The MiDOViA Menopause Podcast: Real Talk on Hormones, Work, and Wellness for Midlife

Episode 049: From Burnout to Resilience: Stress, Self-Belief, and Thriving in Midlife

• April Haberman and Kim Hart • Season 1 • Episode 49

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What if stress isn’t the villain but the spark—and the real unlock is how extraordinary you decide to feel? We sit down with stress resiliency coach and former Microsoft leader Dat Tran to explore a fresh, human approach to burnout, anxiety, and midlife pressure. Dat shares how a car accident and cascading changes forced him to rebuild from the inside out, and why the turning point wasn’t stress reduction—it was expanding capacity.

Together, we unpack a powerful yet simple formula: resiliency equals how extraordinary you feel minus how much tension you carry. That insight reframes everything for women navigating perimenopause and menopause, when expectations, caretaking, and identity shifts can keep the nervous system on high alert. Dat shows how an “extraordinary” mindset calms the emotional brain, unlocks the executive brain, and makes room for better decisions, sleep, and connection. We also dig into why seeing others—kids, partners, aging parents—as resilient actually lowers your own anxiety and gives them back their growth.

You’ll hear practical tools from Dat’s 60-day accelerator: mindset work that returns you to your core worth, skill-building to strengthen, stretch, soothe, and release, and the role of community in sustaining change. We get specific about nervous system states (safe and social, activated, shutdown), release rituals that prevent blowups, and a single actionable step you can take today to shift from overwhelm. If you’ve felt like stress keeps filling every gap you clear, this conversation offers a kinder, sturdier path forward—one that honors your body, your season, and your ambitions.

If this resonated, follow and share with a friend who needs it. Subscribe for more grounded conversations on menopause, midlife health, and lifestyle medicine, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your voice helps grow this community.

Dat is a Stress Resiliency Coach & Founder on a mission to redefine how the world views stress. He empowers leaders and teams to build the resiliency they need to achieve their boldest ambitions and lead with confidence under pressure. His work blends neuroscience with real-world leadership to create lasting mindset and performance shifts.

https://www.datstresscoach.com

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MiDOViA is dedicated to changing the narrative about menopause by educating, raising awareness & supporting women in this stage of life, both at home and in the workplace. Visit midovia.com to learn more.

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SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to the Medobia Menopause Podcast, your trusted source for information about menopause and midlife. Join us each episode as we have great conversations with great people. Tune in and enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey everyone, welcome back. We are excited today to welcome our friend Dat Tran. Dat's a stress resiliency coach, speaker, and former Microsoft leader who turned his own experience with burnout into a mission to help others. After more than a decade in the corporate world, Dat faced the crushing weight of anxiety, depression, and relentless stress. Yep, I see you, Dat. Instead of letting it define him, he transformed it into fuel for growth. And today he empowers professionals to shift from survival mode into extraordinary living, teaching practical strategies that build resilience, confidence, and well-being. And through his coaching and speaking, Dat helps leaders recame reclaim control of their lives and careers, reminding us all that stress doesn't have to be the enemy. It can be the catalyst for transformation. Dat, we're so excited to have you today. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for having me here, April and Kim. Oh my gosh, that was such a wonderful introduction. Makes me feel flattered.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah. Wow. It's always good to hear your bios, isn't it? Yeah. Reminds us, like, oh yeah. Oh my gosh, that's new.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, um, you taught us the word extraordinary uh to put it in our language, and we'll talk about that a lot today. But you share that after 13, 15 years in corporate leadership, including Microsoft, you hit burnout rock bottom. That sort of redirected your path towards coaching. Talk to us more about that. Like what I mean, I get the burnout piece, and uh when you're in it, it's hard to recognize what's happening. But what was the turning point that sort of motivated you and to make a such a dramatic shift in your career?

