Finding Small Moments of Mindfulness: Diminishing Burnout, Stress & Overwhelm, with Katherine Chestnut

Katharine is an author and coach who helps people who have been barely holding it together, for too long, stop running on empty and build calm confidence for real life.

In this conversation, Katherine shares practical strategies for managing burnout, stress, and overwhelm through mindfulness, breath work and nervous system regulation. We also discuss how a daily practice of finding small moments of mindfulness can transform our mental health and confidence.

Topics Discussed Include:

• How to practice small moments of mindfulness
• The importance of self-awareness and micro-moments of calm
• Calm confidence vs. superficial confidence
• The impact of stress and tension
• Nervous system regulation and burnout
• Language and self-identification in emotional regulation
• Practical breath work techniques for stress relief
• The role of mindfulness and journaling in emotional health
• Redefining meditation and mindfulness
• Authentic journaling and mindfulness practices

If you’d like to learn more about Katharine, or about her coaching, courses, and books, you can visit her website. You can also take her free mindfulness quiz here.

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ABOUT JOEY
Joey is a certified Teacher of Presence Life Coach, having studied with Eckhart Tolle at The School of Awakening. He has also studied, and practices, Native American spirituality, Buddhism, and the teachings of Ram Dass. Joey has been practicing mindfulness and meditation for many years, and is a long-time student on the subjects of self-care, neuroplasticity, trauma, psychology, spirituality, goals, and relationships.

LEARN MORE
Learn more about Joey, his life coaching practice, or book a complimentary discovery call by visiting his website.

Transcript

Joey Donovan Guido (00:01)
Hello and welcome to the Guts podcast. I'm Joey Donovan-Gaito and today we're talking with Katherine Chestnut about burnout, overwhelm, stress, and how mindfulness, breath work, and nervous system regulation can help. Katherine is an author and coach who helps people who have been holding it together for too long stop running on empty and build calm confidence for real life.

And with that, Catherine, welcome to the show.

Katharine Chestnut (00:34)
Thank for having me, Joy.

Joey Donovan Guido (00:36)
You're welcome.

So as we discussed a little bit before the show, I've got a bunch of questions for you. the first one I want to kind of touch upon is that calm confidence that I mentioned in the intro. And when you talk about calm confidence for real life, what does that actually mean? And how different, how is it different from just being calm or just being confident?

Katharine Chestnut (01:04)
And it's interesting we we did talk a little bit before we got on here and that we have similar backgrounds and spent many years in corporate America, so totally come from that place and confidence by itself can sometimes feel aggressive or even performative like we have to

put this purse, we have to put on this persona of confidence and that doesn't always feel good. And being calm all by itself can also become passive at times. So when I talk about calm confidence, that's really regulated power.

It's the ability to walk into a meeting or a hard conversation or even a conflict and not lose yourself. Your heart rate might rise, your anxiety might rise, but you don't lose your center. It's not that we're pretending that nothing

affects us. It's just knowing that you can handle whatever it comes up and it's really different from that surface level composure that sometimes we feel like we have to put on when we're regulated. It's just it's so much easier to come from that place of power that is calm and safe.

for everybody around you.

Joey Donovan Guido (03:03)
Yeah, that's I love that. And that's that reminds me a lot of the work I do. it's it's I mean, there are different words for it, right? Like being grounded or being being in consciousness or being in that place of mindfulness. But it makes a lot of sense because if it's just confidence, it's it's like a mask. Right. And then but if we have that calm with it, there's there's something that comes with that calmness. That

kind of emanate a different kind of confidence that isn't ego driven is kind of what I'm getting from you.

Katharine Chestnut (03:40)
Yes,

yes, and you're not, you're not putting on, like you said, a mask or, you know, it's like, you know, you have a power suit, right? Or a power tie and you're going into a meeting and you're like, you know, that can be sometimes part of our armor and putting on,

that emotional armor can be exhausting. And so that's how confidence can become kind of performative or aggressive because you're exhausted and you're tired, but you feel like you have to put on this really strong front. But if we're calm in that place, we don't have to. Yeah, I might be putting on my power suit, but I'm not putting on.

the whole thing all over me. If that makes sense.

Joey Donovan Guido (04:44)
Mm-hmm.

It does make sense. It actually makes me think of Ram Dass, who was one of my teachers, and he talks about the heart and putting armor around the heart. So it's a little different, but it has a similar feeling for me because he talks about if that armor is up, if you get into that habit of it being there, then you're closed off. I see this happen with myself sometimes, especially once I became a caregiver.

