The Livy Method Podcast - Burnout with Cynthia Loyst - Winter 2025

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

On this Guest Expert episode, we welcome national bestselling author, podcast creator, and television host Cynthia Loyst, best known as the co-host of CTV’s The Social. Cynthia gets real about her personal experience with burnout, breaking down the difference between stress and true burnout, and why chasing a “balanced life” might not be the solution. Gina and Cynthia talk about energy leaks—how the people we surround ourselves with, social media, and the news can quietly drain us—and the importance of creating space in a world full of noise. Cynthia shares practical tools for burnout recovery, including using a Values List to anchor decisions, the power of meditation, and even the science behind cold plunges to restore vitality. Plus, she gives us a glimpse into her book, Find Your Pleasure: The Art of Living a More Joyful Life. Tune in for an honest and insightful conversation on protecting your energy and reclaiming your joy.Where to find Cynthia:Instagram: @cynthialoyst and @cynthiaandjosiehttp://www.findyourpleasure.com/ and http://www.cynthiaandjosie.com/Daily at 2 pm EST on The Social on CTV You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodwinter2025To learn more about the Livy Method, or to sign up for the Spring 2025 Program, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi Method Podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 Day Weight Loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the Morning Live? Want to relisten to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place.

This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon music. This is an opportunity to become curious. To learn some things. How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient.

How do you know if you are burnt out? What can you do about it? How is it affecting your weight loss journey? How can you add or find pleasure in your life? Here to have this chat with me is my guest today, Cynthia Lois. She's one of the hosts of The Social, which is a daytime show that airs nationally here in Canada. It airs every day at 2 p.m., at least Monday through Friday, Eastern Standard Time. She's also the author of the book, Find Your Pleasure.

And she's also the host of the podcast, Cynthia and Josie's Unmentionables, which I actually had the pleasure of going on. So I'm looking forward to our conversation. Hi, hello, welcome. Hi, Gina, it's nice to see you. I was just saying, this is like I'm taking a deep breath. I'm looking forward to this.

I know it's gonna be a great conversation. We're gonna have a lot of fun having the conversation, but I feel like this is very indulgent conversation for myself because I'm pretty sure I have been burnt out or constantly am on the stage of burnout. And I'm wondering if that's where we should start with this conversation is your experience with burnout today.

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think you're in good company, first of all, thank you for sharing that even. And I think one of the things that I've noticed is that people, women in particular, who are ambitious, they will run the risk of having burnout. And again, I am not an expert on burnout, but I am an expert on my burnout story. And I will say through the process of being, I'm an expert on my burnout story. And I will say through the process of being, going through this, I learned a hell of a lot and I've come out the other side. And so I definitely do feel like I have some wisdom to share.

So my story starts probably sometime, actually, if you really wanna go back, it probably starts predates, like it's probably started 10 years ago, burbling under the surface. But what happened to me in and around the summer of 2023, my partner was out of town, he works in film and television,

so I was single parenting and I was doing my full-time job. And if anyone's parents, our parents who are listening right now, there's a lot of scheduling and pickups and drop-offs and camps and negotiating things. Plus, I also have always been having side hustles, right? I've read a book, I read a website, and I work on a podcast. So I have like different loves and there's, I have a lot of energy and things I want to do. And so that's the sort of backdrop. So what I could feel myself just sort of,

I would say fraying at the edges, sort of a little bit clippier. I found myself rushing a lot. I found myself not really having any time to do anything for me. And it all kind of came to a head one day when my son, I was rushing him of course, to get into the car so I could take him to work,

so I could catch, take him to school so I could catch my train. And I got him to school just on time and I looked in the back seat and his backpack was nowhere to be found. And so any parents who faced this moment, which is just like, shit, like I'm going to be the one who's going to be late because of this. Like I can't just send them in without a school bag, without a lunch, without anything. So I was so disappointed. And then he got mad at me back and he said, I hate you. And it was like this coming out of this 11 year old's mouth for the first time when we

have a really close relationship. And I, as soon as he left the car, I just burst into tears. And you know, what, what was striking about that was that I could not stop crying at that point. I sobbed hysterically all the way back to my home, all the way back to his school, all the way to my train. And then I showed up for my morning meeting, which we had for the social every day. I could barely hold it together. And then it was like I was this balloon. As soon as one of my co-hosts said, are you OK?

I just burst into tears again. And mercifully, one of my leaders said, I think, do you need to take a couple, like some time off? And so I was sort of like, I guess so. I don't even know. I called my doctor and I remember crying and saying, is this perimenopause? And she's like, no, she's known me for a long time.