SPEAKER_00:

There were multiple turning points, but the one that I've been thinking about the most recently was probably in 2019. Um, I think in the beginning of 2019, I had gotten uh another job again to come back to Microsoft to do probably the most ambitious role that I have ever done in my entire career. That I pretty much worked day and night um to work with executives and leaders all around the world. And I felt so driven, I felt so resilient, I felt powerful. I felt like I could achieve anything I wanted. And as much stress came my way, I was able to overcome all of it. And then in September 2019, I got into a car accident where I was in the passenger seat of an Uber that uh T-boned, um, a small little Prius T-bones a pickup truck. And that completely wrecked my life. Um, I defined my worth at that time based on my my the value and the impact that I could drive at work. But I went from being really resilient to now fragile. I had brain fog for months, I was irritable, I couldn't think straight, and my work just tanked. And as I was recovering and healing and kind of getting back in place, then all of a sudden the pandemic hits. My manager, who I looked up to so much and respected, left the company. Um, and then another manager came in that didn't see me for the extraordinary kind of person that I was, and I just started burning out after burning out after burning out. And at some point I thought to myself, this this can't be it. There has to be something else. And so uh a dear friend of mine came and said, Dad, I think you would be a really amazing life coach. And I pushed it off and I pushed it off, and then I finally just jumped in. I said, you know what? I need to change, I need something different. I can't keep living this way anymore. I felt depressed, I felt anxious, I felt just not my best self. And so I went to this coaching program. Um, I became a sort of a life coach. I started receiving coaching, and my life went 180 just from lacking purpose, not resilient, fragile, to now finding more purpose, more clarity. And I thought to myself, wow, I think I was at the highest, you know, peak of my career working at Microsoft. And I thought I made it. But I realized there was something greater out there. And so I then went on a mission to start figuring out, hey, how do I help other people find themselves? How do I help other people find that direction? How do I help people get out of stress? And anyone that knows anyone working at Microsoft back then and probably much more now, knows that everyone at Microsoft is constantly put under a ridiculous amount of stress and tension. And it was time for me to go do something about it, to give my gift of transformation to other people who are experiencing similar things to what I had experienced. I think that was really the turning point for me that transcended over a couple of years.

SPEAKER_03:

It's quite the journey. Um, I personally haven't worked at Microsoft, but this is what I understand the stress level. Um, I hear that from almost everyone I talk to that has or or is working at Microsoft. Um, I'm wondering though, you experienced quite a bit of anxiety, depression, burnout while you were there. You had this accident, you moved into coaching. You have a stress resiliency system that you teach. And I'm wondering how how you built that. How did you get to this a specific system? And how did you narrow your niche to stress resiliency? Why?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, the story that I didn't tell back then was I thought for the longest time that the world, everything around me, people were causing me stress. But I realized that the number one thing that was causing me stress was my own ambitions. My ambitions to be successful at Microsoft, to dream big, to make an impact. And before that car accident, my level of resiliency matched my ambitions. But after that car accident, my resiliency no longer matched my ambitions. And so throughout this whole entire journey, I went through a personal experimentation with my own life. Like, how do I build up my own stress resiliency? How do I help myself? And how do I help other people? And um I started noticing a lot of patterns, a lot of signals. And the number one pattern and signal that I saw was that when people were stressed, when people didn't believe in themselves, when people were living in the midst of all that chaos, they weren't performing their best work, and neither was I. Right. And I started looking further and further on what is the deepest level of human need that we all have. And the deepest level of need that we all have is to be and live an extraordinary life. And I'm looking at all these people and myself, and what I realized is people who are living their most extraordinary life, people who believe that they're extraordinary, people who had that self-confidence, that ego, you know, that healthy ego, I would say, were able to overcome any challenge life sent their way. People that didn't have that confidence, people that didn't have a technique or a way out, were not performing. And so I know this sounds kind of crazy, but I knew that I was going to go change the world. I knew that there was something out there for me. I didn't know what it was, but I had believed in my extraordinariness, in my extraordinary idea, my extraordinary mind. And so I went out and I just essentially promised a whole bunch of people that, hey, I can help you with stress. And people signed up, they believed in me, and I over-delivered every single time. And and through that pattern and trend, I was able to slowly come up with my system uh that I built along the way and reinforced and have evolved over and over again. And like that's kind of the beginning of how I went and did it. And and I think the the most probably heartful story that I can think about is I was working with a client. And this client is the one that really helped me believe in my own work. And I just told her, hey, I don't think you understand how extraordinary and how amazing you are. If you knew how extraordinary, how amazing you were, and you were able to own up to what makes you an incredible person, your anxiety would go away. And she said to me, I don't think you understand how much that means because my whole entire life, my society, my religion, my you know, upbringing has told me that my role in life is to make everyone else around me feel extraordinary. And because I don't feel extraordinary, and I don't believe that I'm worthy of being extraordinary, that's probably why I'm getting so much anxiety. And and that story still rings so much true to me in terms of why the work that I'm doing is so valuable and why having a system to learn how to be your most extraordinary self is so needed in this world.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, when we we so for all those listeners, dad and I did not meet at Microsoft, and April and I met Dad at an event and then had coffee with him, and he sort of talked about this extraordinary idea, and we were we hung to every word that dad said that day. Like, wow, okay, what does that mean if you're extraordinary? Can you unpack that a little bit for our listeners? When you say extraordinary, what do you mean? And how do you take that on? Because that feels like a big word to be able to own as part of your being that you're extraordinary, especially for people that have, like your client, been giving out to the world in different ways. And you know, our key audience is women going through menopause, where they've been um, you know, in the middle between their kids, their careers, their parents, they've never really spent time until you get to menopause where you sort of have to looking at themselves and where do they fit into this world? So the work that you did to undefine yourself from being that uh person at Microsoft who had amazing career transitions or aspirations to um talking to people about extraordinary. How do I look at that at midlife? What does extraordinary mean and how can I be that?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a big question. And I don't know so much. You got it though.

