TRANSCRIPT - 150 - My health journey and what it taught me.

[00:00:00] mel: My entire existence was around making sure that other people felt good and that was serving and delivering and performing to.

[00:00:10] get my self worth from people around me. And experiencing that and realizing that, that is one hell of a kick in the guts,

[00:00:20] but the beauty of this is that this is now the opportunity for you get to choose to change that. You get to choose what those new beliefs are. 

[00:01:10] Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Work Life by Design. Now, today's episode is a bit of a personal one, and it's one that I've been asked to share by a number of women now. And it's because it's something that we don't often talk about. We cover it up, we suffer in silence, but I really think it is something that we need to, because at some point we're all going to be experiencing this in one form or another.

[00:01:41] And yet we're all just kind of still getting on with it and thinking like we're the only ones like nobody else could be experiencing this. This is just me. I'm the one who's not coping. I'm the one who is falling apart, but nobody else is doing this and we just keep that mask on and hiding [00:02:00] what's going on behind the scenes.

[00:02:02] And what I'm talking about is burnout. So. I've experienced burnout in the last 12 months. I've been diagnosed with burnout, with adrenal fatigue and with a number of other health issues. And so today's episode, I want to lift the veil on that. And I want to start talking about something that I know many of us are experiencing in varying degrees and capacities.

[00:02:26] And I want us to start talking about it because It doesn't have to be like this. There is another way. And I just want to share that with you. So let me take you back to the end of 2023, where this all really kind of started. I had an 18 month old baby. My darling little boy, Nashie, just would not sleep.

[00:02:49] He would be waking up two to five times every night. I had two older children. I was running a business. I was. Trying to juggle all of the things for a few months, I had just been feeling extremely unwell. I had severe stomach pains. I felt bloated all the time. I'd been putting on weight, despite exercising and eating properly.

[00:03:15] And I was just exhausted, like bone achingly exhausted. I was highly emotional. You couldn't look at me sideways without me crying. Like everything just kind of got to me. I was upset. If I went anything underneath the surface, it would all just bubble up and I'd end up in a sobbing mess. And the other thing was my brain just did not seem to want to function.

[00:03:41] It just felt I just couldn't think clearly. And there was this cloud that kind of was hanging over me. So, you know, I did all of the things that you normally do. I went to the doctor, nothing wrong, go home, went back to the doctor. There's still this pain here. Okay. We'll refer you to a gastroenterologist.

[00:03:59] Went and saw [00:04:00] them. I did endoscopy, colonoscopy, all of that came back clear. So they're like, There's nothing wrong with you go home. But I knew there was something wrong with me. Like I was not feeling myself and whatever was going on was just not me. And it wasn't until I shared my experience with a good friend of mine that she went, Oh my God, I've been having all of the same symptoms.

[00:04:25] This same thing's been happening to me. You need to go and speak to this lady Philly now. I did that. So who I went and spoke to is a lady called Philippa Bollett She's from a company called Chris and Philly and they have a program called Ending Body Burnout. And so I reached out to Philly and not really knowing what to expect or what my journey was going to look like from there, but that was kind of where it all started.

[00:04:51] And so What Chris and Philly do is they look at all of your body's systems and what's not functioning optimally. And so they start by having a call with you, understanding exactly what's showing up for you. And from there, they prescribe some tests. So you can get the test done. Now. I procrastinated, like there was no tomorrow about doing these tests because some of them you have to fast for, some of them you can't eat particular foods for, some of them you can't drink coffee.

[00:05:23] And so I originally had my call with Philly in November. And it wasn't until February that I got my shit together and I did these tests because I had been procrastinating for so long. And this is actually one of the first warning signs that I now can see, because you are prioritizing everything else above yourself.

[00:05:46] So that's just one hint at what's coming. Now, the results from these tests were quite mind blowing, to be honest. I did not expect. To find out that there was all of [00:06:00] these little things that were going on in my body and how they were compounding. So I found out that I had adrenal fatigue. they look at range of different cortisol and the DHEA and your.

[00:06:11] system, and mine were both completely flatlined. So normally your DHEA kind of combats your cortisol. When it depletes, I depleted both of them. And so Phyllis said I was pretty much on the verge of stage three adrenal fatigue, but we scoured it back and said, it's just stage two. You'll be fine. But effectively, I shouldn't have been able to get out of bed.

