burnout | The Burnout Queens

10 Years Stronger and loving it

October 4, 2016

The Realm’s weekly postcard with it’s assignment arrived in my inbox this past Sunday. It made me think about the question and how I would answer it, and so I posted in our private facebook page.

Then I thought, this is important, so I’m sharing it here as well.

The assignment for this week’s The Realm postcard asked our members to think not about their age, but about what or how age has changed them for the better over the last 10 years. So here was my answer….

” 10 years on and I am stronger and more able to say NO to people and things that aren’t right for me. How did I come to this? After several ‘crazy and manipulative’ people in my life pre UK and here as well, I can clearly and quickly see the train wreck coming towards me, so I say NO and get out. It may look like I’m a rude or unfriendly person, but having experienced prolonged relationships with friends, colleagues and family members who were not good for my health and mind, I have learned I have a choice to look after me.”

Here are my examples (and feel free to leave yours in the comments below)

If someone blames me for something they clearly did themselves…they are banished quickly (my new Burnout Queen rules)
If someone undermines, smears or belittles me and what I know in order to bolster their own inadequacies…they are banished immediately.
If someone wants to talk only and always about themselves, and never asks about me…they are given a few chances…and then they are banished forever!

Some people will judge this as b**chy (and believe you me they have and on several occasions convinced me I was) but I don’t mind because 10 years on, my heart is in the right place and I am firm about what I have learned the hard way.

Life post-burnout is ‘very’ different thankfully.

Love, The Burnout Queens xx

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

5 Things That Frustrate Me!

August 8, 2016

These ‘things’ I’m about to list truly get my blood pressure rising…and quickly….

See if any of these hit a nerve for you too.

1. Technology (like the keyboard on this blogsite) that jumps around the page, erases my words without my permission and doesn’t load the pictures I want it to!

2. Technology having a language all to itself, so that when I go to order a new mobile (cell) phone, I can’t properly discuss what giggabytes, megabytes, little bits, big bits that are needed with the sales guy on the other line.

3. Ordering technology. If you want to order over the phone then trying to find a contact number is like finding a needle in a haystack. Why do I have to order ‘online’ all the time. What ever happened to the personal touch.

4. Using technology to talk to someone long distance. Why is it that every time I am set to speak to a client via Skype (I have a paid subscription) Skype decides it’s time for them to update my system. Really, you are getting in the way of my calls!

5. Technology security updates everything on my desktop during the day (lovely feature that my computer guy installed)…but if I’m in the middle of writing something out on my computer, it slows everything down until it’s done.

Let me add a final note here. I don’t like being controlled by my computer! I will never get used to this and I don’t think I want to either. After all personal control should be something that is under my control…shouldn’t it?!?

Now that I’ve had my say, I think I will find some peaceful place to sit…far away from technology…and let nature control things for a bit. I believe in ‘her’ more than I will ever believe in technology.

Love, Dr B (a frustrated Burnout Queen at this moment)

PS: Then I’m off to re-read Be The Queen of Calm, Cool & Collected. Have you got your copy as well?

Our Hearts Are Cold With Fear

July 13, 2016

Three months ago we heard that a friend had gone missing. At the time we had no idea what could have happened to her. It was widely reported that she may have simply ‘disappeared from her life on purpose’. She wouldn’t have done this; she was an intelligent, accomplished, savvy, gentle soul and would not have hurt the people around her like this.

Our hearts were cold with fear because we knew from all our many years of education and practice in the field of women’s studies and women’s psychology that the sad but still true fact is the mere fact of being a woman puts you at risk.

Yesterday we found out that the police had arrested a man she had come to trust in her life on suspicion of murder. They have still not found Helen. We feel sick with our own personal grief but we also feel angry.

The majority of women who are killed are killed by trusted males in their lives. Domestic violence is still one of the leading causes of injury and death for women.

It’s not only the ‘night’ that we need to take back, we need to take back our world. It isn’t right that we have to even think about, let alone worry about, going out alone at night, what you are wearing, how you are looking, what you say, who you flirt with or even who you live with. It’s just not right.

For decades we have asked, oh let’s be truthful, begged women to read this brilliant book and then to give it to their daughters, granddaughters, sisters and nieces and then friends daughters, granddaughters, sisters and nieces. The book is called:

The Gift of Fear. Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence by Gavin De Becker. Published by Little, Brown and Company in 1997.

(sadly I’ve been told to add this one line…we are not receiving any payment for promoting this book)

We have to start somewhere to take back our world, this book offers all of us a good starting point.

So in honour of Helen, our lovely Helen and her mini-dachs Boris, please take care of yourself, please read, please please trust your intuition and protect yourself. And then…live the fullest life you can. We can all do this for Helen.

In love and light, The Burnout Queens xx

My Reality, Your Reality, Our Reality

June 23, 2016

We all have a way of looking at things in our life. It’s called perspective. There’s nothing wrong with having your own perspective on things, it is after all how your eyes see the world…your reality.

Others see the world, (their reality) through their own eyes and perspective. We can all look at the exact same thing and see it very differently, depending on our view. One is neither right, nor wrong, it simply is!

Too often in my therapy practice I would hear couples and individuals question their own perspectives, as if their reality was ‘wrong’ and it needed to be put ‘right’. Not so. What we need to learn is the tolerance of differences that gives breathing room for all our personal realities.

My truth may not be your truth…but it is still Truth.

Love, The Burnout Queens xx