The Gentle Rebellion: A New Approach to Work-Life Balance and Personal Fulfilment

Are you feeling worn out from trying to balance the demands of your career and personal life? Do you find yourself constantly striving for more, pushing yourself to the brink, only to feel overwhelmed and joyless as you neglect your own wellbeing and connections to others? If so, then this episode is your beacon of hope, a call for a revolution in your approach towards life, work and personal fulfilment. 

Welcome to a much-needed conversation about the 'Gentle Rebellion', a pioneering perspective that advocates for a harmonious life where work, personal fulfilment and wellbeing are not mutually exclusive, but rather, intertwined aspects of a satisfying existence. This is not just about survival, it's about thriving without feeling overwhelmed. I’m here to tell you that it's entirely possible to excel in your career, maintain a rich personal life and avoid the bitterness, frustration and resentment that comes when you're stretched too thin. This episode is your invitation to redefine your priorities and embrace a sustainable lifestyle that brings you joy and satisfaction.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Overwhelming's optional podcast where each week, we find ways to gently rebel against the nonsense that overwhelming exhaustion are just the price you pay to have the life you want. For years I thought I had no choice but to keep going, to just keep pushing on through. Or I could downsize, I could give up. So the career I'd worked really hard for I could give up or I could keep pushing. And for years and years and years I was stuck between those two equally not brilliant options a rock and a hard place. I thought that was my choice keep going and find ways to toughen up, be more productive, use my time better, be more I don't know. Be more, be more isn't it be more, more, more. Not allow myself to be more me and my fullness, but push myself more, be better, be better, be better. So be more resilient, be more relaxed. Don't take things so seriously. Work harder, work more efficiently, be better at I don't know letting go of emotional stuff to do with my work or my family. I was always more, more, more, be better in some way, and some of that's true, right. I mean we can be more organized, we can eat better, we can take better care of ourselves. We can learn to sleep better, we can learn to switch off. All of these things are good things, but they're not when they get piled on top of. I'm already only just about hanging all of the bits of my life together. That's unhelpful. That is quite literally self development hell. There's just more I can do. There's all these ways I can be better, and I never, ever, ever, reach a point where I can lean back and say I've made it, I'm good enough, I'm acceptable as I am. I get to enjoy the fruits of my labour. All of that sacrifice, all of that studying hard when other people were out partying. I don't know what I'm talking about out partying, I don't know who's out partying, but you know what I mean. Actually, I do.

Speaker 1: 2:13

There was a year when, in my 30s, I decided I was going to finish my degree and I'd been partying quite a lot. I'd had a lot of fun, lots of weekends travelling to meet new people and go to a party or go out for long walks or do just some fun stuff in my 30s, and then I decided I was going to finish my degree. So I contacted my current friends that were kind of like my social friends, who were a lot of fun and I just said I'm not drinking this year, I'm not going out at all because I really want to do this and I'll see you on the other side. And they carried on and I never saw them again, literally never saw them again. Because, well, when you change, some of your friends are going to change and that's good, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 3:04

But also there wasn't really another side. I couldn't just go into that switch from having a lot of fun and socialising into hardcore studying while raising two children and working, and come out the other side as if I thought I'd just be the same person. There wasn't another side. I emerged a different person and instead what I did was actually go to visit a friend in Hong Kong and sleep a lot and have a lot of fun and recovered that way. But then I decided to do another year. So there was never any going back, there was only ever going forward.

Speaker 1: 3:38

But that was a big sacrifice, that was a huge decision and it seemed furiating, isn't it? When we work this hard and we make these huge sacrifices to better our lives and the point of bettering our lives is to have more choice and freedom over how we spend our time. That is it. You don't work this hard to work this hard. We worked this hard to have more choice and freedom over how we spend our time, to have more control at work, more say in how things go and ability to make things better, to lead, to organise, to have an impact in a different way than if we hadn't got those qualifications or set up that business. So it's incredibly frustrating and I think it causes a lot of pent up anger and hidden resentment. I've worked this hard.

