Burnout: The Unique Journey to Recovery Every Clinician Needs to Hear – Interview with Sarah Gilbert  – The Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast

This season of The Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast has been focused on burnout and self-care. As a profession, we focus on caring for others, but what does it mean to care for ourselves? That’s the topic of conversation in this episode when Jo is joined by Sarah Gilbert. Sarah is a therapist who helps burnt-out therapists change the way they relate to the work they do.

In this conversation, Jo and Sarah discuss:

• Sarah’s experience with burnout, how she felt and the signs she noticed at both work and in her personal life
• How the mental chatter in our head often changes during times of burnout
• Prompts and techniques that Sarah uses to manage her energy
• The need to change the way you think about your work
• The importance of disrupting the sense of urgency, especially for non-urgent tasks
• The need for time boundaries in our work

About Sarah: Sarah Gilbert is a multi-faceted human who no longer simply identifies herself by the work she does. Sarah is a mom, wife, therapist, coach, bookworm, snarky friend, and Ted Lasso fan. She is located in the US, in Connecticut.  After years of non-profit agency work, Sarah started her private practice, Transitions Therapy LLC in 2014; a practice dedicated to serving transgender adults and their loved ones connect to their most authentic sense of identity. In her coaching business, Sarah helps burnt-out therapists change the way they relate to the work they do to find wholeness, restoration, and sustainability in their work.

You can connect with Sarah via her website at sarahgilbertcoaching.com or on Instagram at @Snark.and.soul.

Special thanks to our podcast sponsor, Practice Conquest!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Keri Nola
• Burnout Recovery Program
• Future Proofing Health Professional Facebook group 

 If you know you need more support, please visit my website at https://jomuirhead.com

Finally, if you loved this episode, please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Jo:

Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast, where we are doing a deep dive this season into what is self-care, what does it mean, and why aren’t the things I’ve been doing working, why do I still feel so tired and resentful and skeptical, and what can I do to fix it? Because we’ve all heard the saying that if we don’t look after ourselves, we can’t look after anyone else, but I think we’ve forgotten what it actually means to feel cared for. And today I have a guest who I’m very excited to. I say that every guest, but I’m really excited today because we’ve never actually spoken, except for the couple of minutes beforehand. So, Sarah Gilbert coming to me, all the way from Connecticut, tell us about who you are, who you serve, and why I asked you to come on this podcast?

Sarah:

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Jo, for this invitation. I’m really excited to be a part of this amazing podcast. As you said, my name’s Sarah. My pronouns are she and her. I have been a therapist in private practice for a decade now. Obviously, I’ve been a therapist for longer than that. And I am also more recently a coach supporting fellow therapists, mental health professionals. And the through line between both of those businesses is I help people kind of tune out the noise of other people’s expectations, problematic mindsets, limiting beliefs to get closer to the truth of who they actually are. I’m so excited for this conversation because of my coaching work. I’m just shifting that focus and kind of shining a light on my fellow colleagues who I think need a lot of support and oftentimes struggle to reach out for that. So, I’m so glad to be here.

Jo:

Oh, and thank you for being so upfront and honest about your work and how you help us filter out the noise and get to know what’s really going on for us ’cause one of the things that will become really evident as we go through this conversation is how we as health professionals are so good at the stoic face. And I think we’ve learned to do the stoic face to the stoic nervous system, to the stoic heart, to the stoic soul. And then hopefully you learn how to tap into those things. So, Sarah and I, we’ve met online, we’ve seen each other around a bit. And then one day I was on Instagram and you created this post. It was a carousel post, and your Instagram handle is hilarious, by the way. It’s called Snark and Soul. So just plug here, and your first slide, I’m gonna read it out to people.

Your first slide on this carousel post was, how I went from being a burnt out therapist to loving my healing work again without leaving my career or turning my life upside down. And I remember reading that and going, oh, what’s next? And the beautiful thing is if you go through the 10, she actually gives you the answers. But rather than you going and wasting your time, trying to find it on Instagram. Now, we’re gonna unpack this a little bit today. So, Sarah, before we get into what you did to help rebuild yourself, can you share with us what did burnout feel like for you? How did you know that you were burnt out?

