S2E39: From Wrecked to Resilient - An Integrative Approach to Burnout Recovery for the Body, Brain and Soul
Elizabeth Collins is the owner and director of The East West Company, an integrative wellness practice specializing in burnout recovery coaching, functional medicine, acupuncture, and more. She uses her combined backgrounds in both Eastern and biomedicines, as well as her training in hypnosis, to approach healing from a perspective that seeks to fully integrate the mind, body, and spirit. After experiencing and recovering from burnout, she made it her mission to help others identify their values, explore their boundaries, and bring a sense of balance to both their body and brain.
Social media and contact information:
Website: www.theeastwestco.com
Instagram: @theeastwestco
Facebook: www.facebook.com/theeastwestco
1 Minute Meditation: https://insighttimer.com/elizabethcollins/guided-meditations/minute-meditation-for-relaxation-with-bird-song
Core Values Exercise: https://www.caitdonovan.com/freebie-values?fbclid=IwAR2GofdQqtMukOLzuM4PepsxXSwXif-y676cCT2hVLeaGi1vArllGRZW9K8
The Bouncebackability Factor: https://www.amazon.com/Bouncebackability-Factor-Burnout-Resilience-Change/dp/1735194905/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+bouncebackability+factor&qid=1644357459&sprefix=the+bouncebac%2Caps%2C72&sr=8-1
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were traumatized. Burnt-out recovering people come to learn. Maybe just maybe were all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damage self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is sent damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole.
Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These sorts of people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Elizabeth Collins. She has many roles in her life, daughter, sister, caregiver, and more. We'll talk about how she had a complex childhood and adulthood which presented as burnout and how she found health and healing let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today. We've got Elizabeth Collins with us. She is the owner and director of the East West Company and Integrative Wellness Practice specializing in burnout, recovery, coaching, functional medicine, acupuncture, and more. Gee, I wonder why there's burnout now.
She's laughing at me guys. She uses her combined backgrounds in both Eastern and. Biomedicines as well as her training and hypnosis to approach healing from a perspective that seeks to fully integrate the mind, body and spirit after experiencing and recovering from burnout, she's made it her mission to help others identify their values, explore their boundaries, and bring a sense of balance to both their body and mind.
And I'm thinking the best way to do that is to have experienced it, which is exactly what you did.
[00:02:49] Elizabeth Collins: Oh, yeah, absolutely. This is definitely coming from, and I've been in the driver's seat. So I can now sit in the passenger seat and guide you.
[00:02:57] Damaged Parents: Well now, did you have a guide when you went through burnout? or were you just like um okay. I'm going to figure this out.
[00:03:05] Elizabeth Collins: I did. So I actually didn't know I was burnt out. , that was pointed out to me, by the woman who became my coach, who was also a friend of mine as well. And a colleague. She was also an acupuncturist before she became a burnout coach and, I got to know her very kind of early in her coaching career.
And I had experienced, some speed bumps in my acupuncture practice. And she had run two, extraordinarily busy, successful acupuncture practices in, Europe, one in Warsaw, Poland, and then one in Prague in the Czech Republic. And she had started both of them from scratch. And so I reached out to her because I was struggling with that.
And I said, how did you do that? And she goes, oh, I burnt out. We're not going to do that with you. I'm not going to tell you how to become successful based on that, model or that paradigm, because that's not useful or helpful. she said you're incredibly burnt out and I'm going to help you with that.
And I said, I will do whatever you tell me to Yoda.
[00:03:59] Damaged Parents: Your own personal Yoda. I love that.
[00:04:02] Elizabeth Collins: truly great.
[00:04:03] Damaged Parents: I love what you said about her saying I'm not going to help you do it the way I did it. I'm going to help you with the burnout.
[00:04:10] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah, because it was critical. And I mean, she literally did burnout twice in the process of doing each business and she said, it's just, wholly unsustainable. So we're going to go through why that's unsustainable and make it sustainable for you as an individual, because you don't want to follow a template, you know?
And I think that's something that particularly entrepreneurs, but people in general are told, this is how to own a business. This is how to be a parent. This is how to, you know, whatever it is. People think that their way is the best way because it worked and it was successful for them.
[00:04:43] Damaged Parents: Right. So I think what you're leading into is that just because it was successful for someone else, it might not work for me.
