Breaking The Burnout Cycle
Are you a female entrepreneur who is currently spinning your wheels, doing all the right things, yet continuing to find yourself hitting an invisible wall that is keeping you from the success, fulfillment, freedom, & happiness you want?
You’ve read the books. Taken the courses. Implemented the strategies. You know the “how to”...but somehow they either don’t work for you when you apply them OR you can’t get yourself to stay consistent with them to get them to work for you.
And because of that there is a part of you that wonders deep down
“Why is this working for everyone else but me?”
“Maybe I’m doing something wrong? What am I missing?”
“Am I not doing enough?”
…or worse - “Is something wrong with me?”
And because you’ve only learned one way to achieve success, you now find yourself believing that the only way to achieve your goals is to work even harder. To push and push and push, like nothing else matters, not your health, not your family, not your life.
Here’s the truth: You’re not broken. You’re just burnt out from doing success the way you were taught — the hustle-harder, push-through, ignore-your-needs kind of way.
Breaking the Burnout Cycle is the podcast that finally speaks to you. Hosted by Dr. Reana Mulcahy, subconscious reprogramming coach and former hustle-addict turned aligned success mentor, this show is your permission slip to stop over-functioning, start honoring your truth, and finally create the next level of success from a place of alignment, not exhaustion.
Dr. Reana over the past 4 years has been high achievers, like yourself, break free from the burnout cycle by teaching brain-based tools, rooted in neuroscience and neuropsychology, to help you identify, understand, and break free from subconscious habits that are keeping you from the success, fulfillment, and freedom you crave.
Each week, we dive into subconscious mindset work, nervous system healing, and the invisible beliefs that keep high achievers stuck in survival mode — even when they look “successful” on the outside. You'll hear solo episodes, client breakthroughs, and expert conversations designed to help you rewire your beliefs, reclaim your energy, and rise into the results, relationships, and reality you know you’re meant for.
It’s time to stop chasing success that costs you your peace. It’s time to break the burnout cycle — for good.
Subscribe now and let’s rewrite the rules of success, together.
Breaking The Burnout Cycle
Episode 63: Are Your Beliefs Or Your Brain Chemistry Keeping You Stuck?
Ever feel trapped in cycles of people-pleasing, procrastination, or motivation that comes and goes like the tide? You're not alone. The burning question many face is whether these patterns stem from clinical diagnoses like anxiety and depression or from deeper subconscious beliefs. As someone who's burned out twice and helped countless others break free, I'm here to challenge the either/or thinking that keeps so many stuck.
The relationship between our brain chemistry and thought patterns isn't a chicken-or-egg scenario—it's a continuous feedback loop. When depression lowers serotonin and dopamine levels, decision-making becomes harder as the prefrontal cortex functions less efficiently. Yet simultaneously, our habitual thought patterns are actively shaping our neural pathways. Think of your brain like a muscle: repeatedly engage in anxious thinking about setting boundaries, and you're essentially "working out" your limbic system while letting your rational prefrontal cortex atrophy. The patterns you practice become stronger, regardless of what triggered them initially.
This perspective offers profound hope. While medications can balance biochemistry, they can't rewrite the stories driving your behaviors. True transformation requires addressing both. Many use their diagnosis as a comfortable excuse, avoiding the uncomfortable work of examining subconscious beliefs. But breaking generational cycles demands facing those "creepy crawlies" in our minds. If you're ready to understand why your brain perceives certain actions as threats and develop new neural pathways, I invite you to schedule a discovery call. Together, we'll identify the subconscious narratives keeping you from the success, happiness, and freedom you deserve. Because the real question isn't what came first—it's how we move forward.
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On today's episode, I am covering the number one question that I get asked from potential students and even from students themselves, and that question is how do I know if the behaviors that I keep finding myself stuck in whether that's people pleasing or procrastination or start stop cycles is a result of my diagnosis of anxiety and depression versus my actual subconscious belief systems? How do I know? And I'm about to cover that answer on today's episode, so stay tuned. Hi, I'm Dr Riana Mulcahy and, after burning out not just once, but twice, I've uncovered that burnout becomes a never-ending loop unless you uncover the subconscious beliefs at the root of it all. Each week, I'm bringing you brain-based tools and strategies that will help you to identify and rewire subconscious blocks keeping you from the success, happiness and freedom that you really want.
Speaker 1:This is Breaking the Burnout Cycle Podcast. Hey, everyone, welcome into another episode. Okay, so this is the story of the chicken versus the egg. This is the number one question that I get asked all of the time around. You know self-sabotaging patterns, so if you are someone who is finding yourself stuck in these patterns of people pleasing, where it's like, every time you say no, you start to just ruminate on that decision or the way that you said things, or if you are finding yourself stuck in these procrastination start-stop cycle loops where it's like one day you have an extreme amount of motivation, right Like you get after it, you check off maybe 10 to 15 things on the list, but then you find yourself stuck in these days where it's also just like it's really hard to even get anything done because you just can't seem to muster up any motivation.