She was like, no, this might be a piece of the pie. But what I think you're going through right now is burnout. And I think prior to that, I thought of burnout as like a euphemism that Hollywood stars used for like some other problem, like an addiction problem. And then I also noticed in the culture that we throw around that word a lot, like I'm feeling so burnt out today and whatever. I didn't know what it was. So I immediately

started doing research about what it was. And lo and behold, I discovered all these things. I don't know if you want me to stop there or keep going. Well, I mean, in preparation for this today, I mean, I could have like researched this and researched that. But what we did is in the group, we put out a post. What do you want to know about burnout? What's the conversation? And, you know, so I just basically have a whole bunch of questions from our members that I'm going to run through

and ask you, but one of them was like, is how do you know the difference between just stressed out, burnt out, depressed, or menopause or whatever stage of like, what defined to you, what was, what was the, what defines burnout? What differentiates it from all the, just the regular everyday stuff that we're dealing with? I mean, that's great.

And in the Venn diagram, I think there can be some overlap. So let me tell you two things. One, the World Health Organization defines burnout as more of like an occupational hazard. They frame it around workplace burnout. It's not technically a mental health diagnosis. It's not really a diagnosis at all. And I think there's a very good reason, again, not an expert, but an expert on my life and just an observer.

I think there's a reason why the World Health Organization can't claim it as a mental health diagnosis in and of itself, because I think you'd have then this crisis of mental health. We already are in a crisis of mental health. There are three components that typically go along with burnout, these three things. So they are physical and emotional exhaustion is number one. The second thing is a sense of cynicism and detachment from your work

or from your life. And the third thing is feeling a lack of productivity, a lack of impact related to your work. But the thing is what we know is, is that workplace burnout is one thing, but then there's also all kinds of different spaces that we also have burnout. We can have caregiver burnout, we can have parenthood burnout, we can have, I think, even relational burnout at some points in time. And I think when left unattended, it can very quickly become depression, clinical depression. So, and I think where it differentiates from just normal everyday stress is if you are waking up repeatedly morning after morning and feeling like you're not having any good days

and that just that almost like I like to think of it as a battery. You know when your batteries kind of like you've charged them too many times and then they start to lose their charge, you can't like you'll plug it in again and it can only go up like 10% and you're like, what the hell? I think that that's a good analogy for when you are burnt

out, it's like the normal things that you would do, like a weekend off or a vacation can fill you up. And then you can move on through life again. When you're burnt out, no amount of a weekend off or a spa day or whatever is going to fix you. Yeah. And this is where you shouldn't need a vacation to recover from your life. I just want to say too, these conversations are about awareness, not diagnosing or prescribing or anything like that. And there could be other underlying physical reasons, low iron, all actual depression, things going on in your life that are causing you that

fatigue. So if you're ruling out all of those things, but you know, this is like maybe what you are dealing with is burnout. It's interesting where we're at with this week in the program, as you know, is we're feeding the metabolism, so splitting up all the meals and snacks. And some people are returning members like, Oh, I love this. This is fun. And it's cool. And I love the way it gets us even more in tune. And other people are just straight up angry.

They're like, this is inconvenient and I don't have time for this and I'm, ah, you know, and this is where like, let's take a look at what's going on in your life, because it's probably a deeper issue than what I'm asking you to do for four days. And this could just feel like you can't do one more thing. one more thing. Like I am just, I can't. I'm a breaking point. You add one more thing. I'm barely hanging on by the skin between burnout or depression? The next one, does Cynthia have any tips for balancing or to mitigate burnout? How do you balance cooking, cleaning, and self-care and all of it? How do you balance all of that? I mean, I think we have to stop assuming

that we're going to be able to balance it all. And I think this is part of the problem why so many women are, we were sold this idea that we could juggle it all. We could have the family and the partnership and the full-time career and still be able to keep this Pinterest-worthy home and everything on Instagram looks perfect.

And I think perfectionism is a huge component also that is an additional stressor that can lead eventually to burnout. And so I think everyone's situation is going to be slightly unique. But I think one of the things that we have to start doing, and Kristin Neff is an incredible author who's written a lot about burnout and also about self-compassion, and she's done a ton of research around this. And she talks a lot about, it sounds like cheesy, but it's like about being more mindful about giving ourselves a break.

