We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 93. BURNOUT: Do You Feel Half Alive?

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

1. With everything going on in the world, and in our lives, is “Burnout” the reason we all feel like zombies?  2. Why stress is like trash: You have to get rid of it often or your life starts to stink.   3. Emily and Amelia Nagoski – the authors of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle – answer our Pod Squad’s burning questions about how to bounce back from burnout.  About Emily:  EMILY NAGOSKI is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling Come As You Are and The Come As You Are Workbook. She earned an M.S. in counseling and a Ph.D. in health behavior, both from Indiana University, with clinical and research training at the Kinsey Institute. Now she combines sex education and stress education to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. Emily’s new podcast, Come As You Are, is launching this Summer and her forthcoming book, Come Together, will be released in 2023. She lives in Massachusetts with two dogs, a cat, and a cartoonist. TW: @emilynagoski IG: @enagoski About Amelia:  AMELIA NAGOSKI, Amelia is the co-author with Emily, of the New York Times bestseller Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. A Doctorate of Musical Arts, her job as she describes it is to run around waving her arms and making funny noises and generally doing whatever it takes to help singers get in touch with their internal experience. She lives in New England with her husband, one cat, and two rescue dogs. IG: @amelianagoski

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Today, love bugs, we are talking about burnout. And the reason we are talking about burnout is that sister and I, most days of our lives, we talk. We do that on Zoom now. And we have begun to notice that every time we talk now, we are just staring at each other, emotionless, going through lists of things that we either have to do or talk about, just dead inside. Just like robots of some sort.

Like we have run out, we used to call it in my family like mommy's run out of mommy. Like I have run out of Glennon. Sister has run out of sister. We are. Yeah. And so I started paying attention to. to friends who are talking to me honestly about their experience in life right now. And the words they're using to describe themselves are so fascinating. Zombie, robot, ghost. It's like so different

than a couple years ago. A couple years ago, we had so much kind of fire and fight and fear and giddy up. We were scared, but we were alive. Yeah. Fresh out of giddyup. Fresh out of giddyup. Mm-hmm. Just. And so we started paying attention to this and hearing it more and more. And we thought that we needed to talk about it. So see, you found a quote that you loved that.

Yeah. I thought this is just life now. I was like, well, this is just life now. And then I heard this woman, Anne Helen Peterson, she was talking on a podcast. And I just felt seen to my. marrow when I heard this quote. And she said, it's you go and you go until you can't go anymore and then you keep going. There is no catharsis, no finishing the marathon. The feeling of everything

in your life flattens into one long to-do list. That means all of the joyful things and all of the pain in the ass things. Your life becomes just one damn thing after. after another. And that's what it feels like to me. Like that's when it started to get scary to me when it just all felt so flat. And there was no differentiation between the things that would bring me joy, the things that are things that I should be looking forward to and the things that were obligations that I had to meet, that it was all just the same list and never ending and cycling back. It just feels like when every single moment requires something of you, and there are more requirements than there are moments. And so you just feel like there's no freaking way that you're ever going to catch up with the requirements. And so you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it to try to meet that moment's requirement. But there's no relief in sight. There's no ending line. It's just more of the same. It's a pie eating contest. And the reward. Ward is more pie. Yes. Okay, so trigger warning for drug people who can't listen to drug talk,

but so I used to do a lot of drugs, okay? And there's this one drug that I used to do, which I, I'm about to say a bunch of things and I have no idea if they're true or correct. This was my scientific understanding of this drug. And it was probably told to me by my drug dealers. Just freaking Google it, all right? Just, I don't know. Consider the source. Consider the source, my drug dealer and me. So it was this drug where when I took it, it would flood my brain with more serotonin,

which was good for me because I didn't have enough serotonin. This is my drug dealer said. It may not have been good for me. Okay. So anyway, it would make me feel amazing. And then the next day, the flood of. extra serotonin, there would be an equal and opposite reaction. It would like deplete me so much of serotonin that I've never felt worse. Like it was awful. The recovery from this shit was so

horrific. Okay. And it was because of this direct relationship between the flood and the depletion. And that is how I feel about burnout right now. I feel like the flood of constant adrenaline and cortisol that this last few years has required every single day, whether you're trying to like stay informed and keep up with the news and the horrific images and the horrific situations that we have to keep caring about over and over and over again because we actually were not designed to live in this sort of life where we can experience the pain of everywhere at all times. We were designed to be able to care, to have enough care and enough adrenaline and enough cortisol to make it through dealing with the

hardships of the village, not the world. So we actually aren't made for this sort of constant flooding, right? But because, and by the way, the world is just one thing. Then we've got our families or our freaking lives. You think the state of the world is bad. You should see my family. I could save the world before I could save this house. point being, I feel like I have spent so many years allowing myself to be flooded that now I'm just fresh out. It's like I feel like those days after drug use where I was just like, I've got nothing. I've gotten nothing left. But the difference for me between depression and this feeling burnout is that I keep going.

