[00:00:00] Hi everyone, my name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.
[00:00:22] Hello my friends, this is Dex and I am delighted to be here again this week for an episode on our inner alarms and protectors. Because in burnout our amygdala gets triggered a lot, doesn't it? And I must say it's a beautiful day and I went down to the beach about 5. 30 this morning and there was a whole bunch of school kids there right before their spring break, right before their exams. And it was Stunning. Still, that's not what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about what's bugging you with your inner protectors, your inner alarm. When your amygdala goes off, you might feel this as Anxiety, panic attacks, fear, irritation, alarm perhaps, unease, disrespect, frustration, rage, or it might just be a withdrawal, a reluctance to be seen or witnessed, or it might come out as a very strong urge to eat or distract yourself, check your phone, fight back, or just run away and hide.
[00:01:23] It can pop up in all sorts of ways, whatever your habitual way is. The urge comes from a stimulus, which is our mind trying to protect us from the daily rawness and vulnerability of chronic stress and anxiety, of our burnout experience, our reactivity to the sense of threat in our environment.
[00:01:49] And our outsized emotional response to that. And the fallout both of our own reactivity and our failure to perform and whatever's happening outside of us. So it makes this habitual stew that pops up in our brain and we immediately want to run away, don't we? Or fight back . Or shut down.
[00:02:12] So really this is our brain trying to warn us that things are going wrong And we need to take evasive, protective, or perhaps remedial action. We basically need to fight or flee. But, our brains, to be honest, especially in burnout, chronic stress, chronic anxiety, are a little bit overzealous with that. Our antennae for impending disaster tend to be a mile long.
[00:02:39] And we tend to get triggered a lot in burnout. The lifeboats are perpetually at the ready to carry us away into dissociation, or withdrawal and isolation. So can you relate to that a little bit? And the really hard part about it is that our early warning system operates mainly via self criticism because this is how our subconscious talks to us.
[00:03:06] This is how it gets our attention. And that's very painful. Especially when we already feel cowed, underpowered, exhausted and sensitized in burnout. And then we quite naturally wish that our inner critic would shut up and leave us alone. I certainly felt like that about mine when I was in burnout. But what we don't always see is that this voice is actually trying really hard and really diligently to help us
[00:03:37] solve our problems and to prevent further disaster. And so when we hear ourselves being unkind to ourselves, it's actually worth listening quite carefully. It's going to be our inner protector speaking to us, although it sounds in our head exactly like an inner critic's voice. And the voice is going to say something like, "Oh, shut up.
[00:04:03] Steve is going to hate your suggestion. He doesn't think like that." Or "don't apply for that job. You won't get it. You don't have the experience." Or, "you can't sell anything to this client because you don't even respect them", or whatever it is that it's saying. And that last one, by the way, just indicates that we don't respect ourselves, which can be fixed.
[00:04:24] But whatever our inner protector or inner critic is saying, it's really a clue to your growth. There is a little pearl of wisdom tucked away underneath all that shoutiness. It's really showing you what you can't face, where you're not looking after yourself, and where you're exposed. Just the same, of course, when the protector speaks, we believe the bad thing it says about us.
[00:04:55] And that's so painful, we do tend to shut down, we back off and hide. Or, we indulge in any distracting, addictive process. We check our phone, have a snack, whatever it is that we do habitually, so we don't feel the hurt quite as much. And eventually, in burnout, that backing out and hiding, they become our go to tactics for evading this voice that goes on and on.
[00:05:25] Because when our inner critic is having a go, we have to find some method of withdrawing, don't we? So what I'm going to say today is let's try a really simple exercise for a minute. No matter where you are stuck in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which you're probably familiar with, and no matter what your specific problems and challenges are today, right now, being stuck can be worked with, by tuning into the inner critic that believes if we go for our desires, something bad will happen, and so it stops us.
[00:06:00] So we can, instead of running away, we can tune in to that voice. And if you're willing and able to do that, then you can remove all of those things that block your growth. And the exercise we're going to come at in a second is going to give you a little bit of a start with them. Slight caveat as usual.
[00:06:22] If you know you have untreated trauma, in other words, post traumatic stress, I do recommend working through that first. Please do get the help that you need, whatever that is. For example, speaking with a PTSD therapist. Because this exercise, working with your inner protectors, might reveal unresolved trauma.
[00:06:43] That is one of our fight or flight triggers. So if you feel unsafe doing this exercise or traumatic issues arise, please stop and seek the professional help that you need. For the rest, I'm going to show you how to develop a dialogue with your inner protector, this inner critic that you're listening to.
[00:07:01] And this exercise is based on the internal family systems work of Richard C. Schwartz, and you can read more about him in the show notes. A core concept in Richard's book, which is called No Bad Parts, is that each of us has these protector parts inside of us, who have learned how to steer us away from danger.
[00:07:26] And it's normal, that we have those parts. The thing is, most of us don't know how to work skillfully with those parts, and I'm just going to give you a brief introduction, a taste of that here, because this is a process that I employ a lot in coaching. To gently guide clients through their stuck point.
[00:07:45] And you can read Richard's book by all means, which contains many such exercises. That might be enlightening for you. In order to practice them though probably you need an expert guide to lead you. So take it very gently and please do stop if it's too much for you. But this is just a quick taste of it.
[00:08:05] Just give it a whirl now and see how that sticks for you. To begin with, prepare your mind for this exercise by reassuring yourself that your inner critic is actually trying to help. It's working for you, trying to protect you from further harm.