Speaker 1: 4:38

When do I get off? When do I get off this crazy, crazy driven time? Because, although I don't know about you, I love working and I get very excited and I get very intense about a project. I also want to get off that roundabout. I don't want to live on it all of the time. I want to be able to go all in on whatever it is I'm excited about, and then I want to also be able to switch off. And that's what I lost the ability to do, because I got stuck very, very much in push, push, push, push, push. And then I got stuck because I thought, in order to maintain what I'd created, I also had to push, push, push.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Now, looking back, I can see that it was the head down ability to intensely push, push, push that I had honed as a way of life by accident. I didn't mean to. It's completely understandable, but, like I said about that, just one of the years of intense sacrifice, I didn't emerge the same person. I didn't just switch it off. We change and we grow, but unfortunately, along the way, like many of us, I picked up this ability to get my head down and work hard and in the process, that means that that severe focus means ignoring a lot of other things, so ignoring some of my social relationships, ignoring definitely ignoring my body. You know, just pushing, pushing, pushing, and that that one, what you call it one way focus I don't, I can't think of the correct word at the moment but that you know, real spotlight tunnel like focus, which gets us to kick ass on big goals, isn't a very good place to live from, is it because then everything is always about future stuff and we never get to celebrate and lean back into the present moment and go look at everything I created, look at, look at my life. It's amazing. So for me it's been a process of how can I have what I want and be able to switch off and enjoy what I have. So it's the both, it's the, it's the keeping that focus on the driven, excited side of me that wants more and more and more, just because you can, because it's fun and you get to create new things in your working life or your home life or whatever, but also can then just let that go and lean back into the present moment and say, wow, look at my life, it's amazing. But it took me years to get here, years to get here. So I spent my.

Speaker 1: 7:19

I've been kind of reflecting. The reason I've been reflecting on this a lot is because my road trip blew me away my ability to switch off and be fully present and feel that joyness, that fulfillment, that freedom, that ease on that road trip, which was what are we now? It's like six weeks ago, I don't know about six weeks ago, and I'm still working on embedding it into my life, because it's not necessarily easy. Well, it's easy if I stuck to the practice every day, but I have to keep reminding myself. Remember, remember, remember. Remember how you felt on that amazing beach in North Berwick. Remember that feeling of calm, expansiveness, that joyfulness. Remember at Heidi. Remember. I have to keep telling myself over and over again, which, actually, while we're in the process of that, I am gonna give a plug for what.

Speaker 1: 8:11

I'm in the middle of working out how to launch, in the easiest, most least overwhelming way possible, my community. I'm getting together, I'm gathering the gentle rebel community for the first time ever. I've run things like this before, but this is new, brand new. I haven't run anything like this for a long time. I'm very excited about this and it's because so many of my clients and I've noticed for myself as well. Really we just want reminders, and one of the big questions I get, one, a big coaching question is who inspires you? Because that's helpful. If you have somebody inspires you, then you at least know it can be done right which is part of what I'm trying to do here and inspire you and say no, you don't have to stay stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Our choice is not between having it all by pushing which isn't having it all by definition or giving up on having it all and downsizing our dreams and pretending we'll be happy with a lot less fulfillment in life. That's not. It's a false choice. It's not true, but it does take courage. It takes courage to gently rebel and say, okay, this doesn't work for me, this choice is just wrong for me. It takes a lot to say I still believe in myself. I still believe I can have it all. I still believe it was worth me working this hard. I still believe in feeling at ease in my own life. There's something there for me. I wonder what it is, and the reason it's the gentle rebellion is because we use too much energy. Otherwise we get fierce and angry and resentful. If we rebelling in a kind of shouty way, in a volcanic eruption, wild, disruptive way, that just creates more overwhelm, less ease, less feeling at home in your life, because then you're in a battle with those around you or even with yourself. The gentle rebellion is just saying, okay, this isn't working, I'm gonna find a different way. I'm not prepared to compromise. I've worked this hard for more freedom and ease. I'm gonna find a way to make this work for me. And that's what I've been up to in the last five years and I'm really reflecting on this in a kind of whole life way at the moment.

