Latest / SECOND CLOCK™ / SEASON 7 | EMOTIONAL BURNOUT

Transcript

SEASON 7 | EMOTIONAL BURNOUT · SECOND CLOCK™

• 0:01
  What's your true nature? Your essence?
• 0:03
  What makes you tick? This journey to find out is what
• 0:07
  I refer to as your second clock. It's a chance to discover,
• 0:11
  experience, challenge, and reconnect with what you value
• 0:14
  most. Through clarity, love,
• 0:17
  acceptance and reflection, you'll find your answers.
• 0:21
  And what happens when you do? Well, You'll find you.
• 0:25
  Join me. Click follow, like and
• 0:28
  subscribe. And let's see where this leads.
• 0:33
  When I first was single, there was an expression that was
• 0:36
  thrown around a lot around me. It was, remember, you don't owe
• 0:40
  anybody anything. I've talked about that.
• 0:44
  What kind of person could say that?
• 0:47
  What kind of person could embody that?
• 0:48
  Do you have to be selfish? What does it take for you to get
• 0:52
  there? Get to a place where you feel
• 0:55
  like you're OK not being something to someone.
• 1:01
  Well, I guess I got there and now I'm here.
• 1:06
  I've talked about burnout before and when most people hear that
• 1:10
  expression, they think work, you've reached your Max, you've
• 1:15
  over invested, you're not getting a return or life burnout
• 1:21
  or you're just done doing for everyone and you remember
• 1:25
  yourself that you need to consider yourself again or maybe
• 1:29
  for the first time. Those things happened.
• 1:33
  They happened for me 3 years ago.
• 1:36
  But this last burnout that I encountered, that one I didn't
• 1:40
  see coming. It's emotional burnout.
• 1:44
  And I would have to say that after all the burnouts that I've
• 1:46
  experienced, this is the one I needed the most.
• 1:50
  This one was going to be my most beneficial wake up call.
• 1:54
  For so long I had showed up for people in all ways.
• 1:59
  I thought that that was the true testament to a great friend,
• 2:03
  employee, basically in all relationships.
• 2:07
  And when I say showing up, in my world, that means committing to
• 2:11
  whatever. Being the chameleon.
• 2:15
  Fun for some, funny for others, serious and deep, emotionally
• 2:20
  supportive, great at listening, great at bringing levity when
• 2:24
  it's needed. I thought having all these sides
• 2:28
  and being something to someone showed my value, gave me a
• 2:32
  purpose in those connections, never considering that I don't
• 2:37
  owe anybody anything. So I guess I was choosing all
• 2:41
  those things, assuming that that's what I had to do to keep
• 2:46
  connections going. But it would take decades before
• 2:49
  I would figure that out and connect those dots.
• 2:53
  So from a young age I adapted, and I thought if I could be
• 2:57
  somebody to someone, then somebody would want to keep me
• 3:01
  around. That way of thinking was the
• 3:04
  trouble. It never was true.
• 3:07
  I just didn't know that until now.
• 3:10
  It's like every relationship I got into was conditional.
• 3:14
  Conditional on what I offered, what I brought, what I let
• 3:19
  slide. But I recognize that I made it
• 3:22
  that way. I think of it like I was on a
• 3:25
  train, going from one stop to another, progressing a
• 3:30
  relationship forward, and at some point I lost track.
• 3:36
  Track of where I fit in, track of why I was doing the things I
• 3:40
  was doing. I was just going in the same
• 3:42
  direction like always, and here I am, stop after stop, just
• 3:49
  moving forward. And then at one point I fell
• 3:53
  asleep altogether. And then when the conductor on
• 3:56
  the train says we're pulling into the final destination, this
• 4:00
  is the last stop. I slept through it and I stayed
• 4:04
  on the train and the relationships progressed until
• 4:09
  one day I heard that conductor and I realized it was time to
• 4:14
  get off. And that's how many of my
• 4:17
  friendships and relationships and work relationships have
• 4:20
  been. One day I just wake up to what I
• 4:24
  never wanted to see, never wanted to accept or admit that
• 4:30
  things had become lopsided, that I was giving more than I was
• 4:35
  receiving and the idea of I don't owe anybody anything.
