Podcast
Fried. The Burnout Podcast
Hosted by Cait Donovan · EN
FRIED. The Burnout Podcast is on a mission to #endburnoutculture. You'll hear interviews with guests who have been through it all and lived to tell the tale and solo episodes from FRIED's host - Cait Donovan and FRIED Burnout Coach Sarah Vosen. Our promise is that you'll have at least one major take away from every single episode that will help guide your recovery.
FRIED releases on Sundays at 12:00am EST which has earned it the unofficial title of 'Burnout Church'. We're here with your sermons, it's time to change your life.
FRIED was created and is hosted by Cait Donovan, Keynote speaker and coach on burnout, boundaries, and her favorite emotion - Resentment.
10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Mel Hopper Koppelman: Solving Complex Health Problems Related to Burnout
Jul 23, 202300:54:57Tap to summarizeMel Hopper Koppelman was so burned out that in spite of being longtime friends with host Cait Donovan, she did not immediately recognize her own connection with childhood trauma and burnout. Growing up labeled as a “gifted kid”, Mel developed blind spots regarding aspects of her neurological development that were lacking. As an adult, she developed complex chronic health issues. Because of her blind spots, it would be years before Mel realized the connection between her childhood experiences, her health issues, and burnout. Now, as the founder of Synthesis Health Lab, Mel helps other people who are struggling with chronic health issues to heal and live their best lives. While some conditions of burnout are environmental, others can be linked to neurological development, adverse childhood experiences, and genetic factors. For Mel, much of her burnout and chronic health issues ended up being linked to uneven neurological development. Through testing, Mel discovered that she retained primitive reflexes, typically not seen beyond one year of age, that influenced nervous system dysfunction. When nervous system dysregulation stems from delayed or uneven neurological development, the resulting burnout needs to be approached differently. The same techniques that work for burnout for someone with an evenly developed brain will not work the same way for someone whose neurological development differs. If you are struggling from complex, chronic health problems like fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorders, autoimmunity, or chronic fatigue, consider getting tested for retained primitive reflexes. Your nervous system may be dysregulated due to differences in your neurological development. Quotes • “We might be having a difficult time understanding development because we are underdeveloped ourselves.” (8:06 | Cait) • “One of the things that goes along with certain types of developmental issues, like we see with a lot of neurodiversity, is a characteristic unevenness of skills.” (9:52 | Mel) • “Things can run in families that are not necessarily genetic.” (15:10 | Mel) • “When we have adverse childhood events…and development is not unfolding optimally, then those primitive reflexes, instead of getting integrated, which means that the brain matures and kind of stops them from being active,…those reflexes are still there.” (26:59 | Mel) Links Connect with Mel Hopper Koppelman: https://essays.synthesishealth.co/ https://www.instagram.com/synthesishealth.co/ https://...
Transcribe →#straightfromcait: Coping Mechanisms and Burnout: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Jul 16, 202300:16:43Tap to summarizeCoping mechanisms are something that you use every single day, probably without even realizing it. These coping mechanisms start to develop as soon as you are born, forming based on your relationship with your primary caregiver. Depending on how that relationship goes, you form one of four attachment styles, three of which can make you more prone to burnout later in life. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, host and burnout aficionado Cait Donovan explains what coping mechanisms are and how to tell whether your current coping mechanisms would be considered adaptive or maladaptive. Pretty much all coping mechanisms can be either adaptive or maladaptive depending on the intention behind them. Sometimes, even if a coping mechanism is not technically healthy, it may still be useful for your survival in the moment. When a coping mechanism is maladaptive, it means that while it may help you temporarily, it also has the potential for consequences that could be worse than the initial problem you were trying to solve. Examples of maladaptive coping mechanisms include rumination, substance abuse, self harm, daydreaming, hypervigilance, and disengagement. Adaptive coping mechanisms are those that are considered both helpful and healthy in the long run, such as emotion regulation, speaking with a therapist or a friend, and intentional forced distraction. While healing from trauma and burnout, you will engage many coping mechanisms. In the same way that your burning out was not your fault, your default coping mechanisms are also not your fault. They were determined long before you had any say in what they were. Instead of demonizing behaviors that were helpful for you in the past for being maladaptive, look at how you can update them to be more healthy going forward and leave behind the ones that are no longer serving you. Quotes • “A coping mechanism is an action or a behavior that you engage in when you need to overcome a difficulty.” (1:37-1:44 | Cait) • “The initial response of your primary caregiver to those needs that you are trying to convey is what guides how you will eventually long term create your particular style of coping.” (2:03-2:16 | Cait) • “Children who form secure attachments go through life with more self confidence, more resilience, and more ability to trust the people around them.” (2:39-2:49 | Cait) • “Most coping mechanisms can be adaptive or maladaptive depending on the intentionality with which they are used.” (12:00-12:06 | Cait) Links https://positivepsychology.com/coping/ https://positivepsychology.com/maladaptive...