Sarah:

Existential dread would be the most concise way I can describe it with words. I’m getting chills even thinking about it. Honestly, I’m reminded of a really entrenched memory in my mind. It was in, I believe, 2021. I had just dropped my daughter off to school and for a day of elementary school. And I just had canceled all of my sessions for that day. And maybe the next, or I was thinking about canceling the next day, too. I remember walking into my house and literally just laying on the couch with Netflix playing. I was just bing Schitt’s Creek all day. I was at the point of this is literally all I’m capable of doing. I did the bare minimum. I got my child to school, made sure she had what she needed. And now I cannot be anything to anyone <laugh>. I kind of watched or listened as I just kind of almost catatonic on the couch for the day. So that’s when I was really like, Ooh, okay. This is more than just like, I need a vacation. This is, this is like a deep, deeply troubling situation. <Laugh>.

Jo:

Yeah. Wow. And it wasn’t just one day. Leading up to that, I like to describe burnout as like that frog that’s being boiled and doesn’t even realise that it’s being boiled in the pot. So what was going on for you before this day of realisation?

Sarah:

Yeah, I love that expression. I’ve heard you say that before. And I love it because it does feel so accurate that there’s little clues that looking back, we can be like, oh, wow. That was going off the rails way before I realised it. So I would notice things like, I was regularly just annoyed, frustrated with my clients in session. I was really thinking how amazing it would be to just quit my job and go work at Starbucks, which is I don’t know if you have them in Australia, but this is like a coffee chain.

Jo:

I know about Starbucks.

Sarah:

Okay. I wasn’t sure if they were in Australia.

Jo:

I’m like, you’re really desperate if that’s where you wanna go work.

Sarah:

Yeah, I was just like, okay, gosh, that sounds amazing. Free coffee. And I can leave work at work. It started really sounding appealing to me. I started really being excited when clients would cancel or no-show, which generally a no-show really irritates the crap out of me <laugh>. And I noticed it wasn’t just a bad day. It wasn’t just like, oh, I had a really tough session. So of course it makes sense. I feel that way. It was just kind of building up. And I would notice that even after a week off from taking vacation from work, as soon as I got into my first session, I’d be like, oh, there’s that feeling again. I’m right back to being resentful. I’m right back to feeling frustrated. And I’m really starting to wonder why the heck am I even a therapist? How did I get here? What am I doing? So that’s what kind of signaled to me like, oh, there’s a bigger concern here than just kind of feeling a little bit stressed out or overdue for a vacation. It was a series of events that kind of stacked up over time.

Jo:

Yeah. Wow. And you’ve used some really great terminology there that can give us all some key insights. So I too used get excited about <laugh> clients no showing or canceling. Whereas when I was really engaged with my work and really excited about my work, I’d be like, no, you can’t do that. I’m ready to go. I’ve got things we gotta talk about. I’ve got stuff I wanna help you achieve. I wanna hear your stories for the week. Come on, let’s go. And then all of a sudden to be going, oh, thank God this person didn’t show up today. And I dunno about you, but I would just stare at my inbox for that hour. Yes. Or that 45 minutes, not necessarily do anything else worthwhile. But for me, it was just like, I’m just staring at my inbox wishing it would go away.

Sarah:

Yeah. I get the little email notification like, Ugh, not today.

Jo:

If one more person wants me to do one more thing, somebody’s gonna die.

Sarah:

Yeah. And I noticed it carried over to my personal life as well, too. I noticed that when my husband, who’s an amazing man, when he would try to talk to me about stress or problems he was having at work, in my mind I was just like, shut up, shut up, shut up. I can’t, I can’t, I cannot take on anybody else’s emotional distress right now. Please go talk to someone else about this. And that’s not my normal mindset of course, but that’s what I picked up on too, of just that internal chatter of like, no, please stop talking to me. <Laugh>.

Jo:

Yeah. So not only do we then get resentful about clients that we’ve been working with, we get resentful for all the paperwork, which we’re usually resentful for anyway. We get resentful with our spouses or with those that are significant in our world. We get resentful of having to take care of people or somebody has some catastrophic thing happen, like a family member and you’re like far out, I’m gonna have to go fix that now rather than, oh my God, that’s awful. What can we do to help? Like, the the chatter in our head is really different, isn’t it?

Sarah:

Absolutely. It definitely shifted. I remember even from being a young child, I’ve always had a very compassionate heart. I always am like, oh my gosh, you’re struggling. What can I do to help? And so that was a huge shift for me to notice that like, ooh, there’s like this really nasty internal chatter that’s taken over and I didn’t like it didn’t feel good.

Jo:

No. So there’s this day on the couch where you’re scrolling through Netflix and you’re binge watching Schitt’s Creek, and there are worse things you could have chosen, but that’s a good one. For me it’s all the NCIS, every single one of them. I just start at episode one and I just go through all of them. That’s how I know things aren’t going well. It’s like, oh, I’m watching this again. Awesome. Look at that. Oh, I know what happens. I know what happens. <Laugh>. So how did you do something? Did you kind of go, I need to make a change? Or did you kind of go this is just the way it’s gonna be for a while? What was the, what happened next?