SPEAKER_03:

If anybody's got it now, and you know, add here, Dad. You you explained it so eloquently when we met for coffee in in three different areas. And I I won't take the stage away from you, but it was self, others, and world. So can you can you dive into that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, what I think specifically about midlife women who are going through perimenopause or menopause, or just in general, I think the the extraordinary for me is not a reality. It's not a fact, it's not whether you are or you're not extraordinary, it's a mindset. It's a belief that I am an extraordinary person, I'm an extraordinary mom, I'm an extraordinary professional, I'm an extraordinary leader. It's just that belief in general, or at least believing that you're ordinary. And I think a lot of women are told you're only extraordinary if you put on makeup, if you do this, if you're a good mom, a good leader, you know, uh you you earn money and all of that together, only then are you worthy of feeling extraordinary. And all of those societal expectations and hidden burdens are just crazy in terms of what society expects of a woman and what I've learned as an ally. And, you know, what we need to shift to believe that I am extraordinary, that I am amazing, that I am powerful, and I don't need any external validation. I just need to believe it in myself. And even if you feel ordinary, you know, what I've been learning, listening to your podcast, is you know, a lot of women when they go through period menopause, all of a sudden your body is changing. And with this change comes the belief I'm no longer ordinary, there's something wrong with me. And the belief shifts to maybe I was extraordinary, maybe I was ordinary before, but I'm less than what I was before this started. And what that does to our mind, and I'm gonna bring in a little bit of neuroscience, is that in our minds, neuroscience is that we really have two major brain parts that deals with stress. One major brain part is the emotional brain. The emotional brain has one function to protect you, to keep you alive, to support you. When you feel fragile, when you feel powerless, when you feel not yourself, when and you feel just not your the best version of you, and you face a challenging situation, what your emotional brain is going to do is it's going to try to protect you by sending stress hormones throughout your entire body, keep you activated, intention mode, and put you on autopilot and not think the best. Why? Simply because you don't believe in yourself, you don't believe that you're extraordinary, and it's able to protect you to you know sense cortisol throughout your entire body to make you feel more powerful. The other part of the brain is the executive brain. The executive brain is where all of our executive functions live our ability to problem solve, be creative, to relate to other human beings, active memory, um, and all of that function, those functions that we need. And the thing is, when you feel extraordinary, when you say, you know what, this challenge feels pretty like stressful, but I'm so amazing, I'm so extraordinary, I've done this before, I can do it again. This major life transition. Women are extraordinary, my body is extraordinary. So many women have gone through this, and if they can, I can too. That's how powerful you are. What your emotional brain will do is it will say, Hey, my high self believes in themselves, they feel extraordinary. And if they do, I don't need to step in to put us in stress mode. And I think that really is a sense of self. Like that's what I mean by learning how to feel extraordinary. And, you know, the way that I think about it is when we have that negative self-talk, it's really about just taking a pause and reflecting what's one thing extraordinary about me, what makes me resilient? And how is that resiliency going to help me get through this situation instead of trying to believe that I'm fragile? And I'll take a pause there because you know, there are other aspects of it that it looks externally as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah. And then that piece of it stuck with me as well after our coffee meeting. Um, you talked about the way that we look at the world and it being extraordinary. That that's a piece of it.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And what really stuck with me is um when we had a conversation, a part of our conversation was about our kids and how we carry, right? In midlife, we well, all through parenthood, if we have children, we carry this worry with us that causes stress. And if we can look at our children or our adult children as extraordinary as well, it relieves that stress. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause there and let you jump back in um to kind of finish the story, if you will.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So, you know, what I shared was really just internally how we look at ourselves. But how we look at the world matters too. How we look at people matters. Your brain, your emotional brain is constantly trying to look for stress in order to protect you and other people that you care about from that stress and puts you in a stress mode so that you can show up for it. But then all of a sudden you're in stress mode so long, next thing you know, you actually have no more energy, you get depressed, anxious. You know, what I learned, I'm not a parent myself, but I helped co-raise over 20 nieces and nephews, immigrant nieces and nephews, and in Vietnamese culture, your cousins' children uh are also your nieces and nephews. And what I learned really observing them, and for me, is that as caretakers, if we believe that our children out to stress us, people out to stress our children, um, or that our children are fragile, then we will live in stress mode in order to protect them from their own fragility and from stress. But what I realize is that children are so, so resilient, they're so extraordinary, they're so amazing. And if we believe that they're fragile, we will take action to reinforce their fragility, to protect them and take away their ability to build their own resiliency. But if we believe that our children are extraordinary, they're resilient, they're amazing, that if they fall down and get hurt, if they go through pain, they are so resilient they will be able to rise above it. Then our mind will no longer put us into stress mode in order to protect them from that stress. A really great example that I like to give is so I teach um monthly or multiple times a month at a local senior center over in West Seattle. And one of the women there, she's 84, she had been going to my classes and she showed up one day and she said, Dad, you know what changed my life and how this class changed my life is um the other day I was with my daughter, and normally I would tell her, remember to wash your hands. And then I realized my daughter's a grown adult. I don't need to remind her to wash her hands. Right? She's resilient, she's extraordinary, she can figure it out herself. Then all of a sudden, all of her anxiety went away. And that's what I mean by like, we need to believe and find the extraordinariness in other people. And because when we look at the extraordinariness of the people, we realize that they're much more resilient and we don't need to protect them, and we don't need to live in stress mode to protect them.

SPEAKER_02:

I I think it's that's really remarkable in as I look back on my parenting that I did. I don't think I always trusted that my kids were resilient and I wanted to fix it all for them. And I mean, I think the same goes true for even my parents who are aging. Like, I want to go in and just like, I got this for you. And if I do that, then what you're saying is, I don't think you can do it. I think that you know, you're not resilient or extraordinary enough to be able to handle this. And what you're saying is like, give people a chance and trust that they are that way, and that you it it allows you to have less stress while you're allowing them to be extraordinary.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And building on top of that, like the other bad side of that is that if you believe that they're fragile, you will take away their opportunities to build resiliency. They will become so dependent on you that when they need to go off on their own or when they ever get to a moment where they no longer have us, you know, then they break down because they no longer have that caretaker that is doing everything for them, right? We need to trust that they can build the resiliency. We may not trust them now. We may not trust them from not falling down, but we need to trust that when they fall down, they'll be able to get back up. And if they need our help, we're gonna be here. But we don't need to pick them up without them asking.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's like training uh muscles, right? If we don't, if we don't continue to lift weights, we lose it. Um, we it's that muscle memory. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, always comes back to weight training for us, Ted.