Transcribe →Heather Hansen: Self Advocacy Makes Your Burnout Recovery Faster
Jul 9, 202300:52:18Tap to summarizeHeather Hansen’s burnout, like unfortunately so many others, landed her in the hospital. Her stress levels had become so extreme due to her career as a defense attorney that Heather’s body responded with a severe allergic reaction. Afterward, Heather realized she needed to start advocating for herself with the same level of compassion, love, and loyalty that she had for her clients in the courtroom. Now, a Best-Selling author and speaker, Heather teaches others how to self-advocate through mastering the art of the ask and convincing their inner juries. In a courtroom, both sides present the exact same evidence from different perspectives. It is up to the jury to consider that evidence and choose which side to support. The same is true for your inner jury. When you start looking for evidence of positive things about yourself, your inner jury will feel more confident about trusting you. This will make it easier for you to advocate for yourself. Give yourself permission to pursue what you want for now, knowing that it will change at some point. Once you know what it is you want, then it is time to ask for help or accommodations out loud and with delight. In order to ask effectively, you must speak with compassion, curiosity, and credibility. Approach your ask from the other person’s perspective instead of your own by asking what they want and speaking to it. Recovering from burnout requires that you be able to ask for help when you need it. Self-advocacy can be particularly challenging for perfectionists, but it does not have to be. When you can ask for what you need from a place of compassion rather than resentment, you are much more likely to get a ‘yes’. Quotes • “What I decided to do was to start advocating for myself the way that I advocated for my clients in the courtroom.” (5:02-5:09 | Heather) • “You need to know what you want. You need to ask for it out loud and with delight. And you need to master the ask.” (8:55-9:02 | Heather) • “You've got to give your inner jury a different story.” (11:23-11:11:25 | Heather) • “For those of us who got to where we thought we wanted to be, and then it wasn't the right place for us anymore…that's okay. It just means that you are meant for more.” (13:29-13:42 | Heather) • “If you are asking with resentment, you are very unlikely to get the things that you want.” (16:27-16:34 | Heather) • “In the courtroom, both sides have the same evidence. And both sides use the same evidence to prove different things. So you need to decide what story you want to support.” (19:10-19:21 | Heather) • “If you're struggling with advocating for yourself, make it about somethin...
Transcribe →Dex Randall: cPTSD, Burnout, and Heart Attacks
Jun 25, 202300:53:01Tap to summarizeDex Randall’s burnout experience was a long time coming. He shares that as a child, right from the beginning, he was always afraid of everything. His parents’ behavior was unpredictable and he learned very quickly that it was not a good idea to trust any person ever. The coping mechanisms that Dex learned as protective measures throughout childhood followed into adulthood. Eventually, this came to a head when Dex entered into a job position where he was not in alignment with the founder and felt unable to do his job the way he wanted to. He explains that at that moment, he really felt like the stress was going to kill him. He quit his job on the spot and three weeks later experienced a heart attack that landed him in the ICU. Dex’s experience with his burnout and heart attack led him to become a burnout coach specializing in male burnout. Even though he now is an accomplished burnout professional, it was a long journey to relearn and deconstruct the maladaptive coping mechanisms from childhood that had been so critical to his survival. Around 5 years ago, Dex was diagnosed with cPTSD, which is complex PTSD that results from long standing, repetitive trauma. This diagnosis helped Dex to reframe his burnout and understand that it was not his fault. Psychological safety is incredibly important, and it can be very hard to ask for help, especially if you have been conditioned not to trust people socially. Men are typically less likely than women to seek help as they view it as a weakness, but there is nothing more courageous than asking for help. Burnout is not your fault, and you can recover from it. The energy to do so already resides inside you. You just have to seek out the love within your heart. Quotes • “This thought went through my mind that the stress was at such a high level now that it was physically going to kill me.” (4:40-4:47 | Dex) • “Whatever we learn as a child as a coping mechanism is very hardwired in by the time we become an adult.” (16:25-16:30 | Dex) • “Complex PTSD is often a label given to people who, for example, were in the military where they've had repeated trauma in the military sense, but it's more often given to people who experience trauma they couldn't digest as children.” (18:51-19:08 | Dex) • “We really do need to do some work on psychological safety, because it really makes a big difference.” (23:05-23:10 | Dex) • “I think what men in burnout, the message that I would extend to them is that they are wonderful, well intentioned, big hearted human beings who are suffering intensely for reasons beyond their control.” (40:46-41:00 | Dex) • “I have to realize I'm a valuable and worthy human being before I'...