[00:06:33] That's how depleted my system was. So, good old me, I've got this great sense of willpower and I just felt like I had no choice. And so I was continuing to power on another warning sign. I had SIBO. Now SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So what this means is that the bacteria that's in your, intestines that's meant to be in the lower intestine moves up into the small intestine. And what happens is that every time you eat all the little bacteria in there start chomping on all the food and they produce all this methane gas and it starts bloating because that part of your body is not where you're.

[00:07:13] Digestion in that way. And those little bacteria bugs are meant to be. And so this was what was causing a lot of my stomach ache is that I had this pressure constantly building up in my stomach. And because of that, my body wasn't able then to process. Everything that was going through my body in the way that it should, which was leading to the weight gain and other things.

[00:07:35] I also had low serotonin, low dopamine. I also found that I had an underperforming stage one liver function and I had low gut microbiome. So pretty good cocktail of what was going on in my body to not be supporting me in functioning at my optimum best. The process that I went through here was, had to treat the adrenals [00:08:00] first, like my adrenal system.

[00:08:01] Without your adrenal system, nothing else is going to function. So we really had to start. Treating that first. And then we looked at the SIBO and then finally finished with the liver support. And right now we're starting on the brain function with the serotonin and dopamine levels. So that was all treated through a series of supplements and dietary changes as well.

[00:08:22] So there's an adrenal diet, which starts to look at removing any caffeine, alcohol. sugar, gluten and dairy. So all of these things are putting strain on your body and its ability to process and detoxify itself. So basically, we're removing the external load that's going into your body so that it can actually then just clear and function the way that it needs to with what's already going on in your body.

[00:08:47] So starting there. And then moved my way through. So SIBO, I basically had to live 2 weeks on the shake diet which was to starve that bacteria and kill it in my guts and then had to rebuild that bacterial microbiome back up as well and then take some liver supports to help my liver function happening there as well.

[00:09:07] So it can really work through that detoxification process. Now, I actually ended up having to do the shakes twice because. One of the biggest triggers for me is stress. And when I had something that was really quite stressful going on in my life, I had a reflare up. And so that was another warning sign.

[00:09:26] Like I'm starting to realize what all these triggers are and how they're actually impacting my body and what happens when we do this. So that was really kind of what we did on a physical level. Like that's all the physical stuff. We took the supplements, we changed the diet, get some exercise and movement happening.

[00:09:43] That's what's, you know, sort of started to get the ball rolling and that's all of the support that needs to happen to get your body to start getting well again. But what I really learned from this process with Philly is that I actually needed to go back and look at why [00:10:00] I was in body burnout in the first place.

[00:10:02] And this is where the really deep and the really hard work all begins, because what you're doing here is you're really having to look at you. You have to look at your beliefs, you have to look at your behaviors, you have to look at the patterns that you're playing out, and you have to start taking some really radical responsibility for where you are at.

[00:10:28] that one's a bit of a kicker. But like most people that I have learned from working with Philly that are in body burnout. Is that there's a really common theme of people pleasing and a lack of boundaries. And a lot of that comes from having taken on a number of beliefs throughout our lives. Some of these could have either been told to me.

[00:10:53] I could have learned them from being around other people. So like their cultural beliefs around how things are and the way things should be. Or the things that I could have made up happening from particular life experiences. And then there's stories that I started to tell myself to make sense of things and they became true in my brain.

[00:11:14] And so throughout my life, we all do this. We all take on these beliefs and we create these stories about who we need to be in order to have our needs met. Whether that's love, whether that's belonging, acceptance. These are the things that I needed to be a certain way. In order to receive those things from those people around me, whether it was in relationships or at work or at home, all of these things.

[00:11:40] I had to perform particular roles, I had to be a certain person, I had a belief about how I needed to be in order to have all of those needs met. And so, through this process working with Phyllis, she really focuses on getting to the root, root cause of your burnout. And Really understanding that one core [00:12:00] belief that you really have about yourself.

[00:12:03] And for me, that particular root core belief and in all vulnerability was that I wasn't significant. And the ways that that was showing up for me is that I was overworking. I was people pleasing. I had no boundaries. My entire existence was around making sure that other people felt good and that was serving and delivering and performing to.

