The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - When Everyone Relies on You: How to Show Up Without Burning Out

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

This episode is for the "anchors"; those in scrubs, uniforms, or family living rooms who step in when it gets real. From navigating a cancer diagnosis in the family to managing sudden cardiac emergencies at home, we discuss the "invisible toll" of being the person everyone looks to. Learn how to stay steady, process the stress that lives in your body, and ensure you don’t become the next person who needs a rescue.Key Discussion Points:The Weight of the Anchor: Why the emotional toll often hits you years after the crisis is over.Medical Realities at Home: Navigating post-surgery recovery and high-stakes heart monitoring (V-Tach).The Oxygen Mask Principle: Why sleep, diet, and training are requirements for quality care, not rewards.Skills Over Pills: Transitioning from just "surviving" to building a mindset that sustains the load.The Takeaway:Being a provider is an identity, not just a job. Whether you are professional medical staff or a family member stepping up, this conversation provides the tools to manage the silent pressure and the physical stress that stays in your body long after the work is done.Connect & ShareKnow an "anchor" who is carrying more than they let on? Send this episode to them. Subscribe for more direct, practical conversations on resilience and being ready for when it counts.

This one is for a specific group of people. The ones in scrubs, in uniform, on ships, in clinics, and just as often in their own homes, figuring it out as they go. Some of you have years of training and have seen more than most people ever will. Others are learning in real time, sitting up at night reading, watching, asking questions, trying to help someone you love get through something hard. Different paths, same role, you step in. I remember sitting at lunch with my dad, my aunt, my mom, my wife. We were talking through what to do about my grandfather. He had cancer and his hip and needed surgery, targeted radiation, and ongoing treatments.

The situation itself was clear, but the reality of how to manage it was not. He was in Florida, and there was no one close enough to handle the day to day. When pressure hits, you don't rise to the plane, you fall back to what you've built. I'm Kevin Pennell, Navy veteran, program leader, Missouri, and you do you. Jitsu practitioner. The show is about building that foundation, how you think, how you move, and what keeps you steady when things don't go your way. Own your mind, move your body, anchor your spirit. At the time, I was in Arizona, going to school full time. No kids yet, but I was married. If I stepped in, I would be leaving my wife there while I moved across the country and tried to finish

school remotely. On paper, it was complicated in my head. It wasn't. I remember starting to answer at the table already knowing what I was going to say. I needed to do this. It wasn't about overthinking it. It was about helping my family and getting my grandpap through it. When I said it, no one really pushed back. They just looked at my wife. She already knew.

I knew she would do the same thing if the roles were reversed. Before she flew home, she was right there with me. We were cleaning his house, cutting limbs, getting things in order. His place had been lived in for a long time and it showed. There was a lot of work to do. We didn't ease into it. We went because he went to the ER and pain and came out with cancer diagnosis. When we're going to Walmart and just stocking up on the basics, t-shirts,

underwear, things he needed, things I needed to stay there. It was like flipping a switch from no overlife to this is what I'm doing now. So I stayed. I finished the semester remotely while I was there. Typical day was simple, but pretty full. I'd get up, sometimes get a workout in, get breakfast, take him to his appointments, radiation, x-rays, follow-ups. After surgery, it shifted to visiting him in the rehab center, then going back to his house and continuing the work there. I was still fixing tile, cutting hedges, getting the place ready to sell. Then I'd come back in, get my school work done, write papers, take tests, email professors, update the online boards, just became my routine.

The part that took the most energy wasn't the appointments. It was the time in between, being alone when I wasn't with them. It was 2005, so we didn't have the same face time or constant connection like we do now, right? you had time to sit in your own head more. In Florida, it didn't feel heavy in the moment, right? It was work, it was manageable. Later, when we moved him to Vegas, into a place near my parents, it felt more settled. The weight came later, a few years later, standing around him with my family, holding hands,

holding his hand as he took his last breath. That's when it hits different, right? When things are calm, when they're simple, right? We'd hang out, we'd watch TV, talk sports, talk about the old days. He had a great group of friends for the neighborhood. he lived in Stewart, Florida for a long time. There was a community there. It was different from what I was used to medically, right?

I had worked in casualty receiving in the ICU. This was more outpatient stuff, routine visits than recovery. And there's quiet moments I got something I didn't expect. I remember telling him, I'm sorry I didn't stay in touch more often when I was younger. He responded the way he always did, calm and steady. Well, that's all right. I told him, no, I should have done better and I love you. That moment made all of it worth it.

The time away from my wife, the work on the house, watching for rattlesnakes in the ditch behind his yard, or dealing with the pit bull next door that just stared me down while I was out doing yard work, all of it. My dad stepped in too, right? He funded the whole thing, put in the time himself. I saw the same instinct in him when it's time you go. Years later, it was my father and a little heart surgery. We cover here in our house. We opened the doors and set things up for him to heal.

And this time, I had to use a bit more metal. training. He was post-bypass, which is a sensitive time for the heart, right? Multiple times he went into ventricular tachycardia. That's when the ventricles, the bottom part of the heart, start beating too fast, and they just don't move blood efficiently. It's serious and can be deadly. The first time it happened, I checked his boss manually. I felt how fast it was. I was good his color pale and I knew something wasn't good. It wasn't minor. EMS came in, got him on the monitor, confirmed VTAC. The cardiovoted him with medication, took him to the ER and he was released. And it didn't happen once.

It happened five or six more times. After the first time, we were more prepared. I had to wear my old Fitbit so I could at least monitor his heart rate. It definitely helped give me more data, right? But I was always on. I always knew something was happening. So it increased the stress a bit. Every time also in my mind, I thought, okay, what are the next steps in this playbook?

