trench, which can be burnout, is love. It's self-love. And it's not self-soothing, it's self-care. Yeah. It's habits and dedications. It's, um, You know, it is finding— it is not settling for an easy answer.

And

that's why I hear a lot of times in the hallways, people are like, oh my gosh, I wonder why they changed the entrance and now we have to badge in. People come up with easy answers. 'Cause they're mean, 'cause they don't care about us, because they wanna give us one more. I'm like, resist the easy answer. Resist it.

Mm.

Apply love and know that the answer is super complex and super imperfect. Somebody had to make a decision about how we can have another entrance that's controlled. That's it. It wasn't about you. It wasn't personal. Stop with the easy answers. That's another way we outsource our emotional well-being, is we settle for easy answers. We name things too soon.

Yeah.

And ultimately, after reflection, we don't name them at all. So we leave the most important things unnamed, like sit with your anger until it tells you its name. That's a complex sit for a while. But we're so quick to name other things. And so it's like, stay curious one minute longer, but don't stay curious in a way that's manipulative. I'm gonna stay curious why they're, you know, inappropriate to me.

Right.

I'm a counselor. I can probably tell you what happened in their childhood, why they're inappropriate to you. It doesn't mean you have to accept it. But I would stay curious about what I notice about myself when someone's being inappropriate to me. Hmm. I notice I turned 4 years old and I start pleasing the worst person in the room. Wow. That's good information.

Right.

Go back to the origin of that. That's what contemplation is like tonight. I'm gonna make a note. I'm gonna sit for a moment. I'm just gonna go back, or while I walk the beach, I'm gonna go back to the origin of the first time I felt this very familiar feeling. And I'm going to go back there as an adult and I'm gonna watch the situation and I'm gonna love myself through it. And I'm gonna let myself ...we're older now, and that we have words, and we have boundaries. And every time we go back to the first time we felt something like this, it will unpack for us what we need to do next. We carry with us all the answers. We really do. Not in the ego way, but in allowing yourself to reveal— like, the power right now in these times is allowing yourself to be undone. Mm-hmm. on not keeping yourself together.

And that's such a freeing, scary, but yet extremely freeing, like an open and loving thing to do for yourself. If you can just be open and be aware and be— and that, I think, is the first thing, don't you think, you need to do when you— if you're listening and you're like, I think I'm burned out. I think I'm bringing a lot of negative energy to the workplace. I don't— I'm having this, should I go? Should I stay conversation? If I hear what you're saying, we need that. We need that self-reflection. We need that contemplation. We need to ask a better question, but we have to do it with ourselves first. We can't go outside. We have to go inside.

And then the way to connect with people is not with unprocessed work, is to connect with people and go, oh my gosh, I've had a really sweet discovery about myself. And then, will you help me? Like, can I count on you? Or here's what I need. We come to people and we try and connect through, you know, venting rather than connecting through, um, through insight or through, you know, that vulnerability. And one suggestion on language, and I'm not a researcher in burnout, and so I'll probably invite lots of feedback, not for me because I love people, um, is let's stop calling, I'm burnt out. Like, that's not your identity, right? Like, when people are like, she's, you know, a schizophrenic, or she's an addict, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, she is a mother of 2 and, um, a very funny person, and she's a lot of things. She has some addictive behaviors Right. That she's taking a look at.

Right.

And so I hear so many people in medicine go, I'm so burned out. Don't claim that for yourself. Do not claim that.

Yes. Yeah.

I am experiencing some feelings I've ignored for a long time, and it took a lot of energy, and I've not been willing to see reality for what it really is. I've not been able to ask— all of those you can have, but I'm burned out? No. I'm feeling Feeling burned out or feeling overwhelmed gets you one step away from it. You cannot look until you take one step away. You can't reflect until there's some separation.

Yes. And you can't do that unless you step back and stop doing what you're doing. And I always say, nothing bad is going to happen if you take an emergency day off. There is no human on the planet that can't take an emergency day off. I don't care if you're a neurosurgeon. Don't. And that's part of that ego. I think that, like, the ego

tells us that

lie. I

can't take it there.

Nobody can do the work but me, you know? It's like, that's not— that's so unhealthy. So I love that.

And you're not God, right? It's like ego is called EGO, edging God out. Like,

you

know, no one can do that. You know what? So many miracles could happen in the day. Let's say we couldn't get that surgery rescheduled. Do you know how many miracles could happen in that day? Maybe that pain Maybe the patient lost some ability and they had one more day with their spouse. You know, maybe we knew that was a risk of— like, who are you? But we get the illusion of control to soothe ourselves. It's a self-soothing behavior.

