Unlocking your authentic self: overcoming burnout and embracing childlike joy

Have you ever found yourself hurtling toward an achievement, only to realize you've ignited the fuse of burnout along the way? 

In this Thursday Thread episode, I call back to Tuesday's conversation with Shehzad, a doctor who faced severe burnout and emerged with a newfound sense of his most authentic self. 

Like so many of us, Shehzad discovered that the pathway out of burnout cannot be found through external achievements or gratification. It can only be found through the journey back home to our younger selves.

As we chase others' definitions of success in our careers and lives, there comes a point where we realize the deception of these tethers. You will never be happy building your life based on others' expectations, praise, or ideas of success. 

You must craft your own definition of what it means to live a full and prosperous life, and that begins with the tiny moments that brought you joy – before those tethers were formed. 

From hula hooping to the carefree rides on our bikes, in this episode, we explore how these pastimes are not just memories, but keys to unlocking our authentic selves, freeing us from the chains of constant stress and rekindling the creative brilliance within.

Enjoy an 8-minute breathwork meditation at the end of this episode where you'll be invited to reconnect to your inner child, and hear what they have to share with you.

Transcript

Jen Liss: 0:05

Hey and welcome to Untethered with Jenless, the podcast that's here to help you break free, be you and unleash your inner brilliance. I'm your host, jen, and in this episode we're going to talk about how the path to burnout is actually in your best. Let's dive in. Hey there, unicorn, it's Jen. Welcome back to the podcast for this Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread, just so you know. If you ever want to sing the Thursday thread jingle or your version, your own spectacular version, of the Thursday thread jingle, you can submit a Thursday thread to me anytime by recording it, send it to hello at Jenlesscom, or you can also send it to me in any of the social media spheres where you can send audio. We will pop it on the podcast in place of my voice. So if you want your singing voice to be heard instead of mine, which is probably far, far, far better, send in your Thursday thread jingle. We would love to share it. Today's Thursday thread. We are doing a little callback, a little pull through, a little thread pulled out of Shazad's episode from on Tuesday.

Jen Liss: 1:22

You don't have to listen to his episode. However, I do recommend it for anybody who is an achiever, if you have been an achiever. He is a doctor, he is an ophthalmologist and he has faced the deepest depths of burnout. We didn't fully dive into the darkest, darkest place that he has been, but it was darkness and he is now on the other side of that darkness and he had some really powerful things to share. One of the things that he talked about and probably the main huge, huge, huge thing that he is so passionate about is, well, two things, okay, two things. Two things. One thing look in the mirror while you are still in the light. You don't have to go to that deepest, darkest pit in order to see the light for yourself, in order to find the way he did, and he really, really wants to support people in seeing the light sooner. So, if you are listening to this episode, you've already looked into the mirror. This is an opportunity to look into the mirror. You're here because the mirror is in front of you. You've seen it. You're seeing it. Maybe it's just a little corner of it or maybe you're standing fully in front of it, but you are seeing yourself. You're seeing yourself differently. You're looking at yourself differently, through new perspectives.

Jen Liss: 2:48

Another thing that he said that is so powerful. Is that the thing that lit you up as a child, that thing that is your next level. That is a huge part of your story and it's not just a part of your story from when you were seven years old. It's not just the thing that's like oh yes, I love to hula hoop. When I was seven years old, I loved, in his situation, to tell jokes. I love to be the class clown. When I was that age, when I was a kid, I loved to ride bikes. I love to write stories. I love to write newsletters. That's my story. I loved writing newsletters. I loved doing play-by-plays. I loved asking people questions, sitting down and doing fake interviews.

Jen Liss: 3:36

What was that thing for you? Because, once we look into the mirror and we see ourselves anew, when we untether from all of these things the life that we think we should be living, all of the shoulds, all of the expectations, all of those familial things that we think that we are supposed to be doing in order to make our parents happy, in order to gain their approval, in order to gain the approval of society, in order to gain approval of our own judge, the judge in your head that thinks that you are supposed to be doing life a certain way. Once you unravel all of that and you really see yourself, what you're going to be seeing is that seven-year-old, that seven-year-old that loved comedy, that seven-year-old that loved writing poetry, that loved picking up paintbrush and just getting messy, that loved sticking their hands in the dirt and the mud, that loved kicking down sandcastles Whatever that thing was that your seven-year-old self loved to do. That's what you're going to be looking at in the mirror and that is the next level for you.

