Your Bounce-Back Rate Matters More Than Perfection: Return to Regulation

Do you keep telling yourself you'll slow down after this week, after this project, after this one last thing?

Burnout rarely happens overnight, it's often the result of ignoring the small whispers from your body until they become impossible to ignore, but resilience isn't about never feeling overwhelmed, it's about noticing the signs sooner and learning how to return to yourself before you reach breaking point

In this episode, I'm sharing three practical ways to recognise when you're teetering on the edge of burnout to return to regulation before your body forces you to stop

We discover why your bounce-back rate matters far more than perfection, how to stop pushing through at the expense of your wellbeing, and the small intentional shifts that help you recover faster

Because healing isn't about never falling off track, it's about learning to come back to yourself, again and again when you do 

Make sure to come and follow me over on socials @iamizabellemartucci for all things that align us in mind, body and soul 🧚🏼‍♀️🌀✨🌙

Transcript

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Okay, so right now I feel like we are being sold a really toxic idea of wellness culture. We are being told that we should never have seasons that we feel exhausted or nervous or stretched too thin. We never have to have these times and we feel like life just isn't working. And I just think it's bullshit because we are always going to have seasons that ask more of us. We are always going to have moments in our life when we have to give more than we have the capacity for. But that's just the balance of life. Everything isn't going to run in airy-fairy, frolicking through the forest kind of way all of the time. We are going to have to give a little bit more sometimes. And that's just how life works. And understanding that the real measure of resilience isn't how many times you fall off. It's about how quickly you bring yourself back. It's about understanding that you have fallen off and bringing yourself back. Because that is where true awareness comes. It's about how quickly you notice you've drifted from the path. You're going to have seasons when you have to give and you have to help people in your life, potentially when you don't have the cup full yourself. But it's about understanding that, okay, I'm pushing myself too far. I'm approaching burnout. And how can I bring myself back? Because that transition right there is what is going to serve you so well. Because you can never avoid these stressful situations. But the amount of times you bring yourself back and the time between noticing you're burning out and bringing yourself back, the closer you can bring those together is what's going to change your life. And in this episode, we are going to talk through three incredible tips that you can use and you can implement as soon as you feel like you're getting burnt out to bring yourself back into a state of regulation. I'm your host, Izzy, and I am so grateful to have you here on another episode. The Good Go Rebellion is all about reclaiming your rhythm in mind, body, and spirit. Each week we are unraveling years of conditioning to reclaim our wild, rebellious, and intuitive truths. So if you're ready to reclaim your power, reconnect with your wildest self and rise as the woman you were never taught to be, you are in the right place. Welcome to the rebellion. Okay, so tip number one when you notice you are teetering on the edge of burnout and you want to bring yourself back, is notice the whisper before it starts to scream. Can you notice maybe your aura ring tells you everything, like things are out of whack? Maybe you notice that you haven't been sleeping as well, maybe you notice you haven't got the capacity to look after yourself as well as you wanted to because you're giving too much, you're filling other people's cup before you filled your own. Notice where it is that your body is saying to you, you're starting to burn out. Things are starting to shift out of balance, and we need you to bring it back. Before I start screaming with things like illness, injury, complete fatigue, and just breakdown. You want to notice when your body starts to feel out of whack before you reach that full capacity of burnout. Because these small things show up differently for everybody. They could be things like irritation from the little things, struggling to concentrate, procrastinating, waking up tired all the time, losing excitement for things that you usually enjoy, and just being emotionally flat. And those invitations, they're not failures. They are your body's way of saying to you, something is wrong, something is out of balance, you are going to burn out, you need to take a minute and you need to chill, you need to bring it back and you need to acknowledge that you are pushing yourself too hard. Because most of us just think, oh no, I'll be fine, I'll just push through and it will all be okay. But you pushing through over and over and over again, it's not gonna go unnoticed. Your body keeps the score. Your body knows where you've pushed it too hard, and your body is going to reflect that back to you in the future. So I want you to ask yourself, what has my body been trying to tell me this week that I've been ignoring? What is my body trying to bring to my attention? Where can I see myself burning out that I'm avoiding that I know subconsciously is triggers and points to the fact that I'm burning out, but where am I ignoring it and why am I ignoring it? What do I think it's serving by ignoring this behavior? Am I, do I not want to be seen as the person who says no? Am I trying to people please? Am I trying to be the ultimate good girl? Because most of the time us women have been conditioned to put everybody else's needs before our own and allow ourselves to burn out because other people needed us more than we needed ourselves. So I want you to ask yourself, where is this showing up? How can you put yourself first and how can you break that good girl conditioning and stop yourself burning out before it's too late? Number two is where can you reduce before you restore? Quite often, when we are approaching burnout, our instinct is just to add more things, add more supplements, add more morning routine, add more to our habits, add more pressure, more meditation, more this, more that, more journaling, more giving to other people in order to then be able to share ourselves. I want you to stop. I want you to reduce it back, and I want you to ask, where do you need to actually reduce things? So instead of adding more to your play, where can you take away? What is one simple task that can wait? You could, for example, take your to-do list. This is something that my coach told me to do recently, is you take your to-do list and you actually number things. One, two, three, four, five, whatever. How important are they? If they are like a three and above, you can just put them to the side. They're not urgent, they don't need to be done. It's fine. You just you take them off your plate. Things like can you simplify your dinner? Instead of trying to think of seven different brand new dinner ideas that you've never cooked before, that's gonna keep your meals really exciting and it's gonna add a lot more pressure to one, maybe your financial pressure for buying new ingredients, two, your time