Yeah. Like when I'm depressed, there's no chance of keeping going. It's like not even, it's not available to me. But burnout is scary to me because I actually feel like a robot. I feel like, oh, I can keep going in this empty existence. And like what you said about the joy and the heart, I don't even know the difference between good things and bad things anymore. Remember when Bobby got diagnosed with COVID and like, what your reaction?

Yeah, that I think was a, that was my first. first sign. So Bobby's fine, but he, after, you know, two years of, thank God, avoiding it, he got COVID recently. And I remember that my reaction to that immediately was, and I'm not proud, but got the diagnosis and I built a spreadsheet of everything we needed to do. I just immediately he sat down and was like, contact the school, find out the protocol, when he can go back, figure out how, you know, get the papers from the school, figure out all the people we need to contact that we've been in contact with for the past five days, figure out all the order, all the tests we're going to need for everyday testing. Like it was, it was like, oh,

something that requires all of these things to do, as opposed to normally you would say, your beloved son getting diagnosed with COVID would issue some kind of emotional response. Right. And it wasn't until I had finished the spreadsheet that it even occurred to me, oh, maybe I should check in with myself. And that only occurred to me because I was like, what's wrong with you that you didn't have any emotional response? Mm-hmm.

Because, and that's what I feel, the emotional depletion. Mm-hmm. of having so much emotion for so long surrounding all these things and we're just spent emotionally. There's no more emotional resources to bring to the table. And so there's only just things to do. Correct. Yes. And you and I started talking about, you know, really kind of labeling it as burnout because

both of us know what depression feels like. So we kind of understood that there was something different going on here. when we realized that we both were likely in burnout, we remembered this book that we both read a long time ago that actually helped us a lot understand what burnout is, why it happens, and what we can do about it. And the reason why we liked it was because it was helpful, but also because the authors who are friends of this pod,

Emily Nagoski, who wrote Come as You Are, and her sister, who is also an author, Amelia Nagoski, they are just kind of the antidote to like the self-help or self-care. There's no suggestion of we can just fix, you know, burnout with a candle or a bath or a manicure. It's just or that it's our fault that we are burnt out. Like we're just not living correctly. If we had a better organizer or planner or if only we instituted, you know,

a meal-making schedule that we would have all of this figured out. Like, it's there very clear that the game is rigged, that the stressors are inevitable, that we are more prone to them than up the food chain. And yet have really great strategies that are not self-care based strategies, but that are ways to activate physiologically. The response we need to run stress through and then get it outside of our bodies. So the book is burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. I appreciate it when anyone can put sciencey situations to my feelings. So much in their work is about patriarchy and racism and misogyny and homophobia and abelism and how all of that creates stressors on human beings that are sure as hell not our fault.

and somehow we still have to spend a lifetime responding to. So we thought that we would just out ourselves as burnout, a burnout outing, and just talk about it because we feel like it's happening lots and lots and lots. And as they say in here, not knowing why we're suffering is an added layer of suffering. So we thought that we would introduce you to some of what we learned in burnout. And then we have a special treat to have the Nagasaki sisters answering some of your questions about burnout. They refer to Kate Mann, who I love. And she wrote this book called Down Girl.

And she talks about the human, I think it's called the human giver theory, which is if you set up a culture where half of the population gets to be human beings. And their whole existence is about, you know, being served and getting their needs met and self-executive. and self-fulfillment and destiny fulfillment. And then half of the population is the human givers. And they're responsible for making sure that the human beings, all of their needs. They're the supporting actors, actresses, right, in the lead characters movie. They exist for the purpose of giving of themselves for the ease of other people's lives. for making other people's lives run.

That is her theory is that that is the moral obligation of the givers to give. And the moral obligations of the beings is to be. Yeah. So in that system, which we have, it makes perfect sense that women are burned out as all hell. Because we believe it is our moral obligation to give. And in a time when you cannot give enough to make things okay for anyone, you are going to spin your wheels until you're burnt, right? Until you have nothing left. And it's not just because you're losing.

It's because the game is rigged. And rigged in varying degrees depending on your lived experience. So it works intersectionally. So the folks that are most seen as having the obligations, to give and give and not receive black and brown women. So there's a hierarchy of who gets to be and who gets to give. Yeah. And it does make sense about why when you look at, I mean, this is a generalization,

but women do seem more burdened out than men. Men are surviving a little bit better because the caretaking of the world still falls predominantly on women, which makes this time unbearable. Yeah. I think we should talk about what it mean. What is burn out? What are the symptoms? If you're, if you're, like, I think a lot of people feel pretty dead inside and feel like something's off. So the first one is emotional exhaustion. This is, when you think about physical exhaustion versus emotional exhaustion. I'll tell you a couple weeks ago, I was just a shell of a human sitting at the table and I told Abby, I'm so tired. And she said, we'll go take a nap. And I said to her, I am not the kind of. I am not the kind of. And I'm not. I am not the kind of. I'm just. I am not. I am not. of tired that an nap will fix. I just meant I am to my soul, like to my spirit tired, like bone tired. A sleep does not fix this kind of tired.