So it's like reframing certain things. Like I have had to liberate myself from some of the messages that I got growing up, which is that as soon as a meal is done, you swing right into it. You have to clean the dishes. You have to, there's these have to's that I had absorbed if you're a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, your house should look like this and

you should, you know, be cleaning this way. And the thing is, is that I can't do that and keep my mental health in check. I can't do that. So some things are going to slip through the cracks. My house looks very well lived in during the week. And so like again, everyone's situation is going to be different. It's like, can, where can you outsource? And then I think the biggest thing, Gina, also is taking stock of where are your energy leaks? Do you have friends who are energy vampires? Are you allowing, for example, social media? A lot of people think that when they're tapping into Instagram

or YouTube and they're scrolling through, they're doing it, it's fun, maybe some cat videos, whatever. I don't think we realize how impactful the experience of doing that and even getting those dopamine hits is on our nervous system. We were not designed to be fed all of this bells and whistles and information and make no mistake about it, it is wreaking havoc on your sense of calm, of wellbeing, even if you've curated a good list. But chances are also you're still encountering every once in a while something also that is quite jarring. And to go back to my burnout story, it was also around October of 2023, which where everything

was happening at the beginning of the story happening in the Middle East. And there was something so obviously we were all, the whole world has been watching that and our hearts have been breaking over that. And I think we were not designed, our nervous systems were not designed to be taking in the 24 hour news cycle. And especially the way that social media

presents news often to us alongside a cat video. Like it's something very crass about reading a very, you know, story about a dead child up against something very, very fluffy. That's, that is to me incongruous and it was wreaking havoc on my wellbeing. I just want to say, I got a comment here, Maryland's like, she's laughing.

She's like, just wave the white flag and admit we can't do it all. Sounds glorious, but easier said than done. I think this doesn't mean that you can't do the things that you want to do, but to your point, what are all the other things that we're taking on that we're not realizing that we're taking on? You know what's interesting, even being on vacation, because with my job, I'm taking photos of food

and showing people and whatever. But to go on vacation or spend time with my family where I also don't in the back of my mind think, should I take a photo of this food? Or should I take a video of me doing this? Or should I take a photo of my kids because this vacation with my kids never happened unless I have a video of me doing this? Or should I take a photo of my kids because this vacation with my kids never happened unless I have a photo or and my mom wants to see it,

my family wants to see it. And it's not just me like showing it. And it's just like, wow, I just can't even go on like spend time with my kids without this thing in the back of my mind of all these other things I need to do on vacation. So I think there's a lot of things we do that we don't realize we're doing that are adding stress that we don't need to do. That makes sense. Of course. And that's the way I described it is it's like it's noise. When I feel that there's a constant noise going on in my

brain. That means I'm not getting peace. I'm not getting rest in the way that I need it. So there was things that I had to do immediately when I went on leave, which was that I had noticed for a while and maybe some people can relate to this, that if I ever woke up in the middle of that 3 a.m., woke up in the middle of the night, I would go on my phone and just be like, oh, I guess I'll just kill some time, whatever.

I never do that anymore. I forbid myself from ever doing that anymore because again, it will disrupt my sleep more. I had to completely reframe my relationship to alcohol. I quit drinking completely for six months and it's a very interesting thing if that speaks to some people there. Like for me it was like I need to get rest and anything that is possibly getting in the way of deep deep rest I'm eliminating. So I eliminated some relationships. I started keeping a journal and people are sort of flippant about journals, whatever.

But it actually is quite an interesting window. If you write for like 10 minutes in the morning or at the end of your day, just kind of like, sometimes I use prompts. Sometimes I'm just sort of, you know, chronicling what is in my heart or in my mind or what happened in my heart or in my mind or what happened in my day, when you go back a few months afterwards, your biggest issues are writ large. It's very obvious what you need to do to fix or change or eliminate in your life.

Very, very obvious when you journal on a regular basis. So those are just some of the things that I definitely did in order to make space for also, because when I started eliminating a lot of noise and a lot of like distractions it was amazing how much more space I had to do other things. Yeah it's one thing to know when you need it how do we get other people to understand that we need it too I have a question here that I want to share in a minute because you did this very publicly. You were offered this incredible opportunity in television and you know the

landscape of television is changing and to have to actually have a job in television is like that is that is huge these days and you had to take a step back from that and I have this comment from Cathy. My own experience from crawling out of burnout period was such a vulnerable time where I felt like I would never get out of it. The judgment of others or my perceived judgment of others was really difficult as I wondered if people believed me. How do we deal with that vulnerable feeling? I mean, you had to do that in front of like all of Canada. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was,

I had to kind of quiet that noise. I had moments where I felt that and you can read it. I'm like, you can feel like people are, they might be kind to your face, but you can see sort of behind their eyes. It's like, sort of like, okay, she's like needed to take like, Oh, my goodness, and sensitive Cynthia, like, I, but I had to quiet that out, because I just thought, what is that serving me?