Sarah:

Yeah, it was a gradual process out of it. I think at that moment there’s an awareness of like, okay, this is getting real. I have never felt this bad before where I’m enjoying the show, but I’m literally just watching it. I’m barely engaged. So it was a gradual process. It started with talking with a very close friend of mine, a trusted friend who also has gone to the same type of graduate program to get here in the States our MSW And this was a friend who I knew I could just be totally candid and open with. And I was like, I hate my job. I am really hating it. And at the same time feel really guilty about it because I have worked so hard to get to this point. And I’m the first in my family go to college. I’m certainly the first in my family to go get a master’s degree. And I’ve worked so hard for this and my dad always really emphasised how proud he was of me for doing this. So feel like such guilt and talking with them and processing. We opened up with each other. Neither of us really critically looked at why we even went into this field or why we went in to get our master’s of social work. And so that was a really beautiful conversation of this. It was like a light bulb went off in that moment of like, huh, I never really critically thought about why I got into this field and what sort of character traits are both beneficial to me as a therapist, but also incredibly harmful.

So it sort of kicked off that process of self-inquiry of like, okay, obviously as a therapist, it’s great to be able to hold space and have that emotional capacity. And I really take it too freaking far. Like, I really, really need, I was calling myself out,  And with my friends, in that conversation that we were both able to recognise that in each other and support each other through that, of like, okay, we’ve got an issue to tackle here. And so it was this gradual process of like, okay I’m not sure, maybe I will leave the field. I kind of made this deal with myself mentally. And for a while I was convinced that like, I will leave this field and stop being a therapist. I just can’t do this anymore. And in the meantime, until I get there to a point where I can financially make that happen, I’m gonna work on these personal changes of how I show up for myself in my own life to at least make it stuck less while I still have to do the therapy work to pay the bills. And so it wasn’t like a one choice thing or a one thing. It was actually kind of, I think a whole combination of things. But I would say the most important thing for me was really getting honest with myself about why I got into this field and how my own family of origin and issues played into that. To empower me to make different choices in how I show up for myself and show up for people in my life.

Jo:

Ah, wow. Thank you again for being so incredibly vulnerable with that for us. Because I think all of us who were listening, we all went to health professional school of one sort or another. We could have gone to business school, we could have gone to engineering school, we could have gone to marketing school. We could have gone, let’s make a million dollars in three months school. I’m joking now. There’s no such thing <laugh>. Well, there probably is.

Sarah:

Somebody’s selling it on Instagram

Jo:

Yeah. But so we went to health professional school on purpose, right? So we went there ’cause we wanted to make a difference. We wanted to help people, we wanted to make things different from the way we had experienced that. We don’t necessarily know that right at the beginning, but in the end, that’s what we just like, oh, I’m working out my own shit, excuse my language. And I think that every private practice owner or somebody who’s in leadership in a private practice, we’ve got the double whammy. Because every business or entrepreneurial journey is a self-inquiry process. But then every health professional journey is a self-inquiry process. And yet we can get so focused on, I need this many clients in this many weeks, in this many days at this many hours, at this many rates. And then, oh my God, now we’re Coviding. Holy crap. Oh, look at that. Something’s happening over there in our White House. That ain’t good. Sorry, I have to call out your politics because I don’t know how you guys survive it. Then all of a sudden this rhythm goes like this. And then we’re out of rhythm, and then our head’s wobbling, and then we’re like watching Schitt’s Creek.

Sarah:

Yes, And I will say I you’ve named so beautifully. I resonate with pretty much everything you’re saying because part of that conversation with my amazing friend Charlie, was, oh crap. We went to grad school as a trauma response. Like, there was just no inquiry about it. For me, it was always just like, well, I’ve always been naturally good at this. I’ve been a good listener. And that’s easy for me. And I don’t know, it doesn’t seem easy for everybody, but it’s really easy for me. So clearly that’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to be a therapist and I’m supposed to get a master’s degree so I can get a good job at a nonprofit agency and get licensed and do all the things. And when I launched into private practice the jokes on me, I had no idea that that was a self-inquiry process or professional development. I had no idea. I just knew I hated the agency that I worked at, and I needed to leave the agency. I look back in hindsight now, and I’m like, how did that work? How am I still here in my private practice 10 years later? Because I didn’t know what I was doing. But now I see so clearly too that what also impacted things for me, everything you described about the impact of Covid is that in my therapy practice, I work with a very marginalised population. I focus on working with transgender people and the people who love them. And so there’s also this added element of a lot of vicarious trauma that comes with the work. And especially as you mentioned, we’re in a little bit of a political hot mess here in the States. And we have been for some time. And a piece of that has been so many of the clients that I really care about and get the privilege of working with are facing their humanity being questioned and challenged and stripped away. So, now on this other side of it, I can see like, oh, okay, there’s all these things that led up to my downfall in a way. And I’ve been slowly and intentionally rebuilding and really changing the way that I relate to the work that I do. And that’s been kind of the priority.