• 4:40
  I was going to have to accept. I was going to finally
• 4:43
  understand that you don't have to derive value from what you
• 4:48
  can give, and you don't have to give even when you don't want
• 4:51
  to, that you get to choose. That was foreign.
• 4:57
  I think for many, that idea is foreign.
• 5:01
  Who would I be if I just said I'm not into this call?
• 5:06
  This conversation bores me. I don't want to talk about that
• 5:10
  anymore. Can you figure it out on your
• 5:13
  own? What would it take for someone
• 5:16
  to say that? Well, I figured it out.
• 5:22
  One day I was on a call with somebody.
• 5:25
  They wanted to play catch up. I didn't see what became very
• 5:29
  clear to me later. At first on the call, everything
• 5:33
  seemed normal. This friend and I had become a
• 5:37
  little bit distant. We had gone from hanging out in
• 5:40
  person to just chatting. And I was coming to a place in
• 5:44
  my life where I wasn't interested in just chatting with
• 5:48
  people. If they weren't going to show up
• 5:50
  for me in the flesh, I wasn't going to show up for them on the
• 5:55
  phone. At some point on that call, I
• 5:58
  said, listen, I'm getting tired. I'm going to go.
• 6:02
  And it was then that I would learn why the person actually
• 6:04
  called me. And it was also then that I
• 6:07
  realized I had reached emotional burnout.
• 6:11
  For so long, I had been the person that you could call at
• 6:13
  any moment, you could talk as long as you wanted, and I would
• 6:18
  listen and I would be happy to. I was fully invested.
• 6:24
  I was a cheerleader. I wanted each and every somebody
• 6:28
  to feel cared for, heard, accepted.
• 6:31
  I wanted to be part of their growth.
• 6:34
  I wanted them to feel important. And in those moments, I felt
• 6:37
  special. I felt valued.
• 6:41
  But something about this night was different.
• 6:44
  When I was on the call and I was trying to get off because I was
• 6:46
  tired and I'd even said so, something shifted and
• 6:51
  understanding inside of me of where I fit in shifted.
• 6:55
  And this person said, wait a minute, I want to tell you
• 6:58
  something. I wanted to tell you what
• 7:00
  happened. I heard the disregard for what I
• 7:03
  wanted. I heard the lack of care for
• 7:06
  what I just said. I'm tired.
• 7:09
  I want to get off the call. And then for the next hour, I
• 7:14
  sat there and I did what I've always done.
• 7:18
  I listened. But this time, unlike every time
• 7:22
  before, I understood my role in this call.
• 7:26
  I didn't derive value from it. I didn't make my place more than
• 7:31
  it was. I no longer was listening
• 7:34
  because I thought this is the testament of a good friend.
• 7:38
  I listened because I wanted to see how long this conversation
• 7:42
  was going to go, where it was one sided, where it was all
• 7:46
  about this other person getting something from someone.
• 7:50
  That someone being me. Now I didn't take it personally
• 7:55
  and I didn't care much. After all, I had been this
• 7:59
  person for so long to so many that I could phone this one in.
• 8:05
  And I did. And then I got off that phone
• 8:08
  call and I said, yeah, I'm done. I'm done showing up this way.
• 8:17
  I'm done telling people what I want and not having it regarded.
• 8:24
  I'm done accepting scraps, accepting lopsided friendships.
• 8:29
  Reciprocation matters. At least it does to me.
• 8:35
  And that's what it comes down to.
• 8:36
  Realizing what you value, where you want to invest your time,
• 8:40
  your energy, your Eunice and I decided to invest it in me.
• 8:48
  Invested in learning what I wanted to talk about, what I
• 8:54
  wanted to get from these conversations, not what I wanted
• 8:58
  to offer. For so long.
• 9:00
  It was so about what do I offer to somebody else?
• 9:05
  This is something that a lot of people suffer from, this feeling
• 9:10
  of if I don't give you something, will I still be
• 9:14
  something to you? In relationships, people do this
• 9:18
  all the time. They try to figure out their
• 9:21
  place, they try to figure out their value.
• 9:24
  They try to figure out why somebody keeps coming back.
• 9:28
  Is it for the physical? Is it for the emotional?
• 9:31
  What is it for? What do I have to do to keep
• 9:35
  you? But then I realized, what if you
• 9:39
  don't have to do anything? What if you don't owe anybody
• 9:43
  anything? What if you owe it to yourself
• 9:46
  instead? You owe it to yourself to
• 9:48
  understand what matters most to you.