SPEAKER_03:

I I know we always have to we always have to throw in weightlifting, right? 100%. You're pretty impressed on how we did that, right? Yeah, you didn't think we could. There it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Um I I can go to town on talking about the importance of weightlifting and and working out on how to build resiliency. But yeah, I'm you know, I'll leave it up to you. You want to go in that direction.

SPEAKER_03:

We'll we'll have you back for a whole other episode um on the podcast with that. But I'd love to switch gears um for just a moment and I want to talk a little bit about your um stress resiliency fast track program because it's a transformative 60-day group accelerator. And I'm wondering what the most pivotal components are. How does that journey unfold across that 60-day, two-month period? What does that look like? Tell us more.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. What that looks like is really providing a group experiences for people to build resiliency together. I have a stress resiliency system that I teach people. I think one of the greatest challenges that we have with stress is that we don't know how to deal with it. It takes too much time. We we get stressed, we make mistakes, and the next thing you know, we scramble and trying to figure out how to deal with it. And when we don't have a structure clarity, um, it's too much stress to take care of our stress, if that makes sense, right? Yeah. And so I provide people an entire stress resiliency system for them to really understand how to build the mindset, skills, and community so that they can gain resilience for the rest of their life, even after the program. And it really centers around like three pillars and a and a formula. And the three pillars that I, you know, put people through in this experience is that one mindset, two, building skills, and three the power of community. Because when it comes to mindset, what we talked about earlier, your mindset will determine when and how you are stressed. Right? If your mindset is that you are extraordinary, you are resilient, then you will continue to reinforce that idea. And this belief that we're fragile and other people are fragile is what keeps us all in stress mode, right? Because we have to go protect that. Two skills. When I when I talk about skills, I'm gonna go back to the formula. The formula of stress resiliency for me that is critical across the entire program is that your stress resiliency depends on just two things how extraordinary you feel, and how much minus how much tension you have. Because when you feel extraordinary, you know those days where you have a wonderful date night, you know, you got great feedback, you landed a client deal, or you just some success happens, and then a catastrophic, stressful event happens, but you feel like you're on top of the world and this event doesn't even stress you out. That's stress resiliency in action. When you feel small when you're sick, and someone says, Hey, honey, can you go wash the dishes? And then you just go completely off the veils because you feel small, you don't feel amazing. That is the opposite. And so it's helping people build that resiliency. And how you build that is rather than focusing on the tension, focus on making yourself feel extraordinary. And I and I walk them through skills that they can develop, understanding how their nervous system works and developing the skills to strengthen their resiliency, stretch their resiliency, soothe their resiliency, and release tension that is preventing them from being resilient. And over time, as we build these skills, we build up our resiliency, we build up our extraordinariness. Like going to the gym, for example, when you go to the gym and you feel more powerful, all of a sudden that sense of power and confidence in your muscle builds resiliency. And then finally, the power of community. And what I realized is like, look, we're all social human beings, and you can feel powerful, you can feel amazing, you can feel like you're on top of the world. But if you're on top of the world alone, you don't feel very powerful. And so we need a community of people, which is why this is a good program that is moving along this journey of resiliency that has resiliency in areas that we don't and inspires us to move in that direction. And then also on our days where we feel fragile, where we feel small, to have a community of people that can help lift you back up to a place of resiliency. And so the whole program is built on helping them transform their mindset, build the skills, and then get comfortable being in a community that will not let them settle for anything less than their most extraordinary resilient self. And like that transformation is so powerful because I mean, I've had people go to this program and say that they went from having three to five anxiety and panic attacks a week to three a month to zero. Like that's how powerful learning how to gain stress resiliency and extraordinariness is.