Jen Liss: 4:47

If you find yourself burnt out, if you're finding yourself in stress, you have not been feeling the person who you truly are. You have not been connecting to the light that is within you. I think Shazad even said it in that way. You have not been connecting to that inner greater purpose. You're connecting to something else that isn't even you, and that's why it doesn't feel good. We don't feel good and when we are in a state of stress. So this is like it's self-reinforcing From a physiological standpoint. This is self-reinforcing Because when you're in a state of stress, when your sympathetic nervous system this is your fight to flight freeze thaw and so many of us are living in our sympathetic and we're stuck in it and we've just got cortisol just swimming through our bodies, because that's what happens when you're in the sympathetic nervous system your body is flooding itself with cortisol so that you can be ready to pounce at any moment. So you can be ready to run. I guess you're not pouncing. Maybe you're pouncing, but you're running from the thing that's pouncing at you.

Jen Liss: 5:52

When you're in that activated state, you cannot connect to that which you truly are. You cannot connect to your seven-year-old self, you can't connect to your actual present joy. It's actually physically impossible. We can't do both of those things at the same time. They're two different sides of your brain. They're two entirely different engagements of your nervous system.

Jen Liss: 6:21

So, passionate about this when it comes to in our work processes, in order to be our most creative, in order to put out our most brilliant, amazing work in this world, we have to be working in the parasympathetic nervous system. That is the part of your brain that goes into the flow state. We need both. We've got to be activated, we've got to be pulled into action, we've got to get the actions and the activities done and we've got to be able to toggle over into that parasympathetic as well. It's a dance between the two, preferably with a nice wide window in between the two so that you have space to choose when you go between one and the other. This is what I teach people all the time with breath work. It's what we do with breath work is helping people to expand and widen that window of tolerance between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic.

Jen Liss: 7:13

To be aware of when you've gone into the sympathetic, to be aware of when you're moving into that parasympathetic, to be able to do it on demand, it matters. But to go back to our childhood thing when you are doing those activities that you love, it activates your parasympathetic and you want to do the activities that you love when you have activated the parasympathetic. But when you're in that sympathetic nervous system, you don't desire to do any of that. You just desire stress, stress, stress, cortisol, cortisol, cortisol. Where it's hooked In that cycle, you're addicted. We physically do become addicted to cortisol. So you get stuck. It's just, it's self-reinforcing. You're stuck in that system. So we have to intentionally bring ourselves back into the other. And when we haven't been doing that for all of our life, it's just impossible. We don't even understand why.

Jen Liss: 8:14

I didn't understand even the importance of feeling. Why should I feel? It's much easier for me to just stay like I'm running from a lie on all day. That's just easier. It truly is easier when you've been doing it for that long. The problem is that it's killing you, killing your body, and it doesn't feel good, even if you have a self-reinforcing mechanism telling you that it does. So. That's the place that Shaz was in, it's the place that I was in, it's the place that so many people are living in and sometimes I mean mind still gets activated sometimes because it's a pattern, and it's a pattern my body is real comfortable with, and I have to bring that conscious awareness back to what is it that I love, what really matters to me? And so I dance.

Jen Liss: 9:03

When I was a kid I loved dancing. I loved being just very dramatic with my body movements. I get silly, I laugh, I do things that are going to activate that side of myself. And is that easy when I'm feeling like I'm cycling in, that sympathetic? No, it's actually not easy to make myself sit down and breathe sometimes, to get myself to dance a little bit, to move my body. It's not always easy. I don't want to do it because I've got the cortisol going and that's feeling pretty good, but it's not serving me. What does serve me is doing something that brings me great joy Doing a little bit of jump roping or a little bit of movement, whatever that thing might be for you.

Jen Liss: 9:52

And as we do that, as we engage with that more and more, as we get more re-familiarized with the things that our younger self liked to do, just like Shaz did, he's now going and doing comedy. He's doing open mic nights. He's got a really, really cool dream of really really going for his comedy and being global and getting his message out there. So he's being driven by the thing that he loved as a kid he was the class clown. He's being driven by that, while simultaneously being driven by his newfound purpose of helping people to see the light. So he's got his purpose and he's got his natural, innate joy and that is his strategy. It's moving him through life and it's given him new purpose. So his past is actually the path. Finding that comedy again is saving him and it's going to save countless others.

