E259: High-Functioning Burnout & Why Being Productive Isn’t Actually Helping, With Ash Mcdonald

Did you know that even if you’re still showing up, getting things done, and keeping everything together, you could still be stuck in burnout? Your body knows even if your mind doesn’t.

Today, I spoke with my therapist + nervous system expert, Ash McDonald, about high-functioning burnout, the one we both see in women who care a lot and do a lot. Unlike traditional burnout, it's when your brain keeps pushing you to go, even when you're exhausted. And no amount of sleep or coffee fixes it.

We discussed how burnout often doesn’t appear dramatic. It may just look like being busy and successful, while inside, your body is struggling.

A few things we talk through together:

• How Ash went through high-functioning burnout herself and eventually had to step away not only from what looked like her dream life, but also from her successful business
• Why no system, routine, or doing it better can fix a body that doesn’t feel settled
• A simple practice Ash walks women through that helps their nervous system come down

This episode is really about understanding why your energy, and even your hormones, don’t get a chance to calm down when your body is always living on high alert.

Pay attention to what feels familiar, and if something hits, pass it along to someone who’s been carrying too much for too long and acting like they’re fine.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you know that you're always running and doing and have your brain going in 17 different directions at a time, then this episode is for you today because we're gonna talk about how to calm your nervous system and create signals of safety through your nervous system, even when you've always been an achiever, when you have a really full life.

And I brought in my therapist and nervous system expert Ash McDonald to do this with me.

Leisha: [00:00:00] Welcome back. I am so excited today to have my friend and mentor Ash McDonald here with me. This is gonna be such a treat, ladies, because Ash has just this like wealth of knowledge on. Being able to be true to yourself, to be good to your body and your nervous system. And she does that and teaches that as a mom of three children.

And she does all the things, everything that you could be doing. She does it in the right seasons and in the right times. And so I love to learn from her. I love to talk to her, and so I'm so excited to have you here.

Ashley: Oh my gosh. I'm so glad to be here and I'm giggling, as you say, like do all the right things. I'm like, oh man. I try. I try my best, but I'm so happy to be here.

Leisha: So glad you're here. , I brought you here specifically to talk to us, to me, and to everyone else listening about. Burnout in the nervous system because when we talk about safety in the body and as we're focused on safety in the body, we [00:01:00] have to have these safety signals coming into our brains consistently for our bodies to be able to function well.

And when we're in this season of overstimulation overwhelm

over everything, and we get to this place of burnout, it's so hard to regulate. And I know that. You can speak to that in so many ways. So I would love for you to just start with what would you consider burnout to be in the realm of high achieving women, busy moms, and what does that actually feel like look like?

How do we get there? Let's just start with that.

Ashley: So I traditionally talk about high functioning burnout because I think all of us have this idea of just traditional burnout the way that we imagine it is, we've hit rock bottom. We can't move, we can't do anything. We're really sick. Those are the stories we've heard, right? somebody's in burnout and they're like hospitalized, or they have all these massive health conditions. And I'm not saying that's not true. however, what I notice most and see most in my clients have also [00:02:00] experienced myself is what I call high functioning burnout. And so this, it doesn't look like you're completely out for the count. It looks like you're still able to do all the things and get everything done, but you're likely. Very minimally present while you do it. you probably feel really tired, even on days that feel easier or you don't have a ton on your plate. there's a likely chance that your brain doesn't shut off very well or very easily. So it's just constantly going, constantly ruminating, even when you're exhausted.

So even if you , hit the bed and you're like, I'm gonna go to sleep, then it just starts to kind of go, go, go, go, go. there's a good chance that rest doesn't feel like it's gonna help at all, which is always unfortunate. 'cause we think if I just take this one day, if I just take an extra long nap or if I sleep in over the weekend, maybe I can catch up and feel better. And we don't feel that way. So traditionally I see that a lot with people. I would say in general, like traditionally, the people who are experiencing high functioning burnout are those that we look in on and we think, oh my God, she has it all together. She has everything. In fact, I used to always say like. [00:03:00] Nobody, especially when I was personally dealing with high functioning burnout, nobody was checking in on me and that wasn't because they didn't care. It's because there is no sign that I am at rock bottom. That to me is what high functioning burnout is. And traditionally, those who do identify with being a high achiever, and I think a lot of times moms, we don't know.