The Nagoski sisters define that as emotional exhaustion as the fatigue that comes from caring too much for too long. There's a difference between burnout as it's man. in men and Bernanaz is manifested in women and women are are big on the emotional exhaustion. That's the way it shows up more most often with women. The second one is depersonalization, the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion. And it's kind of just like when you, you want to care, you know, intellectually that you should, but there's just nothing left.

Like I was describing it to John the other day and he was like, how are you doing? And I said, I think I'm really not good. And he said, what, like, what do you mean? And the only way that I could describe it was I feel like I am pulling from an empty well. Like I'm like trying to keep bringing the bucket up. But there's nothing down there to to bring up. And there's something down there to bring up. And there's. certainly nothing like replenishing the stock. It's just like, here's your empty bucket. Check that off the list. Here's your empty bucket. So there's that. And then the last one is decreased sense of accomplishment, an unconquerable sense of futility, feeling that nothing you do makes any difference. And that is how most men experience burnout. Oh, that's interesting. I've, felt that recently. You know, when I did the episode about the landing and I was talking about my eating disorder resurgence, which by the way, I think also when you ever fall back into those old crappy things that you do to hurt yourself, that's always a sign of either burnout or depression

or anxiety. Right. So me going back to my eating disorders, certainly a red flag. But I did those landing episodes and I was really like whenever I can be that vulnerable I actually really do feel that to be one of my most important acts of service. So whether people receive it like that or not, I don't, you know, but I usually that is like a big sense of accomplishment for me. I know that sounds weird. But like when I can put, when I'm feeling like really low or hurt or and I can put it into words that I feel like will meet people, some people where they are, I usually feel really good about that. And there was an amazing response to that. People were writing to me. And I was trying to like feel something about it. And I just didn't. I just like people were telling me this

change this. I have an eating disorder. This or this and I would read it. And intellectually I would think good. Job done. Glennon. Good. But I had no like, I couldn't have summoned up a tear to save my life. Right. You know? Right. There's just. no tears. One of the reasons also that we like that their philosophy is because we are in this situation so many of us where we cannot change our situation. That's another annoying thing. When it's like the solution is either get a candle, take a bath, get a manicure, right? Because self-care has been so commodified and like another to-do list. Or, well, just change it. Just say no. Just set up some boundaries.

I can't. We're all just surviving right now. Like, okay, so real quick, then what you're saying, we should just fix racism, patriarchy, homophobia, misogyny, the school system, the Senate, the Congress, our marriages, our mortgages, we should just fix that. And that'll, oh, that's what would help. I see. Right. Right.

Yeah. If I had just fucking thought of that. I just thought of those things. Well, that is what I loved about what they explained. Because first of all, shocking to go through your whole life and not know this. But that, you know, when I would think of stress, I think about stress is the way I feel about the demands on me. But that I think it's not. You just thought of stress as just the demands on you.

Right. But I could at least understand I'm feeling stressed out. I'm feeling stressed. So I'm feeling a certain way about those demands. But what they explained that all of the research shows is that when we think about stress, what we need to be thinking about is these two separate, totally distinct buckets. And one of them is stressors. Okay.

Stressors. So stressors are the issues you're having in your relationship. The fact that you got to get your kid prepared for that test. Friday. The fact that you have something big do at work. The fact that you're worried if you're going to make your car payment. The fact that your boss is a racist. The fact that your neighbor is a misogynist, whatever those things are. The shitty things in your life are the stressors. The traffic jams, the whatever. So the whole giant bucket of things that tax us, that are demands on us, that are obligations of us. Then there's a completely separate bucket.

that is stress. And when stress is something that is happening inside of your body. So stressor bumps up against you. That means bump your it. Stress is inside of you. Okay. So, but it's a very different thing. It doesn't matter what the stressor was. It doesn't matter if it was a little stupid traffic jam or you caught that red light or whether it's a huge, gigantic thing in the world. It also doesn't matter whether it was a good or bad thing, good stress or bad stress. It doesn't matter if your mother-in-law just called you and said all the terrible things and stressed you out or if you just had this amazing interview opportunity that you had to go in

and give. Both caused this weird thing to happen inside of your body that is called stress. Right. So now the stress is inside your body. Okay. you think, oh, well, I took that test. Well, I paid that bill. It's finished. But that, very unfortunately for all of us, turns out is not true. So the stress is in your body. It is now in a completely different cycle than the stressor that your neighbor might have moved. You don't have

worry about that bill anymore. It doesn't matter. Your body doesn't speak the language of bills. your body needs to go through a stress cycle, which has a beginning, middle, and end, as the Nagasaki sisters point out. Like, if you don't complete that stress cycle, all that is happening and living inside of your body and doing damage inside of your body is accumulated, unprocessed stress. Because we think once we've dealt with the stressors, this situation doesn't affect me. And that's actually not true. We need every cycle of stress needs to be cycled out of your body. And there's particular ways to do that, which is amazing. But I think of stress as like trash.

