Two Cars, Two Lessons, One Powerful Shift Against Burnout

When both my cars broke down at the same time, my nervous system wanted to catastrophize—"This is terrible! Everything's falling apart!  I can even make 'bad' things a reflection on how I've somehow failed!! Sound familiar?

In this episode, I'm getting vulnerable about my own tendency toward hypervigilance and being able to see patterns has been an incredible gift and also a curse that can drain my vitality.

You'll discover:

• Why your "gift" for seeing patterns might be keeping you exhausted
• The difference between healthy awareness and nervous system hypervigilance
• How catastrophizing creates the biochemical stress response that depletes you
• Two powerful questions to ask when you're spinning out
• Practical tools to orient yourself to safety in the present moment

If you're exhausted despite doing "all the right things," this episode will help you understand how your nervous system—not your circumstances—might be the real issue.

To find out if you're a match for The Holding Personality and to see if your personality type may possibly secretly be draining your energy take this 5 minute quiz at http://portal.kerrymagnus.net/quiz

This may just be the missing piece you're looking for. 

And remember...sharing is caring - please share with all those who could benefit from this podcast. 

Transcript

 I want to share a story with you that's happened recently and that I think has some valuable lessons in it for you. I'm going to share two important questions and two tools which will help you if you're someone who battles with becoming easily overwhelmed, easy stressed, and also possibly burns out often and battles with chronic fatigue because those things are linked together.

So we're, we're a fortunate family. We have two cars, and I'm very grateful for that. It's just that unfortunately at the moment, both of them are not working at the same time. It's not unusual for us to have one vehicle that doesn't work, but we haven't really had this situation where both of them don't work at the same time.

Although it's also not surprising given that the shared age of our vehicles is the same age as me, which for the record is almost 47, actually 47 next month. So yeah, so here we sit with two vehicles that don't work. And it's challenging. Uh, it's for sure it's challenging. We live in a little village where there are no Ubers, no taxis, cabs.

Um, we, you know, we live on a gravel road outside of the village, so it's not easy to walk and or cycle. Um, so yeah, it's been challenging and it, it has raised a pattern in me that. I have been becoming more and more conscious of, particularly in terms of how it has affected my chronic fatigue and burnout in the past, but it's still a pattern that I've gotta watch for, to manage amongst other things I've learned to manage, then to support my health and wellbeing.

So in its healthy presentation, this pattern is a gift of being able to see patterns in my practice. This is a wonderful gift to have because it enables me to draw on the past to better understand why a client is where they are, and to put out themes from their life. And this is often very enlightening for them and for me, and it helps me to support them in a better way.

So that's great. Right, and, and I, and I have no doubt that it probably also supports me in my normal day life, but analyzing it has always been a coping mechanism for me. Being in my head and analyzing, essentially, is actually a coping mechanism. I remember learning this as a psychologist and I was like, but no, because I do so much of this.

And surely it's good. I mean, it's so val, you know, it's validated by society to be. Cognitive and intellectual and, and to analyze. Um, but at the end of the day, the reason we do it is because we are trying to control for the future and keep ourselves safe. And it's so that we don't have to feel, which is ironic because I'm gonna explain to you why it can often lead to actually feeling a lot more stressed.

So because of my childhood, which involved some. Unpredictability and there were times that I didn't often feel safe. Uh, there were, there was a lot of political violence where I grew up. It affected our family personally in a number of ways. I will get into that one day, um, in one of these episodes. And, and there various other reasons.

My parents weren't very emotionally present, like most parents in my generation. And so while I was going through a lot of that, I didn't feel like I was being supported in it. So I didn't know how to manage it very well. And so one of the mechanisms that I honed, 'cause I imagine it was probably already a predisposed skill, was to analyze what's happening, uh, now align, like align it to something similar in the past, and then make predictions about the future.

'cause then maybe I could possibly control. What was gonna happen, and then I'd be safe. All right. So do you see what, what's happening there? This is what many of us do. And let's also just point out something else here. The nervous system naturally does do this. Our nervous system is designed to match what's happening now to something that's happened.

You know, like it's scans. It scans in the past and then says, oh, I know this thing. A hot stove is dangerous. Don't touch it. So then it helps you to do something in the present moment. That, uh, is gonna keep you safe. But we can take this to an extreme as a coping mechanism. It, it becomes a trauma informed behavior.

And, and, and it actually becomes what's called hypervigilance. So my tendency to look at what's happening, make a meaning, and then um, have a feeling about it, uh, and try and predict based on that is hypervigilance. 'cause I'm constantly scanning what's happening. Constantly scanning and evaluating and analyzing like.