Because, you know, to your point, if you're going into a meeting or if you're in a situation that's uncomfortable, you know, that armor kind of creates this separation from the self, from the situation. But then sometimes we forget to take the armor off and then we're disconnected from everybody and everything. Yes. Yes.

Katharine Chestnut (05:33)
and ourselves.

Joey Donovan Guido (05:38)
And I've been doing this work for years and I still catch myself like, wow, I am really armored up right now.

Katharine Chestnut (05:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joey Donovan Guido (05:49)
And it's, I

feel like it's almost something we've been taught, you know, kind of hammered into us, you know, this certain behaviors we're supposed to have.

Katharine Chestnut (05:54)
Absolutely.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Totally agree that we are taught that.

that we need to come across as very confident in order to be taken seriously. And as a young woman, when I was first starting my career, I felt like I had to be more put on that mask all the time in order to be taken seriously. And again, exhausting.

Joey Donovan Guido (06:28)
you

So yeah, just with that regulated power that you mentioned earlier, can you give us an example of like how you might work with somebody who's experiencing this masking or kind of this confidence without the calm? What might be a way that helps them step into this regulated power?

Katharine Chestnut (07:04)
Well,

most of the time when people are, you know, coming to me or reading my books, they they know they're in this place. They they feel. Avoid, I guess. Sometimes people say they feel like. They're just doing what they have to do to get by, to survive and.

The thing about being in that place is that it's not always dramatic. You know, it's not like a big crisis or anything. I mean, I lived like that for years. I knew that I needed to do something, but it wasn't painful. Right. I was productive, but I was tense all the time. I was

you know, answering emails at 10 o'clock at night because I needed to clear the decks for the morning. But even so, the morning there's, you know, 20 more that need my attention. And but we stay in that place because it's working. Working, right? It's working for us. Because we get.

Joey Donovan Guido (08:24)
For those for those of you

listening that was some air quotes going on there around the word working.

Katharine Chestnut (08:29)
Yeah We get rewarded

for being like that right we get promotions we get praise, you know, our KPIs are great and We still feel that That tenseness that bracing like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop we don't know

what it's going to be or what it's going to look like. But being in that tenseness and feeling that I'm just constantly in high pressure situation and tension is just, that's the norm. Being stressed is just my normal. And it's not until

I like to say gripping the death grip on the steering wheel of your life.

until you know we don't realize that we're doing that until somebody says hey you should probably take a vacation and you can't take a vacation or I can't be gone and you can't relax so that's what happens when people start you know myself I looked for little things over the years to try and help

myself, is decades of little bits here and there, going to retreats and reading self-help books and so on and so forth. I don't need another task list. That was the other thing is just I can't task list my way to being calm and

Joey Donovan Guido (10:19)
Hahaha

Katharine Chestnut (10:33)
letting go and That doesn't mean I have to blow everything up. It just means that I have to find small ways to Help myself and that's really where the bulk of my work Resides is is the little things it's it's finding those little gaps of moments that we can take a breath and reconnect with our with ourselves

Joey Donovan Guido (11:04)
Yeah, yeah, that's very well said. That's something I experience even though I run two businesses. I run a coaching business and I run a marketing firm. So I'm the boss, so whether I work or not is up to me, but there's a lot happening and I think this is true for a lot of people between my two businesses and being a caregiver for my wife and then just regular life stuff and work stuff.

that I feel like there's this constant mental chatter and what Eckhart Tolle calls the ego or the pain body it might be depending on the situation kind of talking to us.

worry about this, worry about that, there's this, this is next. And that task list is probably the worst thing. So I'm glad that you are working with people to help them kind of unravel that and not use it. Because when it comes to mental health, when it comes to mindfulness, if there's a task list in place, it's just another thing to do. And so it just kind of tightens the spring even more.

And I love what you said about these small moments. And I think, you know, in the work I do, I have a very similar approach. It's like, okay, I can't just retire now. I need the income to take care of my sons and my wife and the bills. Right. So what can I do? And, and a lot of times it's about learning what to say no to.

and setting up boundaries and not only boundaries with the outside world and people, but boundaries within myself. So if I say, okay, I'm going to meditate and exercise every morning that I'm not breaking my own agreement with myself. When no one's even asking me to. So and I think I think a lot of it is kind of.

what I got from what you just said is there are tracks in the brain that says go, go, go, do, do, do, and we're kind of getting by. So we keep going down this track and we wear and we wear and we wear. It's like a pair of shoes that we never stopped walking in. Eventually they have holes, still shoes, they still work. But those little moments for a breath, for a walk.