So we are living in this world. And no matter what we do, people are going to come and dump trash on our home. Okay? They're just going to come right up in our house. They're just going to throw trash all over it. That's not fair. That's not cool. That's a stressor.

Right? But we can't stop that from happening. The only thing that we can do is either live with a house that is chock full of fukin' trash and pretend like we're not. Or we can gather that trash up and take it out. But that is what's happening with our bodies with stress. If we do not cycle through that stress, we are living. in houses that are to the ceiling filled with garbage. Yes!

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all the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Yes. So that's always pissed me off because I am someone for whom the water always gets inside. Like that's awesome that you somehow have these steel ships where nothing gets inside. But like for me, things that happen make me feel a certain way. You're like, my ship is a sponge. I have no ship. I live on a large sponge. That's correct. Okay. So what the theory here is in burnout, though, is that it's actually not the goal to not get any water inside your ship. You couldn't live an absolute stress-free existence. That's not human. But the good news is that what we just have to make sure we're doing is what's it called when you like, scoop the water out.

It's called like shoveling water. It's not a bill. Bailing. Bailing. Bailing. So what we have to do is make sure we're bailing the stuff that the water comes in each day. We bail it out. The water comes in each day.

We bail it out. If we do not bail, we sink. And right now, sister, we are sunk. You are sunk. And I am living in a. fuming trash-infested kitchen. Yes. I am sunk and you stink.

So that's okay. Okay, that's okay, I think, because there are things we can do. Well, can we talk about completing the cycle? This is an important thing that they talk about. So the issue is the bailing, the bailing or the detrashing each day, the sisters much more scientifically. us. Yeah. They say, that completing the cycle. Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about what, because that's something that we and are, do the thing about the lion. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Got you, girl.

Do the lion. Do that anyway. Yeah. Okay. So they give this analogy in the book. Our bodies are made the way they are. Our cycles are made the way they are because it's evolutionary. Okay. So we, our bodies are doing a thing to help keep us alive. Yes. That is what our bodies are really always trying hard to do, notwithstanding our efforts to the contrary. So in early times, what would happen was, and they tell the story in the book,

you're being chased by a line. Your response to that is one of the body's natural responses, which is fight, flight, or freeze. So in that situation, you're probably going to flight, right? You think you're hopefully going to be able to run away from the line. So you run, you run, you run, you run, you run. You get to safety. The way we would be thinking is that the fact that you've got to safety is what's removing your stress.

But that is not the case. What has removed your stress is running. So it is your body is experiencing a body function, which is a cycle of stress. And the only language that your body speaks is body language. Is something within your body that helps your body process, move through the cycle and finish it. So you can be without the stress. Our stressors now don't look like that. You know, we don't, a bill doesn't look like a lion. So we are experiencing it, but we're not, we're writing the check.

That is not, our body doesn't understand that the danger is gone. Our body is still living in that heightened state until we process through the whole cycle. And there are a lot of ways that they give in burnout, which are really practical ways to cycle through. And in fact, I've been using some of them with Alice because she's really good at explaining when she's feeling stress. And so we've started using them. There's obviously a lot of physical ones in there, which are harder for me because complicated relationship with exercise. But physical body movement, any body movement, walking, running, any of that will help you complete the cycle. Were there any in there that worked for you?

Yeah, I mean, I, well, a couple things I want to say. One is I want to talk about the fight or flight or freeze. Just because fight offers you the relief because you're physically responding. So that's the physical completion of the cycle. Flight offers you relief because of the flighting, because of the flight running. Freeze is a tricky one. And I want to talk about freeze for a second only because I think the more I learn about freeze, the more I want to talk about freeze as a legitimate,

um, wise body strategy of survival because I have so many friends and trigger warning for sexual assault. I have so many friends who have been in situations where they have frozen. Okay. Or even not sexual assault, but physical assaults or or verbal assault or times when they look back on a moment and they're like, why didn't I fight back? Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I? Why didn't I? Why didn't it? And they see it as weakness. And so what I want to say really clearly here is that freeze is actually a very wise survival strategy. Freeze means your brilliant mind has figured out that the best way to survive this moment And maybe the only way to survive this moment is to go dead. Animals use it to survive.