[00:04:50] Elizabeth Collins: Right. And just because you're in the same industry does not mean that your business has to look the same way. You know, two people aren't going to parent the same way. So why would you essentially parent your business that way? Because if you're trying to build it based on what somebody else has done, you're not doing that in alignment with your own boundaries and your own values.
So you're building a business that's completely allowed out of alignment with who you are as an individual.
[00:05:14] Damaged Parents: Ooh, that's scary.
[00:05:15] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah. And it's very easy to do because in this day and age, there are so many places that say, you have to do this too. You have to market this way. You have to post this much on Instagram.
You have to, I don't know what a funnel is. don't know what it is.
[00:05:29] Damaged Parents: I don't know.
[00:05:30] Elizabeth Collins: something to do with marketing and SEO and, and stuff like that. I think funnel and I think funnel cake, because I grew up in the country and I used to go to county fairs. That's the only thing that I want. That is a funnel. So, you know.
you feel like you have to do all of this stuff and I'm not a marketing guru.
That's not me. So that's not where I'm putting my focus,
[00:05:52] Damaged Parents: Mm.
[00:05:53] Elizabeth Collins: putting my focus there, I'm taking it away from the strengths that I do have.
[00:05:57] Damaged Parents: It almost sounds like it's ego versus something. I'm not sure what word to put there.
[00:06:02] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah, and there's definitely an ego component to it. And ego can be a huge part of burnout. I am a perfectionist, a recovering perfectionist, and I had a lot of imposter syndrome. So it was very self-centered of me when I started my acupuncture business. If somebody came in and they got a treatment. And then they came in next week and they didn't say that they had had some massive improvement.
I took it as a failure upon myself because it was my job to do that. If they did have a huge improvement, I was like, yay. I did my job. There could be so many differences as to why one person got those results and not the other. You know, if I told both of them to go home and do certain types of exercises, like Tai Chi exercises, or Qi Gong exercises that would help the issue that they were coming in with.
If it was orthopedic in nature and one person did those exercises and the other person didn't, they're going to have very different outcomes that have nothing to do with the hour that they spent at my office. So being able to take my ego out of that and say that there's so much more than what I am putting into this, that results in the outcome.
[00:07:02] Damaged Parents: Well, and I can't help, but wonder if also that's not the path for that person.
[00:07:09] Elizabeth Collins: You know, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink. , I can bang somebody over the head as many times as I want with you, you need to stop eating dairy because it makes you really Flemmi or you need to rest a little bit more and not work out quite so much because you need time to let that tendon recover.
If they're not going to listen to me to not going to listen to me, that is a part of their journey. I can't do anything. there's certainly that. But when you internalize that it's your job to fix them as it was in my industry, in my head, that is a one-way ticket to burnout because anytime somebody comes in and they're not a hundred percent better or maximally improved, I didn't do my job.
[00:07:48] Damaged Parents: Oh, that would be devastating.
[00:07:51] Elizabeth Collins: It's exhausting.
that didn't start there. You know, when I was in school, if I got a B, it was like getting an F
[00:07:58] Damaged Parents: Hmm.
[00:07:59] Elizabeth Collins: that was deeply ingrained, which is the case in burnout for a lot of people, is that these patterns that start to cause such Mary havoc for us in our late twenties and early thirties and beyond are things that maybe served us very well when we were younger or things that we got praised for my parents never grounded me.
If I got a B. I very, very rarely failed anything, but I never got in trouble if I didn't get top grades, I just internalized the fact that they were very proud of me when I did get top grades.
[00:08:28] Damaged Parents: Oh, and then in your mind, maybe somehow turned it around. If I don't get this top grade, then I'm not loved.
[00:08:35] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
[00:08:36] Damaged Parents: Wow. That's painful.
[00:08:39] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
[00:08:39] Damaged Parents: Or if I'm not doing it exactly just right. I'm not loved. And that has nothing to do with the parents and just everything to do with how you processed the information or the kudos you got for getting good grades.
[00:08:53] Elizabeth Collins: My biological mother passed away when I was 13 months old. So there were a lot of feelings of abandonment and lack of worth. And I really didn't understand that I am worthy of love inherently, simply because I exist on this planet. I did not internalize that I started internalizing and equating praise with love, which is not something that my family taught me.
[00:09:16] Damaged Parents: So it took you a really long time to get to the point where it's you are and to, because you are, that is enough.
