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Clapping on the Off-Beat? | Being Highly Sensitive & Feeling Out-of-Sync

November 26, 2016

Do you sometimes feel like you are the only one in the audience clapping on the off-beat or swaying in the ‘wrong’ direction for the ballad? Well, for many Highly Sensitive women (HSWs) feeling ‘off-beat’ is pretty common.

As an HSW myself, I have, through the majority of my life, often wondered if everyone else had received the ‘right’ sheet music except me! I have definitely spent most of my life humming my own hit-parade. I solemnly believe,

It’s not always easy being out-of-sync, but it is definitely more interesting!

Of course off-time, out-of-sync, or off-beat experiences can present unique challenges, like some of these adventures:

returning to school later in life at a time where wearing the uniform might earn you a place on a questionnable website,
changing careers when you are ‘supposed’ to be grown-up & settled,
being 60 and not having any pictures to play ‘grandchild bingo’ with,
proudly having chosen to remain eternally single,
having by-passed the child road altogether,
hitting your fame and fortune in your 60s (take your bow darling!)
laughing off the idea of retirement at any age,
becoming a mum in your 40s or even 50s,
having elderly parent-care duties before you were ready,
returning to the dating scene at a more ‘mature’ age,
dating someone much younger (you go girl!)

Yes, a few challenges for sure, but the majority of our angst about feeling different comes from cultural attitudes and beliefs about everything having a ‘right time’ in life. This is where burnout comes into play. Some of us spend years trying to get on the right foot, hit the right note, or sing with the chorus mainly to please other people. I hear the 4Ds of burnout calling; disappointment, discouragement, disillusionment, and ultimately disheartenment. If there is a ‘right’ time to do something, that time could be right now!

Throw out the rule book because that attitude of needing to do things at the right time, in the right way or at the right age is just sooo old! These days…

You choose the rhythm for your life, and then you get to dance!
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The BOQs believe it’s always the ‘right time’. If you decide to believe, you can never be off-time or off-beat. You are always exactly where you are meant to be. Your life is never on a detour, you just need to follow the road signs of passion and joy. So regardless of a few raised eyebrows, we just know…

You wouldn’t be your fabulous self if you hadn’t lived a little ‘off-beat’.

Now having your own unique life-rhythm certainly calls for embracing every fabulous highly sensitive molecule of your being. Who cares if you are occasionally or always out-of-sync with the masses. You, my dear, were never designed to be one of the masses! You were designed to defy ordinary. You are a Burnout Queen.

P.S. The BOQs would love to hear from you! Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below.

Don’t Get Mistaken For A Snack! | Bullies and the Highly Sensitive Woman

November 12, 2016

By now you know the Burnout Queens pretty well always see the glass as half full, if not flowing over. Occasionally, however, we have to talk about topics that feel ‘negative’ or ‘pessimistic’. This is one of those times. Today we are talking about a problem that unfortunately is not all that uncommon for Highly Sensitive women to encounter. What is it? Bullying.

Bullying has become more and more common in today’s world (you just have to think global don’t you!) Well recently one of our VIP clients experienced the resurgence of bullying from a co-worker. She had dealt with this person a couple of years ago, but bullies never really go away. So we talked about her way forward, which in this case is a job change; drastic but sometimes necessary.

Bullying in the workplace happens all the time. It doesn’t matter what industry you work in, what rung of the ladder you are on, or whether you are self-employed, you can experience bullying. Bullies come in all sizes and shapes. I have seen bullies in action in offices and had the unfortunate experience of being targetted by a bully when working in a psychiatric hospital. You would think mental health professionals would know better, wouldn’t you? (We can say it here, shame on them, they should!)

Bullies are predators and us sensitive types look like lunch!

Our empathic, loyal, sensitive, helpful, caring, compassionate, cooperative, reasonable (OMG we are reasonable!) HSP nature is like a red flag to a bull. Unfortunately, once they have you in their sight there is nothing much that can turn them aside. If you try to out run a bully it just increases the pleasure of their chase.