And yeah, it was embarrassing. Yes, it was also, I worried that I put extra weight and I did extra work on my co-host. I felt terrible about that. And also my mental health, my family, my situation mattered. And so I, and I also knew what I went through. Like I knew that this was not an exaggerated thing. I knew that I had these, this rage monster and then this absolute sadness that was,

that was debilitating for a period of time. And so while I feel grateful that I was able to take a little chunk of time off, I also strongly believe that people can get through it even if they don't have that access to that at their work. I mean, ideally you would have that at your work and some people eventually are also gonna have to realize they have to change their line of work

in order to get through it. Yeah, well, even though maybe the circles that they are in, I remember there was a point last year where I just realized I couldn't keep it up. I just like, I can't. And I was trying to schedule things and things were going really well. And I was like making commitments to things

that just the minute I say yes, I would dread. And I had to be like, okay, I just have to stop at all. And I couldn't pick or choose the ones, it wasn't about picking and choose the ones that were most important. I just realized I couldn't do stop at all. And I couldn't pick or choose the ones. It wasn't about picking and choose the ones that were most important. I just realized I couldn't do any of it. And I had to reach out and say, I'm sorry, I can't. And man, people were really pissed off

and they were just like, I can't believe you're doing this to me. And this is like, you're not true to your word. And I was like, I don't want to do this. I have to for the sake of my sanity. To function, that was very difficult. I relate with letting people down. But I think also it helped you pull in people who were there for you and could understand you and support you. Did you have any like situations like that where you just, you know, people didn't quite get it that you had to deal with?

Well, I mean, no one said it to my face. They didn't quite get it that you had to deal with? Well, I mean, no one said it to my face that they didn't quite get it. And I think some people wear a badge of honor of just like, I've never taken a sick day. I mean, I even did that like for a long time. I'm just like, I've been so, I show up. But what I've realized now also that I was showing up to work, half burnt out, I was no good to, I was an I was an asshole. I will, I will admit it. There was a period of time in my career where I was a bit of an asshole to a lot of people because I was so fried. And I mean, you can relate to this, right? And you're just, you can see, I can see it now because I'm rested. And I think that's what you see. You know, if there's anyone who's here,

who's in the healthcare system, like my God, what the healthcare system and teachers as well have been through in the past decade in this country is so remarkable. And I imagine a lot of people will identify with that idea of rage. You're enraged at the systems that have put you in this place. You're enraged of these idiot people

who get appointed to probably above you and are enacting certain efficiencies and whatever, like changing the structures of things and you have no voice. This is burnout causing. And also that rage piece then filters out to the way that you treat other people. And I had to admit, I had to see that. And I had to go back and repair some of those relationships. And now, I have to all admit, like, I'm now so self-aware, and I do a ton of mindless meditation. I had a life coach for a while. Like, I've done a lot of work and continue to do that. And when I feel, like, today, I will admit, I had a bit of Mondays, I was like, Okay, I need to do meditation before I cut on this with you. Like I had, it's not like a,

oh, I figured it out and I'm done. It's a constant recalibration. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. I once talked to my best friend into coming to work. Took me a year to get her to come to work for me. And then when she came, she was like, what the fuck is this?

You are a crazy pan. She literally almost quit. She was like, I don't know what is going on here, but this is not the Gina that I know. And I was going through a lot and I'm not the same person I was. And it's a hard thing to admit, especially when you realize like how,

I wanna say awful you've been to people, but you're just trying your best. Like you're not trying to be like that. And it's constant work. It's constant work to be self aware of when something is going on with you, how you are treating other people. It's not a very nice feeling. This getting to a place that you are understanding that you're dealing with burnout. It's not good feels along the way. And how do you get over those big feels, the shame, the guilt and I

fucked up my life, I should have done it better. I should be better than this. I should be able to or the thought of like people thinking, well, you can't handle it. You're not worthy. You can't handle it. I got to give it to someone else because you can't deal with it. That's a lot. Yeah, I mean, and I did worry for a while. I was just like, oh God, I'm never, now I'm that person who's a little fragile or has problems. And so I'm never gonna get ahead in this career.