Jo:

Yeah. Changing the way we relate to the work that we do. And for me,  I’ve been on the same journey of self-discovery because I allowed my work to become more consuming. And I thought that’s what made me a really good rehabilitation counselor. And I have been sreally, really good at my work. I’ve won awards, I’ve helped people do things, but then on the antithesis of that, I have heard horrible stories day in, day out. People don’t need a rehab counselor if their life is good.

Sarah:

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Jo:

And for the way I’ve specialised in working with people who’ve had really catastrophic change in their world I don’t get the working well.

Sarah:

Yes, exactly. Yes.

Jo:

The working well doesn’t often turn up two years in a wheelchair going, this ain’t working for me. I don’t like this anymore. Can I get my legs back? So what were some of the things that you had to realise about the way you worked, that were making you really good in terms of affecting change for your clients, but were possibly detrimental to you?

Sarah:

Yeah. I think a number of things. One, I think similar to what you just shared, I really over identified with my job, right? If someone said, Hey, Sarah, tell me about you. The first thing I’d say is, I’m a therapist. So I allowed that to be really like 90% of my identity. Nobody did that to me. But, so that was something I really very, was very proud of it and very proud of the fact that it was always my dad’s dream for me to do better in life than he did. So being able to go to college and get my master’s degree and get licensed, it was like, okay, obviously I’m interested in this. But it was really to make him proud. And I’m so proud of it, but I no longer fully define myself by it.

So that’s one thing. I think another thing is being able to hold space for clients and be able to really be listening and really just allow people to feel and be and exist is a tremendous gift. And being there to support in a way that’s empowering them is what makes me a great therapist. But I would also carry that over in my personal life too much and always be reactive. Like, oh, you need this thing here. Here’s how I can help. You need this right away. Absolutely. I’ll make it happen. And that was my own like, okay, my value is how much I can help other people. That was what I had to really do a lot of work in unpacking for myself that through my helpfulness and doing a great job as a therapist, but I really can dial and I need to dial it back down in my personal life and not be so quick to always be the helper for people.

Jo:

Wow. I’m just having a moment where I’m going, oh, it’s not just me. So thank you for sharing. Me too. And I think too, as a business owner, we learn how to say yes and then work it out.

Sarah:

Exactly

Jo:

As health professional particularly, you’re a social worker. I’m a rehab counsellor, we just go, problem solve, problem solve, problem solve. There’s a problem to be solved. Let’s solve the problem. We just do it. It’s such a well worn neural pathway in our brain.

Sarah:

A hundred percent.

Jo:

I really have to work hard now. And I’ve got behavioural prompts in my world that go, is that really my job? Like, what am I really doing that for? Like, is that really what I wanna be known for? ’cause that could go a hundred different bad ways. So learning how to take back some of that energy. So, have you got some insights? Just so the listeners are aware, this podcast episode will not fix your burnout. I just wanna be really clear. We’re gonna give you some insights and some clues, but you really need to listen to what’s being said here and then go get resourced. So if you are sitting here going, Ooh, Sarah’s gonna tell me the magic formula of how this is all gonna be fixed. I can assure you she’s not.

Sarah:

<Laugh>. No, sorry.

So I can think of a few things that come to mind right away. One of the things I’ll say is really changing my relationship with asking for help and getting resources for myself. So I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with a fantastic mentor for years, Kari Nola. And one of the phrases that she has said in different iterations just has kind of planted itself in my brain of, what is mine to do?. And so similar to what you were just talking about, like that’s kind of how I anchor into, I even had it as like a little post-it note on my computer monitor, what is mine to do? I can hear that a client needs X, Y, and Z. I can hear that my husband needs X, Y, and Z. And it makes me pause to say, okay, that is something that is happening to someone I care about. Is it my job to fix it? And I know that might sound so simple and trite, but for me, that truly has been huge, that mantra of just like, okay, hold on a second. Yes. I’m noticing the automatic pattern of go fix, fix, fix, but like, is this mine to do? And so that’s one thing that’s been super helpful. The other thing has been a lot of journaling and really like radical inquiry. And you know, that friend that I mentioned that I talked with earlier, Charlie, my friendship with them has been so beautiful because it has really prompted me in a very loving way. Like it’s really prompted me to kind of challenge myself and call myself out on some things of like, okay, well, if I’m showing up in my friendships in this way, I need to always be the person that’s there and help out what happens if I change that up a little bit?