That it is, that was yourself taking care of yourself. And it was likely the wisest thing you could have done. So I just wanted to say that even though it doesn't completely relate to. And then what I also want to say about the difference between the stress and the stressors is it reminds me of what Alok said to us. And when Alok talked about, if you look at my autopsy, you will see a collection of bills, of laws, of oppression. You will see the result of the stressors inside my body. It reminds me of Yaba when Dr. Blay talked to us about Bell Hooks and about how she says they killed her and they'll kill me too. These are people for whom the stressors of the world, they have identified that the stressors of the world translate directly to the stress that builds up inside their body. And in fact, in the Western world, you are more likely to die from your stress, you're built up inside your body than you are from the stressors outside of your body. Yes. So when I think of the completion of the cycle, I know that many of them are physical, that for a lot of people, it's running, it's,

a lot of the examples that they give for completing the cycle are physical. For me, because what you mentioned, because I actually don't want to do any more exercise that makes me feel like I'm triggering my parasympathetic anymore. I don't want to feel upset. And when I mean upset, like, I don't mean upset in a negative, I mean disturbed, like, heightened. That's the last thing I need anymore is to be heightened. I don't want to be in a class where someone's screaming at me to get my heartbeat up. Like, thanks. I do that at home on the couch. Like, I don't need any way to fucking scream at me to get upset. I need the opposite of that.

I'm screaming at my own self constantly. I'm upset enough. I guess I just think about it a little bit differently than the book does, okay, in terms of what I need for completing my cycle, which is I just need to feel safe. Stress is a threat and makes me feel like I'm not safe. And by the way, I can't tell the difference anymore between a good and a bad stress. Both feel to me like a lion is attacking me. You're activated. I'm activated, okay?

So what I have to do to complete the cycle of stress is to do things that remind me that I am actually safe. That I'm actually not being attacked by a lion at the moment. So for me, it's like five minutes of deep breathing exercises completely still or yoga every freaking time. I don't, I won't do it because I'm a moron like because I can't, I know what will help me and I refuse to do it. So that's a whole other thing. But yoga always helps.

Then or a short walk with, and by the way, I have to have my feet like in, I can't wear shoes because, well, shoes are foot coffins and I hate them so much. But also, it is true that something about my feet touching the ground tells my brain, gravity is working. You're okay. No one's chasing you. You're safe. That's another thing about running.

How does running make you feel safe? It feels like someone's chasing me. Well, everyone has a different way. I mean, but when you say that about feeling, like you're safe and home. That is the function of a lot of what they say in the book. I mean, a 20 second strong hug. That isn't because of the physical act. It's because the physical act is telling your body that you are in a safe place. The 22nd hug. The 22nd hug is huge. It is an awkward ass amount of time to be hugging someone. Because Allison

I do that one a lot at home. I mean, when you really do it, when you hold someone tight for 20 seconds, it's, look, that works. Oh, you know what I love about that one too? I remember this, is that the important part of that is that you are both on your center of gravity. So the hug doesn't work if, like, one person is leaning too far on the other person or one person is like doing all the holding them both centered. Is that not a beautiful metaphor? Like the only thing that makes us feel safe when hugging someone else is when you are both on solid ground. When you are both steady. Every once in a while, I do some stretching thing with Abby or like yoga or something.

And because we're standing next to each other, I will use her. I'll forget and I'll use her as the, I think it's called the Drishti, the point where you have to look at to remain balanced. And the second I do, I fall over. because she's freaking moving. And it reminds me every time in a relationship. Like, no, no, no, no. You do not use the other person as your touch tree. You each have to have your own touch tree.

So that's an important part of the hug is like, think about that with children too. Like we grab them. Mm-hmm. We pull them into us. Like the 22nd hug that will help your kid is when your kid is on their own two feet, is on their own center of gravity.

And you are both getting from each other what you want, but not what you need, right, to keep each other steady. Because it's the difference between I will protect you and you are safe inside yourself. Exactly. It's the difference in untamed of Tish saying to me every night, Mommy tell me that I'm never going to lose you. And every freaking night I'd be like,

you're never going to lose me. like I just lie to my child. Like the only thing I know, I don't know anything about parenting, except that that kid's going to lose me until we figured out, oh, what I need to be saying is, baby, you're never going to lose you. All we want to say, really, the whole point of this episode for all of you is what, first of all, if you are feeling this robot vampire ghost dead inside existence, that is actually what's going on for much of,

our culture right now. It is not just you. And I just find a little bit of hope in the idea that even if we cannot change anything, while we continue to try, of course, but even if we cannot change anything, we can help ourselves survive this by finding small ways to complete the cycle, as the Nagasaki sisters are saying, or to what I guess I would say is like just remind yourselves of some level of safety on the earth each day after the fight. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers and NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite, you can

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So what's really cool about this episode is that we have the Nagasaki sisters here with us to answer your pod squad's questions about burnout. So let's get to them. And then I want to come back, even though this is unusual for this amazing pod squatter of the week that I just feel like we need this week. Take it away, Nagasaki sisters. I am the Emily one. I'm the Amelia one. And we are excited to have the opportunity to answer some amazing questions about burnout.