Speaker 1: 10:28

So in my twenties I decided it wasn't really worth going down the career route because I just looked around and just thought, well, I don't see very many happy people. So I went the kind of hippie route and for lots of reasons, and I always worked, but I worked in jobs that it was easy to switch off from, so I didn't have a lot of responsibility and I changed jobs often to keep myself interested. So if I didn't feel that I could do that job in a way that was joyful and was good for me and good for the people that I was serving, then I just found another job and that worked for me. It worked for me very well when my children were small. It allowed me to have that compromise, but it was always a compromise because I wasn't really using my intelligence, my intellect, my kick-ass ability to create stuff. I did help other people create stuff, but I wasn't in a leadership or I wasn't doing things for myself.

Speaker 1: 11:32

And eventually, as my children got bigger and I had had enough of not having the financial lifestyle I wanted. But more deeply I think it was a lot of I had a lot to give and a lot I wanted to do, and that's when I started to look again at finishing my degree and going into a career and then that took me. So my 30s was a lot of trying to work out how to do that while having older children and work and a mortgage to pay, and you know what it's like. So my 30s were that transition into career and then, when I was 40, I went into the teaching profession, despite knowing and despite having a partner who burnt out and having lots of teacher friends who burnt out. Instead of becoming the coach that I am today, I panicked. And when it was the financial crash 2007 and I had set up my business and I panicked, didn't have the confidence and then went into teaching because I knew I could do it well and because, actually because a lot of people said you should be teaching, so I did more studying, more head down, more push, push, push.

Speaker 1: 12:37

And the teaching profession in those days and it was like now trains you to ignore all of your needs on the sacrificial altar of martyrdom of but kids, gcc results are more important than your health, heidi, which I was told implicitly and explicitly over and over again and I believed it. What a load of nonsense. Absolutely no good for anybody, which is the same in so many places. Isn't it that other people's needs are more important than your basic ability to look after yourself properly, let alone enjoy your life. No, you have to work this hard. To work this hard, it's a trap. But the alternative is not to quietly quit and do a bad job. The alternative is not to give up and downsize on your dreams, unless that's who you are, that's what you want to do, that's your business. This podcast is not for you. This podcast is for people who love to find fulfillment in work, who want to do a really good job, who have worked this hard in order to have more freedom and choice and impact.

Speaker 1: 13:55

The question is how? How do we have it all? How do we have what we worked really hard for in our working lives and have a joyful, full life outside of work? How is the question? The gentle rebellion states very clearly overwhelm is optional. During the gentle rebellion means overwhelms optional. All of the all of the rubbish, all of the overwhelm, exhaustion, push, push, push. Sacrifice your life in order to have a life nonsense. That's optional and we can gently rebel against it. And we gently rebel because the how matters. So we're not questioning the, what we decide for ourselves, what we want, what our version of having it all is. So mine is I get to run a business in a way that works for me, that makes really good money, that enables me to have the lifestyle I want, and I get to have a life and feel really well, sleep well, be present with those I love and be myself.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Because I don't know about you, but I'm a heap of contradictions. I'm both an intense, serious person who can absolutely kick ass on huge goals and work my socks off to achieve them, and I'm kind of funny, like I'm kind of silly, like the people closest to me laugh at me regularly, not on an unkind way, for some reason. I just make them laugh just by being myself. I tend to bump into things. I tend to. I'm quite messy. So when I eat, I get food on me, I stain my clothes. There's no point. I don't own anything white. This point, this, I've tried over and over again. At the moment I'm experimenting with a pale yellow top that I bought on holiday, which I absolutely love, but the three times I've worn it I've got curry on it and then I've had to quickly tip gold water over me. That's how I am. I'm, I'm both. I can be both incredibly professional and just hopelessly messy, and I know it's not just me.

Speaker 1: 16:11

A lot of my clients say to me but I have this side of me and I have this side of me and it's kind of contradictory, but I don't want to lose, but it's the side of us that we lose is the funny, light hearted laughs easily can make a fool of ourselves, that that version of ourselves, the softer side of ourselves, doesn't sit well with the person we need to be at work in our working life. It just doesn't. It can, just we can lose that softer, funny, playful side of ourselves because we're so driven at work and because work can often demand that of us and we need both sides and both sides are really, really helpful. And I don't want to be the silly, messy person in my business life. I just don't. That's just. That's the private side of me. That's different. Those, those skills aren't helpful with clients or in a business setting. That's just not helpful. But that doesn't mean I get to deny my quirkiness, my humanness in the rest of my life.