Transcribe →#straightfromcait: How Childhood Trauma is Related to Burnout (Even if You Think You Have None)
Jun 18, 202300:25:45Tap to summarizeEven if you do not think you have experienced childhood trauma, there are many ways that childhood experiences can impact your ability to regulate your emotions. Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs include both events that happened to you like abuse or neglect and events that you simply witnessed. Trauma impacts child brain development at an epigenetic level, causing deficiencies in the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning and emotion regulation. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, host Cait Donovan discusses the link between ACEs and burnout. Adverse childhood experiences impact the brain in a way that is very similar to the effects seen from long term stress. These experiences have a direct impact on the neurochemicals and hormones that are needed for regulating stress. Since your stress system cannot function the way it is supposed to, you are more prone to burnout. This further demonstrates how burnout is systemic and not the fault of the individual. If you have a higher ACEs score, such as one that is at a 4 or above, you are more likely to have a higher level of emotional dysregulation. Any adverse events that happened in your childhood physically changed the way your brain developed and caused you to be more susceptible to burnout. Remember to be gentle with yourself, because burnout is not your fault and it may take longer for you to recover from stress than someone with a lower ACEs score. Quotes • “You don't have to be the ‘direct victim’ of abuse or neglect for it to affect you and your physical and emotional and mental health later on in life.” (6:54-7:06 | Cait) • “I truly believe that if we spend more time helping families to live healthier with one another that is the way we eliminate burnout long-term. That's the way we really hashtag end burnout culture.” (8:21-8:35 | Cait) • “There are interruptions to proper brain development when you experience adverse childhood experiences. These changes in brain development are nearly the same ones as we see with long term chronic stress.” (9:10-9:30 | Cait) • “Adverse childhood experiences have various effects on the actual neurochemicals and hormones of your stress response and the structures that they attach to, and that interrupts your stress cycle somehow.” (15:32-15:50 | Cait) • “If your stress response system is not working the way that it's supposed to, you are going to be more likely to burn out.” (23:24-23:33 | Cait) • “Burnout is not your fault. You do deserve better.” (25:04-25:06 | Cait) Links Burnout Recovery Group Coaching Summer Cohort: https://bit.ly/s...
Transcribe →Kelley Bronner: Black Girl Burnout, The True Meaning of Work, and Why EVERYONE Should Center Joy
Jun 11, 202300:53:19Tap to summarizeKelley Bonner experienced burnout while working in what she thought would be her forever job. Since she was a little girl, she had dreamed of becoming a prison social worker. As a Black woman and daughter of an immigrant mother, she was inspired by her desire to help Black and Brown people who are disproportionately harmed by the prison system. After nearly three years of working what was supposed to be her dream job, Kelley found herself having a full blown panic attack on the floor of the prison complex. Approximately six months later, she quit her job with no plan. Now, Kelley is a company culture strategist and licensed therapist with over 15 years of experience, as well as the host of the Black Girl Burnout podcast. Kelley’s burnout experience helped her to realize that she had the wrong impression of what work was meant to be. Fundamentally, work is just work. When you look to your boss or co-workers for validation, those boundaries between life and work can become very blurry. Therapy can help you to learn how to center joy in your life. Once you center your life around joy, everything else will fall into place. The intersection of racism and burnout created additional challenges like unlearning the unconscious biases that she had been taught by her parents, such as, that as a Black woman, she needed to be better than the best at all times. Putting aside her perfectionism as a high achieving Black woman was challenging, but it also freed up so much more space for joy in Kelley’s life. Remember to build joy into your days and shift your mindset around work so that it does not take over your whole identity. Quotes • “You cannot heal from a place of shame.” (11:05-11:08 | Kelley) • “I really put a lot of my identity into what I could do being competent. And not just being competent, being the best.” (15:47-15:54 | Kelley) • “Fundamentally that is what work is. It gives you the opportunity to express what matters to you and express your values.” (22:45-22:51 | Kelley) • “I don't think you should hate work. I don't think you should be apathetic toward work. But you need to remember, it's just work.” (33:23-33:30 | Kelley) • “When joy is at the center, the money comes, the relationships come, the ease with which you navigate your day, it all comes from what you center.” (36:11-36:21 | Kelley) Links Connect with Kelley Bonner: https://www.blackgirlburnout.com http://instagram.com/blackgirlburnout/ and https://www.instagram.com/kelleyabonner/<...