Yeah. No, you're right. You're completely right.

And are there some people who are in crisis right now? Absolutely. Bless the crisis. Allow the undoing. I think I've told this story on your podcast, but when I came down to Mexico at the beginning of COVID my world was falling apart. Everything in my life was falling apart. My best friend was dying. My husband left our marriage. Like, every— my business was sunk. Um, I'm stranded in Mexico, and I want so badly to be helping. I would have been the person in line testing people for COVID at Nebraska Med. Like, I wanted— and instead, 3 months, pure solitude. No other people, nothing, stranded. And my friend said to me, you can go through this as a monk or a prisoner, your choice. And I'm like, I'm gonna go through this as a monk and examine my relationship with solitude. But if you had told me, so I take 3 months off to lose 50 pounds and to figure out what your real work is, I would have said I could never do that. Go to India to an ashram for— but the universe said, oh yeah, you can. And it was the best thing. And I found in all of the falling apart so much bliss. I found myself so unburdened. Like, I don't have any work to do. How cool is that? I have no children to care for. Amazing. I don't even have a dog that wakes me up in the middle of the night. Lovely. I can only eat homegrown local food. Amazing. Like, and I don't wanna make light of what people have experienced during COVID but my favorite quote now is, barn burnt down, now I can see the moon. Mm. And I just got to this point where I lit a lot of fires, 'cause I'm like, what else can I burn? Not as an arsonist, but I'm like, like, let it all fall away. And when we become willing to let it all fall away, what's revealed to us of who we really are is pretty amazing. And that's why there's so much like hallucinogenics being used in therapy right now. Like, we can't get beyond this ego because some people have been so traumatized, they can't even safely like connect dots for themselves. So some of the, you know, MDMA and those things, like, take that offline so that you can face some things without fear. Like, we loosen the ego's grip. That's why so much is happening in the therapy world. But you can do this with your own practices. You have to loosen the ego's grip on your world. I can't take a day off— test that. Check it out for yourself. Try it out.

Yeah. You

know, our worst fear is my company runs completely without me. That was kind of my worst fear and my biggest dream. So I know that I'm rambling, but I just— I get so excited about all that's happening in our world right now. Let all that is not meant for us fall away. Our medical system has some things not working. Our country has things not working. Our— like, let it fall away.

Right.

But what we can't be as things are falling apart is victims, because we've got to fill the vacuum with love. That's why, yeah, the world and we have so many people dying of COVID if we filled it with love, we would make sure we had vaccine plants everywhere in the world. Like, it's not— Right. Not taking action and being passive. It is saying, I will not be so distracted by my egos trying to hold on or control. I will let go what goes, and I will focus my whole mission on filling everything back in with a loving approach, with caring for humans.

Oh my goodness. I— do you guys— now you're listening and you see why I literally cherish every minute with this woman, because—

I love you so much, Sasha. Right back at you.

So special and just so amazing. And every time I love talking to you because I learn from you and what you're learning and what you're going through. And

we're so parallel on our paths. I mean, your Instagram, I'm like, she did not just say that.

I cannot wait for the book. I seriously can't wait.

The book is— it's awesome. It's the most honest thing I've ever read. Oh,

I can't wait for it. So tell people that are listening how to follow you. Is Instagram the best place?

So I post Instagram. I do LinkedIn Lives a lot, sessions just like these. You'll get notice and we record them. So everything is Cy Wakeman Instagram. I have a business Facebook page. Of course, now everything's getting connected. Um, LinkedIn's great. Um, Cy Wakeman. I have a podcast, the No Ego Podcast, and, um, that you can listen in on. But if you want a great time And you're a woman, and you don't have to be in medicine. The best way to connect with me next is at the Brave Enough Conference because we're all heading. If you haven't registered for that because you have some ego excuse that no one can live without you, get going. I don't know if there's still time to register.

It's gonna be awesome. Thank you, my friend. Thank you so much. You're so amazing. Thanks. If you want to follow Sai as you or she. said, @SyWakeman everywhere. Follow her, download her book, sign up for the pre-release of her new book coming out. Just get on her mailing list so that you can—

Yeah, that's the biggest thing. Yeah, the biggest thing is realitybasedleadership.com. Get on the mailing list because that's where we make sure you have all the information. And we send out newsletters with content, not with kind of sales stuff, a lot like your newsletters, which are Amazing. So sign up for our newsletter.

Thank you, Sai.

You're welcome. Love ya.

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