The Livy Method Podcast - Strong for Too Damn Long

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

You look like you have it all together. Inside, you're wondering how much longer you can keep this up.Mental health professional, award-winning speaker and author Calissa Ngozi joins Gina to talk about burnout in midlife and why exhaustion became a badge of honour, why rest comes wrapped in guilt, and why so many women only recognize burnout in everyone else.One thing you can change today: give yourself permission to pause.Because you can't take care of anyone else if you're not taking care of yourself.Where to Find Calissa:Website: https://www.calissangozi.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/calissangozi/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calissa.ngoziLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/calissangozi Her book, The Oxygen Mask Mindset is available on Amazon.This podcast aligns with Aug 27th of our Summer Club, members can find video in our Livy Method app or Summer Club Community Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring20 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm going to be honest with you, this podcast is unapologetically a hot mess because that is what midlife feels like sometimes. Why, though? And how do we make it better? Do we all just need facelifts and g-lp-ones? I mean, let's talk about it. No bullshit, no wellness wankery here because we're trying to make real change and change is hard. But we're in this together. Welcome to the Living Method podcast.

If you're looking to lose weight and you want to keep it off, you have got to check out the Living Method. Next live session starts September 14th. Better than ever, easy to follow. We have the most incredible community and it works. Head over to living method.com to sign out today. Be sure we all need this conversation today. We're busy. It's good to feel needed. We're getting stuff done. Everyone knows that they can count on us. And from the outside, it looks like we have it all together. But in the inside, we're waking up and thinking, oh my goodness, how can I keep doing this. Well, my guest today, Kalissa Nagozi, knows this professionally, but also more importantly personally. She's a mental health professional, an award-winning speaker and author

of the book, The Oxygen Mask Mindset, which is available on Amazon or Indigo's Go Order today, which is all about reclaiming our energy in a world that glorifies exhaustion. Hi, Callisa. Thanks for joining us today. Oh, thank you for having me. You know, the question I want to start with is, at what point did being exhausted and busy become this like badge of honor? Like, oh, I'm so busy and I'm so tired yet. We just keep doing it. Oh, my goodness. You know, in our world, if you aren't busy, then you're seen as not being productive.

Right. And that's the concern is why is that okay? And to your point, why are we wearing it as a badge of honor? And then it's trickling down to generation to generation of being okay. And it's not okay. Yeah. What impact do you think social media has? Because, you know, I go on vacation and I'm old school. I don't know about you, but I'm like 53. I'm from the days where I didn't even have a phone until I was like 20 something years old. I go on vacation and it's supposed to be this time to kind of recoup, recover. And I see people constantly scrolling on their phones, taking videos, photos. It seems like we're always doing something now. What kind of you've been doing this for a while? What kind of impact do you think social media or being on our phone is having on it? Well, it's huge. And I think my generation might have been the last one that actually went outside for fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I'm myself, I'm 41.8. And, you know, I very much remember that my cell phone, I don't think I got until I was about 16 years old. Social media wasn't a thing until after I graduated high school. You know, I see my kids who want social media, but I'm kind of like, no, no, that's not going to be a thing right now because it's addicting. You know, as an adult myself, to your point, when I'm on vacation, I very much am like, oh, I got to.

to check Instagram. I got to check Facebook. My watch is buzzing with notifications and it's hard to turn it off. Yeah, it's really hard to turn it off. But we want to be social, right? We call it social media. I think maybe it's like a post-pandemic thing, but I find at least myself, I'm, I wasn't leaving my, I actually have to be intentional about leaving my house and making myself go out and be social. And that's kind of like a way that people connect these days. Is there a way that we can be social online, but also not feel like it's a full-time job. Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite things to tell clients and students and, you know, colleagues and friends is this whole adage of participating in social detox, right? So, yes, it is that piece of, you want to know what? Before bed, an hour before I'm going to lay

my head on the pillow, I need to put my phone down. I need to not over-stimulate my mind. You know, you've got the blue light. You've got all of these, you know, oversimulation in terms of notifications. just stop it, right? Don't engage. And it's hard. It's almost like I start to tweak a little bit because it's like, let me just check just one more time. Just one more message.