[00:09:23] Elizabeth Collins: And that is still something that I struggle with. It's something I struggled with it less significantly. but I still have mindfulness around it. of The world is not going to fall apart. If X, Y, Z does not go according to plan or as hoped or whatever the case may be.
[00:09:39] Damaged Parents: Okay. So you still have some of the remanence and are still working through that. I wonder if that has something to do. Like I keep thinking, you know, life is not a marathon. I think I heard someone refer to life as a marathon and I thought to myself, oh, isn't because that still implies, there's a finish line.
And I just wonder is there. You know, I'm not sure if you ever go off in those worlds, thinking about pondering these great philosophical
[00:10:05] Elizabeth Collins: Um, Girl, I'm a Pisces. I spend most of my time on another planet. So I just, I love fantasy worlds and philosophy and philosophizing and thinking, thinking about all of those things. So Yeah.
absolutely. The idea of the phrase, you know, life is a journey, not a destination. And I was just having this conversation with my partner yesterday because he and I are long distance right now and
it's a very nebulous place to be he's in school right now. There's a lot of various things to consider, like where we're going to land. I have a business, an established business that I'm very happy with where I am, but I also don't hold the expectation of like, you're just going to pick up all of your roots and come to me.
So it's very difficult to plan. And even the idea of planning makes me uncomfortable I used to a dated guy. He's a friend of mine now. And I used to love when he would say, if you want to make God laugh, make plans, because there's nothing that God thinks is funnier than a plan that he can just like Nope.
Kind of bulldoze his way through. So when I was talking to my partner, I was like, I don't want to make plans, but can we discuss ideas I do for what a variety of things would look like with the understanding that there is not. An expectation or an attachment to any of them. And he was like, Yeah.
I'm super open-minded to that because then It, doesn't pigeonhole anybody.
It doesn't put you in a place that doesn't make you feel like you have to abandon your own values. It's just a thought exercise. And so that idea of a marathon having a finish line, it's like, it's the same thing of like, okay, well let's sit down and make a plan. Let's sit down and workshop an idea. That works better for me as an individual.
[00:11:42] Damaged Parents: for me even thinking plan versus workshop and idea. Is, there's a lot less pressure with, let's just come up with some ideas. Then I've got to make a plan, because I think when I hear you say plan, what I'm thinking is step one, step two, step three. And if step two falls apart, step three, doesn't happen.
And then this and this, and I'm thinking that might be like when someone's in that mindset, that's where the burnout happens.
[00:12:09] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
absolutely. And again, a lot of this for me, because my burnout happened around my business does tie back around to my business and it was like, all right, well, I'm moving to a different city. So I have to do this and do that and do this and do that. You don't have to meet other practitioners and they in school, they said, take a stack your business cards and go out and drop them off to all the chiropractors in the area.
And the area that I moved to, which is Rhode Island is a very. I don't mean this in a negative way, but it's a very insular area. It's a very small area. Everybody knows everybody. And if you're not from here and you're not a part of the local culture, it takes people a minute to be like, who are you?
There's a little bit of stranger danger. And it takes a little bit to become a part of the community. So I've been here for seven and a half years, I think now, and I very much am a part of the community now, but that took time to cultivate and the way in which I went about it initially. It's not something that made anybody comfortable and I didn't know any better because I was just listening to what somebody else had told me. So I was following someone else's plan for myself and it did me. Absolutely no favors in the process.
[00:13:12] Damaged Parents: So now having this history of burnout and being in a place of recovery from that burnout, what, what would you do differently the next time, if you were to, to build another business in a different area to stay away out of burnout or not that you could stop it? I mean, I don't know.
[00:13:32] Elizabeth Collins: There is an awareness of it. And that's kind of one of the most interesting things about burnout recovery is when you come to whatever marker you eventually decide is the other side of that, of like, I don't feel quite like this anymore. You're still going to have stress, how you respond to that is going to be very different.
So, we're not saying, you know.
I'm not selling you on some package of like, and four months from now, you'll never have stress again. Like that's what life is. Life is stress. It's how we grow. But your ability to respond to it effectively, efficiently, and in ways that are safe and meaningful for you. That's huge.
That's what we do with burnout recovery. So if I were to have to relocate someplace and start all over again, the first thing I would do is get extraordinarily clear on my values as an individual.
What do I value now? I mean, I'm also an introvert. So the idea of going to 20 chiropractic offices And handing out cards over the course of six hours.