Jen Liss: 10:49

If you listen to that podcast on Tuesday, you likely feel inspired in some way to go back and revisit your younger self. So what is that thing? And I've asked this question time and time again on this podcast because it's so important. We call it. One of the words, one of the phrases, for this is called inner child work. Sometimes I pose to calling things. I think, once you call it a thing, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's inner child work. It reduces the actual sensation and the importance of what this is. What this is what inner child work is. It's returning home to yourself. It's returning home to who you are, to what you are and to what you're here to do. Through comedy. He's here to bring people light Through conversations, through asking people questions, through telling stories in a newsletter.

Jen Liss: 11:48

I'm here to help people be themselves. I'm here to help people be authentic and to be real and to be vulnerable. That's what I've always been here to do. When I did hair, it's what I did, it's what I've always been here to do and I love it. I love having those conversations Lights my soul on fire.

Jen Liss: 12:06

So what is that thing for you? Because that is your next level. I'm getting to live the dreams of my childhood by having this conversation with you today, by having that conversation with him, by getting to retell it in all of these different ways and to share these messages and to share these vulnerable things that are so important. So what is that for you? What did your little younger self? It could have been when you were three. It could have been when you were five. It could have been when you were seven, 10.

Jen Liss: 12:36

What is that age where you can remember doing a thing that just felt so good, taking a deep breath and remembering. In fact, as we do at the end of every Thursday thread episode, let's take a moment to breathe and to actually be with that younger version of yourself, inviting them to come and to play and to be present with you. If you're in a place where you're able to close your eyes and take a seat, that would be absolutely beautiful. If you are in a car, you can always come back to this later. If you're walking, you can do it with your eyes open, being aware of your surroundings, maybe a gentle gaze. So taking a deep inhale into the nose, out through the mouth, with a sigh and then, on your next inhale, raising your shoulders to your ears and, on your exhale, dropping your shoulders, allowing your awareness to sink down to your sit bones, feeling your sit bones on the surface beneath you, feeling the support of that surface that is holding you, your feet are on the ground, feeling the support On your next exhale, seeing if you can allow those surfaces to hold you just a little bit more. There you go and, when you're ready, gently beginning to breathe into the nose and out through the nose, conscious breath in, conscious breath out, rowing that breath down into the belly On the inhales, letting it go on the exhales.

Jen Liss: 14:50

And now remembering what is one of those things that you loved doing when you were seven years old. What is one of those things that you loved doing when you were seven years old? What is something that brought you so much joy? Seeing yourself doing that thing? Looking down and seeing your hands, our little hands, little pudgy hands, maybe Putting their hand in mud, drawing, playing with a friend, just watching yourself, watching the hands, watching what they're doing.

Jen Liss: 15:57

Now connecting on an inhale to your heart space, continuing with those inhales and exhales, each inhale drawing toward your heart space, and feeling, as you watch your hands, what is that sensation in your heart Maybe there's sensations other places in your body as well Noticing, letting yourself feel this activity with your hands, with your body, with what you're doing. What is that feeling in your body? Breathing it in, moving outward from the heart space, breathing it in in your entire body, feeling these sensations Maybe it's warm, fingly Fuzzy, fingly Fuzzy, Beautiful. And now stepping back from that younger version of you, returning back into yourself, recognizing that you can still feel those sensations in your body, maybe placing a hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, just inviting yourself to memorize what did that feel like, promising yourself that you will let yourself feel it again sometime soon. Maybe giving a nod to your younger self, promising them as well when you're ready, taking one last deep inhale, big exhale, finding that pressure on your seat beneath your feet once more, giving your fingers and toes a wiggle, lettering your eyes open, coming fully back into the present. Thank you so much for being willing to go back and visit that younger version of yourself that knew exactly what brought you joy. Hope you're able to return to those sensations regularly, remembering and really tapping into that joy and what it is that you came here to the world to do.

Jen Liss: 18:52

If you enjoyed this episode, if there was something that you gained from it, I encourage you to share it with a friend. Maybe they need to hear it as well. Maybe this little connection back to their younger self would be supportive to them. If you think it would be supportive to many people, you can also take a screenshot of the episode, share it on social media and tag me. I'm UntetheredGen on Instagram. You can also grab my links in the show notes. You just keep shining your magical uniform light out there for all to see. See you next time, bye.