[00:12:27] Makes them think that I was significant to get my self worth from people around me. And experiencing that and realizing that, that is one hell of a kick in the guts, because you then go, I have been playing out all of these things for my entire life. And it has got me to this point because I have been outsourcing my worth, my validation, everything about me.

[00:12:58] But the beauty of this is that this is now the opportunity for you get to choose to change that. You get to choose what those new beliefs are. Is that belief serving you anymore? Does it actually enable you to do the things that you want to do in your life? Or do you want to choose some new beliefs? And so the process that you go through from here is really about rewriting that script.

[00:13:25] So unpacking all of those various parts of you, the stories that you've been telling yourself, the meanings that you have been making about different situations, like if something happens, the story that you tell yourself, the meaning you make from it. All of this has been made through those experiences and really starting to understand how you have been complicit In what has got you to this point.

[00:13:50] So again, that radical responsibility that you are taking to understand your role in how you've got here. Now, the thing that [00:14:00] took me a bit of a while to get my head around was that my body wasn't broken. So all of the stomach issues, all of the gut health problems, all of those things is you start to feel like your body is broken.

[00:14:13] Like it's failing me. The reality is. good health is the default of your body. Like your whole body's default is that it wants you to be well. But you have taught it and told it that you want to achieve these particular things, or you need to function and focus in these particular things, or for you to feel safe, you need to believe these things, which means that you need to behave in these particular ways.

[00:14:39] And so your body has just been protecting you in those other different ways. And now it's a time to kind of really start to understand that those things are no longer serving you and that you need to shift it and that The pain and the discomfort and the challenges that you're having in your body is just your body's way of communicating with you.

[00:15:00] And these things start off quite subtly. They're the little whispers, but I think we tend to ignore them or we medicate, you know, you've got an eagle in my back. I'll just pop her painkiller rather than starting to actually listen and go, well, what's my body actually trying to tell me here. And these things continue to grow and.

[00:15:18] get bigger and bigger and bigger until finally your body is absolutely screaming at you and you have no other choice but to listen. And this is exactly where I got to. Like I couldn't go forward. Like that was it. That was at a point where something had to give, like I could no longer continue to live like that.

[00:15:35] I had to really make some significant shifts and changes about my health and what I was prioritizing and what I was choosing to believe about. The way that I needed to show up in this world and your body is just really showing you where you are out of alignment at the end of the day. And it was absolutely incredible to kind of get to that point.

[00:15:55] know, if you think about it, your body is doing an excellent job of keeping the ship sailing. [00:16:00] Like I kept moving forward. I was still succeeding. Like I said, I was still getting out of bed when I shouldn't have been. But At what cost? And that's the point that I had gotten to is like, at what cost am I continuing to push forward, continuing to show up, continuing to get out of bed when I am just bone achingly exhausted and I should just be staying here and sleeping this off for the next six months. But the reality is we all. Families to look after, kids to care for. We've got businesses, jobs, things like that. So that's not a reality, but that's where through the supplement support, you can kind of get that, physical boost. But then it's really about doing the mental work because. This isn't sustainable. You want to be able to get better again and not need the supplements because they're just a boost.

[00:16:44] They're just a stepping stone to get you forward. The next part is really understanding how you got here and changing those patterns of behavior to make that shift and that change. So really, it wasn't until I started to reconcile those choices that I was making and the stories and the beliefs and the things that I was choosing to allow to guide my behaviors.

[00:17:05] I really wasn't going to get any better. so for me, that was really hard. Like I had to face some pretty ugly shit. I had to process a lot of emotional baggage that I had been carrying for a really, really long time. Time and this stuff had been weighing me down. Like this stuff was taking up space, like physically taking up space in my body and mentally in my head, like these thoughts were constantly whirring around in there, taking up valuable space.

[00:17:38] And the thing that I hadn't really understood or hadn't acknowledged was that as we go through life and we experience both. Big t trauma and little t trauma. If we aren't processing that stuff, if we aren't completing those cycles and those loops and releasing that from our body, [00:18:00] it's just getting trapped in there and it's layering up bit by bit by bit and it's compressing and pushing on our nervous systems, it's overloading our bodies, and it's just layer and layer and layer of this.