Katharine Chestnut (13:29)
you

Joey Donovan Guido (13:37)
they help reset and connect with that calm that you talked about. So it might not wash away all the tension and the stress, but it helps metabolize some of it.

Right? And I think that's one of the biggest things that I was surprised and somewhat disappointed about when I started this work. It's like, it doesn't mean everything goes away when you become mindful. It means you make space for more than the stuff that's challenging you.

Katharine Chestnut (14:13)
That is a great way to put it. That is such a great way to put it. It's interesting because people will also come to me and they're like, well, can't, I don't have time to, right? You can't planner your way out of stress, right? You can't just, and again, like you said, it just becomes another, it just becomes another chore if,

Joey Donovan Guido (14:34)
Yeah

Katharine Chestnut (14:43)
You say, ⁓ I have to do this, right? And even if nobody else knows that you're trying to do it, you know. And so I always tell people, just start wherever you are. You don't have to go to the high Himalayas on a silent retreat for a month. I mean, sure, that would be nice, but who can go do that?

You have to start where you are. it's interesting when I first, I used to go wait for my daughter after school to take her to choir or practice. Because again, more tasks, more things to do, more responsibilities, taking care of your family.

And I used to sit and wait in the car and do Duolingo or check email or whatever. And then I started taking that, those few minutes, that gap, right? When I say there's a gap, I have a little gap right here. And I would do a body scan.

or I would do some breath work or I would listen to a guided meditation and

It doesn't happen overnight. That's the other thing is like you you you're not gonna and everybody's experience is different. I just want to add that but my experience was I was. It took a long time for me to actually notice that I was calmer. When.

Joey Donovan Guido (16:18)
Yeah.

Katharine Chestnut (16:43)
things got crazy. you know, things are gonna go sideways sometimes. But, I mean, they just do, right? It's just life. And instead of reacting, I could respond from that place of calm.

Joey Donovan Guido (16:49)
Yeah

Yeah.

Katharine Chestnut (17:08)
But it took a while for me to actually have that awareness that, hey, I'm responding differently than I used to. And it felt better for me. But I also noticed that the people around me were more relaxed.

because I wasn't going to freak out because something happened. So finding those little gaps, I used to travel a lot, a lot for work. And finding a little quiet corner at an airport while waiting.

Or even just listening to a guided meditation as I'm making my way through the airport, you know, with my noise canceling headset on and just finding that, that just taking advantage of that little moment.

to take care of me. And it just, like I said, it took time. But the other thing I noticed is that the more you do it, the more you want to do it, and the more you find time. It's also, I find the time in between tasks. So I'll finish a project or a task that I need to do, and then I'll get up.

from my desk and maybe I have time to go for a short walk outside and breathe. I'm not listening to music and I'm, you know, again, trying not to think about all the things that I need to do when I get back, but be very present. And again, just making, making space, making the space, but just allowing it.

It's we're just allowing the calm to find us over time.

Joey Donovan Guido (19:32)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah. that's you've just said so many great things. So just just one thing that came up for me. One of the last things that came up for me was when you talked about trying not to have that mental list of stuff to do is when you get back. And I was recently working with a group and that came up.

Because we were talking about meditation and there seems to be this really pigeonholed definition for a lot of people of what meditation or mindfulness is and it's like, okay, I've got to be in my meditation room with my candle going and my binaural beats and I can't think about anything and I've got to sit cross-legged even though it's uncomfortable and it's and you know, it's it's what I've learned is that okay, though if those thoughts come up that to-do list comes up. That's okay.

Just let that be part of that mindfulness moment while you're out for that walk. And we have a choice when those tasks come to mind. They're there whether we want them or not. So we can just kind of resist them and totally blow up our walk and our mindfulness for those few minutes. Or we can just be like, okay.

I'm just going to accept this as best I can as best I can because maybe maybe I can't accept it fully, you know, and even like what what what that mindfulness practice what that breath work looks like to people. I love what you said about meeting yourself where you are.

And really what I got from that was letting go of an expectation of, okay, like for me, I still catch myself. you know, I didn't respond in that situation like Eckhart Tolle would, because he's always calm. In my mind, he's always calm, right? But I don't live with him. I don't really know. And then that negative self-talk comes and then we've got to catch that.

So.

Katharine Chestnut (21:45)
It, me, it's, it's...