That's an anxiety attack. That's not like an exercise in marketing that is just an anxiety
[00:14:34] Damaged Parents: And probably super exhausting
for an for introvert.
[00:14:37] Elizabeth Collins: so exhausting. I there's nothing. I abhor more than small talk. so what I would probably do is knowing the area that I'm going to, I would research like-minded practitioners in the area and actually reach out to them individually and say, Hey, would you like to get coffee.
I'm moving to the area. I could really use some connections. I checked out your website. I looked at your history. I've gotten to know who you are as an individual. And I think what you're doing is meaningful and in alignment with what I do as a practitioner
And I think having four or five of those connections versus business cards in 20 offices of people who don't actually know you, that's more meaningful for me, that's more in alignment with my values and that will be worth its weight in gold when it comes to patient referrals.
Because the people that I know know me and they know that I have the same values and they know how I practice.
[00:15:25] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And it's not just another name on a list,
[00:15:28] Elizabeth Collins: Exactly.
[00:15:29] Damaged Parents: which I love how you said values because maybe for someone else. For them having the card or being the name on the list is just with that's enough,
[00:15:38] Elizabeth Collins: Exactly. And there may be somebody who is charismatic enough. I'm not a charismatic person and I'm the most awkward person you're going to meet. So. For somebody who is charismatic enough and comfortable in that environment, they can go in and they can kill that cell in two minutes or five minutes or whatever the case may be.
That's not who I am as a person. And so endeavoring to do that looks very awkward and looks very disjointed and does not give the person confidence in who I am as an interview.
[00:16:04] Damaged Parents: Well, yeah, because you're also not in alignment with those values. So if you're not in alignment with the values, I think that there is something people pick up on whether or not they believe in, you know, the magnetic fields or vibrations or whatever. I think that. When someone doesn't have that integrity, it's people sense that
whether,
I mean, whether it's a facial expression or a word it's the.
[00:16:31] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah, and values are huge in burnout recovery. It's one of the primary things that I work with people. I do a values exercise with almost all of my clients, because when you know what your values are, you know, what your boundaries are
[00:16:43] Damaged Parents: Hmm.
[00:16:43] Elizabeth Collins: and boundaries are massive when it comes to burnout.
[00:16:46] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And it would be easier to make decisions. I would think.
[00:16:50] Elizabeth Collins: A hundred percent. So one of the things that I love about it is like, for me, I think the last time, the last couple of times I've done a values exercise. I'm single. I have cats, you know, and for kids. So family is important to me, but I foster the relationships with my immediate family that I want and need.
And everybody, I think, feels pretty comfortable with that. So. I don't feel like that needs to be a value of which I need to be reminded or hold in, my mind on a regular basis to remind myself of like, we have good relationships and we have good boundaries. So family was not one of my values on that list, but for somebody who does have that, let's say you want to have dinner with your family four nights a week.
That leaves you three other nights per week, that you can do stuff. One night, you have a bowling league and you like that, and you enjoy that. And so you go out to your bowling leads to that leads you two nights a week, whatever they may be. One of your friends is in town traveling and says, Hey, can we have dinner Monday night?
Yes. I would love to see you. You make plans with your partner and you know, a couple of friends and their kids for Saturday night and another friend reaches out to you and says, Hey, it's been a really long time since I've seen you. I would love to connect. I'm so sorry. Like we've got, you know, our family nights.
Planned this week, I've got my bowling night and then my other two nights are taken up. You don't have to worry about like, oh God, like I got to keep the person that I don't see all the time because they're in town. Should I cancel on the other couple? Cause we do see them kind of a lot. It takes that stress off the table because it makes the decision for you. So you don't have to ruminate on it. You don't have to, I hate math. You don't have to do any math in the process of figuring that out.
[00:18:22] Damaged Parents: well, except for the amount of days you've got full,
[00:18:24] Elizabeth Collins: Except for the amount of days, for your family, one for your bowling league, two other freebies, once those freebies are taken and that can also include absolutely nothing.
If you decide, like I need a me night, I'm not doing anything. That's your other free night and that's it. So you can say I'm so sorry. I'm completely booked this week. What's your Tuesday, like next week,
[00:18:44] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:18:44] Elizabeth Collins: it's a boundary that is clean, clear firm and kind. You're not telling the person like, Ooh, I'd love to, but it's just, oh, I can't this week.