And the thing is, it's not that we're hiding it, it's that we're also ignoring it. It's that we're also like, I don't think that these are things that I'm really dealing with. And the science behind that is unfortunately that high functioning burnout happens because our body adapts too well to stress. So we. We learn that stress is our status quo, right? And so our nervous system is constantly, we're constantly being released into cortisol and adrenaline and it feels normal. It often maybe even feels like it sharpens our focus or it makes us a little bit, easier to perform our tasks, or it feels like it gives us more energy.

But it's really the thing that kind of keeps us. Low level, exhausted beneath [00:04:00] the surface constantly is that we are driving towards the stress and the cortisol and the things that are giving us those minutes of like, oh wait, I'm still human, I'm still surviving. And it's unfortunately this kind of yucky cycle.

Leisha: So let's just go back a little bit to where this has shown up for you in your life, because I know it hasn't just been once, but I would love to hear a little bit more of the story behind when you started to realize like, okay, hold on. Burnout is me, this is happening, and how you started to like what you used to do about it.

And then we'll talk later about what you're doing about it now, because I think that that is such an important piece to hear before we go into the next piece.

Ashley: I don't know how many times I've officially hit burnout in the, like, check the box way. Probably many. again, as you mentioned, I have three kids and my kids are 11, nine and seven, and. Throughout the early years of motherhood, I definitely had multiple iterations of what I would [00:05:00] identify as burnout, and my solution always was more strategy.

It was like a better calendar, a printed calendar, a purchased calendar, an online calendar. It was, a million different to-do lists. It was new systems within the house. It was all external. It was all like, what can I do to shift the amount of energy that I have in my body? By the way that I experienced life outside of me and it didn't not work.

It certainly had seasons of like, oh, now I feel better. But I would eventually always end up back in a cycle of just like the best way I can describe it without sounding so negative. It's just like defeat just feeling like I got nothing. , I have nothing to bring to the table. My most recent, and this happened in 2023.

so contextually in 2022, I actually took all my kids outta school and we went and traveled the world full time and I was homeschooling them and we're all over Europe, just frolicking about, and I was [00:06:00] having the best time of my life. I definitely didn't feel like I was experiencing any burnout. I was making more money in my business than I'd ever made.

I was more. Present with my kids than I've ever been. In fact, when we originally, we actually originally decided to move to Costa Rica for a summer, and within a few weeks I was like, nevermind, I'm never coming back because I'm the best mom in this setting. I felt so the structures and the systems and the planners and all the things before that had always been my solace.

When they were removed and I was put in this Piura Vida lifestyle in Costa Rica, I was like, oh, this is who I am. This is how I thrive. It was such a beautiful time. So imagine that whole year, I'm just thriving, okay? And the year comes to an end, and this is important context. At the end of that year, I had hit almost half a million dollar revenue in my business. And this is hindsight, okay? So hear me when I say this. I, in my head, had a complete internal breakdown that I was not aware of, and it [00:07:00] was, I am not worthy of this kind of success. I'm certainly not worthy of this kind of success because I didn't struggle enough to earn it. It wasn't hard enough, so, so many things I ended up having to uncover a year later, unfortunately.

But at the time this was coming in, it was translating outwardly to my business is so big and so successful that I need seven team members and. I need better systems and I have to stop just creating checkout links. I need to have sales pages and a copywriter and this and that and all these things.

And in that decided I can't do that traveling. So I'm gonna land and I'm gonna put my kids back in school because more time means more success. And if I wanna hold what I've created and make it happen again, replicate it, or even increase it, I need more of me. And so I figured out how I could do that.

Again, I didn't know all this was happening in my head. It was just like, next step requires this. And so a year of living in a house and sending my kids to school, not that this is bad, but this was just very [00:08:00] different from what we were doing before. and me turning that wound into the highest form of perfectionism that you could ever , probably witness, just everything in my business had to be perfect. I negated everything for myself, and I'm a pretty healthy person. I'm very cognizant of my health, and unfortunately that year. I don't know what happened. Honestly, at the end of that year, I woke up, I looked in the mirror, I was 50 pounds overweight. I had no inspiration, no motivation, no momentum. I was not happy, not even a little bit, and this was the highest level of burnout I ever hit.

When I decided that enough was enough, it'd probably been about three months of me, like dragging myself out of bed and doing the bare minimum and things that were always priorities to me, just not mattering anymore. Just feeling like I didn't know who I was. There's a huge identity discrepancy in that time of my life.