SPEAKER_02:

You are ordinary. You know, you find out that lots of people feel the same way that you do, and you're not crazy. So the community aspect is great. And you're not alone. And you're not alone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you're not alone. Yeah. Community is is huge. And and I love your formula. I love the one, two, three, right? Mindset, stress resiliency skills, and community. And then I love your formula. Can you share that one more time? It's the saying.

SPEAKER_00:

Stress resiliency is is how extraordinary you feel minus how much tension you are experiencing.

SPEAKER_03:

Tension. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And I think women going through midlife, you know, transitions like this, all of a sudden the amount of tension that you're experiencing is skyrocketing. And it makes you feel small, it makes you feel fragile. That's why we need to be in communities of people that support us and lift up our resiliency and extraordinariness because we can't do it alone. You know, and especially, I think one of the things I hear there is um all of a sudden, you know, it reminds me of my car accident. I got into a car accident and I just didn't feel myself anymore. I felt so small. And then all of a sudden, you know, I'm talking to other people who went through similar experiences. I'm like, wow, the story that I'm telling in my head is much different from what they're telling. You know, they're telling themselves that they're they're they're no longer extraordinary, but I'm like, I see the most extraordinary person. And so when you when you feel small, but you're surrounded by people who also feel small and you see how actually amazing they are, it reminds you of how amazing you are. But yes, I know I kind of went a little off-tangent on that formula, which is how extraordinary you feel minus how much tension you have.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It's really good and helpful for our listeners as well. I was just uh I sit and I journal every morning and I spend that quiet time 30 minutes by myself, sort of kind of with my dog, but by myself before the rest of the world gets up. And um, I was just reading this morning in devotion, very similar to this, to be sure to share with other people. Um, if we want to, if we want to say how extraordinary they are, but what what gifts they bring. When they walk into the room, how do they light up the room and be sure to tell them that because we're elevating them and we are building that um stress resiliency, right? We're we're lifting them and elevating them. Um and I love that. I think it's it's a really great reminder. There is also a powerful contrast between very release process when it comes to stress management. And I'm wondering how those stages differ and why is release so central to the rest of the process? Can you unpack that a little bit more for us as well?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, you're going back deep to some of my earlier work. Yeah, so I think we have this idea that we need to hold on to stress, that stress is needed, that you know, stress is helpful, but it isn't. I think stress similar to food allows us to grow, to be nourished, right? But do you hold on to your food? No. You process you, you allow, you take what you need from it, you process it to help you grow stronger, and you let go of the rest. And so we need to release it. We need to let it go because the more we hold on to stress, the more it actually shows up as tension throughout our body, throughout our emotions, throughout our you know, physical, mental, spiritual, and and emotional health. And when we don't talk about it, when we don't have communities, when we do it all alone, we hold on to it. When we don't go to the gym, we don't take time to release. And releasing can be having a bubble bath, a sound, you know, a sound bath, going to the gym, going for a run, yelling at the top of your lungs about how angry you are at the world, just to let it out.

SPEAKER_02:

April has a dance party.

SPEAKER_00:

Have a dance party because what happens is if you don't release your stress and tension, you will unleash it onto your loved ones at the worst.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, possible. And we all know how that feels like being the, you know, the person doing it and unreceiving it. And so we need to release tension throughout the day. Because the number one thing that causes us to not be able to be present for the people we love is tension. Right. And and you ever go for a run or have a really good exercise, and then all the stress that you felt and experienced just magically went away.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yes. It is true. It is true.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like a pressure cooker, right? You hold it in, you hold it in, you hold it in, and then the top pops off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I went on so many long walks during COVID, it was crazy because I needed to just release the scariness that was going on around me. But um, you know, this makes me think about you focus on understanding and regulating the nervous system. And lots of people, myself included, most days, don't even understand what that means. How do I regulate my um nervous system? Like how what's your framework for building that mind-body connection so that you can recognize when this is happening inside your person as you know, maybe it's not your brain that realizes that you're stressed, but your body is. How do you how do you think about that and how do you connect that? And how do you release that?