And so I’ve been really intentional with even little things of, like, if a friend is texting me and saying, Hey, could you help out with this thing? Pausing and saying, all right, do I have time for that? Do I have the skills to do that thing? Right? I happen to sew that’s one of my hobbies that I’ve had for decades. And so oftentimes I’ll get inquiries to like, Hey, can you help sew this thing? And that was one of the things I started with of just kind of catching myself and not automatically answering yes. I’ll figure it out. Oh, you need that in two hours? Sure. I’ll drop everything else that I’m planning on doing and have that dress for you. That example is really small, but that has been a pattern of reprogramming for me, that’s been really helpful of going, okay, Sarah, you can be helpful. Doesn’t mean you have to be, and noticing how people stay in my life, even if I don’t drop everything and bend over backwards to help them, has been really validating. And I think of it as a series of ongoing practices to heal, because I didn’t get here overnight. And so it’s like this ongoing practice to slowly build. And one thing I’m always pretty open with and will continue to be open with in my Instagram posts is I’ve been engaging in things that I used to laugh and scoff at 10 years ago. Like, talk to me about like reiki and sound healing. I would’ve absolutely made fun of anybody who does that. You know, the 2014 me would’ve been like, okay, woowoo, whatever, <laugh> go, go off with your drum and singing bowls. But now, like literally yesterday I went to a reiki and sound healing session that my friends do, and it was amazing. So,I guess that’s a benefit of kind of getting to such a tragic place of burnout is for me, it was at such a point of desperation. I was like, I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try. I mean, clearly my way of doing things has not worked out, so might as well try some sound healing or some breath work, and maybe it’s a bunch of woo woo crap, but I don’t know, maybe there’s something to it. And it’s actually been really helpful,

Jo:

That’s wonderful. I was laughing so hard as you said that, because I’ve got friends in my world that have known me for as long as my career’s been going on, and they go, you do what now?

Sarah:

Yeah. Yes. <laugh>.

Jo:

Are you still the same page, Jo? You just put a post up about enjoying the journey. And I remind you that you, we were never allowed to talk to you about the journey. It always had to be about the destination. I’m like, Hmm. Yes. We’re gonna call that wisdom and maturity people wisdom and maturity.

Sarah:

Yes. Yes. II think of it sometimes as like, my iPhone got upgraded to new iOS, right? Okay. This current iOS has new features.

Jo:

<Laugh>. Oh, that’s a great way to think about it. And I think one of the things about burnout is, because we’re really smart and we intellectualise and rationalise our experience of burnout, which is why many of us get to the point of scrolling through Netflix on the couch not being able to function, because we have spent months, years, a protracted period of time just intellectualising, or like, this won’t last forever. I just need to do this to get through the summer slump. COVID will be over soon. So I won’t see as many clients when Covid is over. And all these stories that we tell ourselves, my ego got in the way. Well, they’ve asked for me, they want me. It has to be me.  Or, Jo, you are the only person we are prepared to wait for you. Or no, you don’t have to wait. I will turn myself into a pretzel. But then we become really resentful and really angry. But those patterns of behaviour become our norm, right?

Sarah:

Yes. Yes.

Jo:

So instead of realising, oh, we were only gonna do this for a couple of weeks, or we were only gonna do this for a month, we were only gonna do this until we paid off whatever had broken, we actually let it become our norm.