I had that, and I had to kind of grieve that and just acknowledge like, okay, well, that that's the case. But here's the truth is that what I know now, and it may have taken me maybe a year to prove that, but the work that I've done on myself has made me a better employee, not just for myself, but we joke about it, Jess Allen always says, she's like, because I'll come up with something

and everyone's like, oh my God, Cynthia, Cynthia just dropped some sort of like peace knowledge into this like, you know, shit storm that's going on at some point. And Jess always says, oh, it's because this is well Cynthia. And, but, and we joke about it, but I will say that I, the work that I've done has made me, I know that has made me a more valuable, better employee. And so I think that people need to remember that, that even if you've, you know, done some things that you're maybe not that proud of, and if you've gone back and done a men's and if you've actually done the work on yourself,

you're going to be a more valuable person. You can't control what the rumors are around you. All you can do and all you have control over is the reputation you create going forward. And in a way, I was already doing damage to my reputation before I left because I was fried. I was totally fried and an anger monster, right? So taking the, you know, it's,

you will be saying this industry, you're only as good as your last experience. And that's true. Like people have short memories in a way and long memories in other ways. But the people who I know who I want to work with going forward will recognize the work that I've done. And I think that's true for anyone.

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Here's another question from Christie, I'm recovering from burnout. I'm off work for several months right now. How can I plan to get back on the merry-go-round of life? What's the entry point? How do you not just throw yourself back on the ride? Well, I mean, again, if you, that is the thing that I think many people who go through burnout need to recognize. Like I, women who have high ambition and who maybe have a little piece of anxiety, I think that you can end up getting on that treadmill and you'll be fine for a while,

you can handle it for a while and you can end up crumbling all over again. So I think it's like, what are you gonna do that's different? I think it's about a lot of introspection. I love, one of the first things I did when I went on leave was I did a values exercise. And if people haven't done that before,

it's easy to Google. Brene Brown has a list on her website. And it's basically about, I don't know, 100 words that are everything from, you know, accountability to peace to the environment to freedom, like words. And you narrow down, you do it quite quickly, actually, don't overanalyze it. You cross out the ones that don't mean anything to you. And you narrow it down to your top 10 and then what gets really crunchy and hard is narrow it down to your top three to five. And those are the the reason why that's important is I think we go through life and we don't think about our values and we can get caught up in the drama at our work or the unfair colleague or the boss

who's treating us poorly. But if your values, if you come back and your values are actually around let's say your family, if you come back and your values are actually around, let's say, your family, it doesn't have to matter as much. And those can be your anchors, where it's like, actually, what I'm doing here at my job is to make money for my family. And they are the most important thing. Or my peace, my sense of peace is my, so I'm not going to get involved in all this. I'm not going to let myself go on this roller coaster in the same way. And it's getting really clear on yourself and not letting yourself get on that treadmill that, you know, the crazy person who's doing the ride. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Again, it's re-evaluating and seeing the situation for what it is. It's like you don't have to get caught up in the TikTok and the scrolling and all that stuff. You don't even need social media. If that's not in your value list, spending quality time with your family, you don't even need that. What works for you? I'm here, Anna is sharing. I'm burnt out taking care of elderly mother, family, grandkids, and the news really stresses me out, house stuff, financial stuff, exercising, dieting. I'm trying to do it all. And if I don't, I've I failed. Oh, yeah, see, these are the narratives that we get fed, right? And I feel like I just

when when I when you were just saying all that, I'm like, Oh, I feel like I just that was Instagram, like a couple days ago, when I went on saying all that, I'm like, oh, I feel like I just, that was Instagram like a couple days ago when I went on. Like that's basically like every woman, you know, getting enough protein, are you sleeping enough, are you like, your bone density and blah, blah, we're getting this constant barrage of all the ways in which we can't possibly, you know, meet all of those goals. So again, I would start by allowing yourself, there's different types of rest. So like you need to get into those quiet spaces where you hear your inner voice.

And there's so much around also, sorry, let me just pause for a moment. One of the things that came up for me when I was during my leave was I recognized that I had been squashing my intuition and my voice for so long in the service of things that I thought I was supposed to be doing at work, at home, blah, blah, blah. And I never allowed myself, I was too busy in the noise of news and whatever, and all this stuff, to quiet down and go like, What does Cynthia want?

And when I actually began this, I would do sort of meditation and let's talk about meditation in a minute, because I have some thoughts about it. But I would quiet that voice and be like, what, you know, I would say like, hello, this is actually an exercise from Liz Gilbert, who's wrote, you pray love.

You quiet yourself down, do some deep breaths, and then you ask yourself, like say hello, like what do you need from me today? It's like asking your body, your deepest sense of wisdom. And it's amazing if you listen to what comes up. And for me, what the message was repeatedly over and over again was, you just need to rest. You just need to rest.