Right? And then what's happening in your brain is that it's becoming oversimulated and overloaded with such information that it's really, really hard for you to go to sleep, you know, without having, you know, all of these thoughts and things running through your mind. Yeah. Also, you know, when we're comparing ourselves to other people and seeing what they're doing. Oh, they're doing this. They're doing that. It does leave you feeling like you're not doing enough when you're already feeling like you're overloaded. Can we,

can we just go back to the book for a second? Because I want to get into talking about why women take so much on and when we feel guilty when we don't. But where did your passion for this come from? Like what, where did that start? Well, I think for me, it's from my own burnout story. And if I'm being honest with myself and with the audience, you know, my burnout started really at age 12. And then the trajectory just kept getting older and older and older. And let me preface this and explain why because like, oh my gosh, how. So I knew that I was growing up in a household that didn't have a lot of money. So if I wanted to, you know, buy the expensive name brand clothes and, you know, if I wanted to be cool and those types of things, I had to work for it myself. Yeah. So at age 12,

I started volunteering at a retirement home. So I would go after school and I would hang out with the elderly and I would serve them jello and all those pieces. And it was not just for that social aspect, but I knew that I needed it on my resume if I was going to get a job that was going to pay me money. So, you know, a couple of years later, I ended up getting my first job, which turned into another job. By the time I was in grade, I think grade 12, I was working a full-time job. You know, I would stay up until two in the morning. I was able at that point to actually make my own high school schedule. So I would purposely not take first period classes so that I could sleep.

And then it was this perpetual cycle. Then I graduated in 2003, which was the double cohort. So it was the last year to have OAC. So in my mind, I'm stressed because I'm like, I'm not going to get into university. It's double the competition. So I'm going to continue to work. So I worked and worked and worked. I ended up going to school a couple years later.

And then at this point, I'm 22. Now, let me set the stage. I'm 22 years old. I am newly married. I am working four jobs. I am going to school full time. Okay? So I was getting on average two to three hours of sleep at night.

I did this for about a year and then I broke down. And I remember my then husband, I looked at him. I just started bawling and I said, I can't do this anymore. Like, I don't know. I'm burning the candle at both ends. I am setting myself on fire to keep everybody else warm. I see myself in you. I see myself and you.

Mind you, I did volunteer at a retirement home, but it was because I got caught stealing something from the local Zellers, and I had to my community's thermos. And I quite enjoyed it, to be honest. It was like time well spent. But I had always had jobs. Is this something that we just, it's a learned behavior? because, you know, I know there are women who may not have that similar background,

but they're, you know, taking care of their own kids, now taking care of aging parents, you know, financially things can be tough these days. So maybe they're working a couple of jobs or have a job and going through school. Is this something, is it a learned behavior? Is there just the way we are living our lives to survive? Well, I think there's a lot of explanations. One of them is that we are all a part of hustle culture, right? But how do you receive that?

Is it that you need to keep up with everybody that's around you? Are you doing it for survival purposes? Because let's be real. The world's on fire right now. And not a lot of people can afford life. So, you know, there's that reason as well. I think you need to look inward and kind of decipher, you know, what is my purpose? What is my reasoning?

So you're clearly a super capable woman, right? Like you're doing all the things. Do we kind of like create our, like, are we? creating the chaos and the craziness. Are we creating our own burnout? Like our, you know what I'm saying? Is it a wrong damn fault? Yeah. I mean, for me, I self-identify as being neurospicy. So I have ADHD. And I actually have anxiety, which make that make sense. I speak in front of thousands of people, but I do have anxiety. So, you know, for me, I actually thrive in chaos until I don't. So, you know, with my brain being wired differently, that neurotypical,