[00:08:23] Even if it uses harsh, critical words to attract your attention, and I know that it most often does, particularly in burnout, it does mean well. So if you're able to, just for the time being at least, ignore the sting of the words as much as you can. So you might want to think of a painful situation now that you have not been able to deal with, and allow that situation to come into your mind, When a painful situation comes up at work or outside work, just notice what Richard calls the non compliant impulse that pops up.
[00:09:06] And what he really means by non compliant is, as an adult, it's not what's going to help us solve the problem. So it might be this urge to eat, it might be an urge to run away, check your phone, yell, argue, fight back. Some reactivity that isn't, as an adult, going to help you solve the problem is what he calls this non compliant impulse.
[00:09:30] So see if you can notice what that is. And then, if you can find that impulse, rather than acting on it, see if you can find the source of that impulse in your physical body. Going into the body now, we're paying attention on the body. Seek the sensation associated with that urge.
[00:09:50] Is it in your head? Throat? Eyes? Chest? Guts? Back? Scan your body. So you might need to breathe into your body to connect you with your body's energy. And then scan your body top to bottom for things like tension, jitteriness, tightness, heaviness, heat, pain. Some sensation may call your attention when you're thinking about the problem you have.
[00:10:19] And if you can locate that spot, get curious about it. Ask it questions directly. So I'm saying ask questions directly into the sensation in your body. And you might ask it what it's trying to tell you, or why it's here, or what it's trying to protect you from. And once you ask a question, don't think the answer.
[00:10:44] We're not looking for logic or justification or explanation here. Just stay focused straight into the sensation in your body. Keep breathing into your body, into the place where you notice that reaction. And ask your question into the body and wait and see what comes back to you. Of course you may not be aware of the protector and that's okay.
[00:11:08] Let it speak to you through your body if it wants to. Just breathe in to your body, focus on your body, see if you can tune into the sensations of your body and just listen and something will intuitively come to you. As an answer, it'll come into your mind, but we're not thinking here. And if something does come to you, remember that's this protector part of you, not you that's trying to be resistant to some situation.
[00:11:38] There's no need to judge or reject anything that you receive. During this exercise, neither shame nor blame are helpful. The protector is simply trying to help you, even though you might not like the way that it's doing it. Of course, some people will be unfamiliar with the practice of tuning into the body and listening to it.
[00:11:58] And it might be hard at first for you to do, and that's okay. But at least you've been introduced to the concept here. For people with a practice such as yoga or mindfulness meditation it may be more accessible, but with practice you can learn to tune into the frequency of your body and allow it to deliver, if you like, its message.
[00:12:22] Sensation or pain or tension or heat in the body, is your subconscious trying to communicate with you that there's a problem. But the problem, manifesting physically, will often be caused by a mental or emotional stressor. For example, a sore throat might suggest you feel unable to express yourself, or heavy shoulders that you're taking on too big a load of responsibilities, or knee pain that it's hard for you to move forward right now.
[00:12:55] If you're suffering burnout, here's one thing I can guarantee. That your mind and body are trying very hard to tell you what's going wrong, what needs your attention, so that you can fix it. And you may experience that as physical tension, migraine, backache, gut pain, and so on. So if that's true, it really suggests that when you recover from burnout, some symptoms in your body may calm down.
[00:13:18] And indeed I have noticed that experience in many of my clients and myself. And this is because the energy then is a bit more freed up. That your subconscious has delivered its message and you've paid attention. So here's another tip. There are in fact many exercises in Richard's book that can help you release old stress patterns,
[00:13:38] energy blocks and limiting beliefs that you have long held. And when you do this, guided by me if you like, you're also going to free up your relationship with your inner critic, and in fact the voice of the inner critic. It won't need to bash you over the head with its messages if you heed those messages and attend to the stressors that cause them.
[00:14:02] You might just need a bit of help decoding what you hear. But also you're going to start treating your inner critic as the ally that it's really trying to be. And it becomes possible to negotiate on the narrative that it has and the way that it talks to you. And your internal voice then won't bother you as much.
[00:14:21] Cordial relations can be maintained. Because burnout recovery really is a lot about stopping the war. Developing a kinder, more sympathetic relationship with yourself, your mind, body and spirit, your past, your present and future. Because to recover from burnout, you don't need to change who you are. You can just become more friendly with yourself, softer and more compassionate.
[00:14:47] You can choose to find yourself good, just as you are, and support yourself more deeply, to relax, cheer up and be wholehearted. And this I can teach you. You were never designed to find yourself unacceptable, to be at war with yourself. And, anyone who taught you differently was a little bit misguided. They haven't quite understood or shown you the full picture.
[00:15:12] And although our modern culture doesn't promote wholeness, human wholeness, it is available If you know how to connect with it. There's a unique splendor in you. You are who you are on purpose. You have a good heart. And when you find a way of releasing into that, inhabiting it, the whole of your life becomes richer, easier, and more enjoyable.
[00:15:41] And that's what burnout recovery is. Connecting with the goodness. You don't have to invent the goodness is already there but you're out of touch with it. So just bringing yourself back home to it. And if you're in burnout and if you'd like help with that and with restructuring your self belief, your inner monologue, your confidence, your joy,
[00:16:04] I can help. Come and talk to me about how to recover quickly and sustainably and get back to your best performance, leadership, and most of all enjoyment, inside work and out. And if you enjoyed this episode, please help us reach more people in burnout by sharing the podcast with your stressed out mates and also by rating and reviewing the podcast.
[00:16:25] I really love that so much. Lastly, thank you for listening. Feel free to send me messages via the link in the show notes. I won't have your number to reply directly, but I will respond in future episodes.