[00:18:53] Damaged Parents: Yeah, it's almost easier to take something you said though was like, one of those nights could be your free time and talk about that was that hard schedule in free time or self care for yourself with
burnout.
[00:19:07] Elizabeth Collins: That is probably one of the hardest things that I struggle with and I am currently in somatic therapy. So I've used a variety of things to recover from burnout. from acupuncture to functional medicine, you know, a lot of those things that I do, but I go to other people for them because there is something very meaningful in giving yourself over to another person and letting them care for you.
And it also helps me to pay someone else. To help me with that stuff because I have a very hard time accepting help. So if there's a financial exchange that's useful right now, I am paying for sematic therapy because I spend a lot of time in my head. You hear how quickly I talk? I think even faster. So I spend So much time in my head that spending an hour with my coach doing somatic work, reminds me to be in my body.
And it has given me the opportunity to, when I feel that inner monologue spiraling say, what do I need right now? Which is very different from what do I need to do right now?
[00:20:05] Damaged Parents: So the difference between what do I need to do right now and what do I need right now? Can you give us an example?
[00:20:12] Elizabeth Collins: What do I need to do right now in my head goes to, I need to feed the cats. They need to feed the dishes. I need to make sure that I take the garbage out because the garbage is coming tomorrow. And I want to take that up this morning because we're supposed to get rain tonight. What do I need right now? I'm feeling overwhelmed and I need to sit down and breathe and pet one of my cats for a minute and get a little bit of dopamine online and take a deep breath and stop the chatter and then decide what absolutely needs to happen. The cats definitely need to get fed before I leave the house. That's about it.
[00:20:40] Damaged Parents: Hm,
[00:20:41] Elizabeth Collins: And so taking that moment of what do I need helps me clarify, what do I need to do?
[00:20:47] Damaged Parents: was it hard shifting to the, what do I need? And in those moments, doing that.
[00:20:55] Elizabeth Collins: it was incredibly hard, primarily not because I didn't want to do it, but because I didn't know to do it, it was not an ingrained pattern. So in neuroscience we have what's called Hebb's law, which very simply put neurons that fire together, wire together. So the more you think about something, the more your brain says, this is important.
And it creates one of those little grooves in your brain to make it a more permanent part of your brain. So if you grow up being a perfectionist and an overachiever and a doer, because you've been taught that sitting as wasteful or lazy, that becomes your way of life, literally in your brain.
And before you freak out, it can change. You can change your neuroscience, but the longer those neurons are firing together, the more deeply they are wiring together.
[00:21:44] Damaged Parents: So let's say you're in the middle of your, spin-out, like at the beginning of burnout recovery and you have this thought, I just need to sit. Was it easy? What happened? Did it feel awkward? What, what happened?
[00:21:59] Elizabeth Collins: So one of the things that we do with burnout recovery clients is that we don't ask you to do too much too soon. I never ask a burnout recovery client to learn how to meditate for like 15 minutes, because your brain literally can't. one of the many things that occurs biologically in burnout is that your brain shrinks and the connection between, your right and left hemispheres becomes less connected.
So there is a disconnect between the two sides of your brain, which makes it very difficult for it to talk to itself. So trying to meditate for somebody in burnout is literally not a possibility
[00:22:33] Damaged Parents: could someone in burnout tries to meditate for any period of time. I mean, couldn't it also turn into just those thoughts over and over instead of it going to the what-ifs to the positive, it's just what ifs to the negative. And it's even more spiraling.
[00:22:50] Elizabeth Collins: It's different for everybody, but it absolutely can. So one of the things that we often do is we will give people very simple, very simple exercise. And one of the things that I still do for myself that I give to a lot of my clients is I want you to breathe for one minute. And I happen to have an apple watch.
This is not sponsored by apple in any way, shape or form, but I got it. And one of the things that I like is the mindfulness, reminder on it and you can set it, you know, you want to breeze, however many breaths per minute. I want four breaths per minute because I really want to slow down and I want to breathe for one minute.
And that's it. So I set my apple watch to go off three or four times a day because I'm not going to stop myself to do it. So you can set a timer on your phone as well to buzz, or just a little chime that doesn't absolutely make you rage because I have an, a highly sensitive person and I have ADHD. So if my phone keeps pinging, it actually like makes me Twitch.
so you can set your phone or a watch or a Fitbit or something like that to go off several times a day. It's making you stop and do it. And when you stop and do this regularly enough, it will become something that you go to. Because again, those neurons that fire together wire together. So initially you may need something like an aide to help you practice that kind of thing.