And so at the beginning of 2024, I shut my business down for five months. I did a five month sabbatical. Ultimately deciding like [00:09:00] this. I don't know what happened. But this can't be it. And that was when I started to uncover these truths and these narratives that were really taking place and shaping my existence. All that to say, as throughout my life, I constantly used external tools to fix an internal problem until the internal problem got so loud, I almost couldn't even hear it. And it changed everything externally for me. So when I shut my business down, the entire focus was getting to the root of why I felt so unworthy. Why I felt like only doing things the right way or the perfect way was gonna be the solution. And yes, obviously that changed some of the external and obviously shutting down my business, which I don't think everybody has to do that. For me it was like, this is my answer, is to just stop everything. And I'll also admit, the first month in my sabbatical, I just switched my work to-do list to a personal to-do list.

So if it was a closet that needed organizing or a meal prep that needed to be perfected, I honestly did not know what to do with [00:10:00] myself until about six weeks in when I realized, oh, I need to learn how to just sit in this and feel this and alter this. And now, if you were to have a camera into my life, who I am today doesn't remotely match any of the past versions of me that once existed.

Leisha: There's so much to unpack there, but I love hearing that journey because there's so many pieces to get to the places that we're in now. It's not just like, oh, I'm here because of this one part of my life. Right? It's like there's so many different layers. And I think taking the time to obviously like a big deep dive and digging into that, but also just taking the time to admit to yourself what I'm doing doesn't feel good.

And not just I'm doing this because I should, I'm doing this because I'm a mom. I'm doing this because whatever. But if it doesn't feel good and you know that in your spirit. [00:11:00] Being willing to admit it, I think is one of the, one of the biggest steps that, I dunno, I definitely have been very unwilling to do in a lot of different seasons.

And you really can't change something that you're holding so tightly to. That perfect schedule I think that it comes back to this belief within yourself that I'm sure you're gonna laugh. So backstory also, Ashley has been my therapist for the last year. So anything I say, there's a lot of context behind it that she knows. But just like this, holding onto this control, right? That's what it comes to.

Ashley: totally.

Leisha: And when we just keep, we're like, okay, everything is slipping out of my hands, so I'm just gonna hold on tighter.

Ashley: Yeah, because that's all I

got. 

Leisha: it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Ashley: No,

and we have to feel, we have to be willing to feel it, it's one thing to admit it and witness it. It's a whole other thing to feel like. Why are these patterns persisting? Why do I feel the need to operate in this way? I never would have been able to witness in myself [00:12:00] that truth.

That was a year past, some even longer than that of, oh my gosh, I hit a level of success. Success that nobody in my entire generational lineage had ever had. And what came up for me was this can't possibly be okay, like something terrible is gonna happen. And that was just like you said, the control factor was in my heart.

I believed without a shadow of a doubt that all of this would not only fall away, but something horrible would happen because I was so unworthy of this that I was gripping, just like you said, as tight as I possibly could. Like every. Step that I took, every action that I took over the next year, unfortunately, was through the belief that all of this will fall away.

And, and the truth is a lot of it did, the thing I was trying to prevent actually happened because I turned away from my own intuitive brilliance. I turned away from my trust and that my self trust beyond everything else, I didn't trust [00:13:00] myself because everything that came up, every decision that I had to make, whether in my business or in my life, was. Do I even know what the right choice is? what is the right choice of the first fault being that there ever is really a right choice?

Leisha: I think that's so good. And I also just wanna highlight you saying you were at this peak in your life, right? everything felt so good, just what you wanted. You had to hit all of these goals and then you went into burnout. Because I think that it's such a. More common belief that you're burned out because things are bad or things are hard,

Ashley: Yeah. I think, and it's important to note that things were really good and that was when my limiting beliefs. Took shape and then things were bad until I was able to really see it. And so there was so much in that. I think often we are looking for one like pivotal moment.

And while this kind of was it, what actually burned me out was all the actions After that, it was all the ways that I chose to live my life [00:14:00] because my happiest, most excitable, most amazing version of my life triggered in me my greatest fears.

Leisha: that's so good. I talk here a lot about needing to feel. Start to trigger these senses of safety in the body. So physical things, emotional things, mental, just like mindset shifts to be able to have balanced hormones, to be able to have energy, to be able to not be a moody mess all the time.

So I would love to hear just what you were saying in your personal experience that year. When you started shifting everything where it felt so much less aligned and then you say you woke up that year later and all of a sudden you're like, who am I in my body?

Can you connect some of those dots?

I know you that, you know, a lot of the physical, what was behind there, but can you connect some of that in your story just to give an illustration there?