Speaker 1: 17:19

But I did notice that when I was trying so so hard to work out how to have the career I'd worked so so hard for that I absolutely loved but had a love hate relationship with me because it was killing me. One of the first blogs I ever wrote as a new maths teacher was I love my job, but it's killing me because it was and, and I hated that. It did that. I didn't want to be that cliche. I didn't want to moan. I didn't want to be a martyr, I didn't want to. Oh, I don't know. I just I don't like it when we get into Moanville.

Speaker 1: 17:58

I like to find a way to make things work, to allow myself to be free to be well and energetic and happy and at peace with myself and feel at home in my life and absolutely kick ass and take advantage of those wonderful opportunities that the world of work provides. Work is great. Work is good for you, it matters. It matters very, very much, and it's really sad when it just becomes oh, I hate my job. It's no good place to be. And in my 20s, when I'd got fed up with the job, I would switch jobs, which was good for the employer, it was good for customers, it was good for me, it worked because I was always up leveling to go and try this now.

Speaker 1: 18:44

But when I got into my 40s, because I'd picked a career and because I'd invested so much sacrifice in it, I mean to finish my psychology degree while raising two children and working. That was really tough. And then, for some bonkers reason which I do understand now, but I'm laughing at myself now despite having this brilliant psychology qualification I switched to teaching maths, which meant I had to do loads and loads more studying to convert from psychology to maths oh my goodness. And then the first years teaching are insane, absolutely insane, and it didn't get any better. I mean, it got better in some ways, but I just took on more and more, because there's always more that can be done, because I'm an ideas person and I can see how to make things better. So I just more, more, more, more. And it was great in lots of ways. I had amazing opportunities, absolutely amazing opportunities, which I'm so grateful for.

Speaker 1: 19:44

And yet throughout that time I struggled constantly and I do mean constantly with how to have a life and be myself, and by that I mean not in some giant way, I mean I did struggle in some giant way, as in there's lots I wanted to do outside of work, but I just mean in the small way, like how do I get enough sleep so I can function in a very demanding job without bursting into tears and swearing at everyone. Seriously, the pressure was intense and I expect it's intense for everybody. I think work often is intense for a lot of people, but for somebody like me who wants to do a really, really good job and sees how things can be better and knows a lot so I don't know. I know a lot about, I'm a psychologist. I know a lot about people, how people tick, how children learn, how adults learn. You know how to make things better and it's that how to make things better and better and better. I can see all the ways which, which just you know my mind, would absolutely overwhelm me with ideas, insane all of the time.

Speaker 1: 20:59

So I was spending more and more time in my head and I'd already got stuck in my head as I'd moved through my 30s, finishing my degree and taking on more serious work, and I was just stuck in my head and I tried so hard to solve the problem of how to be myself and absolutely take full advantage of the work I'd worked so hard and sacrificed so much to create. I wanted to rock my career and my life and I can see now that in my 20s I was really focused on how do I be a great mom. And how do I? I don't know. I did a lot of windsurfing. I did a lot of fun stuff, a lot of mountain biking, so I it's like I felt in some ways I had a fuller life, but I really, really was lacking the fulfillment at work and the financial stability that I would enable me to do even more.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Now. It didn't stop me doing things. I mean, I took my kids out of school for three months in 2003 and took them backpacking around the world, but we came back slightly malnourished and skinned but who cares, I did it. So it wasn't like I stopped doing things for financial reasons. I don't think money works that way. I think money's very, very curious, interesting, delicious energy that I'm learning more and more about. And, yeah, I'm really excited, I've just started my spiritual money coaching certificate with Evercoach. You're amazing. They're part of Mindvalley. Have you heard of Mindvalley? Very exciting. Anyway, I digress. I believe it's a full psychotomy to think that you can have work and money or freedom and ease, and that's where I've got stuck.