Okay, let's hear from Kylie. My name is Kylie and I'm calling because I've always felt this deep calling to make a difference and help in the world. And I have this strong empathy. And like you say, I feel things deeply and I'm deeply affected by everything going on in the world right now. And for years and years, I've wanted to help and make a difference. And I'm just wondering how you don't get overwhelmed. by that feeling to help out in so many different areas and how are you able to choose what's most important to get your focus or where to start first because, you know, I'm feeling defeated

because I haven't fulfilled that yearning inside to help and make a difference because I have so many areas I'm interested in. And I just wonder, where should I start and how do I stop from letting this overwhelm, how to overcome this overwhelm. Thank you so much. I love this question because meaning in life is one of the most important resources. It's one of our most important energy sources. So knowing what your something larger is, in the book we call it, your something larger because all the research is just like engage with something larger than yourself. So how do you figure out what your something larger is? And I wanted to ask this question because I got some great advice from a therapist when I was trying to figure out what even to do with

my life. My therapist Lisa says, Emily, the world is an infinite sucking vortex of need. It is not your job to fill all the needs. It's your job to do your part. And that is how I learned to deal with my overwhelm. I figured out which part was my part. And let me just address, I heard that how do you choose what's most important, and I want to make sure you hear this. It's all important. So Howard Thurman, the minister, said, do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Yeah. I'll give you the concrete, specific, sort of like, just actionable thing that I did to figure out what makes me come alive. The two questions I ask are, one, what kind of problems do I enjoy?

solving. And two, what kind of people do I love working with? Write down or talk through answers to those two questions. What kind of problems do you enjoy solving? And what kind of people do you love working with? And then go do that. Because the reality is that your aliveness is the antidote to the overwhelm. I'll add one other specific resource. You describe yourself as a highly sensitive person. You may also be an introvert. And if you are either one of those, you might be a good fit for Lisa Renee Hall's inner field trip, which you can find, you can search on the internet for inner field trip. It's a process of doing the inner work to protect your energy while you work for justice. Do you agree? Yeah. And now we get to talk to a nurse. Next is Amanda. My name's Amanda. And my question's kind of random. It kind of became to what I'm going through in my life right now. I'm a nurse. I've been a nurse. I've been. working in COVID since February of March of 2020.

So it's been a long haul and COVID's starting to pick back up again. And I'm just seeing all of my friends dealing with this incredible burnout and this compassion fatigue. And I feel it too. And I'm wondering what other questions do you have that can maybe help me do this really hard time for me and my coworkers where we went into this profession trying to help people. And it's hard when you're burnt out and you see people around the world that don't take COVID seriously. So that's my question. Thank you so much.

It's really important to me to start the answer to this question by saying, thank you, Amanda, for the work you're doing. And I'm hoping Amelia will give you the gift of singing a little song in a minute. Yeah, because this is pretty dark. Like, I get that it's pretty dark, but like a song can make things better. So I am going to sing a song. Yeah. So let's start with the people who are not taking the pandemic seriously.

I hope that everyone listening to this knows that the people not taking it seriously are factually incorrect. Nearly a million Americans have died, including a disproportionate number of people of color and the most vulnerable people. Plus, there's people like Amelia who have their lives altered by the disabling health consequences of long COVID. And so when you feel angry about those factually incorrect people, Boy, howdy, am I right there with you? Yeah. And those factually incorrect people did not invent their denial. They are trapped in a system that manipulated them into believing incorrect things.

The real enemy is not the people who don't take COVID seriously. It's the system that trapped us all here. I am not saying, don't be angry. I'm not saying don't feel hurt. It is hurtful. It is scary to me to see people working in opposition to everything you are trying to do, to just help other people, but the enraging, hurtful, scary enemy isn't those individual factually incorrect humans. It is the larger system that is using those individuals as weapons against you.

Target your fear and your rage toward that. That's my first piece of advice in the second one, because that is absolutely not enough to get you through the transition from pandemic to endemic in one piece. You're going to need what we call the bubble of love. The bubble of love. Bubble of love is a protected space that includes only the people who take your well-being as seriously as you take theirs. Did you get that? Not as seriously as you take your own well-being because don't we all put our own well-being last? People who take your well-being as seriously as you take theirs. These are the people who notice when you're exhausted and overwhelmed and they say, you've had a hard day, go take a bath, have a long nap, we'll make the dinner, and when you're ready, come on down,

and we'll sit around and talk about our feelings. Remembering who the real enemy is, is how you protect yourself out in the world. The bubble of love is where you go to heal. Amelia? So here's a song that tells that story. I want to do and be everything that the world has demanded. me sometimes I feel I won't deserve love not until I'm productive enough that's when I need supplementary help to reinforce my boundary in my bubble of love I am enough in my bubble of love

there are people who care about my well-being as much as I care about theirs sometimes Sometimes I fear I don't deserve love, not until I'm successful enough. That's when I need supplementary help to mind what gives a life meaning. In my bubble of love, I am enough in my bubble of love. That is so much more cheerful. But they're both important. They're both necessary parts of the answer. All right.