Transcribe →#straightfromcaitandsarah: How to Assess, Access, and Assemble the Resources You Need for Optimizing Burnout Recovery
Jun 4, 202300:38:49Tap to summarizeDuring burnout, it’s common to not use your resources in the most efficient way. An important step in burnout recovery is to look at how you are using your resources like time, energy, money, and community and see where you could be resourcing more sustainably. In today’s #straightfromcaitandsarah episode, host Cait Donovan and FRIED Burnout Recovery Guide, Sarah Vosen, discuss how to assess, access, and assemble the resources you need to optimize your burnout recovery. In Sarah’s burnout recovery group coaching, she leads a resourcing exercise which compares the human body to a tree using resources from the Earth to survive. A tree naturally uses its available resources in a sustainable way. For a sustainable burnout recovery plan, you have to be really intentional about budgeting your resources and seeing where you might need to prune the tree a bit. If you put all your focus on one resource like money and neglect others, your tree will be unbalanced. In order to re-resource, look at where you are spending your time and energy and see where you can make space for recovery and rest. Burnout recovery requires rest. If you do not budget time and energy appropriately, you will be too busy to make adequate space in your day for rest and may find yourself trapped in a repeating cycle of burnout. Be honest with yourself and assess how you are using your resources and how to re-assemble them so that your tree can thrive. Quotes • “During burnout, you're exploiting your resources the same way we're exploiting the resources of the Earth.” (5:14-5:20 | Cait) • “If you're only focused on money, and you're only doing things that make you money, and you're ignoring all of your other resources, you're probably not going to feel the greatest.” (15:02-15:12 | Sarah) • “Burnout is a valid reason to take a break, to shift some things in your life, to meet your own needs and ask for help getting your needs met from other people if that's what it takes, and to recover.” (24:01-24:20 | Sarah) • “Having other people to support you in your life and working with other people doesn't dilute your ideas. It makes you more resourced.” (30:25-30:35 | Cait) Links https://caitdonovan.as.me/sarah-group bit.ly/summerFRIEDgroup XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait https...
Transcribe →Karina Schneider: How to Prepare for Your Return to Work after Burnout or Mental Health Leave
May 28, 202300:54:09Tap to summarizeKarina Schneider spent nearly two decades working in a corporate environment prior to setting up her own private coaching and consulting practice with a focus on helping workplaces become spaces that support employee wellbeing. Now, as a reintegration coach, Karina consults with employees and their leaders as they navigate a return to work after a mental health leave. Karina is uniquely qualified to help both employees and employers through this process, as she has prior experience in the HR field and navigated her own return to work after seven months of leave for burnout recovery. Whether you are returning from a longer FMLA leave, or even a shorter period of time, it is important to understand that your return to work is actually still part of the recovery process. Those first few days and weeks will be all about figuring out if you can apply what you learned during your time away to your work environment. You should not expect to have the same amount of energy that you had prior to your leave or try to push yourself too hard too fast. As part of recovery, those initial days are mostly about learning how to show up again and re-training your body for your work routine. Before even considering when to return to work, take time to think about what you have learned about yourself and what really matters to you. When you know what is most important to you, then you can set proper boundaries and advocate for yourself to your managers and HR team. Pay close attention to signals from your body when you think about your return to work. Is your body telling you that now is the right time or are you feeling pressure or guilt from outside sources? It is critical for your burnout recovery and the prevention of future burnout that you go at your own pace and do not jump back full swing into work too quickly after a medical leave. Quotes • “We're not going to talk about day one until we're clear what you've learned about yourself and what matters to you.” (15:03-15:09 | Karina) • “We should create an environment where people feel like it's okay to just put a name to it that I struggle with ADHD, or I live with depression, or I went through burnout.” (23:48-23:59 | Karina) • “As much as I advocate for the employee owning the planning, HR and line managers play a crucial role. And if they can do that together, even better.” (33:26-33:36 | Karina) • “One of the biggest challenges they face in their first weeks is energy.” (34:44-34:48 | Karina) • “I don't say that as a weakness of ‘I only can work three days a week’, but rather, ‘I choose to work three days a week’, because that's what's right for me and for my family.” (42:28-42:39 | Karina) Links <p di...