• 9:51
  When I sat and thought about that, I realized I was showing
• 9:56
  up for all the wrong reasons. I didn't really care about
• 10:01
  somebody's storyline the way I thought I did.
• 10:04
  I was just invested in them because I wanted them to be
• 10:06
  invested in me. But it didn't work that way.
• 10:10
  Showing up for people and always didn't grant me anything other
• 10:17
  than a little bit of time with them in relationships.
• 10:22
  So many women get caught in this loop.
• 10:25
  How can I be something to you so you keep me?
• 10:29
  What do I have to do to be important?
• 10:32
  Even saying this right now is uncomfortable because I know so
• 10:37
  many people think this way. So many people, and I hear it
• 10:41
  all the time. They think, let me grant you all
• 10:44
  the wishes you have and then you'll keep me.
• 10:48
  Let me be whoever you need me to be, and then you'll choose me.
• 10:53
  I don't want to be chosen anymore if those are the stakes.
• 10:58
  It takes a lot for me to say that, but it took me a lot to
• 11:01
  get here. The emotional burnout that I
• 11:05
  felt when I was confronted with it, and I had to sit with so
• 11:09
  many things that I had let slide in the past from so many people
• 11:15
  just because I realized I had lost me in the process.
• 11:23
  When I reached burnout at work, it was a full depletion.
• 11:28
  It was utter exhaustion. And when I had my life back and
• 11:33
  things were back on track, I was grateful.
• 11:36
  I was grateful for the work. I was grateful for the balance.
• 11:40
  I was grateful that I had reached burnout at work so that
• 11:44
  I could never go back there again.
• 11:47
  And when I reached life burnout and I couldn't do anything more
• 11:52
  for anyone before I did for myself again, I found myself
• 11:56
  grateful. But when I reached emotional
• 11:59
  burnout, well, that one hit differently.
• 12:04
  That one I saw all the time that I had spent investing when I
• 12:10
  didn't need to, all the emotion that I had poured into things
• 12:14
  when nobody asked me to. I realized that there's nothing
• 12:18
  scary about saying the truth, being clear about what you want
• 12:22
  and need in the moment. I didn't know things could be so
• 12:26
  easy, so straightforward, that you could be matter of fact and
• 12:31
  let your facts stand. And if somebody else didn't like
• 12:35
  them, that's OK. You don't need to pretend that
• 12:39
  you like everything just to keep somebody.
• 12:42
  You don't have to be easygoing. You don't have to be
• 12:46
  accommodating when you don't want to be.
• 12:49
  You don't have to say yes when you want to say no.
• 12:52
  You don't have to be emotionally lifting for others so that they
• 12:56
  don't have to try. Something else came when I
• 13:00
  reached emotional burnout. It was clarity.
• 13:04
  I started hearing the truth everywhere, The subtext, the
• 13:10
  subtleties, the hints that were being dropped and conversations
• 13:14
  all around me. I started hearing when people
• 13:17
  would retell me stories and they'd say, Can you believe this
• 13:20
  happened? And I'd say I can believe it.
• 13:24
  There are signs when people say they're busy.
• 13:28
  They're saying it because they want to keep themselves from
• 13:31
  being available to you. When people get on the phone and
• 13:34
  talk, talk, talk about themselves and they never take
• 13:38
  any interest in you, then you realize who you are to them.
• 13:43
  You're their listener. You're their sounding board.
• 13:46
  You're their emotional support. I found that things should be
• 13:51
  easy and light. Relationships should be easy and
• 13:55
  light. Things don't need to be
• 13:58
  strained, and if they are, then maybe you're doing too much
• 14:03
  lifting and maybe it's time that you realize this.
• 14:08
  You don't need to reach emotional burnout.
• 14:11
  You don't need to reach the final destination like I did to
• 14:15
  get off the train. Thanks for listening.
• 14:21
  These episodes are unscripted. They're my free flowing thoughts
• 14:25
  as I reflect back on past conversations, experiences, what
• 14:29
  I've learned, would like to do better, and what's next.
• 14:33
  Join me on Thursdays for new episodes and catch up on past
• 14:35
  episodes. Click Follow, Like and subscribe
• 14:39
  and let's see where this leads.