Joey Donovan Guido (21:45)
but.

Katharine Chestnut (21:51)
So I had a misperception about meditation for years and for years I tried to do it and I thought, ⁓ such a failure. I have to sit a certain way and it's uncomfortable and I have to empty my mind. Well, so first off, our brains are not designed to be empty ever. They're just not.

Our minds are built to be scanning for threats. Whether it's a saber-toothed tiger from, you know, hundreds of, you know, tens of thousands of years ago, or, you know, my boss walking in the room, or, you know, my kid breaking something, or, you know what I'm saying?

Our brains are designed to think that way and to be scanning and searching and solving problems. I mean, it's just a computer. It's solving problems all the time. And if there's not one right in front of me, I'm going to go look for one. That's what it's doing. And for me, mindfulness isn't the.

isn't the absence of those thoughts, like you said, because the thoughts are going to come. It's recognizing that the thought came up and my brain wanted to go trotting after it like a dog chasing a car on the road trying to write. And mindfulness for me,

Joey Donovan Guido (23:39)
Ha ha ha!

Katharine Chestnut (23:45)
is the coming back. It's the recognizing, ⁓ I see you running over there. Come back over here and let's just focus on our breath for a moment. Okay, come back to my, come back to the breath brain or come back to my body scan and my senses or my visualization or whatever it is that I'm trying to do, recognizing that.

coming back. It's those little micro moments of return to me that gives us the ability to to remain calm more regularly because we're aware and we're aware when our brain wants to go trotting off after something else.

Joey Donovan Guido (24:45)
Yes.

Katharine Chestnut (24:45)
to

do, like, no, come back over here. I mean, it's not big stuff. It's little bitty stuff. And that little bitty stuff accumulates over time and becomes, it settles in us ⁓ with a calmness that we didn't have before.

Joey Donovan Guido (25:08)
Yep, totally agree, totally. that recognizing that's a great word for that awareness that being the observer when your mind is that monkey, as they talk about, I believe in Zen sometimes, you know, as opposed to believing you are that thought or an emotion, being able to recognize, okay, this is a thought or emotion I'm being aware of it.

And that really, I find that if we're able to do that, that's actually a win. I've transformed my thinking from, man, look at all those thoughts I just had to, oh, awesome. I was just observing that I was having those thoughts. I realized they're not me. They're just like an experience I'm having. I'm experiencing that thought or emotion.

And it's very interesting because the way you frame things, the language you use is a little different than the language I use, but it points to the same things.

Because that calm, at least the way I see it, that calm that you talk about that comes with the confidence is from that place of awareness. It's from that place like, yeah, I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now. Not I am uncomfortable as if you are possessed by it, but that you are feeling it, like you feel the cold on a wintery day.

Katharine Chestnut (26:43)
Well, and it's important to recognize when we're uncomfortable because that's a signal for something. Or if we're afraid of something, that's, you know, our ego is the one that is fearful and nervous and things like that.

It's here to protect us. It's here to take care of us. So none of those things are wrong. Those feelings aren't wrong. They're valid for whatever reason. Maybe it's from something that happened in the past, but it's there and it's valid that you're feeling it. But sometimes that's the other thing that I like to work with people is

when you recognize a feeling that might be uncomfortable, know, fear or anxiety or whatever it is, instead of I like to say, so just give it a name.

Joey Donovan Guido (27:55)
you

Katharine Chestnut (27:56)
Just look at it and go, that's fear. And I don't have to judge it. I don't have to figure out why, because sometimes there is no why. It's just what it is. But your whole point about just, there it is. OK, I am not that.

I feel fearful, but I am not fearful. And yeah, I was actually talking about this yesterday with a group and just the whole mindset and instead of saying I am, I feel and I love, love that you put it that way.

Joey Donovan Guido (28:46)
It's so interesting, isn't it? How a little thing like semantics, it's the change of a word, can immediately, because it's working with the brain, right? Instead of the brain working on us, you know, and it's such a small shift, I think, that makes such a huge impact. And like you said, the more we do it, the more we want to do it. I think, and depending on the day, obviously there are shifts in how easy or difficult it can be.

and that's part of the process, that's part of being human, it's also, you know, it becomes, you know, these tracks in our minds where we've gone and where we've been taught to go since childhood, as we create new tracks, it does become easier where we don't have to stop and think about it so much that our language does start to say, I feel yada, yada, yada.

And I love what you said about about I just just naming it because naming it one helps clarify what you're experiencing and it also helps separate it.