But as that becomes a bigger part of your daily practice, you will be able to access it at times when your watch, where your phone is not going off.
[00:24:10] Damaged Parents: Well, and I would think if you're using a regular time specific timed schedule, then you would get used to looking at it at those times of day. And then maybe like the next step might be a random reminder. So it just gets you at different times throughout the day maybe catches you in one of those moments like, oh, that's what's happening.
[00:24:30] Elizabeth Collins: And it depends on your day. So I'm in and out with patients a lot. So I specifically set it at times when largely speaking, I knew I would be at my desk because I will definitely be distracted doing something on a computer, whether it's a chart note or something from marketing or ordering supplies for my business.
I'll be doing something, but I won't be in with a patient where I'll have to silence it and then forget about it when I walk out of the room. So that can be really helpful as well as setting them at times where, you know, if You're burnt out, you're probably stressed.
And tailor it to the person's needs. So burnout is a very individual process.
[00:25:05] Damaged Parents: I would think so, because like you were saying for one person, they might need it to be on a schedule. and that in fact would be like the most helpful thing. And for another person, it might be well, they are a little more flexible and are able to take that breath in whatever they're doing and catch themselves in the midst of those thoughts.
, I think of I'm of course, thinking of myself, like I would start preparing for my breath. Oh, it's almost that time.
[00:25:37] Elizabeth Collins: You know, it's funny. It reminded me of, can't remember. I read it somewhere or I saw it someplace is that people who, really attach meaning to things like 11, 11 and stuff like that is that. If you start looking at your clock at like 1109 and then you're like, oh, it's 11, 11.
Like, it kind of almost loses that. Meaning if you're prepping for it, versus just like seeing it and being grateful when it happens.
[00:25:59] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:26:00] Elizabeth Collins: one of Bernie Brown's books.
[00:26:02] Damaged Parents: Maybe she writes a lot of great stuff. I mean,
[00:26:05] Elizabeth Collins: I love herself. Yeah.
[00:26:06] Damaged Parents: She really? And what's, her tagline stay awkward, brave and something true. I think
[00:26:12] Elizabeth Collins: Oh, I love that. I didn't know that that was her tagline, but I'm a fan. I can do all of their things. I can achieve that
[00:26:17] Damaged Parents: I write, I can. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I'm always awkward asking my kids.
[00:26:23] Elizabeth Collins: you okay? Well that you have to be awkward. Like that's your job as a mom is to be awkward for them.
[00:26:29] Damaged Parents: I think so one of the kids this morning, I went to wake her up and she was still like halfway asleep. I just hugged her. And she's like,
[00:26:38] Elizabeth Collins: How
[00:26:38] Damaged Parents: I must 17 and 19 now.
[00:26:42] Elizabeth Collins: Oh yeah. You're not, you're not out of the awkward days yet.
[00:26:45] Damaged Parents: no,
[00:26:46] Elizabeth Collins: at
[00:26:46] Damaged Parents: I love it because I want them to be okay with that. My mom was like, You know, th the, look, the look with the awkward or a silliness and me, I'm like, yeah, come on. Let's go. I would take them out. And, stopping in the puddles was a must, and it didn't matter how wet or dirty you got.
You just had to go do it because you were a kid. And if that's what makes you happy, then, you know, my youngest loved it. My oldest, not so much, but we did it,
[00:27:15] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
Well, you meet them where they're at. Okay. The oldest doesn't have to it was funny. Very early on in our relationship. Again, I have cats and one of them got on the counter and was like looking into the pot into the instant pot, which was still like empty. And I was like, I looked at her and I was like, you want to get in it?
You can get in it. We'll just clean it. And my boyfriend looked at me and he was just like, you're going to be a great mom. Like if you're not freaking out about that. And you're just like, we'll just clean it. And I was like, Yeah. jeans, get grass stains. Like
what.
[00:27:42] Damaged Parents: But do you think you would have said that before recovery burnout, recovery.
[00:27:47] Elizabeth Collins: With cats. Yes. Because they own you, they will do it. Like there's, there's no way around that. Um, and yeah, that definitely was something that I was trending towards far before burnout recovery is understanding what you can control and being far more relaxed about things that you can't. so that was definitely well within my worldview where I struggle a lot with that is in my business.