[00:18:14] And no wonder our bodies are freaking out. And I have this theory that as women in our 40s, we have just been smushing it down. That happens, we just smush it down. That happens, we just smush it down. And our nervous system starts to experience this and it gets to a point where our bodies can literally no longer hold it.

[00:18:34] Like we're at capacity and I feel like we just have to blow and we have to get it out and we have to sort it and we have to deal with it and we have to face this stuff. And so. This is what I needed to do. I needed to face this stuff and I needed to deal with it. And so there were two ways that I did this.

[00:18:52] The first one is I went through TRTP therapy with Philly. So this is three sessions of guided trauma therapy. Now, you don't have to have had Big T trauma. This could be just, as I said, like years and years and years and years and years of little stuff that you had been bottling up and pushing back down and never really completely resolving or working your way through or finalizing and shifting it out of your system.

[00:19:15] And so these 3 sessions with her go through. creating a visualization about what you really want your life to look like and how it's going to feel. It's a process of addressing some of the core themes around those things that have been bottled up in your body in that trauma loop for so long. And it's really about how you want to then change that.

[00:19:34] And coming to terms with it and finding a way so that it no longer has a hold over you. There's no charge to it that you're able to actually release it. Now, the other way that I also did this is I went to Amber Hawkins retreat, which is Alchemy Rites. Now, I've known Amber, she's been on the podcast before.

[00:19:52] We've been friends for about five years now. I've worked with her in different capacities as well. And I had been [00:20:00] looking at her alchemy rites retreat for years. And I was absolutely terrified of doing this because I really didn't know what I was going to face. Like I had seen and knew people had been to it.

[00:20:13] I mean, yes, it was life. Changing. It was transformational, but the experience of it felt like walking through fire. And I. Which is just terrified. And to be honest, it was the best thing I could have done. It was just the most incredible experience, but I have to tell you, it is not for the faint hearted. It is very much about deep spiritual connection.

[00:20:36] There's ancestral storytelling. There's primal activation, breath work, movement, meditation, sweat lodges. Like it is five days of intense cleansing and purification through ritual and devotional practice. And I loved every minute of it. I came home a completely changed person. There was pre retreat Mel and post retreat Mel.

[00:21:03] And. What I had experienced between doing that TRTP trauma therapy with Philly and going to Amber's alchemy rites retreat was that the two of them happened very close together. I had just felt this complete shift in my body and this complete release. I had finally been able to move through all of this trapped, stagnant energy that was stuck in my body, and I'd found a way to just let go of all of this emotional baggage that I had been holding onto for so long.

[00:21:41] And what I can remember is for the longest time I have felt this sense of feeling overwhelmed, of feeling constricted, of being trapped, of feeling suffocated, like everything was just all too much and it was all coming at me and I always had thought it [00:22:00] was because of my external circumstances. I thought it was because of there's this thing happening at work and that's going on there or, you know, the kids aren't sleeping.

[00:22:06] So that's just happening there. But after I had been through these processes. What I realized was that that pressure, that constriction, that overwhelm, that suffocation, all of that was actually from within me. All of that emotion that I had been holding onto and these things that were stuck in my body had been taking up space internally in my physical body and in my mind.

[00:22:35] And once I was able to release all of that stagnant emotion, And that stuckness that was in my body, I suddenly felt so expansive. I felt so spacious, so free, like I just had so much more capacity in my life. And here's some other things, some pretty amazing things that happened. My son started sleeping.

[00:23:02] Now this is a kid that for two and a half years by this point was still waking up multiple times a night. He started sleeping. My relationships with my husband and my daughter deepened, they got better, my business started to soar, I found great people, great clients, more profitable, things were going gangbusters, and my health improved, amazingly.

[00:23:30] Now, literally, my whole world shifted, and how I saw it shifted. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing outside of me had changed. It was purely all the work that I had done. inside. Now, I'm still consciously choosing differently daily and I'm still working on continuing to improve my health. As I said, now we've moved on to the brain based stuff.

[00:23:57] So doing some supplements there to [00:24:00] support brain function as well. And just, you know, looking at other ways to continue to support my system. So, acupuncture and other ways to ensure that there's still that energy flow and. The detoxification and everything's still happening through my system.