You need to stop doing so much. You need to stop. You need to slow down. You need to stop doing so much. You need to stop. You need to slow down. You need to just pump the brakes. That was the for the longest time that was the message. And so your message is going to be different than my message. I don't know what exactly you need. But you know, you know, and I think women are so consistently detached from from their inner wisdom. So like, for example, if when I said

I needed to cut out alcohol for a while, if you're like, oh, I couldn't do that, or maybe there's a message in there for you, there's something, or you're thinking, oh God, I should do that, but I don't know how I would, probably there's something there for you to listen to. If anything I've said, even in this, like about meditation, if you're kind of eye rolling it, there might be something in there for you to listen to. If anything, I've said even in this, like about meditation, if you're kind of eye rolling it, there might be something in there for you to listen to. There's all

kinds of signposts I think that the world is constantly trying to nudge us towards, but we don't always notice because our faces are buried in our phones and we're busy, mad at our boss. So a piece about meditation, I will say that I was an eye roller of meditation for the longest time. And what I finally have had this aha moment around is if I do it for five to 10 minutes every day, just sit and observe my mind. I am a better human being going into my day. So I had thought, oh, I'm a shitty meditator because my mind is going all over the place. I'm constantly thinking about what's coming up next and what I just did. And then I realized, oh God, that's the point. The point is to notice it and then come back to the breath,

notice it and come back to the breath. And that is an activity that again, you can take out into the world so that it makes you a calmer, nicer human being. So when you're in that situation with your kid Who's being a jerk or your boss who's activating you and you're feeling triggered or rage or you want to cry or whatever? When you have this skill and you've practiced it for a bit you'll find yourself coming back to the breath and Observing your thoughts and coming back to the breath and then you're preserving your energy and then you're less likely to burn out. Those are the little ways we can control

that don't cost a thing. I like that it's a skill. It's a skill. It's skill and you're practicing it. I think a lot of people are resistant to meditation because they think it's sitting there going, oh, I was just saying on the live this morning, before I get about every day, and my mind is racing,

I like try to just be calm and be like, what do you need today? Today, I feel like garbage. I am tired, I have a cold, I just want to stay in bed. Okay, I can't, can I do that? Like, is the world gonna end if I stay in bed? It's not, but I can't do that today. So what can I do to get through my day?

I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna drink coffee, I'm probably not gonna make any major decisions, I'm gonna be kind to myself, I'm gonna make sure I get to bed early, I'm gonna make sure I eat well, I'm just like, it's just, and that's every day. And every day is gonna look and feel a little bit different. So honoring where you're at in the moment

and not an easy thing to do because it is a skill you have to practice. We do need to get imaginative too. Like if you cannot take the day off, even though your body is telling you you'd like to, where can you rest? Where can you take five minutes any at any point in day in your day and actually sit in complete and utter silence, not on your phone, check in with your breath. I love doing, do you know the four, seven, eight breath? Do you know this one? Yeah, but share, share, share.

So four, seven, eight breath for those who don't know it, you breathe in for four counts. So three, like it goes one, two, three, four. You hold for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and breathe out for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and breathe out for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And you repeat that a couple of times. And it can actually give you this sense of like euphoria that can make you feel a little bit like, yeah, it's, it's a beautiful thing. But even just that can reset your nervous system. And our nervous systems are being hijacked so often.

It's no wonder that we're all suffering on the edge of burnout. Yeah, that as soon as it wasn't even the breathing in, it was the holding. And as you're counting through six, I'm feeling my shoulders, my body is starting to lack seven, eight. And so something as simple as that,

I hear, I see a comment from Martha, I don't see an end in sight. I could retire from an age point of view, but not from a financial point of view. I feel stressed at work, but I am trapped. So that's a big feels. And you must've felt trapped. I don't know if that's a word that you would use where you had to go to work.

Like you, did you, at first, did you see any other option? I mean, no. And I still have quite, for a time, I'll be honest, I thought I might have to quit my job. And I think for anybody, again, I don't know this person's situation. And when I hear the word trapped, I guess I would love to get curious about,

there are amazing resources out there of people who can take your CV and jazz it up. And while you still have this job, if you could be looking for something else, that's one possible light. If it is, again, I encourage people to look into their HR and their company to see if there even is opportunities to take even a small,

even if it's a small extra holiday break, maybe it's planning a holiday during your holiday time, not going anywhere, but just really, how can you focus on you for a week? Is there a way to do that? I just, again, I don't know the circumstances, but when people say they're trapped, a lot of times there are windows and doors.