Let's hear from Marlina. My name is Marlina and I am a third grade teacher from Orlando, Florida. And I guess my question or comment to you would be, being that I am a third grade teacher, and I'm only in my second year of teaching, I'm already noticing, I don't want to say teacher burnout, but I am already so tired. And I don't know if it's the pandemic or the fact that schools give us way too much do as teachers because you're not only a teacher, you're also a mother and a friend and your guidance counselor, you're a therapist, you're all these things at once. And I know this is what

I want to do, but even in my second year, I'm already saying that this might not be for me forever because I feel like it's already taking so much from me. So I don't know. How do I prevent myself from hating what I do for a living. Yeah. Like I said, love you guys. I've been a teacher my whole adult life teaching in private schools, public schools, middle school, high school. When I taught at that level, I barely lasted five years. And as of today, we know that about half of teachers only last as long as I did, like I was totally average. And then during the pandemic, now a new survey says that 60% of teachers currently in the classroom are thinking about leaving. And I understand why. I know that feeling, I know it's so well that feeling you're

describing. But I think the answer that's going to help you continue to do work that you love, as you say, is to remember human giver syndrome. So here's a quick refresh. sure. Human giver syndrome is the belief that you have a moral obligation. You owe it to the whole world and your family and your job and yourself to be at all times pretty happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others. You have to be there for your students, the administrators, for the parents, for your own family. And believing that any failure to be at all times pretty happy calm, generous, and attentive, makes you a failure as a person. And it's important to notice that it's not giving itself. That's the problem. Giving, as you know, probably from your

best days of teaching, you know that this kind of service can actually fuel you and you can leave at the end of the day feeling like you have more energy than when you started. So the problem is not giving. It's giving in the context of an organization a system that feels entitled to take from you, everything that you have. And you're expected to say yes. But eventually, if you say no, they will just keep pressing. And it'll become less work just to do the thing that you were trying to avoid. And that is less work than trying to keep saying no and defending your boundaries.

So here it is. The cure for human giver syndrome. Cure. Yeah, there's a cure. There's a cure. In addition to everything we've talked about, the bubble of love, and remember who the real enemy is, and doing what makes you come alive, and also notice what it's like to interact with your fellow givers compared to what it's like to interact with people who feel entitled to your time and energy and body and life. and as you notice which people have which kind of energy, as much as you can, shift more of your time and energy to the givers. It's not always easy. It's not even always possible. But the entitled people are going to probably object to your doing this, which means that you're doing it right. And your bubble of love.

Congratulations. Yeah, it can be the ones like your bubble, the people who care about your well-being as much as you care about, theirs, the people who care about your well-being as much as I care about theirs. See? Yeah. Those are the ones who are going to be like your protective barrier to help remind you that you deserve those boundaries, that you deserve care and time for yourself, and that you deserve to say no when you are at your limit. I have a sort of like Instagramable quote if you want one. Oh, easy to memorize thing. I like this. When you feel you need more grit, what you need is more help. And when you feel you need more Discipline, what you need is more kindness. Right. Because when you're exhausted, the solution is not to work harder.

When you're exhausted, you need help and more rest, and you deserve those resources. It's a new year, and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question. What would actually support me right now? And honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional, and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year, which is why I've been turning to Wayfair. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget, whether you're organizing kids' rooms, upgrading your work from home setup, tackling clutter, or just trying to make weeknight dinners easy.

Wayfair really does have everything. Your home doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to support the life you're living right now. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. All right, let's get to our final question. Let's see. hear from Julia. My name is Julia. I am the parent of two beautiful young kids, one of whom is five and was recently vaccinated my God and the other who is almost 20 months. You may hear him in the background. Anyway, I just was calling with a question about parenting burnout. Both my husband and I have kind of reached a fever pitch, I would say, in the last month or so.

as COVID keep rising and and their schools keep shutting down alternately and both of us work full time and it's just, sometimes it just feels completely overwhelming. So I guess my question is like, how do you communicate through things that feel especially challenging?

Especially when they feel like you're not sure when they'll change. My husband is a feminist, He's a great communicator, and we've worked really hard to be as equal as possible in how we divide our life and share our life. But it's been hard on both of us. So I would love to hear whatever tactics, strategies, or sympathies you may have in that regard. But thank you so much for doing it you do. I really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Oh, I love this question so much. it is so hashtag relatable to so many people. Because in the best case scenario in the pandemic, you're locked in your house with your very favorite people in the world, which sounds great. Too many people were stuck entirely alone. One in three American households is a solo individual. And there were too many people stuck in unsafe situations, right? But even in the best case scenario, you are trapped at home with your best friends. So parenting preschoolers, in a pandemic while working from home with just you or just you and one other person felt too hard.