you know, I like busy. I am on the go. I have a million jobs, all these things. But then all of a sudden, sometimes I'm like, Colissa, stop. You need to be in your bed. You need to catch up on your, on your like, you know, Uber eats and your TV and shut out the world because you need to recalibrate, right? Because now it's becoming a little too much. Well, I think that's it. Right. Like, I'm the same. I love my life. I love everything I do. And then I get to the point where I'm completely exhausted and be like, okay, I need to just, I cannot. And like even last night, I've got a lot going on. And again, I feel guilty complaining because I love what I do. My husband last night is like, hey, you want to go hit some balls? And I'm like, no, no, I just want to go to bed now. And he's like,

come on, it's good for you. And so I get out there and I'm pushing a cart around. I feel like I just like, I don't want to be here. But then I'm, oh, I'm so lucky. I get to golf. And then, And next thing, you know, I got a migraine. I can barely get in the car to go home. And I'm like, embed in a ball. I'm like, why, though? So why do we feel so guilty even when we recognize that we're taking so much on? So one of the things I think as humans, there's this a little bit of a disconnect because we don't understand is that emotional labor and emotional exhaustion can translate to physical.

Right? So for you, to your exact point, I don't want to. I just want to let me go to bed. I don't, I want to not do anything but what I want to do, which is not anything to do physicality. Yeah. And it's because you are emotionally exhausted. And I think the two are not mutually exclusive, right? And I think that we need to understand that as humans that one can affect the other, you know, and but why is that? Why is that happening? And we're finding that people are so much more emotionally depleted than they realize. And that is what leads to burnout. Okay. Okay, because there's this, we talk about resiliency, right? Oh, I'm resilient. Like I was a resilient kid,

right? Like, you know, I come home from school. My parents at work, you figure stuff out, come home when the lights are off, working since I was 12. When if there's a will, there's a way. Yes. Super resilient. And we talk about how our children coming up have a lack of resiliency. And how do we know the difference between like we're being resilient or we're just suffering? Yeah. And to be honest, I mean, this is going to be another podcast episode of our children lacking critical thinking and resiliency. Yeah.

It is true. It is absolutely true. You know, also whose fault is that? Who are we raising? Right? You know, for us, I just think that the problem starts with the expectation of what other people think we should be doing. everybody else is busy, so I need to be busy.

That mom over there, she seems to be handling life like a badass, so I need to do the same thing. She doesn't seem to have any problems. Her social media is just full of life and everything is beautiful, everything is wonderful. Let me tell you something. That mom is showing you what she wants you to see, right? You're not seeing her when she's crying in the corner because she's overwhelmed. You're not seeing her on the fringes of her marriage breakdown.

You're not seeing her with her kids that are dealing with mental health. and she doesn't know how to deal with it because she has her own mental health that she hasn't dealt with. So there's so much of a backstory that we don't dive into. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, listen, there's a call. Oh, my God. I don't even know where to go here. So when this menopause conversation came up, I used to think my mom was crazy. Right. There was a point in my life for my mom. What is wrong with my mom? She is like crazy. And then a couple years ago, she's like, you know, I think I was like, I think I was in menopause. I think like, I wasn't actually crazy. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just going through menopause. I have a child who has severe mental health and addiction issues. And what's

really interesting is she said to me, like, you don't, you don't understand and you don't know. I'm pretty sure I had my own mental health issues, whether it was postpartum or whatever it was, I was really struggling. My mom didn't talk to me about it. I didn't talk to my kid about it. And now my kids are talking about it quite openly. My husband, the second part to that is my husband said once when I was like, why are my kids like more ambitious? Why aren't they this? Why aren't they more like me?

And he says, so your mom raised you and you are raising your children. There's a bit of a difference there. So what's the line? Because we're looking at this younger generation of like they don't have that resiliency. They don't have that go-getter. They want work life balance. Like we're looking at that younger generation thinking, oh, well, maybe they're lazy or what do you mean you need work life balance?