Bullies take advantage of our gentle nature, being sure that we will not make waves for them.

What bullies don’t expect is strength; they don’t expect us to turn, stand our ground, and fight. So forget about keeping your head down, playing nice in the sandbox, or taking your ball and going home, you have to stand up to a bully.

That presents the first hurdle, we don’t want to fight back. We don’t like the feeling of aggression and frankly aggression doesn’t seem to come naturally to us. Although you may cringe at the idea of going toe-to toe with a bully, rest assured evolution is on your side. While it may not feel ‘natural’, as a human being you are wired for aggression whether you know it or not. This is a good thing.

Next hurdle, we believe in taking the ‘high ground’. We feel like we are abandoning our true nature or our integrity or our values if we go on the offensive. Heads up our darling Burnout Queen, this is a special circumstance, the bully is intentionally targeting you, and you have every right, and perhaps need, to fight back. Bullies don’t respect boundaries, ethics, or integrity.

Now here’s another big hurdle, we don’t recognise bullying as violence. It is. Bullying takes the form of emotional, verbal, mental, and sometimes physical violence.

Just cause the bully may wear a suit or heels, doesn’t mean it’s not violence.

So what should you do?

◊ Keep notes on every thing that happens on a daily basis. No, you are not being picky. Document everything and keep copies of emails, texts, or even recordings of telephone calls (do check on the legality of this where you live).

◊ If you think you can talk it out with the bully, knowing that communication is our strong point, forget it. We know you will be fair and reasonable and even caring when you communicate. Bullies do not communicate with fairness or reason. They will never take responsibility for what they are doing. One little communication tip: do NOT use ‘I’ when talking with a bully, use YOU. This puts the responsibility firmly where it lies.

◊ Never ever ever justify, explain, or reason with a bully. It looks like weakness to them causing them to start salivating.

◊ Don’t keep it a secret. For some reason we feel ashamed that we are being picked on, or perhaps think that others will assume we ‘must’ have done something to bring this on. Bullies count on our reticence to complain. Don’t protect the bully by remaining silent.

◊ Last but not least, take care of yourself. Get support, talk about your feelings and how you can problem solve with someone who understands the nature of bullies. Be kind and compassionate towards yourself. Of course, a little pampering goes a long way.

We associate bullying with school, (or maybe football teams) but we don’t often expect to find it in the grown up adult world of work. Wrong! Bullies haven’t grown up so work is just an extension of the school yard to them. The truth is you can encounter a bully in a club, on a committee, or even in your family. Regardless of where you have this unfortunate encounter, the rule is the same…do not put up with a bully.

Suck it up and puff up! Be bigger and braver than you feel inside. Stand tall, look straight ahead, no sagging allowed.

Oh you will feel uncomfortable, over-aroused and probably fearful, but bullies look for easy targets so being a kind and gentle HSW makes us pretty perfect for target practice.

Have none of it! You are smarter than a bully by leaps and bounds. You understand people. You analyse and reflect. You have amazing intuition and wisdom. If you are being bullied use every aspect of your sensitivity to your advantage. Then tap into all of that determination, tenaciousness, and that will of steel that we know lives deep within your soul. Believe in yourself and let others see just how strong you are.

PS. The BOQs would love to hear from you! Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below.

Time To Lose Your Luggage! | Letting go doesn’t mean giving up

October 29, 2016

Seriously, my dear, is it time to get rid of the ‘baggage’? If it feels like you are dragging a trolley full of luggage with you everywhere you go (fashionable luggage of course, you are a Burnout Queen) it may just be time to celebrate losing your luggage.

Oh I know of what I speak. I spent years weighed down by baggage. In fact, my luggage resembled one of those amazing vintage Vuitton travelling wardrobes with a nook, cranny, tiny drawer, or hidden compartment for everything that I was afraid to leave behind. What it didn’t have was a mirror so that I could see what continually packing around all this stuff was doing to me.