SPEAKER_00:

That is such a great question. I like to oversimplify things. Um, and so in our minds, we have the emotional brain and the executive brain, and we like to think that our mind talks to our body, but it does not. It's very disconnected. And people who who learn how to connect them can really do amazing things. And so in our body, our body is something is controlled by something called the autonomic nervous system. I just like to call it the nervous system for simplicity's sakes. More importantly than anything, um, according to the polyvagal theory, the nervous system has three states. And but I like to call the states a little bit different to make it more accessible. And those three states for me are one, the safe and social state. This is the state in which your body feels safe, it feels social, it can rest, it can digest, it can self-regulate and heal itself. And this is the ideal state for all of us to be in. Right. And the second state is what I call the activated state. The activated state, the state in which you're activated, you're in motion, you're getting ready to respond, you're getting ready to go. I think a lot of medical providers say that it's fight or flight, but I think it's more than that. It is movement, fight, and flight. Right? When you when it's good, it's helping you pick up your child, pick up groceries, and do things you want to do. But when it goes wrong, the activated state is also the fight and flight state. It's a state in which your body is getting ready to fight back, it's getting ready to run away and respond to the situation to keep you safe. And finally, the final state is the shutdown state. The shutdown state is a state in which your nervous system has gone completely awry. It's it's gone away, it's in chaos. And you know those moments where you yell at somebody and you think back, why did I do that? You reach for junk food, you reach for addiction, you reach for vices, and then you guilt and shame yourself and you think, Wow, why did I do that? But I promise you, it's not you. That's actually your nervous system taking control of you without your consent because you didn't listen to it. It entered the shutdown state and it took action again without your consent to get you back to the safe and social state. You're picking up that snack that you know you shouldn't eat because your body is trying to use the snack to feel safe again. And so when you think of those three states, it's so powerful. And the thing is, the activated and the shutdown state allows you to take action, but you your body can't heal. Your body cannot heal itself, it cannot rest, it cannot digest. And I think, you know, women who are going through traumatic experiences or major life transitions, your body is constantly in the activated state. No wonder why you can't heal, no wonder why you can't sleep. And so regulating your nervous system is really about learning how to recognize which state your nervous system is in, choosing not to keep it activated for too long, and taking breaks and actions to bring it back to the safe and social state so that you don't live in the shutdown state and take action that causes you a lot of work to make up for the mistakes that you made. And I can go more into the skills too, but that's kind of the introduction to how I think about understanding your nervous system from a very accessible standpoint.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I love that. And I I I appreciate all of the practical tips that you're offering here today, Dad. I I know everyone that I talk to has some level of stress. It varies to to, you know, at different degrees depending on where they are in life, what's happening in their lives, but everyone has a certain amount of stress. So I appreciate you offering all of the advice today. But I want to ask you one more question before we leave our audience here. Because people are feeling buried, they're feeling overwhelmed, they're feeling stress. I'm wondering if you can give us a simple immediate step that our audience can take to begin shifting from overwhelm. What can I do today? One thing to start shifting out of that overwhelm stress state.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to say fourth, I want to say um, let me reflect on that to make it simple. Sure. Build skills. Go and build skills that helps improve your stress resiliency. Because the number one thing that I have come to realize during this work is that stress reduction is a myth and it's a lie. Anything we do to reduce our stress, life will find a way to fill in the gap and it's never-ending and endless. And so when you are constantly trying to reduce your stress, it's not very long. Instead, take the time to build up your resiliency. Do things that make you feel extraordinary, even things that are hard. And the four things that I skills that I recommend is one, learn how to strengthen yourself, take action to strengthen yourself because the stronger you are, the less things stress you out. Because you're strong.

SPEAKER_02:

And by strength, you mean like your mind.

