Dr Bev

Co-owner, The Burnout Queens

Huffington Post gets it, do you?

Found a great ‘primer article’ for Highly Sensitive People on Huffington Post today.  16 Habits of Highly Sensitive People.  It gives you a really good overview of why you are highly sensitive and some of the places in life being an HSP can impact you and your health–or even have you misunderstood!

If you have heard all your life that you are “too” something or other, give it a read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26/highly-sensitive-people-signs-habits_n_4810794.html

I know long winded, but worth the read!

By the way, did you know that being highly sensitive, puts you on the fasttrack to burnout!? Click our video on the sidebar and find out how.  xx

The Burnout Queens

 

Bored with base camp–ready to climb!

girls climbingFor the last 5 years it feels like we have been waiting at base camp.  You see we are on our own epic journey to follow our dreams.  When we set out on the first leg of the journey (Canada to UK) we decided to ‘burn the boats’ in the tradition of some famous explorers.  These first 5 years have been about finding our footing and breathing new air.

Canada doesn’t seem a very different culture, but…everything is different.  Have you ever had to grocery shop and been unable to recognize the brands, names and uses of the products?  It can be both time consuming and frustrating.  Bank accounts, credit cards, even shoe sizes!  You get the picture.

On first arrival we were excited, somewhat exhausted, and raring to take in all the sights and sounds of our new land.  Then it became evident we needed to prepare for the long haul up the mountain ahead of us.  We had to buckle down and get back to work while we learned the rules, settled into routines and generally prepared ourselves for the next ascent.

With that 5 year hurdle behind us (yeah, we are allowed to stay forever!) we had a decision to make:  turn around and go back to the life we had grown up in, consider it a great adventure and pack up–OR–take another deep breath and start climbing.  Well, there really wasn’t a choice after all we had agreed to ‘burn the boats’ so there was no going back.

Like any next level of the adventure, we are faced with a mixture of excitement, fear, and lots and lots of questions!  But we love questions more than we love answers, it’s just who we are.

The air is rare, but it’s time to climb.  Can’t wait to see the next view!

THE BURNOUT QUEENS

Help! I can’t see my floor anymore.

messy painterMy client’s house is driving her round the bend.  She lives and works with stacks of boxes, papers, things strewn around her beautiful space.  We Skype.  I see it!  It’s at the point that the beauty of her home has disappeared; the peace and tranquility has been lost; and her mind is spinning in circles.

Her untidiness (chaos) is because she doesn’t think of herself first.  Doesn’t put herself at the centre of her picture.  This realisation means  a shift in thinking–her approach to work and home life needs to change.

Until now, she only thought of her commitments and responsibilities to other:

-what does she need to accomplish in any particular day

-what does she need to prioritize for herself in any particular day

-what meeting does she need to attend

-what child does she need to work with and assess

-what report does she need to write

There’s a pattern that you can probably recognize if you’re a busy woman as well right?  She is responsible with all her duties as a business owner and therapist, there is no doubt about that.  But, there are times she wants to hide away from it all and just chill out: recoup and recharge herself.  She gets tired, drained, exhausted and spent…is it a wonder?!

Her solution?  Take a vacation at home to catch up on all her backlog of work, to purge her workspace of all the piles of papers, magazines, articles she’s been hoarding ‘just in case I can use them’.  They all add up to mess, pressure and piles of stuff she feels overwhelmed by.  By the end of her vacation (staycation) she is not rested, nor organized as she had hoped, because it WAS too overwhelming, so she caught up with friends instead thinking that would relax her.  After all it’s a vacation and some of it should be fun?!

Now she goes back to work more drained than ever, still in somewhat of a mess, and upset with herself that she didn’t ‘buckle down to it’ and get it sorted once and for all.  Arrgghhh!

Recognize this if you are a professional.  You bet.  It is purely because the pace she is creating at work misses including herself, her energy, her health, her needs as a factor in her daily output.  So the burnout cycle continues and grows deeper.

We are working on a new approach.  Desperate to get a handle on her work AND her life and health.  She is reminding herself to put herself front & centre first and foremost and holding the belief that the rest of the chips will fall into place.  It’s a grand start!

 

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