Where will I put him if I have to do CPR? What would it be like for my wife or his wife or my kids to see me doing CPR and their grandfather? These episodes happened at all hours at the night. It was a roller coaster. I don't regret it at all. What I do look back on is how I was handling myself during that time, right? I wasn't as resilient as it could have been, not because I wasn't capable because I wasn't taking care of the basic sleep, diet, training, processing what had already been through.

That was reminded the hard way, right? With the panic episode, with ongoing anxiety, with the realization that I couldn't just keep pushing without adjusting. Push me toward building what I now think of as skills over pills. is what I heard somebody else say a few years ago. Right? And you've done this kind of work, whether professionally or for your family, you know what comes after the moment, after a tough call, especially if you lose someone, you feel it.

Not just because of who they were, a child, a parent, someone holding a hand at the end, but because you gave everything you had to try to keep them there. You ran the algorithms, you thought through options, you did the work, and sometimes it still doesn't work. And that sticks with you. and sometimes it doesn't show up right away. It can come back later. The other night, my wife and I were watching the pit,

the medical show set in an ER. There was a drowning victim scene. Airway in place, EMS giving report, the team working, and I got hit with it. Not one memory, a wave of them. Similar calls, patients crashing, moments that just felt like that. I got up, walked outside,

stood during the night, let it out a bit, took some breaths, looked up, prayed, then I went back in. I got a hug for my wife and sat back down. That's part of it. It will happen. And it's okay to take that time. And there's a reason that this builds.

There's organizations like the Family Caregiver Alliance have shown that caregivers deal with higher stress, worse sleep and burnout. Not because we're doing something wrong, but because we're carrying more. Physical tasks, emotional weight, constant awareness, responsibility. That adds up. There's also a physical side to it. Work from people like Peter Levine shows that stress doesn't just sit in your mind. It lives in your body. When you're on for long periods of time, your system ramps up.

When it's over, it has to come down. That drop you feel, the heaviness, that emotional shift, that's your system trying to reset. If you ignore it, it builds. There's been a lot of talk about stress and burnout, and voices like Abigail Schreier have pushed back on how quickly we label everything as broken. you don't have to label it to know it's real. When you carry enough, for long enough, without managing it, it shows up. For me, it was a panic attack. And I'm not going to go into detail here.

I covered that elsewhere. What I will say is it's different than grief. There's more of a sense of doom and there are ways to work through it. Your breath and your mind matter more than most people realize or put the time in to take care of. There's also something else that doesn't get talked about much. When you're the one who steps in, people start to expect it. not in a bad way, just naturally. You become the one they call, the one they look at, the one who has it handled.

And over time, you can start to feel like you don't get to not be that person. Even when you're tired, even when you're not sure, it's a quiet pressure that we just, we have, right? No one says it directly, but it's there. And if you don't recognize it, you just keep carrying it. There's a reason every time you get on a plane, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before helping someone else. The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't say that as a suggestion.

If you don't take care of yourself, you become another problem. Same thing here. If you don't take care of yourself, eventually someone else has to take care of you. I have been there. I remember my teenage son driving me when I first started trying SSRIs. It wasn't easy. It was embarrassing. He didn't say word.

He just stepped up and did it. That stuck with me. It also showed me something. He's a doer. a provider, a caregiver, and I'm very proud of that. If you're listening to this and you recognize yourself in it, you're valuable. People have told me over the years that I made a difference, that I was there when it mattered that I gave them strength.

You probably hear the same thing. And when you're tired, that doesn't change. But it does change how well you show up. So it pays to take care of yourself. When it's family, for me it's simple. I'm going to step in. I'm fortunate to have a family that's close and supports each other. When it's not, I still pay attention.

I still stay ready, but I ask more questions. I try to understand before I try to fix. That applies at home and at work. I'm always to be ready with my gear, with my awareness, with my mindset. It's not something I turn on and off. It's who I am. It's what I believe I'm here to do to help people in a direct practical way, even when it's uncomfortable.

I heard something the other day from Bob Odenkirk on the Rich Eisen podcast that stuck with me. He was talking about getting older and realizing you have something in you, built over time and you're not exactly sure where to put it. That hit because that's where I am. I've done the work. I've been in the rooms. I've carried people through hard moments. I've built the skills, the awareness, the ability to step in when things go sideways. And now it's not about figuring out if I can do it. It's about making sure I'm putting it where it matters, not wasting it, not letting it sit, using it in a way that actually helps people. For me, that still looks like being ready, being present, stepping in when it counts, but it also means being more intentional about where I put

my time, my energy, and what I've built over the years. Because if you're wired this way, if you've lived this, you don't lose it. You just have to decide where to use it. I'll always be ready with my gear, with my mind, with my awareness. It's not something I used to do in uniform or just in certain situations. It's who I am. It's what I believe God put me here to do to help others in a direct practical way, even when it's hard to handle. Not helping would be worse. If you feel that pool, but you're not sure, take some time with it, pray on it, get a workout in, sit with it, talk to someone you trust. You don't have to rush it, but when it's time, you'll know. And if you're already in it, just make sure you're taking care of yourself well enough to keep doing it. Because what you do

matters more than most people will ever say out loud. If this helped you, take something from it and put it to work today. Don't just let it sit. You can find more at own move anchor.com. You can follow me in the show on X and Instagram at Own Move Anchor and on YouTube, Own Move Anchor. If you know someone who needs this, share it with them, own your mind, move your body, anchor your spirit, keep showing up, keep doing the work. Godspeed, y'all.