Ashley: Yeah. Do you mean specifically like what I did during that sabbatical and what started to shift? Is [00:15:00] that what you're referring

Leisha: Yeah, even just just in hindsight, hindsight is so helpful so much of the time, but looking back at that year where , you settled down in the house, you had all the team members, but then you're like, where did my health go? 

So what connections have you made as you've reflected on that of like why your health suffered in that season when you were doing everything right, quote unquote.

Ashley: . I have this client, I've been working with her for a while, and this is gonna answer your question, I promise, but I, love her. She's amazing. Traditionally, and Leisha, you know this traditionally, if we've been working together long enough, and I get to the point where I know that you know that I always have your best interest in mind, that I can start to give some hard truths and really just meet you in that, like, here's what I'm really hearing here, and you're probably not gonna love this, right? So I have this client. And she and I, have been working together for a while and she's telling me this is how it's feeling in this way and this is how this feeling, all these kind of negative notions. And I said, can you tell me what your greatest values are? Of course. She's like, wow, that feels outta nowhere, but sure.

Okay. [00:16:00] So she's like, oh, my greatest values are , just to see the beauty in everything and to be really present in every moment. She lists all these values and they're stunning. They're amazing. We love 'em, right? We love these values. And I said, okay, I'm gonna hit you with the hard truth, with so much love as somebody who works with you intimately. Here's what you say your values are, and here's what I witnessed them are as they are, right. And it was perfectionism. It was a complete lack of presence. It was some of the more negative things, right? So we had to have this conversation of, here's what your idealized values are. Here's the things that you wish that you valued, but here's the things that you were truly valuing in the way that you operate your life. And the reason why I can have these kind of conversations is because that's what I had to come to realize in that year when I went downhill, if you will. I took those idealized values that I was living in color when I traveled full-time, and I put them high up on a shelf. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me. [00:17:00] And so the way that I operated before just didn't exist anymore. And now if you were to look at my life, the things that I idealized were how productive I could be in any given day. , How much can I get done in any given day? Therefore, things that do in fact matter to me at my core, like eating healthy or taking time to go for a walk, or shutting the computer at a certain point and not opening it again.

Those things slipped away because as my fear seeped in, I started to value. Productivity over anything else. I started to value perfectionism, everything being right and being perfect, including the house that I lived in. We bought a home and furnished it and it was like I wanted it to be perfect.

And I remember, I don't know, like seriously, somebody hit me over a head. I thought, you know what the best idea is? I'm gonna buy a Pottery Barn couch. It's like $5,000. I'm gonna put it in my living room, okay. And it's gonna be so great. You know what happened 35 minutes after that couch was delivered, my middle son who has [00:18:00] eczema, had this Egyptian cream, which we love, by the way, all over his arm, and he ran and jumped on this suede couch, just like literally an elbow mark, which was just on there that we could never get off.

Okay. That now in my life, now one, I wouldn't make those decisions now honestly, I know better than to buy anything nice with three children in the home. But moreover, even if something like that happened, I wouldn't be affected. It completely unraveled me. Completely unraveled me because my perfect couch and my perfectly curated living room and my perfect home was now jaded by this boy who intellectuality is my perfect boy. Who could do no wrong in my life, right? But I wasn't me. I was not me. And so whether it was like snacking on foods that weren't good for me, I do believe that I stored a lot of weight just from inflammation and stress in general. I was living off of cortisol, I was living off of caffeine, like things that I know better [00:19:00] than. Doing I was doing because my values had shifted. And I think that sometimes a really challenging yet deeply powerful activity that any one of us can do is just get really honest. It's like that old saying, your calendar reflects your priorities. Can you look at your days and really witness what you are valuing? Juxtapose them from what you want to value, what you wish to value in your life. And can you just, they don't have to be perfect, but can you get 'em just a little bit closer? we're all human. I make mistakes all the time. , my biggest issue right now in my life is that my body still wants to operate like I am being Chased. Constantly, I have to look at myself sometimes when I brush my teeth just to slow the hell down because I wanna brush my teeth like I'm trying to take the teeth out of my mouth with the toothbrush. Like, why? Because everything has to move so fast. And I think a lot of that, and we could get into all this too, but it also goes back to my childhood and how I was raised and what my [00:20:00] experiences were, what my traumas were that have told me that the faster I go, the more I accomplish, the more I do, the more success I have, the less likely I will be. To end up in these situations ever again that I've been in once before. So we have to be willing to go, but also I value slowness. I actually really value taking my time. I actually really value being present. I actually really value cooking food from scratch and sitting down to enjoy it rather than scarfing it over the sink.