I am a solo preneur, so everything is under my control.
[00:28:20] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:28:21] Elizabeth Collins: So a lot of it has to do with how pressing is it? How can I triage it. What needs to be done right now? What can be put off for me as well? I had a lot of, burnout as also physical. So I had some vitamin and mineral deficiencies. I had small intestine, bacterial overgrowth.
I found out two months ago that I have chronic Lyme that I started treating last month, which completely turned my life around once I started treating that. and when I started treating some of these physical symptoms, some of the cognitive behavioral symptoms became. Significantly improved. , I did, a gut clearing protocol and I had to do a whole 30 at the same time.
And by the time I got done with that, I was somebody who didn't need a list anymore. If I had to go get five things at the grocery store, because I couldn't function without lists for the entirety of my life up until that point and being able to address my vitamin D deficiency. And clear my guts and do a lot of those things significantly impacted my ability to function, even treating the Lyme from last month to this month, my decision-making capacity is better.
I stress less about it.
[00:29:30] Damaged Parents: It sounds to me, from what you're saying, burnout may simply be burnout. It might also have some health, some real physical, not sure because I think burnout can cost physical ramifications, but I also think physical ramming the things happening physically can also cause burnout
[00:29:48] Elizabeth Collins: it's very much a chicken or egg situation. And what I have found historically is that.
burnout is both biological and behavioral.
[00:29:53] Damaged Parents: And treating. So if someone is feeling burnout, then it would make sense for them to, to check in with their, with their clinician or their doctor, and also work on the burnout
[00:30:06] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
[00:30:06] Damaged Parents: whatever that means.
[00:30:08] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
absolutely. So, my coach worked with an acupuncturist and a functional medicine practitioner, other coaches, and I think a therapist is a part of her recovery. I've done the same thing for people who cannot access functional medicine, because it is more out of pocket. We always recommend that you start with your GP, do a full blood panel.
Check your vitamin and mineral levels. particularly with vitamin D I live in the Northeast. So that tends to be a big one around here, but it is a type of vitamin that needs to be monitored. So everybody's just like, I'll just go get some vitamin D cause it's February, if you're not deficient, that's not a good thing to do because vitamin D toxicity can occur and that can look very much like vitamin D deficiency.
So you do have to be very careful when you're addressing the biological underpinnings of burnout. If you think that there are some there, you want to do that with a clinician in mind, you don't just want to go on Dr. Google and say like, these are my symptoms because symptoms are so broad brain fog can be caused by vitamin D deficiency or toxicity.
It can be a vitamin B12 deficiency. It can be small intestine, bacterial overgrowth, or leaky gut or thyroid issues or adrenal problems like there's no shortage of things that can cause it. So going to a clinician who has the ability to tease that out for you is really, really important.
[00:31:24] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And I would think it'd be really important to listen to the body. it's almost like you've got to have a team, you know, your clinician and, or a coach or therapist, or to help really work out what's happening, because it could be so many. Interlaced things
[00:31:43] Elizabeth Collins: Burnout recovery is not something to be done on your own. You can start gathering the resources on your own, certainly. And your primary care physician is a good place to start for the biological piece of things. There are some really useful books out there that I'd be happy to send you links to so that you can have them in the show notes for people.
But especially people in burnout feel like they need to do stuff themselves. I can hack it. I can do it. I've got this. Yes, you do. Along with a bunch of other people.
[00:32:11] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Mm Hmm. The interesting thing is though, as I'm thinking about this, someone in burnout is usually is probably an introvert or, you know, the people more likely to burn out perfectionistic, introverted, types of people who really believe they got it. They've they can do it on their own, right?
Like that. So that's going to be extremely humbling and , it would really need to be a safe place. I would think.
[00:32:36] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah, burnout recovery is it's interesting. Introverts and extroverts can burnout and extroverts are also prone to it because they feed on energy. And so sometimes they can miss the moments where they do need to slow down and recharge because we all do need that. We just need varying degrees of it. I need all of it.
I'm on the far end of that spectrum, but somebody who's on the far end of the extrovert spectrum still needs to come home and recharge in a different way once in a while. but yes, people do tend to be. The types of people who try and do stuff on their own, which is why they end up in burnout anyway.
And so having a safe space, not judging is a huge part of recovery is making sure that you have a safe space to know that and the coping mechanisms and things that you have used up to this point, they've gotten you here. So if somebody says I come home, I have to drink wine every night to unwind, or I can't slow down.