Speaker 1: 22:54

So my 20s, I rejected the career and money, literally turned down some good opportunities because I didn't think that would bring me fulfillment. In my 30s, I went through a transition between the two and then in my 40s I went full in on career and earning good money and then managed to completely implode my life because it didn't work for me. And then I tried the well. I just let go actually didn't. I didn't feel like I had any choice. I had to let go. So let go of the career and money and then create crazily, set up my own business actually set up my own business before that but then found myself unexpectedly in the throws, like I think a lot of people do these days. Actually, well, they do in my world. This is crazy entrepreneurial world where we're trying to do really good things but we're kind of learning as we go along because there's no rules. It's not like when you're in employment and there there is some guidelines there's often a career path or something whereas when you set up your own business, there isn't. Is there, which is exciting and terrifying all at once.

Speaker 1: 24:16

So the last five years for me have been about not compromising. Actually, once I recovered my health, which was my first not compromising I'm no longer prepared to sacrifice my health and my sanity in order to have well-paid, meaningful work. That was the first inkling of the gender rebellion, just walking out of that job and saying, no, I'm done, I choose myself first, but without any. Well, I did have a plan, but it wasn't. It was a great plan because it got imploded by me just saying that's it, I'm done, and that's okay now, but it wasn't much fun. There's much easy ways to do it. Take my messy example and then say Heidi, if you could do it differently, how would you have done it? That's another episode, but one.

Speaker 1: 25:06

The things that I have learned that matter more than that because I'm hoping that you're not in a situation where you're imploding your life are that you're not compromising matters, not compromising on your values and what's really important and it's the compromising that that causes the problems, because it's the comp, those kind of compromising, settling. It's settling, isn't it saying, well, you just have to have that, you haven't got any choice? It's not true, but it takes guts. It takes guts to say what if it wasn't true? What if this rock and a hard place is a false choice? Because it feels false, doesn't it? I mean it's not like if you don't resolve it, everything's okay. So if you sit there, like I did for years, surfing this verge of breakdown, this verge of secretly burning out in between huge highs of achievement and huge good stuff going on in my life as well. But it's not like sitting with it and not resolving it. Not going all in on yourself actually solves the problem. You just have to sit on that verge, you know, trying to work stuff out, trying out different things.

Speaker 1: 26:28

I wonder if this stress management will work. I wonder if I drop this. I wonder if I just go without sleep. I wonder if I go without money. There's just something. It doesn't work. It's just, it's just no good place to be and sometimes it's a really desperate place to be and it's rubbish and it's unnecessary. I think that's my main thing. Overwhelm is optional, meaning you get to decide it's unnecessary, it's unhelpful.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Look at what it does that feeling of being completely flooded with over one, where you can't think straight and you're exhausted and you're emotionally volatile and your skin feels so thin. And then you can feel this resentment and this hidden anger. It takes up so much energy and it creates this huge, deep sadness Because you're not living the life you intended to live, you're not being true to yourself, you're trapped. But it's difficult because you haven't really got anything to complain about, not really. You've got a beautiful house, you are loved, you have really good work, you're paid well, you haven't really got anything to complain about. And yet you have because something's off. You worked really hard, you sacrificed much, you were promised that you would have more choice and freedom, that you would have a better life Better life than if you hadn't worked that hard and that's infuriating, absolutely infuriating.

Speaker 1: 28:03

And that anger is a good thing. Why? Because it creates change. Because it's you saying no things can be better, but not by pushing against yourself. It's time to be on your own side. It's time to say okay, I'm done with overwhelm, I'm done with pressure, I'm done with exhaustion, I'm done with constantly feeling like I'm surfing the verge of burnout. It's not for me. I don't know what to do about it, but it's not for me.

Speaker 1: 28:42

That choice rock and hard place either keep going, keep going, push, push, push against myself or quit my hard work for career, my hard work for business, and downsize my dreams and risk a lot of things that are important to me, like the ability to stay in my dream home or look after my family. That's not an acceptable choice, is it? It's not for me. And yet I sat with it, believing it to be my only choice for 10 years, rubbish. And in the end, the choice was made for me because I had to choose my health and sanity over the well-paid, meaningful work. The choice was taken from me. I don't think that's quite true. I think there were well, I can look back and go. There were a million things I could have done better. If only I'd known, if only I'd had somebody to guide me, if only I had. I mean, it's not like I didn't. I did actually ask for help. I'm not a big asker of help. I'm much better now.