Sarah:

Yes, absolutely. Oh, I feel like you’ve gotten into my brain and you’re like, somehow <laugh>, oh, this is what’s been going on in Sarah’s brain. Yeah. And this right here, this conversation to me proves I think what’s so important, right? Because another piece of it, and I think what worsens this entire experience, like the layer of muck on top of all of it, is the isolation, right? For me, it was so hugely transformative to have that conversation with a trusted friend and have them say, yeah, I feel the same way too. And I was like, oh my God, the world didn’t end. I admitted I hated my job, and nothing terrible happened. I didn’t get shamed, I didn’t get judged. And I think that’s so important. I wanted to just speak to that too, because I think there’s such discourse out there that, well, you signed up for this work, so you know, deal with it, right? Like you signed up to be of service. And I can’t tell you how many I was actually off Facebook for a couple of years completely, because I couldn’t stand the judgment and shaming and criticism in therapist groups of, oh, well, if you’re feeling burn out and stress, it’s unethical. Right? and I feel like that that prevents so many of us from being honest and admitting how we’re doing, because we feel like, if I’m honest, then somebody’s gonna, somebody’s gonna get the ethics police after me or say something horribly unhelpful. So that’s another reason why I’m really happy to be so transparent and open today in a way I’ve never been before on a podcast, because I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. And I hope to even inspire one person to find some trusted person in my life to share with and try to problem solve. Because I think community is so vitally important.

Jo:

Yes. Community is important. That’s why it’s kind of at the belonging is a part of what Maslow taught us years and years ago. And I know we all like to think we’re more sophisticated than Maslow, but you know what? It’s a foundational truth we can’t get away from. And if we are just seeing clients in pain, whether it’s physical or emotional, or probably both day in, day out, and we’re seeing five or six of these people, eight of these people, some of you are seeing 15 of these people a day, I’ve got words to say, but you’re doing this day in, day in and day out, and you haven’t got time to go to the bathroom, you’re not eating properly, you’re not sleeping properly. Well, what do you think’s gonna happen? It’s like a house of cards, right? And this is my whole preparation for writing my book about being fit for purpose, is that our purpose fundamentally hasn’t changed, but the factors influencing our purpose have changed. Right? So 10 years ago, we didn’t have long Covid. We didn’t have a complete generation who did not know how to make eye contact.

Sarah:

Yes. Yeah.

Jo:

10 years ago, unfortunately, people who didn’t identify as being cisgender just went off into the sunset, unpleasantly.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Jo:

Right? And now these people are coming into our rooms, into our lives, and I don’t know about you, but nobody prepared me for that at, at university.

Sarah:

No. In fact, I remember shortly after lockdown happened very early on in Covid, I remember being so touched that one of my clients was like, wow, Sarah, how are you today? And,I’d always answer like, oh, I’m fine. You know? And, but they were like, no, but like, really, how are you? Because I am certain that your graduate program did not prepare you for this. And I just, I was like, yeah, I don’t know what to say to that, but like, yeah, I’m figuring it out with you. And that’s its own level of an experience. I’m not even sure how to describe that, but that was a whole added level of complexity of just like, it’s similar with our political landscape over the last few years. Like, I don’t have the answers either. I’m in it with you and also scared and all of the things. But I’m not gonna be a blank slate for you. I’m gonna let you know that. I’m here with you. I’m listening. I’m scared too. I don’t have all the answers here. I don’t have a flowchart to look to fix it.

Jo:

Right. And even if you’re listening, and you’re not in the US today, I, the things in Australia, we have a political landscape, particularly for people with disability, which is fraught with human rights violations, <laugh> let’s see if that gets taken down. But we are not very kind to people who come to this country for the first time. We are not very kind to the people who lived here before anybody else. Like we are not a very big population, but there’s a level of not being kind that we can just be hurtful and hateful that people are bringing into our rooms every single day. And I wasn’t prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for all the racist agenda that turned up in my rooms when we were having a vote about a referendum around changes to our legislation. I just shocked me. And then we’ve had something similar about same-sex marriage. And I’m like, where did all this homophobia come from all of a sudden? I was used to people wanting to come into the room and talk about the cricket or the football. But again, this isn’t my philosophy around being fit for purpose. We might not have all this stuff sorted out yet. We’re gonna have people who come into our rooms now are now gonna trigger us.

Sarah:

Yes, absolutely. And they still need us. And it’s like a constant evolution in pivoting. And so I didn’t enjoy being at that point of massive burnout, but I’m looking back, I am grateful for it because now it’s like, okay, I’m not gonna get it perfect every day, but I am on this path of really continuing to evaluate and change the way I relate to my work so that I can stay in the work so I can keep doing this.