pressure because you are trying to create meals you've never created before. Can you simplify it? Can you pre-cook all of your proteins on most of your meals on one day of the week? And then can you just reheat them? Can you plan something that you know you love, like a consistent rice bowl? Can you have rice, protein, veggies just on rotation for dinner every day that week? Where can you simplify your life? Can your washing stay unfolded? Can you just hang it straight up? Do you not have to fold it? Do you have to fold it? Can you say no? Can you just look at your life? Where are you putting more pressure on yourself and actually say, I don't need to do that? Do I need to do my 15-step morning routine? Or would waking up, washing my face, hydrating, and maybe sitting for five minutes in silence or journaling gonna be just as beneficial as my yoga practice and doing this and doing that and adding all these extra things. Where can you simplify your life to give yourself more capacity to be able to allow yourself to stop burning out before it's too late? Because burnout recovery often comes from taking stuff away, not adding more on. You are going to recover from burnout by actually realizing that you need to carry less rather than learning how to carry more or just as much as you already were carrying. And then tip number three is where can you return to your non-negotiables? What are your non-negotiables, first of all? I want you to ask yourself this question: what are the things that bring you genuine joy, happiness, groundedness, peace? What are those things that you can bring back into your life? You can either implement them every day or you have this kind of like a burnout recovery kit where you go back to these things and you really call upon them when you feel like you are teetering on the edge of burnout. For example, is it movement, sleep, sunlight, proper meals, quiet time, connection? So instead of completely trying to reset your life, can you just return to the basics? Do you know that you are going to feel your most regulated maybe when you have a really deep conversation with your partner and you share how you're feeling and you allow them to comfort you? Are you going to feel your best when you actually go for a walkout in nature and just allow yourself to sit in the sun with no distraction for 10 minutes and feel the sun on your face? Are you going to feel your best when you can go to the gym and you can work through all of this kind of extra energy that you've got built up and you can really kind of push it around with some weight in the gym? Do you feel your best when you just put your phone on do not disturb and you go to the beach and you swim in the ocean? What are these things that bring you joy? What are these things that are your non-negotiables that when you feel yourself on the edge of burnout, you just think, nah-uh. I'm gonna call on these things and I'm going to pull myself back. For example, for me, I can feel myself recently getting on the edge of burnout. I am juggling jobs and all sorts is going on in my life right now. The fun and joy of building a life in a whole new country, which can be definitely messy before it begins to find its way. But I could just feel myself teetering on the edge of burnout. So on the weekend, I put my phone on do not disturb, and I went to the beach and I just laid in the sun and swam in the ocean, and that just heals my soul. That is something that I know I have to do in order to feel my best. Be in nature, alone, have no distraction. Like these are the things that you need to figure out what it is that brings you back to yourself, what it is that helps you walk yourself back off of that ledge of burnout. Is it movement? Is it the ocean? Is it nature? Is it connection with your partner? Whatever it is, there's no right or wrong answers, it's just whatever works for you. So implement those things because these tiny acts of self-care are what create the biggest momentum. They are what create the most change. People think the change comes from big dramatic movements, but it doesn't. It comes from tiny things that you do over and over again. Can you allow yourself to implement into your weekly schedule time to spend at the beach, time to read your book, time to sit in the sun, time to drink your morning coffee or your morning tea with no distraction, time to go on a summarized walk. Find the things that stop you burning out and make sure you have them in your schedule. Make sure you prioritize yourself where you can at all times, just to avoid yourself from getting to this point of burnout. Because, as I mentioned at the start of the episode, living a stressful life sometimes can't be avoided. It's going to be a part of life. It is just a part of living the human existence. We're gonna have times when things hit the fan, things aren't going our way, people need our help, people need our attention, jobs are gonna take too much from us, and that's unavoidable sometimes. But how you bring yourself back, how quickly you notice you are burning out, and how quickly you can move from teaching on the edge of burnout back to a regulated state, the closer you can bring these things together, the better you will feel. Because as I said, you're never gonna be able to avoid a stressful situation. But bringing yourself back from the edge into that regulated state of mind is what is going to change your life. Because you don't win any awards by burning yourself to the ground. You do not have to have your worth measured by how much you give to other people while taking from yourself, because that is not the way to measure your worth in the world. It's measured by your willingness to listen to yourself. Burnout isn't your body betraying you. Burnout is your body telling you that you need to give more to yourself. You need to stop giving to everybody else and you need to give back to yourself. Stop filling everybody else's cup until you filled yours. Because it is just your body's way of asking you for more attention before it starts to demand it. So next time you notice yourself slipping back into that familiar place, do not judge yourself for being there. Simply notice it. Take one thing off your plate, come back to your basics, and remember that resilience isn't about falling off track. Resilience is about how quickly you return to yourself and how quickly you bring yourself back to that regulated state of mind. Because every single time you do that, every single time you bring yourself back, you are building a life that no longer requires you to burn out just to prove you're enough. Because you are enough just as you are, whether you give everything you've got to somebody else or whether you pour into your own cup first. Because noticing the whisper before it screams is the very first step to changing your life and living in a more regulated state of mind. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If it resonated, make sure to share with the guys and girls who need to hear this message, with the people that liked to walk the tightrope and teeth out on the edge of burnout quite consistently. If you haven't already, make sure to follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening or watching. You can find me on Instagram at Iam Isabel Maltucci for all things aligning, mind, body, and spirit. And I will see you again on the podcast next week. As always, all my love.