Speaker 1:If there's anything that you are finding yourself stuck in, the question that I get asked all of the time from students is okay which one comes first? Like I have a diagnosis of depression and anxiety, and so how do I know that it's not just a matter of, like, the physiological and the biochemical makeup of my brain? And here is my honest opinion it really doesn't matter and I know that for a lot of people that this can actually be very confronting, very triggering to hear that but it really doesn't matter at the end of the day which one comes first, which causes which, because at the end of the day, I think that the two go hand in hand and if we're constantly trying to only fix one of the things, so, for example, if it is the biochemical makeup of your brain where, right, you know, when you have depression, then we do have a lower level of serotonin and dopamine and norepinephrine and as a result of that I can completely empathize with the fact that you know what, on average, it becomes harder to do is there's different parts of the brains that don't function as effectively as they could be, you know. Specifically, you know, the prefrontal cortex, which is essentially its function is to bring in the decision making, to promote a little bit more of like focus and emotional regulation. It, you know, in depression modes, becomes a lot less efficient and a lot less active and as a result, it can lead to these patterns where it's like you're, you're ability to make decisions decreases, your motivation decreases, your rumination on things starts to increase, and these are patterns that are very commonly, you know, they commonly fall under the umbrella of the diagnosis of depression. And so there's no denying that there is some biochemical parts here.
Speaker 1:But what I have seen time and time again and in every single student of mine and not just in the students but in my own healing journey that essentially I think that if we only address the biochemical shortage of these neurochemicals right by going to therapy, by taking anti-anxiety, anti-depressant medications, then it solves one piece, but at the end of the day, what I have found time and time again in every single student's journey is that the thought patterns that you continue to have on a daily basis also contribute. They also contribute to these inability to make decisions, the inability to let things go, to constantly be stuck and ruminating on the way that you said something or what people are thinking, and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if the chicken or the egg which one came first. Because here's what I know to be true that when you practice these patterns of thought patterns, you're essentially also eliciting in your mind, every time that you're having these negative emotions, these negative thought patterns, these belief systems that are driving that, those are firing the same thought patterns and neurochemicals associated with those thought patterns. And why this is so important is because it is no different from a muscle. Why this is so important is because it is no different from a muscle when, if you continue to use okay, so let's use your right versus your left let's say you spend, you know, a few months working out the left, bicep right, you do bicep curls on the left arm, but you don't do anything on the right, well, guess what's going to happen. You are going to get hypertrophy, which is basically growth of the left arm, and you're going to get atrophy, which is a decrease in muscle mass, or it's a loss of tissue in the right side.
Speaker 1:And the same is true in the brain. It's where the thoughts that you continue to repeat activate certain parts of the brain. It's where the thoughts that you continue to repeat activate certain parts of the brain, the you know if you're constantly having a threat, a fight, flight or freeze response associated with saying no to someone, well, guess what? Each time that this pattern happens, you're activating a certain part of the brain, you're activating the limbic system happens, you're activating a certain part of the brain, you're activating the limbic system, and that's where you're getting it. It would be no different from the analogy I just gave, where you're constantly lifting on that left arm, while you're not lifting on the right arm. You are lifting in the limbic system. It's constantly firing, and then you're also decreasing the prefrontal cortex. The front of the brain that we talked about is involved in, you know, decision making, rational, logical thinking, all of those things, and so you're getting a hyperactivity of one and a decrease in activity of the other. And so, at the end of the day, does it really matter if it's a neurochemical you know imbalance versus patterns that are contributing to the neurochemical imbalance? And I would argue that it doesn't.
Speaker 1:And I've seen time and time again where people will use their diagnosis as a crutch, as a excuse for why they cannot change. But what I've seen over time is that, yes, it can change, but it takes intentionality and it takes sometimes facing some of the icky, scary, you know, creepy crawlies that live in our minds and that can be extremely hard. I mean, it's sometimes very confronting because it's almost like the devil, you know, is a lot safer than the devil that you don't know. And I think that that can be one of the biggest reasons why people are okay with doing more of the passive interventions taking the medications right, taking the anti-anxiety, anti-depressant medications, but not going deeper, not getting to the root of the problem. And I use this analogy all the time, where it's no different from people who are doing things like liposuction or they're getting their stomach stapled and those things where those things can help Absolutely, but it does not solve the problem because, at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:It's a habit change that has to happen. It's thought processes that have to be, you know, rewired. And the same is true when it comes to a lot of these things where we're having social anxiety around, you know, saying no or setting boundaries and enforcing boundaries, and it's causing us to go into these people pleasing habits, because that's all we've known and that's all we've learned and have been modeled to us from generations before us. But if we want to be cycle breakers, then we have to be willing to not only fix the neurochemical issues, but we've got to be willing to also change the habits that are behind them. And so the two go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:And if you're ready to work with someone to work through the thoughts that are happening in the subconscious, that are causing these patterns, these neural patterns to keep firing, that are driving your behaviors, that you no longer want and know and that you know are no longer serving you, then this is where I would invite you to schedule a free discovery call.
Speaker 1:On that call, we're essentially just going to be digging into what is it, what is the story that your mind keeps telling you that is keeping you from having everything that you want, that is keeping you stuck in these start-stop cycles, keeping you in these people-pleasing procrastination loops. Loops, because, at the end of the day, no amount of anti-anxiety and anti-depressing medications will help. You've got to get to the reason why your brain is perceiving a certain action or behavior as a threat so that you can change it and neutralize that. And so, if that's something you want to do, the link is down below to schedule a discovery call. But outside of that, I hope you have an amazing rest of your week and I will see you on next week's episode. Bye for now.