Jo:

Absolutely. I love this phrase, changing the way we relate to the work. So the first step in this is becoming aware something’s not  I don’t like the way I am around this. And for those who are listening, most burnout emotions tend to be highly charged emotions. So you get angry, you get resentful. You get irritable you might start engaging in risky behaviour. It’s <laugh> when burnout has progressed beyond that and moving further into more of a mental health diagnosis is when we start to see lots of tears and lots of crying. It’s usually not the first place that our emotions turn up. So, looking at your own emotional responses to things for me, I couldn’t identify emotions. I had become so good at the stoic rehab counsellor, I can help everybody face that I had actually dissociated from my emotions. And you can imagine that’s not healthy for anyone. That’s healthy for a first responder in a crisis once a week kind of sort of thing, you know? It’s not the great way of permanent. So I had to get in touch and learn what feelings were and learn what emotions were. So we’ve got some awareness. We can start exploring our behaviour. We can find a trusted person and a sense of community. But not keep talking about the fact that this, these are practices, these are new ways of learning how to do things. So how do you help people do that? ’cause I’m doubtful we can do this on our own.

Sarah:

Yeah. I don’t have like a magic bullet answer, but I would say the work is starting to look at how people are thinking about the work that they do. Like why, what drives them? I do start with this question. Like, I’ll have an upcoming group coaching program HEAL, and each letter stands for something. So ‘H’ is, how did I get here? I think for me personally, I think that’s important, really first thing to look at of why am In this work? And not just like, oh, I really like to help people. Yes, of course you like to help people, we all know that. But like, what beliefs are really tied into that? Are there beliefs like, oh my gosh, my work is my worth. I’m only valuable to the extent that I can help other people. So like really unpacking that I think is a really important thing. So that’s often what I will talk with people about of what brought you into this work and what thoughts do you have about this work? And also kind of zooming out if people can, I notice people sometimes struggle with this, at least in the beginning of like, well, what else is there about you? Yes, this is what you do for work, but what are your interests? What are things that you’re passionate about? What are your values? And looking at if those two things are tangled up or are your values maybe like I said earlier, things that are great for you as a therapist, but also maybe we need to dial that in a little bit bit. You’re taking it too far.  like a belief that oh my gosh, if I say no to something, that means I’m a terribly selfish, uncaring person. So that’s kind of where we start. And then looking at what are even daily intentional choices we can do to that we can make to create some different patterns.  So noticing that if I as simple as like, okay, if I’m gonna put my phone on do not disturb at eight o’clock at night, and so if somebody needs something from me, I will check the text in the emails the next morning. There is nothing that probably needs a dire urgent response from me disrupting that sense of urgency. I think that’s another thing in all of this too, that comes up in our culture and is especially an accelerant to burnout, is I must respond right away. If I really think about it when I’m checking my work email at 11 o’clock at night, do I really need to be doing that? Or could I very effectively do that at the start of my office hours nine o’clock the next day, whatever the start of your workday is. So having those time boundaries is another, I think, really important thing because I think if we look at trying to do a complete overhaul of how we do our work and how we exist, it’s overwhelming. And we’re done before we started.

Jo:

We burn out the burnout <laugh>.

Sarah:

Yes. Yes.

Jo:

I have a quite a behavioural activation program. My burnout recovery program sounds quite similar. And the biggest barrier to sell that program for people is they don’t wanna do more work. It’s like, I can’t handle anymore. And I’m like, I won’t be giving you any more to do. I’m gonna be taking what you do every single day and we’re actually gonna be shredding it. But I can’t do that all at once. I can’t give you 10 things to change in the next week ’cause none of them will stick.

Sarah:

Exactly. Yeah. And so that’s why I literally start very small. And build like habit stacking, right? Like, okay, once I’ve got this established and I’m checking in with myself to look at, okay, what am I noticing in terms of my stress level when I don’t check my email past 6:00pm? Yes, it’s initially uncomfortable, but then eventually like, wow, when I’m not constantly checking my email all I have space for all these other things in my life or I’m noticing I’m sleeping better. Any number of those things. So that’s part of the experience too with my work is not just trying new things, but getting in the process of checking in with ourselves ’cause like you shared with your own experience, that’s not our default to check in with how we’re doing. Just go, go, go. So to me that’s an important ongoing thing of like, yes, I did this thing. Now how does it feel? What am I noticing that’s different?

Jo:

Really nice. I’m gonna ask you the questions since we’ve been going. We’ve been talking together now for 45 minutes. How are you feeling?

Sarah:

Oh my goodness. It felt like I honestly thought we’ve been talking for maybe 10 minutes. <Laugh>.

Jo:

I know. <Laugh>. So is it feeling good?

Sarah:

Yes, definitely. Yeah. I feel like we you know, get each other and it’s nice to have that kind of synergy too. And I think this is what’s so it kind of proves the point I made earlier about the importance of community.