Like, so where's the fine line there? Well, this is where I like to talk. And I do a lot of this in my talks about sustainable success is where is the line of old school meets new school. Yeah. And how do we meet in the middle? Because to your point, old school is like, why are you so lazy? Like when I was your age, I was doing this.

this. I was doing that. And then new school is like, why are you burning the candle at both ends? Life is great. Life is wonderful. Take time for yourself. And then they're thinking, you're work too hard. You know, you're nasty. Whatever. So it's like, okay, so both have a little bit of whatever, but meld it together. And that's where I think, you know, the world is going to be unstoppable when we figure that shit out, right? But it's so hard. And I think to your point, you know, my mom was always very open. She has her own mental health. And she's always been very open about her struggles and has always allowed me to share it. And, you know, I think me seeing the things that happened when I grew up, there are things I wanted to change with how I raised my own children.

You know, but nobody does it perfectly. And I think we need to stop putting one another on a pedestal because nobody has life figured out. It's just not a thing. Well, we have guilt. We have mom guilt, right? And a lot of women who are looking to lose weight carry a lot of guilt and shame about that. And this is another thing. There seems to be so much guilt tied into rest.

If we're not busy, we're not doing enough. Or if we are even like maybe we can talk about resentment, where we are doing everything for everybody, but we also feel really resentful in that. So how do we start to even unpack all of that weight? Well, it is the art of pause. Right. So it is allowing yourself to take a moment. And that is the whole premise of my book is you.

can't take care of anyone else if you are not taking care of yourself. It is understanding that no is a complete sentence. And that's really hard for a lot of us. It is really hard. And I've shared with my community the last couple of years, I went through menopause. The father of my kids' dad passed away. There was a lot of stress in business. And I was also really super like, you know, career motivated, right? I can do it. I can do everything. And I said yes. to a bunch of stuff. So I was trying to, my wait was going up. I wasn't feeling great. I'm like, I know what I need to do. But long story short, what I needed to do was say no to all the commitments that I had. That's really what I needed to do. And so I did. I took a year and I had

to uncommit to things that I committed to. But people were pissed off. People around me were not happy. Well, you said you would come. What's wrong with you? It's very hard to say no. It's very hard to create those boundaries, whether it's professionally or even with loved ones, saying no to a birthday party or whatever that might be. How do we, how do we, how do we do we do something about that? How do we in that moment understand that this is the right move for us? So one of the quotes in my book that I love, I love it so much I turned it into a bookmark, is that you're not exhausted because you're weak. You're exhausted because you've been strong for too damn long, right? I know. Let that sit for a second. And it's so true. And that goes back to giving

yourself permission to pause. I think the more we talk about this in community, the more we're saying it's okay, right? Because I don't know what you're going through. I only see what you show me. I don't see the inner workings of Gina. Yeah. I'm sure Gina's been through it. Right? So just as just as I have. And listen, what I carry, you might be able to carry better. We can't judge other women and other people and their circumstance because we think we can handle it differently. So when you sit there and tell me that you needed to take pause and you needed to uncommit yourself, it's because you put yourself first and people don't like that, right? Because it's not the Gina that they're used to, right? They have made this portrait of what you're supposed to be. And then they've put on their

expectations onto you, which isn't fair. That's not your load to carry. Yeah, I'm just looking at Sue here. She's like, family was mad at me for looking after my mental health. Yeah. That's not, that is not an unnormal statement because people get upset when you are not the person that they think that you should be. Ooh, it's an ish them, not an issue. Yes. Yes. Yes. I like that. What is that? What does peace look like? What it was so when you say like a pause, not peace, well, piece pause. Same thing. What does that pause look like? You know, the example is what you said. You uncommitted yourself to certain things because you needed to pause. You needed to take a break. You needed to put yourself first because you can't show up for the people things that matter

unless you show up for yourself. Right. Okay. But what if our busy is like masking I don't know, the guilt we're feeling or the grief. A lot of a lot of people deal with grief and they don't want to go into the feelings of grief or whatever they're dealing with the moment. So they keep themselves busy. My son is doing this. His dad passed away a couple years ago. I don't even think he's cried yet.