Is this good? Is it bad? What does it mean? What does it mean? And I've really, really had to learn that that is not serving me. So here is the crux that I want you to understand where our vitality and our physical health is deeply impacted by this state of our nervous systems. So I'm gonna say that again.

How much energy we have. How much ease and joy we have, how much our physical health is in balance. Our immune systems particularly is deeply impacted by how balanced our nervous systems are. So if you've had a, a, a childhood where there was a lot of unpredictability and you've developed hypervigilance and, and trauma informed behaviors and coping mechanisms.

That mean that in the present moment you are often in an activated state. That is a huge reason why you are battling with chronic overwhelm and chronic fatigue. Okay? I really had to learn this the hard way, but it has made such a difference to my life. So that's why I say I've become particularly aware of this pattern, which as a gift, is the capacity to see patterns, um, uh, as a as, as a, I don't wanna say curse.

But it is this thing that can really just exhaust me. It is hypervigilance. Okay. I wanna also add in something else that happens at the same time as this pattern generation or hypervigilance, is that it would be fine to just an kind of more neutral way go, oh, this thing has happened in the past when something like this has happened.

That's happened afterwards. So let me just be aware of that, you know, and to have a kind of a neutral evaluation. We are seldom neutral about it. And in fact, what we often do is something called catastrophizing. So catastrophizing is a term from CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, and it is a cognitive distortion.

It is way, a way in which we take something neutral and we then distort it, um, to to, to have a belief system that impacts us in a particular way. So what I'm saying is that most things that happen are neutral. We then can distort it as being terrible, and we could come with a framework of, um, black and white thinking.

So it has to be all this or it's failure. Um, these are all ways of, of distorting the evidence. Um, having distorted belief systems that cause us to then feel a certain way and then our bodies have a biochemical response because we come become stressed. So catastrophizing particularly is a tendency to, um.

Something happens and then we go, oh my gosh, this is awful. This is terrible. It's a terrible thing that's happened. I, uh, need to be on high alert now. Okay. And then the body goes into one of its, um, default trauma response states. And if you are doing this frequently and chronically, it is going to be impacting your physical health and your vitality.

So I definitely have a tendency to catastrophize. I've had to really watch that. So in the event of like, okay, let me give you an, a simple example. When I was working in the student counseling, um, uh, centers, I worked in two universities. It was often something that came up with the females. It was usually females who came to see me, female clients, and they'd say, my boyfriend hasn't phoned me.

It hasn't phoned for five hours. He hasn't been answering my messages or a day or whatever. I think he's probably gonna break up with me. Right? So they've, there's the event. They haven't responded to messages or answer calls. The, the meaning given to it is it's terrible and it means that he's gonna break up a beat.

So there's no evidence for this. Correct. But that's the meaning that's given to it. Why do we always choose the worst possible scenario? I think that's just the nervous system tendency. It's how we protect ourselves. We, we feel like, well, let's look at the worst case scenario and then we can protect ourselves against whatever happens.

And so seldom is it actually that It can be, but it's also often not. You know, it could just be that his battery is flat, he's lost his phone, he's going through some other stressful situation, circumstance, that means he hasn't been able to get back to her. Okay? So in the event of of me, I've realized that a lot of my catastrophizing has to do with the state of my life or of life in general, or it has to do with myself.

Like, particularly, am I good or bad? Am am I good enough or not? And I think this is probably quite similar for most people. So I've been working a lot around expansion and ease and abundance, and with both of our cars going at the same time, I could, that little voice immediately wanted, wanted to go, oh my gosh, you've been doing all this hard work and now this has happened.

Like this is the worst thing that's happened in ages. It's terrible. What does this mean about what you're doing? You're clearly not doing any of it, right? Like, what does this mean? It's a bad thing, and I caught it. And I was like, but it's, it's, it's actually, it's just two cars that have broken down.

That's all it is. Our two cars have broken down. Yeah. It's uncomfortable. It's not pleasant. Am I gonna survive? Of course. I'm gonna survive. Does it mean that I've done something wrong? I'm a terrible person. Life is terrible. No. It just means that our two cars have broken down and it's a bit uncomfortable.

And you know what? When you can get to that place. What you can often start to do is to also find that, in fact, there's gifts in these so-called challenges that we make terrible. And so I've, I've not been able to go anywhere. It's been lovely. I've had, I've had to ask people for help, which has been fun being able to ask for help.

I've been able to receive help, don't you think? Maybe the universe has been working with me here a bit just to help me. Um. Really exercise those muscles of, of asking and receiving. And it's been quiet, it's been simpler. I haven't had to race out. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna be late to finish my son. Oh my gosh, I've gotta get this in the shot.