[00:24:14] But a lot of it is also a mental job. So I'm also now doing my meditation practitioner training. So mindfulness and meditation and stillness has become something that I have completely embraced. So since I completed Amber's retreat in September, I have been meditating for 10 to 20 minutes a day.

[00:24:36] Nearly every day. I've missed a couple here and there, but the difference that has made to my life has been exponential as well, because I'm now choosing to prioritize myself. I have movement locked into my, my diary. I'm eating differently. I'm consciously fueling my body in different ways. I'm choosing to show up differently in different conversations.

[00:24:58] I'm choosing what I take on from other people and what. Is not mine to carry. It's about setting those boundaries. It's about being really clear about who I am, where my value and my worth is, and that I'm not seeking that from people outside of me any longer. Like if this is true for me and this is what I need to do, then I'm really sorry how that.

[00:25:25] impacts on you or that makes you feel, but I need to do what's right for me. And that doesn't mean I go around being a jerk or a complete asshole. It's being compassionate in my thoughts and it's taking on not so much. It means saying no occasionally. It means being thoughtful about where I'm at and what really I have to give rather than just giving and giving and giving all the time.

[00:25:49] And, I wanted to share this because if you go back and you think about where I was at the beginning, like I was in a dark place, it appeared to me like there was [00:26:00] no way out, like this was hard. And I see so many other people trying to juggle it all, exhausted, just barely getting by, running on fumes.

[00:26:12] And. Maybe there's a lot of choices that are being made there as well that are similar to the choices that I was making. There is a way through it. And unless we start talking about it, and unless we start addressing it, we're all just going to continue kind of going down these dark rabbit holes. And we don't need to.

[00:26:30] And that's also, you know, why I I'm doing what I'm doing right now. Like I have so much more capacity. I have so much more vitality to be able to share and I'm putting all of this back into my business. That's why I'm here back for season seven of the podcast. That's why the second season of, last year in 2024 didn't happen.

[00:26:52] I just did not have capacity. And I made the conscious decision that I couldn't show up and give. You as my listener, the best possible experience. If I didn't have the energy to be able to do that, like it was all generated energy that I didn't have and I needed to invest that back into making myself.

[00:27:12] Well, now I've done that and I'm back and I'm here and I have. So much more to share with you. Like I've opened up my business coaching again, because I have the capacity now to hold that space for somebody else. You cannot hold space for someone else when you have literally nothing left to give yourself.

[00:27:30] And I learned that. And that's why I'm here now. And the other big thing that I am so excited about is the exhale retreat that I'm running in October this year. you know, that is why I created this retreat, because as I said, Amber's retreat is incredible, but it is not for the faint hearted.

[00:27:46] But I want to be able to give you an opportunity just to taste, just to experience, just a little bit of some of these things, you know. what does it mean to have my nervous system completely nourished by the food that I [00:28:00] get to eat? What does it feel like to be able to move my body in a way that actually is restorative and supporting my nervous system?

[00:28:08] What does it mean for me to really understand the natural cycles of my body and of the world that we live in and how we can start to live more consciously in alignment with that rather than is go, go, go, go, go constantly on busy, busy, busy world, acknowledging the fact that sometimes there are peak seasons of flurry and productivity and incredible awesomeness that we get to put out in the world.

[00:28:33] But there's also then a period of rest that we need to go through to rejuvenate our bodies, to recover, to nourish ourselves so that we are then ready for that next high that we go through in life and in business. I want to create a space where you get to just be still, to reconnect with nature. I mean, how many times have you been out in nature and just experienced it?

[00:28:57] Reconnected. We are living in a society that is completely disconnected from nature. There's a whole term for it called nature deprivation. It means that we aren't biologically being rejuvenated the way that we have been in previous generations because of our disconnection to nature. You know, we live in a world where our foods are manufactured, our lights manufactured, all of the things that are around us, the toxins that are in the chemicals that we are ingesting.

[00:29:24] This is an experience of you being able to just sit and enjoy and take in the world around you, to slow down, to embrace a different pace and to just exhale. The name Exhale actually came from the beautiful Brené Brown. love her work. It was in her book, Braving the Wilderness. She speaks to an event where she was joining another lady on the stage.