Speaker 1: 29:54

At the time I found it difficult because I was the person who helped other people. But I did. I went for counselling. I went for other, different counselling. Six months later, useless, didn't help me at all, wasn't what I needed. What I needed was what I have now. I needed me five years in the future, if I had had me talking to me, then I wouldn't have had to go through the messy path to where I am now. There would have been a clear path, and this is my clear path, and this is an invitation to you Decide.

Speaker 1: 30:34

Decide to make overwhelm a thing of the past. Decide to stop pushing yourself through it. Make it optional. Decide that that rock and hard place keep on pushing towards burnout or quit and downsize. Decide that's rubbish, it's not for you and you're going to find another way. Even though you can't even imagine that that's a possible thing, even though right now that seems utterly insane, just decide right now. There must be a better way, because you desire a better way. Therefore it must exist, but right now you can't see it. So you have to trust and I am living proof that there is an alternative way, as are my clients, and together we gently rebel.

Speaker 1: 31:24

And for the past few years I've been running a group coaching program called Get your Life Back, and you get life membership of that when you join, which means you always get to join the next round of coaching. And it is joyful to see what happens in group coaching, as people change over time and as they enrich each other's life with each other's stories, with each other's gentle rebellion. When people bring questions and situations to a group coaching program, it creates incredible magic, connection and value for everybody there. And right now I would usually be starting the next round to get your life back, but I don't feel called right now to offer that program. I expect I'll offer it again at some point in the future, but right now what I feel called to do is gather. What I long, long long to do is get all of the people who want to gently rebel and bring all of you together In a very special community, Because you know that saying I think it's the average of the five people you spend the most time with when we come together and reflect that what is possible for each other by daring to question the stuckness we've got into, by daring to find our own way, when we gently rebel together, it's powerful. So that's what I'm launching, that's what I'm in the middle of now, and I'm obviously doing it in the Heidi way, which means I'm looking at the overwhelm and I'm reducing it and making it simple. So look out, because very soon there will be an invitation, but the invitation will go to my mailing list first. So if you're not on my mailing list, get on my mailing list. The fastest way to get on my mailing list is to click the link in the show notes below this and go to HeidiMarkcouk forward. Slash the one minute mark If you haven't already got the one minute mark.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Download your free audio. Start using it. Start your gentle rebellion today. That audio works. I use it with clients all the time as the basic go to Get out of your head into your body, relieve the pressure, get rid of the overwhelm, take a break in your day, make things easier for you and from there we build practices that serve you on your gentle rebellion. So get hold of that audio. Join my mailing list. Be the first to find out about the Gentle Rebel Community, which I'm about to launch and I mean about to launch, like really imminently.

Speaker 1: 34:16

Just getting my head around making it simple rather than overwhelming myself and you with too many emails and make it too complicated Doesn't need to be so. At the moment I'm just working on how I'm gonna do it, but I can already see us together, gathered, group coaching, tiny, huge, life changing workshops for each month. So we just have one focus keep it really simple and reminders. So the idea of getting everyone together is we all need reminding to gently rebel every single day In a community. You get those reminders, you get them. It's solid, it's there. You don't have to think what do I need to do today again, what's going on, because everybody will be doing it together and we will have a monthly focus and we will have weekly focuses and everything will be simplified and you will have the support you need.

Speaker 1: 35:13

To move away from that false choice, because you do get to have it all, but you need I would argue you need support to have it all in the easiest possible way. I have created and continue to create resources that would have supported me when I needed to gently rebel, when I needed somebody to say hey, heidi, you're right, this stinks. There's an easier way. Come over here, let me show you. That's what I'm up to. I'd love you to be part of this.

Speaker 1: 35:47

If my words resonate, please, please, please, get in touch If you already know you want to join. So low cost, monthly cost membership, be so worth it. It's gonna be an absolute bargain for the value that you will get to support you and to support others, because when we give, we receive, and everybody I work with really loves giving. In fact, we're all overgivers, so we learn from each other by learning to give in a way that's nourishing and to receive as well, to receive, to lean back and receive the love and support of your fellow gentle rebellious no, what's the word? Gentle rebels? Oh, dear words, words, words. Right, I'm off. I hope that's given you food for thought for this week and I wish you well on your deciding deciding that that choice stinks and you want to find your way to have it all. For more resources to help you gently rebel, please visit my website, wwwhydymarkcouk.