SPEAKER_00:

Mind, body, yeah, emotions, spirit, yeah, any of that, right? And what I mean by that is like go do and build upon skills you already have, or build upon new skills that are in your comfort zone. Go and work out and go to the gym or have hire a personal trainer that you know allows you to build strength, but again, in your comfort zone, it isn't too hard. Stretching is really about doing things out of your comfort zone. Because the reality is life will stretch stretch you. It will stretch you, and if you don't stretch yourself in advance, you will break. And so do things that bring you discomfort, but help you in the long term. That's really stretching. But I think the reality is if there's one, two skills that are more important than those, it's learn how to self-soothe. Because I think all of us have learned how to strengthen and stretch without much uh because life has taught us that. Soothing is really about teaching yourself that you don't need to be on all the time, that you can rest, that you are still amazing, even if you take care of yourself, even if you get a massage, even if you're not on all the time, learn how to soothe yourself. That is such an instrumental skill that I think so many of us rely on other people to soothe. But we haven't taught ourselves how to do that. So teaching yourself how to soothe is really so instrumental and and and releasing, you know, go take time to release the stress, but do those three things and release will come on its own. But I think the number one thing is go develop skills that help you with stress, because when you do, you you will no longer be stressed by the things that used to stress you out.

SPEAKER_03:

Take those baby steps. Yeah. Take the baby steps, yeah. And for those that might need a little bit of help and still not sure how to do it on their own, that where can our audience members find you?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, if you feel like you're at a point where you have ambitions and dreams and you want to be able to gain the skills to achieve those ambitions and dreams and the stress that comes above, you know, with those things, you know, you can find me at my website or on social media. Um, I'm on, you know, my website is datstresscoach.com. And my Instagram and LinkedIn are also uh at that stresscoach. And it's like I'm I'm here as a resource, even if you want to just have a call to have someone that can support you as a community member and lift up your spirits and point you in the right direction. I'm I'm here to help make you feel extraordinary.

SPEAKER_02:

I gotta say that's totally true. You know, when we met with you, we walked away like, oh my gosh. And also extraordinary. Yeah. I do, yeah. And also, Dad, like just getting on this podcast with you, like your style is so calming. Yes. I'm like, okay, I can get through the rest of my day. I'm gonna be okay. I really appreciate that. You bring that sort of energy with you wherever you go, Dad. So appreciate that. Um, okay, so I'm not sure whether we told you this or not, but we always ask our guests one last question. And maybe you know because you sort of fell into a rat hole of listening to some of our podcasts. But what is the best piece of advice you've ever received or given?

SPEAKER_00:

The best piece of advice that I give all the time is that remember that you are extraordinary and that you are resilient. And your extraordinariness and resilience will get you through anything as long as you don't forget it. You are never anything less than extraordinary. You know, there might have been times where life took that away from you, but it never did, even if it felt like it. And as long as you can retap back into what makes you extraordinary, you'll be able to get through anything. And I know something.

SPEAKER_02:

No, it doesn't. And I told the listeners at the beginning you taught us about what extraordinary meant, and I think you really did a great job of bringing that to life today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I and I want to add one more to that, which is in when I was younger, I I watched an animation when there was a main character who didn't believe in himself. But he had a friend that was like an old brother that said, you know, Simone, if if remember that if you don't believe in yourself, I will always be there to believe in you. And then the, you know, the the brother then passes away. But the the main character is able to overcome any challenge that comes his way because he always remembered that his brother believed in him, and that helped him go through every single challenge that life sent his way. And I think I didn't realize why that made such a difference until now, which is that when we believe in ourselves and when we have people believe in our extraordinariness, we become unstoppable at achieving all of our wildest dreams and ambitions.

SPEAKER_03:

I believe that. We can't say it better, April. So I can't. And like, how do I wrap up the show with that? Like exactly I'm gonna, I'm gonna say thank you for making us feel extraordinary today and for reminding us of that. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show. And this topic is extremely important. Um, it's World Menopause Month and lifestyle medicine is the theme. Stress is a part of lifestyle medicine, and having that stress resiliency is critical to our long-term health, short-term and long-term health. So thank you for taking the time to be on the show today. Healthing is to feel extraordinary. And audience, you are extraordinary. Um, until we meet again, I hope that you go find joy in the journey. Take care. Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

Bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you for listening to the Medovia Menopumas podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe for future episodes, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend. Medovia is out to change the narrative. Learn more at Medovia.com. That's M I D O V I A.com.

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April Haberman

Co-host
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Kim Hart

Co-host