Before I do that, before I do that, none of that has been happening. I've just been at home doing the basics, doing my work, and doing what I need to do. And my nervous system has been so much calmer because I chose to just let this be what it is. So I really wanted to share this with you today because I wanted you, you to understand how this pattern can play out, um, of catastrophizing, of drawing conclusions because we analyze what's happened and we make it terrible based on things that may have happened in the past.

And of course, we, we wanna be grateful to that part of ourselves that tries to protect us. But I've learned to kind of just say to it, 'cause it sits on my left shoulder. I don't know why the voice always feels like it comes to my left shoulder. And I kind of just say, thank you, I hear you, but calm down.

It's not necessary. It's really not necessary to respond that way. And then I have a much calmer nervous system, and this means that I'm staying in that parasympathetic state of, or ventral vagal state, which is a kind of rest digest where I can make energy and, and my mitochondria can function in a healthy way.

Um, so it's just so, so important. So I'm gonna give you two questions I want you to ask if you find yourself spinning out and catastrophizing and looking for danger based on things that have happened, um, the first question is, what is the worst that can happen? Truly? Like, what's the worst that can happen now?

And I want you to be honest and rational. So don't let that little child part of you that freaks out or that protector part that's overly hypervigilant. Step in and go, oh, it's just so bad because now the whole world's gonna fall apart. Like, no, actually most of the time, yeah, it's maybe gonna be uncomfortable.

But the second question is, can I deal with, so what is the worst that can happen? Can I deal with it? More often than not, the answer is, it's gonna be uncomfortable, but I will be okay. And that feels a lot better versus this kind of irrational, oh my God, it's terrible. It. This is, this means something terrible.

It means something terrible about me. It means that the world is like my, my, my world's falling apart. That's often where we go straight away and then the nervous system immediately responds and gets ramped up and that impacts our health. And I like, okay, so what is the worst that can really happen with the situation?

Given the situation? What is the worst that can happen? Two, can I. Handle that. Can I, can I be okay with that? Then? The thir, the first tool is one I've already me mentioned to you is to try and practice neutrality. It is neither good nor bad. It just is, it only becomes good or bad if we add meaning to it, and, you know, yeah.

There are situations that are overtly, rarely not easy to think of as good or neutral. I, I, I understand that. When I lost my dad, I would, I didn't want someone to tell me, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It's, it was awful. It really was. The, the interesting thing is now I can look at it with neutrality.

'cause I can understand, as terrible as it was, I, I gained incredible gifts from that experience. I still wouldn't want it to have happened, but there were still gifts in it. So at the least, try and just be open to the fact that even in every challenge there is a gift. Okay. But most of the time when we awfulize Catastrophizes, it really is just neutral.

It really is. And we've given it a bad meaning because we have learned as children that we need to be super hypervigilant and aware of danger. 'cause that is how we kept us all safe and it does not serve you. It may have at one point in time and we thank that part of ourselves that is so protective, but it's usually not serving us anymore.

It's actually feeding the depletion and exhaustion. The second tool is to orient yourself to the present moment. 'cause whenever we are analyzing, we are future focusing or we're stuck in the past, we are drawing on something that's happened in the past and we are trying to predict the future. So when you find yourself doing that, orient yourself to the present moment.

What does that mean? That means, right now I have two cars outside that don't work. But right now, in this moment, am I safe? Yeah. I'm safe, like actually there's nothing terrible that's happening. I have a roof over my head. I have a family around me that I love to bit, that loves me. I have food in my fridge.

I, and, and even if there is a challenge, I know that I'll actually be able to deal with it. I can probably phone someone and ask them to bring me a loaf of bread if I need a loaf of bread. So right now, in this moment, I am safe. And usually you'll find that right now in this moment, you are safe. What you are getting stressed about is something that hasn't yet happened, or you are remembering something that has happened and you're projecting it onto this moment.

So orienting yourself to the present, very powerful tool to help your nervous system, which helps your health and your vitality. You can also do this through focusing on your five senses. What can I see, smell, touch, taste, and hear. And that can include internally and externally. In other words, what can I feel outside of me if I tangibly touch something?

What do I feel in my body in this moment? Um, so you can also just, you can also use breath breathing in. I breathing out m breathing in, safe breathing out. Now, should you say that in your head? I am safe now. Breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out. And that is also gonna help to orient you to the safety in this moment as your nervous system realizes, actually, I don't need to be on high alert right now.

It is actually safe. So there you go. All of that. From two cars breaking down. There's another gift you see, another gift in why they broke down is this, this podcast.