Jo:

That’s why I asked the question, <laugh>. Because as as a coach working with really smart people, you have to find a way to hack their smarts. And for those of you who aren’t watching this on YouTube, you see Sarah’s face going, that was an unexpected question. How am I supposed to answer that? But I did it deliberately in the moment ’cause not knew that there was gonna be a positive response, but also wanted to help people see what it’s like in the moment to check in with yourself in the moment. And if you can’t name an emotion, that’s okay, just go, well, there’s where I start, that’s where I start. Or if I’m hungry, it’s like, well, I need to eat. I need to pee, means you need to go to the bathroom. And I bring that one up because I have seen every health professional I know of hurt themselves physically and physiologically for the sake of their patients.

Sarah:

Yes.

Jo:

Day in and day out and day in and day out. And we actually don’t, we have control over our timetables. Unless you’re working in an emergency department, you people, I’ve got a whole stack of stuff for you guys who work in emergency medicine, we can do something different there. But for the rest of us, we can actually schedule breaks. We can actually replace coffee with water twice a day. We can actually start practicing nutritionally rich food instead of sugar laden food. And as much as we wanna think about the next AI hack, AIs gonna take the simple work away from us. AI will not be able to contend with the complexity of the human condition, which means we need to be getting ready for more complicated, more difficult, more multiple issues turning up in the room at the right time. That just the way, it’s like the dishwasher saves us from having to wash the dishes, but not a hundred percent of them, right? AIs gonna create the same thing. It’s just gonna take away some of those people that maybe we who didn’t need a human, and we are gonna be left with the humans who really need humans.

Sarah:

Yes, absolutely.

Jo:

So I love what you said before about what Keri Nola gave you. So shout out to Keri Nola about what was on your little post-it note, which is, what is mine to do? So I love that as as a sticky note. Mine was, who can do this for me?

Sarah:

Ooh, yes. I love that.

Jo:

But yeah, I really like what is mine to do as well, because who can do this for me still implies that everything is, I’ve gotta do everything, or someone has gotta do everything. So I really like yours as an extension of that; what’s mine to do? So that’s my new sticky note that’s going up. So I will encourage everybody to get that on a sticky note for them, or create it as the screensaver for their phone or put it in the front of their schedule and planner.

So how do we get in touch with you, Sarah? If people go, I really like what Sarah’s had to say. How do people find you?

Sarah:

Yeah, so as you mentioned earlier on Instagram, I’m Snark and Soul. That’s kind of nspired by elements of my personality. I’m snarky, I’m funny, I’m also really no longer woo-adjacent. I think I’m fully into the woo. So you can connect with me on Instagram there. My website is SarahGilbertcoaching.com. You can also check out my website and sign up for my email list through there as well. But yeah, those would be kind of the two things. I’m on Facebook a little bit too, but I really mainly hang out on Instagram.

Jo:

Nice. I like that you did, you answered that question extremely well. What types of things do you email people about? So if people are gonna sign up for your email list, what can they expect to receive?

Sarah:

Yeah, so I’m a little unconventional in that I’m really transparent about, I’m only gonna email when I feel like I have something of value to share. So it could be a reflection, could be a mindset shift, maybe a journal prompt. I’m not somebody who’s gonna flood your email inbox all the time because that’s what you’re supposed to do as an entrepreneur. So I’m a little newer into it. We’ll see how it goes, but that’s just what feels right for me of when I feel like I have something meaningful to say or an offer to let you know about. Then I’ll send you an email. So kind of a mix of things to help you change and look at how you’re relating to your work and where there might be some areas of improvement.

Jo:

Wonderful. I’m gonna go sign up for that. So the final question, the big question, when we finally get to meet each other in real life and we will be going out for coffee, what will I be ordering for you?

Sarah:

I love iced coffee. Just black iced coffee.

Jo:

Thank God for that

Sarah:

I’m that girl. It’s been in the dead of winter. Sometimes I’ll get looks when I go to my local coffee shop and it could be zero degrees outside. I’m still gonna order an iced coffee <laugh>.

Jo:

Ah, that’s fantastic Sarah, thank you so much. So this has been the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast and I have been with Sarah Gilbert today, and I think we’ve just become really good friends in the space of an hour. So look out for more collaboration between us because I’ve just put that out there into the world. Sarah, it has been such a pleasure to get to know you today. And thank you for helping me realise it’s not just me. And I’m gonna change my tagline from today because we’ve talked about this on Instagram as well. So for those of you listening, be sure to read the show notes and find out more about Sarah. You can find out who Keri Nola is, ’cause she talked about Keri Nola. And I’ll even put a link into my Burnout Recovery program if anyone’s interested in that as well. But until next time, go be your flawsome self.