Katharine Chestnut (29:52)
because it's not who I am it's what I'm experiencing it's so it's so different and you know for me mindfulness

Joey Donovan Guido (29:58)
Yeah.

Katharine Chestnut (30:07)
hums in so many different forms. I, you know, yes, meditation was one of the things that I finally came to, to recognize when I realized, I don't, I'm not going to empty my brain. That's, that's not going to happen. ⁓ And I found that guided meditations really worked for me. ⁓ And that was my inspiration.

for becoming a meditation teacher because I was at the time, you were saying eight years ago, things changed for you, eight years ago, things changed for me. I was ⁓ leaving an abuse, an emotionally abusive marriage to a covert narcissist and I had to reconnect with myself and relearn.

Joey Donovan Guido (30:58)
Hmm.

Katharine Chestnut (31:05)
many things I had learned years previously, but hadn't been doing. And one of the things was journaling. I call it mindful journaling now, but we didn't call it. There are lots of things that are mindful that we did not call mindfulness way back in the day. And I say way back, know, a decade ago or whatever.

Joey Donovan Guido (31:29)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Katharine Chestnut (31:35)
But I used to journal. I'm sure there are lots of people that are listening that journal. And I used to journal.

and I would write down the same.

stuff all the time.

And it was all the scripts that we have in our brains about how things are. And there were a lot of shoulds in there and a lot of judgment in there. I should feel this way or I should do this and I should do that. And.

When I learned the way that I journal now, it's so much more authentic and it cuts through all the crap, all the garbage gets right past the, you know, no more ego nonsense and gets at what my inner voice, which is usually like trying to get our attention.

but not nearly as loud and obnoxious as our ego. you know, when I learned that and I came back to that, I'd actually, wrote, my first book was about that. And I thought about that for 17 years because it was so powerful for me. So that's why I, that's why I wrote that book because I was like, if this is helpful for me.

I know it's got to be helpful for other people. the term mindfulness, as I got more involved in meditation and journaling and breath work and all those little small practices, it became another tool in my quiver.

I guess we could say in my toolbox ⁓ for me to reconnect and get grounded however you want to say it with what was true for my experience and to actually listen to what I was experiencing instead of.

Joey Donovan Guido (33:41)
Hahaha ⁓

Katharine Chestnut (34:08)
telling myself, but you shouldn't feel that way. that used to be in my language. you shouldn't feel that way. No. I do feel that way. I don't even have to know why. And I'm not going to judge it. But maybe I'll journal about it. Or I'll just breathe through it. Whatever it happens to be. But embracing that.

is how I came to where I am right now.

Joey Donovan Guido (34:42)
Yeah, I love this conversation. I feel like we could just talk all day about this stuff. And it's amazing just that these, we just met today and there are a lot of these parallels that are just, and I think it's probably true for a lot of people. And you you mentioned, you mentioned.

that the guided meditations work for you. And I think that's really important both to mention guided meditation for people to try and maybe even more importantly, what works for you. And you know, like me, I love to go out for a walk run. I put my headphones in and I typically listen to Ram Dass.

Katharine Chestnut (35:17)
Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (35:26)
And to me, it's like, it's this physical activity which helps me metabolize stress and trauma. I'm listening to something. You know, sometimes he's just telling silly stories. Sometimes it's like, wow, this is like, you know, this real learning that comes. But it all kind of makes this experience for me that works phenomenally.

And but like someone like my wife, the thought of going out for a walk run, she has fibromyalgia, just the thought of it is painful. So that wouldn't work for her. You know, and I think I think what I've seen, what I've experienced is that so many people almost need permission.

And if this sounds like you, if you're listening or watching, if you do feel like you need permission, consider it granted, but more importantly, give it to yourself to do what works for you and not what someone else is telling you to do or what you should do.

There's a guy named Hale Dwoskin and ⁓ he did a program that I learned years and years ago, ⁓ which of course I can't remember the name of right now, but he would always say, don't shoot on yourself. So, you know, and it's look, you know, if like, if reading helps you feel mindful and calm, great.

Katharine Chestnut (36:42)
Yes.

Joey Donovan Guido (36:54)
If you hate reading, try something else. It's all trial and error.

Katharine Chestnut (36:59)
And what works today may not be the thing or the combination of things that you do tomorrow. That's why I love being able to, you know, I have so many different resources to pull from because sometimes I don't have time. I discovered Insight Timer 10 years ago.

Joey Donovan Guido (37:08)
Yep. Yep.