I was exhausted from carrying it around and yet somehow I was afraid that if I put my luggage down, left it in a corner somewhere, I would be giving up. I wasn’t sure what I would be giving up or even how I would be giving up, but I felt or believed that if I ‘lost my luggage’ I would somehow miss something that was of vital, life-or-death, importance. So many smart, creative, sensitive women are afraid to let go of something from their past because in some way letting go feels like giving up, or giving in, or accepting defeat. But it’s not!

Darling, there is a big difference between giving up and letting go.
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Giving up is an unconscious act that develops over time. Burnout involves lots of giving up. You give up what you enjoy, what makes you happy, what brings you meaning, your priorities, and even your values. Over time you give up your true Self, the very essence of who you are. Last but certainly not least, with burnout you give up hope.

Letting go is a concsious act, a choice, a decision to pack-up and move on. I remember being told so many times in the past to ‘just let it go’, the problem was, I didn’t know what I was supposed to let go of let alone how to let it go. So instead I added ‘feeling like a failure because I couldn’t let go’ to my list of things I couldn’t let go of.

Hanging onto the past doesn’t allow you to build the resilience you need to deal with new challenges, pressures, and problems. In fact, the freedom to experience and enjoy anything new simply doesn’t exist when you can’t relinquish the past. Hanging on to the way things ‘used to be’, ‘were supposed to be’, ‘you were promised they would be’ keeps you trapped in a time warp ripe with resentment, disappointment, cynicism, and disillusionment.

Letting go opens the door for transformation.

Letting go involves thought and self reflection. Start by asking yourself why you are hanging onto the past and why you need to let it go. Letting go allows you to clear the debris, dissolve old ideas, change habits, and release or transform old patterns.

Do you know, or perhaps have suspicions about, what you are continuing to pack in your luggage? Sometimes we have to let go of what we know, who we know, and maybe even who we are.

Do you need to let go of…

a friendship that drains you more than fulfills you
a bad situation you have stayed in too long
a career/job that depletes your soul
beliefs that don’t fit you anymore
old learning
obsolete attitudes
self-criticism
maybe even an ‘old’ you

We resist letting go because we fear the ‘pause’ between the exhale and the inhale; the place between ‘what was’ and ‘what isn’t’…yet. Well, my Darling, don’t be afraid. That place between the exhale and the inhale is also the place of of possibilities, dreams, and opportunities. It is the place of ‘What if?’.

When you let go you discover the power, courage, & freedom to allow life to flow through you.
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In letting go you create a future that is different from your past, a future free from burnout forever.

PS. The BOQs would love to hear from you! Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below.

Finding Your Stride | When Life Changes

October 8, 2016

In 2009 we had a sign on the office wall that simply read,

Burn the Boats!

It was our mantra as we embarked upon the biggest change we had ever made in our lives. We had decided to pack up our entire lives and move from Canada to England. We were no strangers to BIG change, but this one was a whopper.

Each and every week we talk to women who post-burnout are finding their new stride as they set their course for the future. Regardless of the reasons they have stumbled, relationship breakup, job loss, career change, or health challenges, they know that life is going to change sometimes to the point that it will be unrecognisable. They have decided to burn the boats!

Now, if you don’t know where that phrase came from, well when Cortes landed in Mexico in 1519 he and his men (sorry no women allowed back then) faced a fierce battle. As they set off up the hill Cortes ordered his aide back to the beach with a single command…Burn the boats! Sometimes there is no going back.

We will all reach a point in life at some time or another when we have to forge a new direction.

Maybe that time is now for you. Has the way you have been comfortably living now become so uncomfortable that it feels like life is suffocating you? Perhaps you have arrived at a point where everything that was once so familiar now seems strange. Sometimes it will be of your own making and sometimes you will be catapulted into change. Either way, you may want to burn the boats.