And he just is constantly you can tell when he's feeling emotional. He makes himself extra busy. He sets up all these playdates with his friends and he does this and he does that. And I'm just like, dude, you are totally hiding from your emotions. What if keeping ourselves busy is like protecting us somehow? Oh, it is. And part of my self-care routine is every Friday I go for an hour of therapy. And so I'm working myself out, you know, emotionally, cognitively, you know, I'm venting, all

the things. And then I follow it with a 90-minute massage because then I'm working myself out physically, right? So the work that I do in therapy, part of it is called we work on protective parts. So every human has protective parts and protective layers, right? So your son right now is really engaged in his protective parts because he doesn't want to go there. Right. So they are what's happening is within him. They're saying, stop. I don't want to deal with this. I can't deal with this. Find something else because we're not going there. We're not going to be emotional. We're not going to do the thing. Right. I have done that in my entire life. I don't like showing emotion. I don't like crying in front of people because I feel like I'm weak. Right. And I had to unlearn that behavior. And, And it's hard. I'm a work in progress. You know, and in therapy, we really talk about that. Like, but why is that?

Like, what's the underlying things? Now, for me, there's a little bit of childhood trauma, not a little bit, a lot of it, of childhood trauma that is attached to that. You know, when I get upset, when I get triggered, you know, I kind of go back to that 12-year-old self, right? And that's how I deal with things. So it's trying to work that out. I tell everybody you need to go for therapy.

Therapy is not supposed to be a Band-Aid solution. Therapy is supposed to be something that helps you because grief is not something that you get over. It's something you get through. Yeah. I mean, this is why I love about our community and bringing on incredible gas, someone like you that takes the time to explain this to us because you could just think you're, you know, resilient and surviving. And in reality, you know, you're headed for a massive major breakdown. But you don't know what that looks like and you don't know what to do about it. Okay. So should should we all, just be intentional about practicing a pause? Like, are you suggesting that we schedule this? Maybe, you know, therapy is great. Not everyone can afford therapy. I'm sure there's other things that they can do, but should they be intentional about scheduling time, even if they don't recognize the burnout? Like, is that something that you recommend? Absolutely. You know, honestly, in your, I mean, I'm an iPhone user. I don't know what to tell you if you're an Android user,

But on my iPhone, you know, I literally schedule pause. I know it might sound silly to some, but if I don't do it, then it's not going to happen because I'm so busy with life, right? I play competitive soccer. I run multiple businesses, all these things. So I need to take time for myself. So whether it, and I will die in this hill, every woman has 15 minutes that they can pause, right? I don't care if you're in the bathroom scrolling on Instagram.

find those 15 minutes for yourself to just pause. Some of you might be, do you have time for a half an hour nap? You know, school is back in session for those of us that still have school age kids. Yeah, you're working, but can you find the time for yourself? Yeah, you said like nap and I'm like, nap, but what if I, I don't want to become less ambitious. It's not even that. It is letting your body reset. For me, again, with my, maybe it's because of my ADHD, I need sometimes,

shut off my brain because I have so much going on that, oh my gosh, let me just go take a nap. I love napping. I would be a professional napper if I could, you know, take a break for a half an hour and then I wake up and I feel refreshed. I feel like, okay, let me go back to the thing that was pissing me off or the thing that I didn't understand. Yeah, because sometimes I go hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, and then I crash and I need like, I need like some serious recovery. And then I come back, though, and I'm like, all right, hard, hard, hard, hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

It is one of those cycles that just keeps going and going and going and going. And my cycle is different than yours. You have to find what works. Yeah, I hear Nazneen, she says, I'm finding that sometimes I'm having to justify why I say yes to certain things. It isn't always about saying no for me. By retiring, I said the ultimate, no. It was hard for when I was always busy in my career.

and now I say yes to things that I think some people think I'm being selfish. So where's that line? Like, you know, other people may look at us and be like, well, oh, you're doing my mom all the time, right? You're doing too much. You're doing too much. You're doing too much. And she's probably right. But I really want to do this thing. So how do we reconcile that? Like really understanding what works for us and what is not actually working for us. Nobody has the right to tell you, you know, what you can fit in your schedule and what you can do that brings you peace, right? So just because you're exhausted looking at somebody else doesn't mean that they are. Don't put that on them, right? So if you are retired and you're living your best life, I hope. I pray for that for everybody. Yeah.