That's because it's too hard. It is not because you were failing or falling short. It's because it was an unrealistic demand to make on you. So there is a specific book on parenting burnout. It's called mommy burnout. Sorry for the gendery stuff there. It's from pre-pandemic, so it might not feel immediately relevant to the situation. But I want to make sure people know that there is a more targeted resource for parents. Burnout is not just about work. It is definitely about all of our different relationships. But ultimately, the solution for the situation is, I'm procrastinating saying it out loud, it's kindness and compassion.

Yeah. I know. I'm sorry. Yeah. When we made the Feminist Survival Project 2020, we made this podcast. The moral of the story after 50-odd episodes was, turned toward each other's needs and difficult feelings with kindness. and compassion.

We said kindness and compassion so often. It actually turned into, I apologize, that people need to bleep this, but kindness and motherfucking compassion. Yeah. So toward the end of the podcast, we asked people to send in an email with, like, just tell us one important thing you learned

after all these episodes. And one of the emails was from a guy who listened to the podcast with his wife, and they were having all the same fights that people were having during the pandemic about time and kids and energy and attention and householding and sex. sex and all the things. And they had started incorporating kindness and motherfucking compassion into

their fights. And so they'd find themselves stuck in the exact same like frustrations and judgments and arguments over and over. One of them would notice. And they would stop and go, kindness and motherfucking compassion. And they'd use it as this repair, a reminder to turn toward each other's needs and their difficult feelings with kindness and compassion. So when we say kindness and compassion, please do not think we mean sweetness and in light. We do not always mean, oh, and tell me more about that. That sounds really hard. Compassion

and kindness can be brusque and a struggle and not amazing. That's okay. We all want to be kind all the time, I know, but it is not always easy, not even in the bubble of love. No. Yeah. I also want to address, because as you say, one in three households is a single person

household, and we also get a lot of questions from people who are in the opposite situation. They're not in a partnership where this is an issue. They're problem with kindness and compassion is that they think I don't have anybody in my life like that. And this is actually one of the most common questions we get. And it seems like the answer is, well, get better people. But like, right, you don't have a bubble of love. Find a better person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are identical twins raised in the same household. And anything you're assuming about

what our relationship was like because of that is not true. We were raised with an alcoholic, narcissistic father and a mother who is understandably anxious and depressed. And in a family like that, the rules are you take care of your own needs. You don't even talk about your needs or feelings or that you have feelings. Feelings aren't real and they don't exist. You don't say the truth out loud. You don't tell the stories. But we started writing this book. We were reading really difficult science, the active, affective neuroscience and the psychophysiology, difficult stuff. All the really hard science. It was, the answer is connection. The answer is love.

Talk about your damn feelings. And we were right in this book. So we had to try following this evidence-based advice. And it was so awkward, but we did it. We started telling each other the stories that we were both there for, but had never discussed, like, four decades of hard stuff. It was not easy or fun. One time I remember we were just both sitting on your couch, right? Staring at the wall across from us next to each other, but not looking at each other, just crying and telling the stories. It was so, so awkward. Oh my God, it was so awkward. Anyway, what I'm saying is if we can do it, people think, well, you can do it because you're twins. Nope. Nope. If we can do it, anybody can, you know, raised in this household. Oh, and we also discuss. recently that we are both autistic. So the undiagnosed autism was also another layer of making it difficult to connect with other people. Literally, if we can build that kind of connection,

anyone can. And there they are. Those are our answers to the questions from listeners. They were fantastic. And I hope this was helpful. Thank you, Nagoski sisters. Thank you to Emily. Thank you to Amelia. You all should really pick up their book burnout. Help me a lot. And don't forget come as you are, Emily's book that rocked our first silent sex queen episode that if you haven't listened to you definitely are going to want to go listen to now. Okay, everybody, for our pod squader of the week. Let's hear from Sarah. Hi, Glennon and Abby and Amanda. My name is Sarah. I am an elementary school art teacher in Denver, Colorado. And I don't have a hard thing. I have kind of a nice thing. The other day, a little girl fell asleep in my class at the very

end of the school day, a little second grader at the very end of the day. And normally, I would intervene and wake them up because how dare you fall asleep in my class. But the other day, when she fell asleep, I felt like Glennon came out of my body. And all I said to the little kids who were trying to wake her up was let her rest. So Glennon, if your ears were burning the other day, that's why. I love you guys. Thank you for what you do. Thank God for elementary school art teachers and all teachers who, by the way, are more burned out than most right now. Let's just this week embrace that idea. Let her rest.

Whatever you need to do to remind yourself of safety, of love, of worthiness, of any sort of joy, any laughter you can find, any rest you can find. any rest you can find, any walks you can find, any long hug you can find. Let's just grab it this week because it will continue. It will help us continue to do these freaking hard things that I'm pretty sure are not going to stop coming. I love you. I love you, sister. Love you. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 students. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.