Leisha: Yeah, you're gonna be shocked, Ashley, but my toothbrush sometimes gets frayed really fast.

Ashley: I'm just so shocked. Just on the ground. Shocked.

Leisha: You're doing you guys can't see her, but the way she was pretending to brush her teeth, I'm like, oh my gosh.

Ashley: Even like wiping down tables. I do that too. I'll be wiping down a table and it's like, hold on.

Slowly, you're not trying to reduce the table into nothingness, you're just getting the crumbs. You're okay.

Leisha: Yeah. So I think that one of the things that I heard you say that I [00:21:00] wanted to just speak into a little bit is this belief that you had that because you knew better, somehow doing not better wasn't gonna affect you. You're like, oh, I can just get away with this, right? 

Like, yes, I know that drinking caffeine all the time is gonna affect my cortisol, but 

Ashley: but I know that I'm ovulating,

Leisha: Exactly. 

Ashley: but I know what phase of my cycle I am in, or Yeah, a hundred percent,

Leisha: So sometimes having that knowledge, I think we can just work against ourselves

Ashley: yes.

Leisha: when we think oh,the rules don't apply to me because. I drink adrenal cocktails or whatever we seem to think that it is, right? It's like, well, you know, I eat organic so probably everything else won't affect me.

Or whatever a thing is. and I think that's just so again, just such a, something to stop and be like, okay, I see this is something that I can change. And what I wanna kind of shift to is . when we see how this is affecting our health and our hormones, the big picture is [00:22:00] you're running on cortisol.

You were really, really deep into these beliefs that came up for you about who you needed to be to deserve what you had, 

Ashley: . And to feel safe, it all comes down to safety.

So much what you're saying, right? It's I believe the more productive I was, the safer I'd be from all those fears that were coming up. I believe that at that point, of course, of course eating a carrot salad, with all the right ingredients in my head is like, that's not gonna protect me from everything disappearing and having no money and five seconds, and then not being able to provide for my family and then living in a homeless shelter, and then my kids being, you know, that, that's the train of thought as compared to, oh, but none of that's true.

Leisha: None of that's happening right now. It's just like a fear freight train that came by and accidentally you got stuck on the side of it. 

Ashley: yeah, 

Leisha: I just see myself like plastered accidentally to the side of 

it. 

Ashley: Whoops.

Leisha: When we start to have that realization of like, [00:23:00] okay, I am going in a direction that is not healthy.

I'm noticing these symptoms in my body, and as a reminder, especially if someone is new to this podcast and hasn't heard me say this, our hormone symptoms are just the tip of the iceberg. They're just a sign that there is dysregulation. So many other areas of the body. And so it's never just your estrogen, it's never just your PMS symptoms.

But it really comes back to that foundation of safety and all of the beliefs that we're holding and all of the, stressors that were either shoving down or, all of our different coping mechanisms. 

And then how that physically manifests and how we're compounding on that and how we're taking care of ourselves because of our beliefs.

So. I would love to go into is what are some of the most simple changes that you can make if you feel like you're stuck to the side of the train or like your hair is on fire and you're just running around in circles, [00:24:00] brushing your gums off, whatever you're doing, sanding your table every night.

It's so easy to know, right? Like everyone who listens to my podcast, super Smart Ladies. They know and they're stuck. 

So what is a couple of little things we can do to start to get less stuck?

Ashley: . One thing I wanna note really quick, 'cause I think it's important, is that the way that I respond to feeling unsafe in my body is by action and fast action and urgency and all these things that we refer to. But there is another side of that coin that does not, I don't personally relate to, but I've seen happen with a lot of my clients, and that is the more disassociative side. So just in case you're like, well, I don't, I don't relate to this. I'm not, sanding my table at night or removing my gums when I brush my teeth, but maybe you are not brushing your teeth at all and maybe you are staying in bed . And scrolling or watching shows and not moving at all.

