Dr Bev

Co-owner, The Burnout Queens

Spring Cleaning HSP-style

spring clean

When Spring arrived,  everyone was talking about spring-cleaning the house, the garden, washing the car, mending the curtains and fixing the fence!  All of that sounds lovely and inspiring and encouraging.  It will make us feel better to put the new paint on the walls, get the old out and make room for the new.

Of course, that got me thinking.  All those make-overs outside ourselves will make us happier and feel more organised, but dear one, what if we take that concept and apply it just to little-old-you!  Have you spring cleaned your life yet?

Yes, let’s spring clean you!  Whoosh that sounds kinda weird, but before you get offended, why not try freshening your ‘self’ up this spring.

Spring may be the perfect time to take stock of yourself and give a heave-hoe to the old stuff and a welcome mat to the new!

Here are 8 challenges that will give you and your life a fresh-air newness.

  1. Challenge your brain.  Make a new routine to your day.
  2. Challenge your emotions.  Create new rituals (not chores) that you enjoy.
  3. Challenge your spirit. Clear your energy by saying kinder things to you and others (get rid of the swearing and cursing, it doesn’t become a queen).
  4. Challenge your perspective. Look for positives in your life and bin the negatives.
  5. Challenge your heart.  Send your outworn styles to charity.  Give some other woman less fortunate the opportunity to feel beautiful.
  6. Challenge your creativity.  Make a beautiful space, even if it’s a little corner or small surface.  Air freshener that makes you smile, candle that calms, colours you love, most classy-comfy armchair to curl up in.
  7. Challenge your self.  Take pictures of yourself and see what others see.  If you don’t like what you see, change her!
  8. Challenge your desire.  Start a piggy-bank for anything you want it to be for.  Keep investing in your dream, who knows when that little piggy will crack!

Remember you need to put yourself on the spring clean list every year, along with all the household cleaning.    What better way to ensure you feel alive and invigorated again.  After all, isn’t that what Spring is all about?

Challenge You.  Clear the clutter and feel the freedom!

Love, The Burnout Queens xx

The Infamous HSP Tennis Game

Greer waiting patiently

Highly Sensitive Women are often inwardly analytic (we can’t help ourselves), but sometimes it doesn’t work in our favour.  In fact, it backfires on us and we are left wondering “how the heck does this keep happening?”

I’ll use this cute, manipulative little face from The Burnout Pup as a case in point (stick with me, my mind is strangely creative).  She’s waiting for her dinner and begging in her very cute way.  It’s hard to ignore, but I don’t want to give into her demands when it’s too early for her dinner  (guilty mummy moment).  How can I say ‘no’ to that face?  I feel like a meany and then I think (in HSP analysing mode now) why am I feeling like I should change the rules for her…perhaps I’m being too harsh… maybe she’s really hungry… why am I being so unreasonable… no really I should stay strong.   On and on the circle of reasoning and guilt goes, till I’m tired and confused from thinking.

Wait a minute now…this sound like many of my clients (HSP creative mind thinking in loop-de-loops)!  They want to stand firm in their opinion, the trouble is when they do, the other person blames or criticises, attacks their character!  So my clients end up taking on the responsibility and guilt that isn’t theirs to begin with.  They end up feeling so hurt, confused, guilty and lost. “Why is this always my fault” they ask.

Here are 6 accusations that signal it’s someone else’s issue, not yours!

  1. Why can’t you just go with the flow.
  2. Why do you always have to be unreasonable.
  3. Why can’t you be more flexible.
  4. What’s wrong with you that you can never let this go.
  5. You’re always such a control freak.
  6. This isn’t about you, you know.

These are the kind of accusations that send reasonable HSW’s into immediate turmoil upset and analysis.  We waffle back and forth, arguing silently with ourselves in an attempt to understand why a conversation and opinion went so sideways and how we ended up feeling guilty and responsible for it.

Stop analysing this.  It’s rarely something to feel guilty or responsible for.  It’s not yours after all.  It’s never been yours!  As one wise woman told me (that would be Dr T) “you aren’t even in it!”

Saying no, or contradicting somehow makes others point the finger in our direction, rather than admitting they just don’t like our answer. 

So here’s the advice I tell my HSW clients.  Think of a back and forth conversation as a back and forth tennis game.  If the other side hits the ball to your side of the court and somehow you know that ball has changed colour mid-return or it should have been a foul, then shoot it back across the net where it came from and where it belongs.   Don’t let it drop and remain on your side of the court.

If that tennis ball changed colour, you didn’t do it.

If that tennis ball went offside, you didn’t do it.

If you were accused of the sun being in your opponent’s eyes, you didn’t do it!

Do you get the picture?

Yes!  Then repeat after me…

this is ‘not’ my responsibility…

this is ‘not’ my problem…

this is ‘not’ about me. 

 

Long-winded story, but it occured to me while I was looking at cutesy pup trying her best to make me change my ways (and feel sorry for her in the mix).  I’m not the one trying to sneak dinner early!  Nope, this is ‘not’ about me!

Love, The Burnout Queens xx

Left out of the party…create your own!

office celebrationLast night I was talking with my VIP clients who are designers.  They were feeling left out…

When design projects finish for a launch, these designers are never included in the after-party to celebrate the property development’s success….WWWWHHHATTT!  I couldn’t believe my ears.  Their design showroom is what ‘sells’ prospects on the building.  I have never heard anyone purchase an apartment/flat/condo stating I bought it for the empty box I walked into!!!!

I’ve seen their designs, they are beautiful and I would want to purchase the designed flat fully furnished!

So we all agreed…

It’s frustrating to be left out of the high-5-ing moments, the slap-on-the-back congratulations for a job well done.  It is so important to be acknowledged for your creativity (especially when creativity is so personal), so we decided if you aren’t invited to the party, make a party for yourselves and your design team.

Now these two are creative and clever, so with invoices still outstanding to them (therefore little funds for a party) my suggestion of a picnic in the office complete with blanket on the floor and champagne was welcomed with open arms.  I knew I struck gold when I heard the giggles at the end of the international call line!

A ritual celebrating the end of a project, passing an academic thesis, or anything you have poured your blood, sweat and tears into from inception to reality is certainly worth a meaningful gesture of celebration.  Success needs acknowledging.

Well done design divas.  Enjoy the picnic and toast your success.  You deserve it!

Love, The Burnout Queens xx

 

Ready to Leap?

ready to leap

Then by all means…Let’s Leap!

Two years ago this month, we decided our work needed to take a major leap forward, much like we did with our whole life 7 years ago when we moved from Canada to London UK.  A good, dare we say GREAT (of course we dare!) rebrand requires leaping and landing in a totally new place, and that is what we have proudly done.  Two years ago, The Burnout Queens made the royal leap and we have not looked back!

Everything, everyone, is soooo results oriented these days, it’s numbers this and numbers that, you know, ‘how many followers, how many likes, how many tweets, how many programmes, how many clients’. If you love excel sheets and counting it all up then that’s wonderful.  But really the massive reward for us is always in the leap itself. 

When you Leap you get to have fun and find yourself all over again: a new way to look at things, present things…a whole new voice!  Leaping is invigorating, fun, scary, challenging, and creative!   We were absolutely on board for this.

But we practice what we preach! Too too much hard work makes The Burnout Queens tooooo boring, so a day at the Seaside watching someone else take the ‘leap’ was just what we needed before we roll out even more fabulous newness!

Refreshed and Ready…we’re about to leap!

Love, The Burnout Queens xx

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