[00:29:51] And the night before they'd done all of their practice and the rehearsals. And Brené says to the lady that's with her, she's a little bit of an older, more experienced at this [00:30:00] stage speaker. And she says, Oh, you know, are you going to come to the networking thing now? Like, let's go. She said, no, no, no, I'm going to go back to my room and I'm just going to exhale.

[00:30:08] And she said, Brene, sometimes you just need to exhale. We spend a lot of time inhaling. And now that's my chance to exhale. And of course, Brené didn't take that piece of advice at that time. She thought she had to be busy, busy, busy, and went to the networking event and did all the things. And then was exhausted the next day and wished that she had exhaled.

[00:30:26] So that is why we are going to exhale together. We're going to take a moment to pause and just after we've been inhaling and like we inhale everything, let's just exhale and relax and let our systems. Be rejuvenated. So you're going to do that in this beautiful place in the Tweed Valley. Completely immersed in nature.

[00:30:51] You're going to have sound and meditation. There's going to be yoga. We've got these women wellness conversations around our seasons, our cycles, understanding where our bodies are at and what we're experiencing and how we can listen to the whispers before she starts. Absolutely screaming at us. We're going to do a breathwork journey with our beautiful Amber.

[00:31:15] So you do get a little taste of what it's like to work with Amber because she is a beautiful, beautiful soul and incredible practitioner. And I want you to experience that and take you on a journey to help you release some of these emotions that you have stored and held in your body. And I have the most incredible menu planned for you to really nourish your body and support your adrenals because whether you are in burnout or not, our adrenals are under so much pressure in this world.

[00:31:43] I really want you to experience that. And so this is the retreat that I always wanted. It's going to be somewhere that you can come and relax, and it's going to be extremely restorative for you, no matter where you are in your health journey. So, I want you leaving feeling rejuvenated [00:32:00] and really equipped to start living your life on your terms.

[00:32:05] Because we do so much to carry and support everyone around us. This is my opportunity to support you and really help you feel held and reconnect you with what your own inner fire looks like. What is it that is so passionately burning inside of you that wants to come out? I want you to remember that. I want you to learn to reconnect with yourself and trust your intuition.

[00:32:35] Because they are some of the most magical traits that we have as women. Now blokes, if you're listening here, this is an important conversation. And so whether you have a partner, you are leading a team, these are all really important conversations for you to be aware of. And if you've got a team member or your partner or your wife, send them along to this retreat.

[00:32:58] it will be so nourishing and transformative for them. They will come home a changed woman. And I just want more and more people to be able to experience this and to really feel it. So that's. Where I have been over the last 12 to 18 months. That's my journey. It's an ongoing journey. I'm still navigating it.

[00:33:20] I'm still making daily choices around what's serving me and what is not serving me, what my beliefs are, challenging those beliefs because they're ingrained beliefs. Like I'm in my early 40s. They have been there for a really long time. They are not going to shift anytime soon, easily. But I am consciously aware of them, which means I can consciously choose differently.

[00:33:46] There, there are my subconscious. But I can choose differently and over time, I have faith that they will be rewired into something more useful and more serving to me in this current phase of my life and for the next [00:34:00] future phases of my life. And like I said, these are then things that we get to pass on to our children and onto our relationships and into our friends and our colleagues and our work buddies, because it has a ripple effect.

[00:34:14] You showing up in all your gloriousness, in your full vitality, that then has a ripple effect out into those that are around you. And I'd love to you to experience that. So if the retreat sounds like something you would love to join me, then pop into the show notes. There's a link there. You can go and read more about it.

[00:34:36] If you've got any questions, hit me up, send me a message. I'd be more than happy to answer them, but I really do hope that you take this time and space to rejuvenate yourself and to exhale. But that's it for today. We have some other super exciting conversations coming up over the next few weeks. As I said, this whole season has been inspired by the beautiful Brené Brown and her recent season What's on My Heart and Mind.

[00:35:03] And so I'm going to have some great conversations with some incredible guests all around this navigating things that are going on in the workplace, things that are going on in our own personal lives. But all of these topics are things that I have found. Uh, fascinating and interesting, and I hope that you do too.

[00:35:20] So please come back, join me here again next week as we start to dive into some of these amazing conversations, but until then, please go and take a moment to just exhale.