You're not in a jail cell. And so it's about you figuring out where are those windows you can open? Where can you let in some breeze? Yeah, well, I was even thinking vacation, right? Like you have your job, you have a vacation, but maybe your family wants you to go sightseeing in here and there or whatever, and you just need some time. Like, I don't know, in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere by yourself, right?

There's those possibilities. I want to get into just cognitive time, the pleasure part of things. I gotta have you back and have that whole conversation because that's something about Cynthia, you guys, you probably don't know about her. I wanna get into the pleasure part of life. But after going through it, here's a question from Cathy.

Do you recognize when you are crossing that danger line and risking going back into burnout? Yeah, I don't think I will ever go back into the burnout because I again I feel like I've put in these burnout protection factors into my life now and I think that those those are things that I now hang on to and and but I do like I was saying I feel myself this week frying a little bit that there it's funny you go back to like I know you talk a lot about intuitive eating and I just absolutely love that.

And that's part of the mindful piece as well. Just sort of paying attention to how you feel when you're eating. And I think this is such a great, it's true in all of our lives. We should be stopping multiple times a day to be like, to do a check-in. How am I feeling?

And when I'm feeling clippy, when I'm feeling rushed, these are all indicators that I didn't plan my schedule that well. You mentioned looking ahead at your schedule and feeling like, oh my god, I'm dreading all these things. Indicator light, it's like if you're a car, your warning light system has come on. You've got to pay attention, right?

So ideally, you start to recognize those signs sooner rather than later. And having those things, like for me, there are certain non-negotiables. I don't want to be living a militant life, but like I said, I don't get up in the middle of the night anymore and scroll my phone. I do breathing exercises until I fall back asleep.

Those are, it's a non-negotiable. I meditate or do yoga pretty much every single day. I've really gotten into doing saunas and cold plunges. And for people who don't have access to that, I think a cold plunge even is an interesting exercise. It's not for everyone. I bawled my eyes out the first time I did it. But what is interesting about it is that,

what it does is it teaches you how to regulate your nervous system in a very real way. And my job is particularly nervous system activating because I'm doing literally a live show every day. It's like a stage production. It feels like a crazy like upheaval. But many people's jobs have a version of that. And so what cold plunging does is you learn how to breathe.

It never gets easier. It sucks every time, but you learn how to breathe and calm yourself down. And what I've found is when I'm in a situation that's particularly tense, along with my mindfulness meditation, but that I can get into a cold plunge space in my brain. And so knowing like, I think, okay, I can survive this.

My brain knows now how to handle a tense situation and just be more calm. That's again, it's a training. It's a training. So those are some non-negotiables. Yeah. Yeah. It's not, it's not about like resiliency. It's about learning to calm yourself in an uncomfortable environment.

So I think whether, you know, whether it's through a cold plunge or just simply the deep breathing exercises that you just showed us, it's that wherewithal to take that minute and to calm yourself down. I love this conversation. I think what we're doing here is we're normalizing the conversation and we're having the conversation, which I think is really important. You're also in this space of pleasure, which I find is really interesting and contrasting. So you've written this book, Find Your Pleasure. Was that before or after your experience with burnout? I'm interested. Yeah, the funny thing is, so I wrote it probably in 2019, around that time.

And it came out January, 2020. So this is the worst time, like I literally did a small book tour and it was like, oh, maybe we shouldn't do like handholding to people. Maybe we should just be like high five from afar. It was like COVID, COVID, COVID and then stop. So a book about pleasure at that time was funny in retrospect. But the

book is a collection of essays that I wrote about finding pleasure in the smallest aspects of life, from your home to your work to your intimate life. I covered sort of it all because I was raised with this idea that pleasure was a naughty thing. It was a bad thing. It was always associated with sex. But what I found is that living like a sort of embodied life is actually enjoying your food, enjoying your sensuality, and being in your body is so important. But it was, right, I was always Catholic, so there was a lot of shame. And looking back, I mean, when I started The Social, I had just given birth probably less than two months before. I was breastfeeding, I had leaky boobs,