If you want to say yes to, you know, babysitting the grandkids, taking up a pottery class, traveling, all the things. Other people might look at you and be like, oh, my gosh. Why are you so busy? Why don't you take some time for yourself? Maybe that is that person's time for themselves, right? Who might dictate that? Right. That's such a good point. The whole, it's a lot. It's so nuanced. What does, okay, one, I think that we wait for permission, right? We wait until we have complete another breakdowns to take a rest. How can we recognize that burnout is coming before it smacks is in the face. Well, it's funny because as humans, we often recognize it in other people before we like see it in ourselves. Yeah. And that's huge. And it's like, oh, man, she's going to be burnt out.

Like, dude, come on. Like you're in the same boat. I think it's going to look differently for different people at different times. Right. So the level of intensity of my life would make a lot of people burn out real quick. Right. And vice versa. So for me, the signs that I look for are if I'm waking up too many days in a row and I don't want to do what I need to do, something needs to change, right? I am exhausted. So if I am waking up and I'm still tired, what, how is that a thing, right? Something's got to change. If I in my core am starting to have physical symptoms, so I'm, I'm always sick. I have headaches. I have migraines, whatever. Maybe it's not actually sickness beyond you need to change something. What if something, what if you're in a situation,

like you can't change. Like what if you're taking care of an aging parent and you just something has to give and it is it is you? I hope it's momentary, right? Caregiver burnout is a real thing that a lot of people deal with and not a lot of people talk about it. If you are in a situation where you're caring for an elderly parent or maybe a sick child or a spouse, that's really, really tough.

And I would want to hold space for that, right? Because that's hard. I don't know what that's like. Knock on wood. You know, you have to find another area in your life that you need to cut back until that piece is gone. Yeah. Because I think let's say, you know, I end up taking care of an aging parent. I'm going to think I can do it all.

I got it. I can do it. I'm not going to lessen the things that I want to do when I'm doing. I'm just going to add that on top. So it's, although we may not have experience with that, it's probably the same thing in which you do have to schedule or make that time for it. You've got to put your own, you got to put your own oxygen mask on, I guess. Yeah, ding, ding, ding. Okay.

Let's talk about, before we go, let's talk about your book. Yes. The passion you had for writing it and what people can expect from it, though I'm sure their takeaways will be very individual. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, the whole premise of this book, I wrote it with an easy mind frame in mind. What I mean by that is the chapters are short. Okay. They're not going to be long and drawn out. I'm very much, I'm bold. It's full of real talk, real examples. But it does have a little bit of clinical oversight, but nothing boring. You know, very much talk about my care framework that I came up with, which is clarity, activity, resilience. and engagement and how we can apply that in terms of burnout. We talk about self-care and how it is not a luxury. It is a birthright. We talk about how it goes beyond bubble baths because let's be on.

You can have a bubble bath, but everything is still going to be there once you get out of that bubble bath. Right. So I really made it with the user in mind of a professional, of a mom. It's really made for everybody to understand that we need to reclaim our energy. because we're all feeling it at different instances. Yeah. It's about reading something I find and having that aha moment where you understand it. You don't need a to-do list of like, here's 15 things you can do.

Yeah. I appreciate this conversation. Like I said, we are so blessed and grateful to be able to have in-depth conversations with experts like yourself. What's the takeaway? Like if you could speak to our audience today, what is? one thing that you would want her to change today? It would be one quick sentence,

and it would be give yourself permission to pause. Yeah, seems simple enough. You've got to do it. Colissa Nogosie, thank you so much. You can run out and grab or order Colissa's book, The Oxygen Mask Mindset. It's available on Amazon, easy, p easy to order, or hit up an indigo.

today. You can also follow her over on social media. Kalissa Ngozi. That's Kalissa N-G-O-Z-I. If you are joining us live, thank you for your comments and your questions, anyone who's listening after the fact. Kalisa, thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us today. Thanks for having me.