, Those are both forms. They're just different response systems based on how we were raised and how we've [00:25:00] learned to cope. Okay. So I just wanna make that very clear. 'cause sometimes I think we can get confused by that. and I think that you're so right here ultimately that we, we witness or feel this state of unease and then we also feel sort of like we're, Very well equipped, and we know all the right things and therefore can't be harmed by any of this. And so I also wanted to state that I think it's wildly important in any part of our lives, whether that's our business or motherhood or being a wife. All of these things, as often as you can go back to being a beginner. Because it is the easiest place in the world for us to make changes. It is very challenging. if anything, I'm like, can we just stop aging and getting wiser? Because it just gets a little harder when you know, you just know so much. And so I just wanted to say that as well because I think it's wildly important, and I think of this a lot, particularly in marriage.

do I want to face this man with 16 years worth of history and frustrations and doubts and anger, or do I [00:26:00] wanna approach him like. One of our first dates when he literally hung the moon. And what version of me approaching him is gonna elicit the kind of feedback and response that I want. And you can apply that to anything and any part of your life. I'm sorry I went off on a total tangent, but I, those were things I was like, I need to say these things.

Leisha: I love that though because I think that the areas where we are the most experienced or expert, we do need those new eyes on them because you assume. I think you can assume that you're doing them well. If you're like, oh, I've homeschooled, or I've done this or that, or whatever, and it's like , you get in this autopilot mode where you're not even paying attention to what you're doing, and you just assume it's good because it was good at one point.

Ashley: . Yeah. And we just seasonally change, and so I've obviously taught you this, but there's this somatic wealth framework that I personally utilize all the time in my life, and I'm constantly teaching my clients this. When we think of, I see [00:27:00] these parts of me, so if you're listening, you're like, Ash, I see it I'm not getting off the couch, or I am standing down my table, or I am treating my husband with 20 years of history.

I see all these things, but how do I change it? This is, it's simple, but it's not uncomplicated. So I'm gonna say that with full transparency, everything is a lot easier said than done. So here are the simplicity of it, but also recognize that this is not normal behavior. And so it's really important that we give space to that and , we see it as it is, right? So the somatic wealth framework is essentially a three step process where we are. in those moments, like, so for instance, I'm standing down the table, okay, dinner has happened. Now I stand down the table and I realize oh Lord, I'm doing it again. I stop. And the first R, so it's three R's.

The first R is to regulate. So simplify this, please. And just really what that means is how do I get outta my head and into my body? How do I get out of my head and into my body? So it could be a strong deep breath. I am 24 7 wearing slippers on my feet. So I will take, [00:28:00] said feet out of said slippers and put them on the hardwood floor for a second because there's a juxtaposition to the feeling and also the coldness. whatever I can do again to get out of my head and into my body. That's it. Simple. I'm talking like seconds. Okay. So just take a minute. Then I reflect. That's the second r and for me, this translates to compassion. One massive thing that we often miss is what we wanna do is go, oh my God, why are you doing that again?

you're so ridiculous. you're totally safe. let it go. It's, you're so dumb, right? Imagine if you have a child and that child says, I feel overwhelmed. And you say, how dumb. Just get over it. that's a really silly thing to do. I don't even understand. That child is going, oh, you're not safe. You're not the person I wanna tell my feelings to. So we often have a pattern of treating ourselves in this way. So reflect this next piece is really just to meet yourself with that self-compassion. And my favorite way to do that is just, of course you're moving this fast. Look around, you're raising three babies and a husband. You're raising all of [00:29:00] them, and you work really hard. You have a lot on your plate, and it's a lot of pressure. I'm not making anything right. I'm not making any excuses. I'm just meeting that inner child that in that moment when she was cleaning that table, genuinely thought if I could just get everything done faster and more efficiently, maybe then I wouldn't feel like I'm about to die. I just wanna love on her just for a second. Same way I would, if my daughter came to me, there's no way I would treat her horribly. I would always get down to her eye level and like, tell me more. Of course you feel that way. I'm never gonna tell her it's wrong, it's stupid. Get over it. I'm gonna meet her in that emotion.

So this is like most important. A lot of people understand the regulate part, and a lot of people do that somewhat seamlessly. They can take that deep breath. You know what they do afterwards? They don't really know right? Then we have the compassion that reflect part, and then we have the rewire.

Okay? And the rewire is also very important, but it actually doesn't work if you missed the self-compassion piece. So please remind yourself of that. And the third part, the rewire, is [00:30:00] what is actually true? What's actually true? Is it true that if I clean this table 20 seconds quicker than I would've cleaned it, that I am somehow out of danger? Is it true that I'm in danger? Is it true? whatever those feelings are. 'cause traditionally when you ask yourself like, what's true in this moment? That is the time when all of a sudden you go, oh my gosh. I was literally thinking that I was gonna die. I was literally sitting here. I'm, as I'm cleaning this table, imagining one of my children choking on something. That's a real thing for me. That's why I'm giving that for some reason, sometimes without even my knowledge, my brain is going down this rabbit hole of the worst possible thing happening within my family. I don't even know what's happening, and this is now why I'm operating in this way, because I'm trying to prevent it. So it's to regulate, reflect, rewire. And that took a minute to explain that. It [00:31:00] takes 15 seconds in real time. For you to just go, oh, I'm safe, and it's okay, and now I can reset from how I'm living to my idealized values, the things I want to be honoring. Which is not heads down cleaning the table, but yeah. I can wipe these crumbs while having a conversation with my kid who's sitting right at the table or at my feet or screaming in the next room, whatever. I can still honor moment.