I was pumping at work, and I did have a kind of burnout. I didn't know it at the time. Now that I've had burnout, I look back and I'm like, oh, I had a bit of a breakdown during that time because I was trying, I had sleep, I was sleep deprived, obviously. I was running from point A to point B. I was trying to be a great mom, a great wife, great worker. And I had a bit of a collapse that

led me to, I didn't know what I was doing, but I was like, Oh, I may need to start writing again, I need to find some of my joys from my childhood that I've kind of lost sight of. And that's what led to a website and then a book. But it's interesting now thinking back like pleasure has always been this feature and so important. Yes. It's also been like, I think of pleasure and I'm thinking it's a naughty word. It's so interesting, right? Again, it's true. My URL that you've got up there right now the findyourpleasure.com. I don't know what it was beforehand, but for a while when I

first launched it, it was getting blocked in places. So I would like, pleasure is definitely associated and it's like, I call it the dirty cousin to happiness. And that's the way it's sort of been positioned. And the thing is, is that like, we all have a sense, I mean, obviously I think pleasure can be associated with sex and should be. And yet I also think like like if you're not having pleasure

in other parts of your life, you're not gonna have pleasure in the bedroom. If you're not connected to what makes you feel good in your body, and this is inclusive of food, it's inclusive of movement, it's inclusive of all these things, your sex life will be impacted. So to me, they all hold hands together,

but I'm trying to liberate that word to be not a dirty word anymore. Not an easy task. And it just didn't occur to me till just now, because I'm thinking about, how do I fit in this conversation of pleasure? I mean, I was thinking about how less stress we would be if we were having these amazing

mind-blowing orgasms all the time, because no one talks about how important it is and how orgasms feed into your body being healthy, even just on a chemical level. But it's so interesting that that is not necessarily the conversation. No. And I mean, obviously I'm happy to talk. I'm a sex educator as part of my upbringing as well. I went to school at the University of Michigan to learn about it. Sex is a passion of mine. And yet what I found time and time again, one of the most common questions I've received when I've written advice columns is about people who've had low desire issues during

menopause, perimenopause, or various phases of life or desire discrepancies with their partner. And what I've come back to time and time again is if you are unhappy in other realms of your in your life, I can give you all the tips in the world. If you are burnt out, if you are disconnected from your body, if you don't even know what brings you pleasure, you probably will have a harder time finding pleasure in the in the bedroom. All right, you need to offer a course on that because I don't think we know because I think that that word is taboo and we don't like what it brings us joy spending time with our

grandchildren and my kids. And again, that's reliant on other people. Right? Like that's reliant on them. That's a lot of pressure to put on your kids to find joy in them because that's not their job. But you think of this pleasure, this concept of pleasure is such a personal, it's such a personal thing and what truly brings you pleasure. Man, you need to offer a course on

this. Well, I'm working on it. I'm working on it, Gina. And so anybody who's interested, I would love for them to reach out to me because burnout and pleasure to me, they're there. I met so many women during my book tour and it broke my heart every single time who said I lived my entire life and I'm now retired. I live my entire life in my service of my husband and in my kids and I don't even know what brings me pleasure. And that to me is a tragedy and that to me is it's no surprise that women report having higher burnout levels than men It's no surprise that women report having higher burnout levels than men because we are service-oriented, because we believe that a good woman does things for other people, including sometimes like, you know, being service-oriented in the bedroom. And I think this is a time to reclaim, especially if you are feeling fried and frazzled, reclaiming what it is that, you know, uniquely makes you joyful. And that that

requires calm, quiet introspection, it requires space. It requires us saying a little bit of no sometimes to to certain things that are maybe put on our schedule or that we think that we should do or must do. It requires courage. that we should do or must do. It requires courage. Finding pleasure is a, it's powerful. It's a powerful concept to figure out what brings you pleasure.

Man, Cynthia, our time is up, but please come back and have this, let's build on this conversation because I think we could spend hours just talking about or trying to find what brings us pleasure in the feelings that someone, feelings associated with guilt or shame or this or selfishness or all of that associated with, that's a whole other, that's a whole other conversation.

We can have that conversation. I love chatting with Eugene, a big fan. You were such a joy on our podcast, Cynthia and Josie's Unmentionable. So people should go and check that out if they haven't you were wonderful and yeah I love thank you for having me on here and if people want to come visit me they can come to findyourpleasure.com They can email me find me on Instagram as well. I'm around and your book you can find a book at At Amazon also at indigo just do a search, find your pleasure, Cynthia Lois.

Speaking of, it's been a pleasure. Let us know when you have that course up and running. I'll put it out to our members. I'll let them know where you are and what's going on. In the meantime, you can also tune in every day, Monday through Friday, 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and find her on the social that airs on CTV. Findyourpleasure.com.

I don't want this conversation to end, but we gotta go. Cynthia Lois, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take a minute to hear from our podcast sponsor today because this new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? Kind of like what you're doing right now. So you can explore audiobooks, podcasts, even exclusive Audible originals that are no doubt going to inspire you, but more so motivate you.

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