Katharine Chestnut (37:31)
and started listening and initially I was listening for things to help me recover from the emotional abuse and actually there wasn't enough to satisfy me and that was actually what inspired me to become a meditation teacher because I wanted to create more of that type of content or you know more of that that

those types of meditations. But the more I got into it, the more it just kind of naturally flowed out into other things. absolutely, I mean, sometimes the visualization is not going to work.

And sometimes it will.

Joey Donovan Guido (38:20)
Yeah. And sometimes we outgrow things. Sometimes things that have worked for months or even years just don't, and it doesn't mean we're doing it wrong. It means, okay, maybe it's time, you know, sometimes you get bored of the same coffee every day. You want to change it up, right? Or the same lunch every day. And as we evolve, it's just, it's...

It's almost, I find it now interesting and exciting when something new comes and it starts to feel like, this is another piece of the puzzle. Like you talk about tools, or I like the quiver, because it's like, all right, which arrow do I want to take out now? What's going to best address this? So you kind of like Legolas from The Lord of the Rings.

So yes, I am a Lord of the Rings geek. And you know what's funny? What's very funny, this kind of just came up, but even for me, sometimes I will take a 10 minute break from work. I work from home and I will go watch Lord of the Rings. And as long as it's not fight scenes, which I usually skip over, for me, there is something very grounding and calming and familiar. And so there is a lot of comfort.

in seeing these characters that I know so well. And just something like that, or we'll watch baking shows. We've watched this Bobby Flay every day. it's, in one sense, are like, are we lame? And we're like, but we're like, no, we are regulating right now. ⁓

Katharine Chestnut (39:53)
funny you say it because I read every single day and I read murder mysteries it's like a little puzzle and I just I don't know it's very relaxing to me and then then I also watch a cooking show called anti chef on YouTube and he has a new video every week and it's hilarious and

Joey Donovan Guido (40:00)
Hmm.

Katharine Chestnut (40:22)
He's been teaching himself to cook for years and it's just, it's a great way to just like, yes, I get to.

You know, if there's too much of it, right, that that could be considered avoiding stuff. But every once in a while, you know, I'm just like, OK, I'm going to relax and laugh and enjoy this. Or my brain gets to puzzle over this little mystery puzzle over the next week or two as I'm reading. You know, it's just.

Joey Donovan Guido (40:42)
Mmm.

Katharine Chestnut (41:06)
It's all different things. think ⁓ that's the best part about it, is that we have what works for you doesn't work for me. I love a walking meditation. ⁓ And you like to go walk, but you like to listen to somebody else. Who cares? Everybody's different. And I love that we have so much.

Joey Donovan Guido (41:29)
Yep.

Katharine Chestnut (41:35)
at our fingertips to try every day.

Joey Donovan Guido (41:38)
Yeah, yeah. Thank goodness. Thank the universe.

Question about something you talked about a few times, which is breath. So is there is there ⁓ and somewhat low hanging fruit or easy breath work technique that you can share? So if someone is aware in awareness that like, gosh, you know, I'm really feeling tense or stressed or afraid, like that they could practice even if they're on the line of target.

Katharine Chestnut (42:15)
There have been times where especially when I was at the beginning of my ⁓ recovery I would get triggered by something and I own a couple businesses too and I You know, I can't like have a breakdown in the middle of my business so Or I might be in a meeting and I'll just say I'll be right back and I'll go to the ladies room

And I will listen to a breath or a short meditation that might be two minutes long, or if I have a little bit longer, four or five minutes, and I'll just breathe. But breath is so magical. And there's so many different techniques. ⁓ I actually do a live breath work.

session every Sunday morning at 930 Eastern every single week and every week we practice a different technique because I Forget some of the ones that I learned, you know five six years ago and I have this list and I go What are we gonna do this week? know kind of thing but for me kind of my my go-to

Joey Donovan Guido (43:34)
You

Katharine Chestnut (43:42)
When I get into a situation that's really stressful or, you know, painful and, you know, physically painful or emotionally painful, I will go to the four, seven, eight. That's where, that's where I, it's just a, I don't even think about it. It just happens. And I, that's where you inhale for four.

You hold for seven and exhale for six.

that is designed to relieve stress and improve focus because the counting gives you that focus and you're focusing on your breath matching up with that rhythm. So it gets you really grounded really quickly and

can just relax. Now, that's mine. Something that I taught my daughter when she was younger was box breathing because kids love something simple like that. I can draw a box, and I will just, I said, just run your finger on the sides when you're doing the box breathing. so kids can do that, which is great.

adults can do that because you can see that box in your mind. So inhaling on one side of the box, holding on the next side, and then exhaling on the third side, and then holding again on the fourth side and just repeating that over and over again.