It's like, Okay.
Like I know a lot of people who have been there I've been that person before I get that. And there's no shame in that because you're just trying to get through your day. How do you feel about that now? Where do you want to be with that Right.
now? Because I'm not going to ask you to change anything that you don't feel you can or want to change. If somebody says I'd really like to change that. Okay. Let's look at the variables that play into why you feel that way.
[00:34:03] Damaged Parents: Hmm. So it's really very much led by The person in burnout.
[00:34:07] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah.
It's very much based on meeting them where they're at and figuring out the places where you can most efficiently meet their needs with the least amount of input in order to get them to feel like they can start recovering and these are usually simple sounding changes, like breathing for one minute, several times a day.
That does not sound hard to a lot of people. It can be incredibly grueling for somebody in burnout to just get used to that for a couple of weeks. And then once they've done it for a couple of weeks, it's like, okay. And so sometimes they can come home and they can be like, I can breathe right? now. And so they'll take a minute or two to breathe and be like, I'm just going to have one glass of wine tonight. Like, those are the types of shifts that we start to see and no judgment. If you do want to have more than one glass of wine, it's your life.
[00:34:50] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Elizabeth Collins: You know, I'm not here to judge your choices. I'm here to give you tools to make the choices you want to make.
[00:34:58] Damaged Parents: right? The tools to make the choices you want to make that are in line with your values. They have nothing to do with you, which is what I'm hearing most importantly, from like a coaching perspective. It's not about what the coach wants. It's really about what the client wants.
[00:35:13] Elizabeth Collins: Yeah. And the analogy that I kind of use is like, if we're in a car, you were driving your car. I have the map. I can tell you to turn left. I can say like, all right, like if you want to get from New York to San Diego, take a left here. You were driving that car. You can be like, Nope, I'm going straight. My job is to say, all right, we're going straight.
What other points on the map will get us to San Diego?
[00:35:36] Damaged Parents: Hmm. Nice. I'd love that analogy. Okay. So the top three tips or tools, if somebody is in burnout right now, what are first three things you would have them do or, invite them to do? I should say.
[00:35:49] Elizabeth Collins: first three things, breathe that one minute breathing exercise. I actually made a meditation. For insight timer to have people relax the muscles around their eyes with one breath, their jaw, with another breath, their shoulders and their abdomen doing something that really simple is huge. And again, I said it before and I'll say it again.
It doesn't sound huge, but it's huge. Talk to your doctor, or if you have the means, find a functional medicine practitioner because if you have some of those biological underpinnings, like leaky gut or a vitamin deficiency, being able to address that could be a really quick and simple fix for you. That ends up being a complete game changer and a PCP or a GP is usually the easiest person to involve initially for people.
And. I will say I had a scorching vitamin D deficiency when I first started my recovery and two weeks on high dose vitamin D to get that just up to where it needed to be. And then a maintenance dose for another few weeks got me to a point where I could cook dinner because I couldn't scrape myself off of my couch when I got home and I was eating a shit load of take out.
[00:36:54] Damaged Parents: Mm.
[00:36:55] Elizabeth Collins: So being able to address some of those biological underpinnings that are very easy, kind of low hanging fruit. To get to is another really good place to start.
[00:37:04] Damaged Parents: Yeah,
[00:37:04] Elizabeth Collins: And then start looking for resources that are accessible right.
now for you. Most of us is burnout. Coaches have things like that. So my coach has a values exercise that you can get on her website that I will send you the link for it.
I have the meditation on insight timer. my coach has written a book and there are two other authors, their sisters, Emily and Amelia Nagoski also wrote a book on burnout. So those are places that you can start if you're not at the point that you're ready to hire a coach, or you don't even know if you're burnt out and you want more information.
[00:37:35] Damaged Parents: thank you so much, Elizabeth Collins for coming on the show, you can find her at https://theeastwestco.com she's also on Instagram with the same tag, @theeastwestco and on Facebook, @theeastwestco as well. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
[00:37:53] Elizabeth Collins: Oh, thank you, Angela. I always appreciate an open and welcoming platform to talk about burnout and get the word out. So I appreciate it.
[00:38:01] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Elizabeth about how she recovered from burnout. We especially liked when she spoke about finding balance and peace in her life. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on YouTube. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