Of course, moving away from everything you know as ‘your life’ is difficult and scary, but as human beings we are meant to outgrow ourselves! We age, we mature, we change inside and out, and there is little we can do to avoid the process. Change is natural and it is going to happen with you or without you, so really, truly, you have no choice but to to move forward and through it.

What counts is how you approach big changes, handle the transition, and ultimately find your stride again.

There is no denying it there will be times when change is terrifying, exhausting, and even times when it brings despair. However, flip side…change also brings growth, renewal, joy, and excitement. And what about new adventures? We are all about new adventures.

Now with all the BIG changes we have made in our lives we have heard all the questions, like…

How do you stop worrying about what’s at the other end?

You don’t. You consider all your choices, make decisions, make more decisions, and ultimately realise that change means accepting the unknown, which in time will once again settle into the familiar.

Next question…

How do you handle the fear?

Easy, peasy, you don’! You just wade into it and confront it. When I was a kid at the beach and the tide was miles out, I couldn’t wait to get out to that farthest sandbar to explore! That meant having to wade through many tidal pools full of scary seaweed and who knows what else! So I had to make a choice, stay afraid and never feel the exhilaration of reaching the sandbar with all of it’s treasures, or start wading. No contest, roll up those ‘pedal-pushers’ (capris for some of you) and plunge in.

Finally, we always get asked,

How do you keep going when you hit obstacles or things go wrong?

One foot in front of the other, what else? Keep the dream in sight and have faith. You have to believe in yourself and in your dream. And you have to be tenacious.

There is no avoiding it, in every person’s life there will come a time, or two or three, when everything will change no matter how much you may try to keep it all the same. If you choose out of fear you end up with a less than satisfactory result. If you choose out of a sense of adventure, belief, and faith you take your life in amazing directions. You may stumble but you will get there!

Obstacles or opportunities…you choose!

The BOQs would love to hear from you! Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below.

Rest for the Soul

September 28, 2016

We awoke to a great new research study being talked about on BBC Breakfast earlier this week. It’s called The Anatomy of Rest and perhaps you’ve heard about it by now. If not, let us share some of the findings with you.

We are talking about REST, which is not to be confused with Sleep. There has been plenty of research conducted on sleep patterns, amount of sleep, sleep deprivation, etc, etc, etc. For the first time there is a study on rest. 18,000 people from 134 countries took a Rest Test by BBC Radio 4 and Wellcome Collection’s researchers Hubbub. What do you think they found?

The findings are bang on with what we at The Burnout Queens and all our community of highly sensitive and exhausted women know all too well. We need and want more rest!

2/3 of the people in this study said they wanted more rest. When asked what would rest look like, it came in different forms, everything from sleeping, sipping coffee, sitting in front of the TV and doing ultramarathons. The top ‘rest activity’ came as a surprise to the research team… Reading. The other top activities were ‘being in nature’, music and being alone. It seems the majority of us need and want regular solitude to rest and restore ourselves.

So why don’t we rest more? The report showed we feel guilty when we squeeze out time for ourselves. I don’t think this is surprising to women. We feel selfish and self-centred (which means our guilt and stress rises) when we take time away from everything and everybody else in our lives to have a quiet moment for us. Women are already living in a state of exhaustion and don’t think they have the ‘time’ to recoup. We have to turn that notion on it’s head. The ultimate gift we can give ourselves is to consciously and deliberately create an inner calm that will make us more resilient to the outside world.

Now here’s the easy part. The Burnout Queens have designed a fast, simple and extremely effective group of 21audios and videos that help you create that inner calm and resilience needed in your everyday life. Quiet the Buzz of Everyday Life…creating calm for the Highly Sensitive Woman can be done anywhere, anytime; walking, shopping, waiting for the kids, on your break, waiting for your latte. Promise.

Why not see for yourself and solve the dilemma of rest, calm and quiet within yourself?!? Watch our video about Quiet the Buzz and get yourself started now

Embrace the calm!

With love, The Burnout Queens

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