Leisha: Yeah, and as I have practiced this, I notice, I think that one of the things that I hear the most is wanting to be more present, right? Your client was saying that, and I hear that and I want that, and. When we're in this, we just get our heads down and we're like, I have to run around like I'm on fire.

You can't hear anybody, you can't hear your kids talking to you. It's so much easier for everything they do to be overwhelming because you just have this like straight line path you're trying to go on. Because if you get [00:32:00] the house all the way clean before someone else spills juice on the floor, then.

Life will be okay. Right? 

It's like whatever it is that we believe and then we get derailed from it. And instead of just that being okay, I think when you're in , such heightened state, it's really hard for that to be okay and for you to not be, believing essentially what you said, like this is, this is how I'm keeping everyone alive is by wiping this table or by mopping this floor.

I love the compassion piece, especially because I think that the other two seem more just natural to me. Like, okay, I need to take a deep breath. I need to slow down for a second, and then I need to decide what's true in this moment. But without the compassion, it really is harder to believe what is true or feel what is true.

I think because at least for me, like I think that it wasn't. I wouldn't say necessarily that my parents didn't gimme compassion. I think that they did a lot of the time, but I don't think I ever really gave it to myself. I created that belief at a young [00:33:00] age that I just needed to try harder, do better, and.

That's how I would achieve whatever it was. And it's funny, I can just give this example with my 11-year-old daughter, I feel like she has two speeds. And I just say this because I just see her do this and then I'm like, oh my gosh, this is me. It's just like a little less obvious as I'm an adult, but she has two speeds and one is like dancing around in a circle, doing hip hop moves when she's supposed to be, cleaning the counter or something else.

We're like cleaning up the kitchen. So she's doing that. Or sometimes just like staring into space, daydreaming. But then the second that someone's like, Hey, what are you doing? can you, whatever? And then she's like 150 speed. I feel like that's the, a perfect illustration of this, two sides of this coin.

We either so easily can be like just going so, so fast or. We're just off in the clouds. Not really focused or not really, present essentially. Yeah. Both sides of [00:34:00] it. And having been able to process some of this myself instead of just being like, what are you doing?

What are you doing? Like, okay, what's happening here? , How can we manage. To regulate in the midst of this versus just the, check the boxes all the time. I think that having kids is just such a blessing in so many ways, but being able to just see your little self running around outside of your body and doing things in such a more immature way that it's so obvious.

It's 

just so convicting and so 

helpful because you're like, okay. I see you throwing a fit on the floor, and I would actually love to do that. 

Like, why do I need to do that? Right. And , how could I help co-regulate, both of us? So 

I love that. 

Ashley: Yeah. I just don't think we, we're not taught that we're not taught to give ourselves self-compassion. regardless of your childhood, we're just not taught that. And I do, I think we've talked about [00:35:00] this as my children have gotten older, what I thought was, I'm a therapist, okay.

I have two master's degrees in this subject, and I've spent years and years and years doing this. Just over the past couple of years, I'm like, have I done nothing? Have I healed nothing? Because as my kids get older, I'm like, hi, tiny little mirrors that show me all of the things that I couldn't quite see on my own.

And it is beautiful and it is very challenging. And I say that because I think it's not often talked about and I think we all go through it in some way or another. Maybe some of us a little bit more aware of what specifically is happening. but our children do trigger us. And we get to decide how we're gonna respond to that and what we're gonna do with that.

But I have found it to be the most healing when I see those versions of me existing inside my children to, of course address them, but to first address me. Because what's really happening when I say trigger is that it's, even though I'm like, oh my gosh, that's me. There is actually a somatic response happening inside my body [00:36:00] as to that being me, whether it's. more of the mental side of embarrassment, shame, frustration, anger, more of those emotions or a physical reaction. So similarly with that, it's really important that we bring that compassion in that moment. Like, oh, I see you see him, and you were so good. We're just as good as him. And just to tie those chords together a little bit.