Transcribe →#straightfromcait: The 3 Types of Self Care that are Critical to Burnout Recovery
May 21, 202300:18:02Tap to summarizeWhen people think about self-care they often picture soaking in a bubble bath, but in reality, self-care is so much more than that. Self-care is an absolutely critical part of burnout recovery. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, Cait Donovan, host and burnout speaker, shares the three types of self-care that are crucial for both burnout prevention and recovery. Cait explains that the number one type of self-care for burnout is foundational self-care. This means that you must take the time to learn how to recognize your body’s signals and actually respond to them. As you do this more, your body learns that it can trust you to meet its needs such as needing to go to the bathroom or being hungry or thirsty. Once you have invested in foundational self-care, you can move on to self-advocacy, which requires you to start speaking up for yourself and asking for what you want. This is much easier to do after building up your sense of self worth with foundational self-care. Lastly, Cait shares that sometimes coping mechanisms that used to be beneficial can become maladaptive and need to be revised. Take a look at your coping mechanisms to see which ones might still work for you and which may need to be upgraded. You know that self-care is much more than just taking a bubble bath or meditating for a half hour. True self-care is all about investing time into taking care of yourself both physically and mentally and realizing that you are deserving of having your needs met. Quotes • “Taking self care out of the burnout recovery equation is doing a massive disservice to everyone who needs to recover from burnout because you can't actually get out of burnout without some sort of self care.” (1:20-1:34 | Cait) • “If you do not ever learn how to speak out loud the things you want, need, desire and prefer, you are very unlikely to get those things.” (7:35-7:44 | Cait) • “If you want to recover from burnout, you must engage in the self care of self advocacy.” (9:19-9:25 | Cait) • “This unwinding of your current coping mechanisms and keeping the ones that work well and upgrading some other ones that maybe don't work so well, is an absolutely necessary part of self care.” (12:13-12:32 | Cait) • “Coping mechanisms sometimes become maladaptive and they need to be upgraded.” (14:19-14:22 | Cait) Links Heather Hansen (Self Advocacy): https://www.instagram.com/anelegantwarrior/ XOXO, C If you know that it’s time to actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for too long - book your free consult today: <a h...
Transcribe →Rebecca Kase: Polyvagal Informed EMDR: A Neuro-informed Approach to Healing
May 14, 202300:56:25Tap to summarizeRebecca Kase is the Owner of Rebecca Kase & CO, LLC as well as a licensed clinical social worker and author of Polyvagal Informed EMDR: A Neuro Informed Approach To Healing. You may remember her burnout story from a previous episode of FRIED. Rebecca began studying polyvagal theory at the start of the pandemic and is now an EMDR consultant and trainer. Today, she discusses the science behind polyvagal theory, how EMDR works, and how to use neuroception for healing the stress responses of the autonomic nervous system. Polyvagal theory was developed by a researcher who was studying the heart rate changes in NICU infants in response to both safety and stress. This study was a breakthrough in seeing how stressors impact the autonomic nervous system. The symptoms of burnout all come from the autonomic nervous system. When you’re experiencing burnout, you may think that your nervous system is out to get you, but in reality it is just doing what it has adapted to do to–keep you alive. When you experience trauma or toxic stress, those memories can get stuck in your autonomic nervous system and cause physical symptoms every time the memory is triggered. EMDR can be used to unstick those memories and remove the stress response. Toxic stress, or stress that continues for a long time and overwhelms your abilities to cope, can lead to a slew of serious and chronic health issues. When you take the time to befriend your autonomic nervous system and retrain it to recognize safety cues, you can reduce unwanted stress responses. Quotes • “The symptoms of burnout are all held within your autonomic nervous system.” (8:41-8:45 | Rebecca) • “Toxic stress is really about those experiences that overwhelm your capacity to cope with and often, not always, have a pretty big dose.” (14:49-15:00 | Rebecca) • “These circuits are all adaptive. They're not your enemy. They have worked, or you wouldn't be here.” (23:48-23:54 | Rebecca) • “There's a humongous, overwhelming correlation to toxic stress and degenerative diseases.” (34:27-34:34 | Rebecca) • “You don't just think about your memories, you feel your memories.” (41:35-41:38 | Rebecca) • “When we can consciously appraise neuroception, we can increase the autonomic nervous system’s awareness of safety.” (50:14-50:21 | Rebecca) Links Connect with Rebecca: Rebeccakase.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/69036196/admin/, Buy Rebecca's Book, Polyvagal-Informed EMDR: A Neuro-Informed Approach to Healing: <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Polyvagal-Informed-EMDR-Neuro-Informed-App...
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