Joey Donovan Guido (45:41)
That's great. I've never heard that one, but I love it. Yeah, yeah. That's super great.

Katharine Chestnut (45:44)
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. And she still does it.

She says, Mom, I had to do some box breathing in that exam. Like, OK.

Joey Donovan Guido (45:59)
Huh. And what I also like about both of them, what I love about them is that it's self-paced. So because I know when I listen to guided meditation sometimes they're like inhale, exhale. And being a runner, my inhale and exhale cycle is typically much longer than what the facilitator is suggesting.

So I'm not going to their beat, I'm going to my own. With these, you can trace the square as slowly or as quickly as you like.

And also with those four counts in, seven counts hold, six counts exhale, that can be at your own pace. What's great about that too is that you're giving the mind something to do to focus on. So the mind and the body and the vagus nerve included are all working in Siammi, as they would say in Italy, together.

Yeah, so that's the little thing I've learned too is that we've got to, know, if we involve the mind to work with the process, it helps get rid of some of those lists and those fears for a little while.

Katharine Chestnut (47:19)
The lists are still gonna be there. It'll be alright. They'll be there when we come back.

Joey Donovan Guido (47:22)
Yep. Yep.

Yes, they will.

Katharine Chestnut (47:28)
you

Joey Donovan Guido (47:31)
So I do have a question for you that's tangential and it's about regulation.

what role does the nervous system play in burnout? Because we've talked a lot about burnout. We talked about the breath. But what role does the nervous system play in burnout, decision making, and emotional control? And why don't we talk about this enough?

Katharine Chestnut (47:57)
Well, it's interesting because it's happening all the time. Our nervous systems are the gatekeeper. Are you the key master? I'm the gatekeeper. All right, you want to go little nerdy there. But our nervous system is the gatekeeper. And when we're dysregulated, right?

Joey Donovan Guido (48:10)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Katharine Chestnut (48:27)
Feedback and and Feedback from ourselves feedback from other people feels like Criticism and sometimes it might even feel like an attack because we're so Jacked up, you know stressed out all the time and Even if yeah, here's an example

you send somebody a message, you send them an email or a text or whatever, and they don't get back to you for a day or a few hours, like kind of normal response time.

But again, we're dysregulated, it feels like we're being rejected. And if I have to make a hard decision, it feels like this huge catastrophic, my god, am I making the right decision? If I make the wrong decision, this is going to happen. Our brain starts twisting around upon itself.

And we don't talk about it because it's not really as sexy as talking about, here's a mindset hack for, know, here's the latest mindset hack for that's on trend or whatever it happens to be, right? Like those things sound, ⁓ if I just do that, that's great. Okay, done that. So when we're...

Joey Donovan Guido (49:47)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Katharine Chestnut (50:09)
when we're doing these things, right? When we're.

when we're doing breath work or mindful journaling or any kind of mindfulness practice, it's slower. And I said that at the beginning. It's a slower.

I don't want to say fix, but the changes come slower. Because it takes a while for our nervous system to embody and integrate what we're doing. Because we're asking our nervous system to feel. So once you understand that.

having our nervous system be regulated is the beginning of having more clarity. And you mentioned that earlier. Once we understand that if we're regulated, things are clearer and things become just everything starts to change. making choices feels safer.

And that's what our nervous system is trying to do is to keep us safe. But we have to train it. And again, that sounds maybe a little harsh. We have to give it permission to feel safer in a different way.

Joey Donovan Guido (51:57)
Yeah, I didn't find it that it sounded harsh. I would agree with you because it's it's or maybe maybe like retraining too. And it's something that going back to Stephen Porges and the Polly Vagel theory is something he talks about as well. And it's if we don't feel safe, we could be perfectly safe.

Like right now I'm in my home office, my studio, I got the house to myself, everything's fine, I am safe. And if my mind was experiencing fear or worry or whatever, some kind of negative thought or emotion, and I didn't feel safe, that feeling unsafe kind of cancels out the actual being safe.

Right? Which keeps us in this fight or flight mode. I'm just reiterating what you just said a little differently, you know, and then it's it's those decisions. When we're regulated, yes, they feel a lot less scary. And for me, they feel a lot more easy to make because all of my cognitive function isn't stuck in the limbic mode. With my frontal lobe sitting there kind of, you know, frozen.

