Hi Fried Friends! You’ve found yourself right in the beginning of a #straightfromcait episode and I’m so grateful that you’re here. Your time, and your listening energy is so appreciated and my biggest hope is that the information you get by being here is worth every last second. I really do my best to be sure that’s the truth! We’re at the end of July now and holy shit, it’s almost August 2020. Can you even? I cannot. In August, I will celebrate my 38th Birthday (I love my birthday, so get ready to hear about it a few times in the coming episodes ;)) and let me tell you, I’m not where I thought I’d be. Growing up, I knew I’d do something a little different, I was always a little left of center when it came to my choices, my friends, my style, and my ideas. And even though this was always a part of me, I felt too far away from center for a long time. As a pre-med student who turned to Chinese medicine instead, and as an American living abroad, and then as an author of a book and a podcast on a topic that no one used to talk about - it seems like I’m always at tne edges. Living on that edge, making the different choice, following my heart sometimes left me defensive and in a state where I had to PROVE to everyone that I wasn’t crazy, that acupuncture worked, that life coaching matters, that the work I do is POWERFUL and transformational even if other people didn’t understand it. It’ll be no surprise to you, as a FRIED The Burnout Podcast listener, that this constant need to prove my value because I was not in the mainstream was part of my burnout. I realized this past week that is no longer the case. Not only do I not have anything to prove (I’ve already done the uber successful bit) but I’m so glad to be on the edges. I like living here in the world of personal development, spirituality, alternative medicine, energy healing, quantum physics and all of it. Even when I don’t agree with it all, I love it and I love being a part of it. That’s why, when I was totally burnt out, I was reallly frustrated. I would read things on manifestation and the law of attraction and mindset and positive thinking and want to throw something against a wall - it all sounded like bullshit to me, even though I’d experienced it earlier in my life. When I was burnt out, it was because I was not in my OWN mainstream, not in my OWN center. I was trying too hard to be ‘good enough’ for everyone and everything else that I left myself behind. When you do that, you’re spending an awful lot of time in your left brain and you’re missing the magic, the energy, the creativeness, and the connectedness that your right brain has to offer. When they’re both working, both the left and right sides of your brain, when they’re connected, when they’re communicating properly - the magic comes back. This is when you can use gratitude journals instead of resentment journals and manifestation alongside your goal setting. But when that right side is off, when you’re not connected, when you’re tired, and frustrated, and your brain isn’t as healthy as it can be - those practices simply add more frustration. This is why, even though I live a spiritual life, I talk to you mostly about the reality of being IN burnout. I’m not trying to convince you to just shift your mindset, because I understand that some healing needs to happen first. I’m not trying to tell you to manifest your way healthy because I know those neural connections that you need for that to happen are short circuiting. I’m not trying to tell you to watch for signs because you won’t trust them even when they show - and none of it is your fault. It’s programming, it’s thoughts and beliefs that likely originated with your ancestors and not yourself. So what do we do when we work together? We use the left brain for all it’s worth - I ask a lot of noticing from you - notice when you say this, notice when you do that… keep track, write me notes (we keep all of our sessions in one google doc that you always have access to so that you can track your own progress, and have the tools you need to stay away from burnout after we’ve completed our time together). By training your brain to notice things, we are accomplishing a major goal - mindfulness - we are switching your awareness from your usual set of thoughts and beliefs and forcing you to pay attention to something else. That’s part of why the Resentment journal mini course works so well. By focusing on your resentments and actually taking time to notice them and then using the tools provided to transform that energy, you’ve been taken into a natural state of mindfulness where your brain can start to make new connections. Another thing you get when we work together is personalized meditations. Always under 10 minutes, you get 3 different meditations over the course of 3 months that I ask you to listen to every day (or as often as possible) these are always customized and never repeated. By choosing words and phrases that are consistent with what you need to feel stronger, we are starting to teach your body that change is happening, that change is coming, that you are shifting, right now. Personalized meditations are an incredibly powerful tool to start healing your brain so that you can get back to yourself again.
The rest of our time is focused on creating clarity on what you really want, unwinding patterns that helped you create a burnout state, creating new patterns that will serve you better, reframing old situations to let go of the attached emotions, teaching you to tune into YOUR body and learn to read it’s signals so that you can regain trust in yourself again.
This process is so fun for me to participate in and watch and I’m always so proud of the work that you do - and what’s most fun is this: the healing starts and then the magic re-enters. You’re able to manifest again, you feel gratitude head to toe, you let go of old resentments and create space for noticing joy, your boundaries get better so your relationships improve. Synchronicities start happening, opportunities that didn’t exist before show up like magic - it’s a pure JOY for me to watch this unfold.
I’m finishing a few clients this month and really looking forward to sending them off into their own magic and creating space for the next perfect clients to come my way. I have space for 3 new clients in August, will one of them be you?
If you suspect that it might, book a call and let’s figure it out together, just head to bit.ly/callcait. I’m really looking forward to your call <3
XOXO C