Because so often what we do is we go, Ugh. I can't believe he got the worst of me. And then maybe we're still the best version of ourselves as parents, and we go and give that love. But we have just, you know, imagine you're just both children and one of the children is told like you're the worst, and the other is given compassion. So self-compassion is the actual, like through line to self-trust. And self-trust is the through line to living your deepest values. we can't do any of this without some form of self-compassion. None of it.

Leisha: . That's so good. And I think that, like you just said, it's so. Easy, I think to see yourself [00:37:00] in your kids when they are doing the thing that you're like, wow, I really wish they weren't doing that. But I think that being able to expand that vision to seeing them handle something in a way that is so much more healed or being able to even just be so much more open with how they feel and realize that they're safe to do that.

Leisha: I think that we can see that in them and then take that.

As an opportunity to heal some of the wounds that we may have around that same thing. I think that it can be painful and beautiful on both sides of it

if we're aware enough to pay attention 

and we're not just totally in our own heads 

and 

breaking out about everything all the time.

Ashley: As long as we just remember to, we're not alone. I think that if there's one gift, I hope that anybody listening takes from this is every single one of us as moms is doing this for the first freaking time. This is our first time ever. Like today, my son, 11-year-old. Years old. And how many days, it's my first time ever having that old of a child. I don't know what I'm doing. [00:38:00] I'm just figuring it out. And I think so often I just get really cautious In podcast episodes, in places like this, it's so easy to just witness others and like, oh, you guys have figured it out, and you are just, you know how to listen and you know how to respond and sure, I have some great tools in my toolbox and I'm here to give those to anybody and everybody willing to listen.

And also. Leisha and I know I can speak for you on this, are just figuring it out just like the rest of you. And it's, scary and it's challenging and it's amazing and it's exhilarating and it's all the things. And the most important thing to remember, and I try to remember this as often as possible in any scenario of my life, is. I am not alone because shame grows in secrecy, and it is so easy to just jump to that thought of like, I'm the only person who can't handle this. I'm the only person who is dealing with this with their child. I'm the only person who can't get off the couch. I'm the you are not. You are not.

Leisha: Yeah. That's so good. I love that. Okay, so I know that you have lots of places that we can find you. 

Tell us about that, and any resources that you wanna share [00:39:00] today.

Ashley: I do have a podcast as well, which Leisha's gonna be on too. It's called Shamelessly Ambitious. So the point of that is literally conversations like this where we just shamelessly talk about the shit that, we're trying to figure out one day at a time and we share good stuff. But I also love to share just the honest truths, because I think that's sometimes more valuable than anything else. and I also have this offer that's called the Burnout Breakthrough, and I'm gonna give it to your audience for free. It's traditionally a paid offer, but it's essentially a five day audio course. So every day you get a new audio from me just like this, or less than 10 minutes, that kind of walk you through the process of relinquishing the burnout symptoms, and at least taking one. Really strong step in the right direction as you navigate these emotions and try and find your true values in the midst of crazy, chaotic life.

Leisha: I love that. I'm so excited for everyone who takes advantage of that. Anything that Ash does is good. I can tell you 

that we've been, we've, I've been doing things with her for a while now and 

Ashley: [00:40:00] since 2000, what? Nine? What? What year? 2020. Was that

the retreat?

Leisha: I think it was 

21. It was 

Ashley: 21. Post COVID. Everything is based on COVID in my head. I don't know if that's for you two, but when I

think of dates, was it pre COVID? Was it 

or post COVID? 

Leisha: It was. really great. , it was January or February of 21. We went to this retreat. Every single time I've gone to, I've been on, I think a couple times, it's been like a mission trip. A couple times it's been a retreat where I like go somewhere, literally don't know a soul.

It's been the best experience ever. Every single time, but this one was during the height of COVID, early 2021, like, okay, how's this gonna go? We got in there and mostly everyone was hugging each other and not wearing a mask, and I was like, okay, it's gonna be okay.

Ashley: Yeah. We're gonna

make it out of this 

Leisha: how do you have a retreat if you're all having to be six feet apart and wear masks and all of it?

I think that would've, it wouldn't have been the same. I'll tell you that.

Ashley: Nope. And luckily we all just, were there for the experience it was meant to be.

Leisha: And the crazy thing is we're all still [00:41:00] alive, so 

love that.

Ashley: wild?

Leisha: Love that 

Ashley: Love that for all of us.

Leisha: Thank you so much, Ash. We'll see y'all next week.

Ashley: Thanks for having me.