So how can I make a decision if I'm freaking out?

And you know, one of the things I still find challenging is as much as I regulate myself, I still feel burnt out. I still get to a point in the day where, and this is normal for those of you listening, if it happens to you, for us to, when we get tired, it gets harder to do all this stuff.

And that egoic part of our brain, the thoughts, they can start to get louder and louder as we feel more fatigued. So like for me now, I just try to step back and like you said, realize it, recognize it, and just observe it. be like, okay, maybe I need to stop now, whatever it is I'm doing right now.

Katharine Chestnut (54:24)
to all of us all the time and sometimes I can't step back completely like I said sometimes I have to I'll be right back you know go go find a corner or a place where I can be for five minutes and bring myself back to center and grounded whether

Joey Donovan Guido (54:38)
Hahaha

Katharine Chestnut (54:52)
that be through breath or whatever. It doesn't matter.

so that I can come back and be like, okay, I can deal with this for right now.

It's interesting, I was in a group yesterday, we were talking about, words that we identify.

And what are the words? Make a list of the words that you identify with. So one of mine is badass. I have a friend that she has. We both have a bracelet that has the term badass in Morris code that I wear every day for years. But what's the other thing is my other word. I'm keeping that word.

Joey Donovan Guido (55:28)
Hahaha

Okay, awesome.

Katharine Chestnut (55:48)
And what's the word that I'm going to the identifier that I want to give away? Overwhelm. Because I will let myself go there if I don't feel like I can manage everything that I need to do. So I've been doing something different for the last couple months. That's allowing me to

Let go of that. instead of, again, you were saying language is so powerful. I'm, I feel so overwhelmed. No, stop. Stop. Because if I'm saying it, yes, I'm going to be it.

Joey Donovan Guido (56:37)
Ha ha ha.

Katharine Chestnut (56:39)
So that's the word. I'm like, no, done with that. Now, it's sometimes easier said than done. But again, that awareness, those little micro returns, that's the, to me, that's the key. It's that little bitty, like, I might not have said, I feel overwhelmed, but I'm

Allowing myself and I'm like, okay, what's going on? I'm gonna name it

And now I'm going to step back and I'm going to come back. It's again, those little bitty, teeny tiny returns over and over and over again. Those are the things that allow when you were talking about the nervous system that allow the nervous system to feel safe.

Joey Donovan Guido (57:40)
I like badass, by the way. I think that's a really good one, especially for you, obviously. And it brings up a great thing how one word or phrase, if it works for you, if it helps kind of evoke a certain mindset or emotional standpoint or feeling, they can really be powerful without a lot of work. And we can say it to ourselves inside, because if there's a moment where we can't step out of a situation,

Katharine Chestnut (57:43)
Ha

Joey Donovan Guido (58:10)
Nobody knows if unless they're mind readers what we're thinking and what one of mine that I learned from Ram Dass is I choose love and when I'm in a situation where I am feeling fear and I'm aware of it and I actually see in my mind's eye or I actually lift up my hands and I say, okay, you know fear is in this hand and love is in this hand. I choose love

And the fear might still be there sometimes, but that's kind of like a reframe, like a focus on a camera. And all of a sudden, I'm breathing differently. There's different chemicals entering my bloodstream. My vagus nerve is telling my mind, you're okay. And I just feel even different right now, just from that explaining it to you. And it's, these are the things, those little moments, like you said, as we find them.

They start to help us evolve and make space for more than the things that used to take up all of our vision.

and with that, Catherine, I'd like to thank you for being a guest on the show today. You were amazing.

Katharine Chestnut (59:21)
Thank you for having me. This has been a great conversation. yes, our language may be a little different in places, but we're still going to the same place. And I love that too, because there's so many different ways to express a similar concept. And that's why.

Joey Donovan Guido (59:36)
You

Katharine Chestnut (59:47)
some people are going to resonate with one thing and some people are going to resonate with another. And I love that we got to go through that together.

Joey Donovan Guido (59:57)
Me too, me too. And if you're looking to learn more about Catherine or about her coaching, her courses or her books, which look amazing by the way, you can visit her website at CatherineChestnut.com.

And that's K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-E C-H-E-S-T-N-U-T dot com. And if you want to take her free mindfulness quiz, you can go to her website and it's backslash mindfulness dash quiz. And this will all be in the show notes so you can grab them there too. And with that, yeah, this has been great. Thank you again.

Katharine Chestnut (1:00:34)
Thank you for having me.