Latest / The Uncommons / Why You Feel Burned Out Even Though You're Doing Everything Right | Ep 30

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Why You Feel Burned Out Even Though You're Doing Everything Right | Ep 30 · The Uncommons

• Why You Feel Burned Out Even When You're Doing Everything Right: If you ever felt like you're the one holding everything together, this episode is for you. No matter how hard you try, there's always something that didn't get enough attention. Something you forgot. Someone who needed more from you. And somehow you're carrying the responsibility for everybody around you. Maybe you already feel exhausted, maybe you know you're burnt out, or maybe you've been redlining it with your foot all in the gas nonstop that you don't even recognize how depleted you are. And somehow despite doing it all, you still feel behind. You still feel that you don't quite have everything together. In this episode of the Uncommons, we talk about the signs of burnout, how it shows up in different stages of life, where it comes from underneath the surface, and what it takes to move through it without becoming better at carrying more. So if you've been asking yourself, why can't I keep up? Or why it feels like I'm doing everything and still falling short, stay with us till the end. Because this conversation might change the way you think about burnout completely. Hi, welcome to the Uncomments Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build a meaningful life. I'm Parisa. Paige. You know what we're talking about today? No. Burnout. Ooh. You remember there was a time that you kept saying, I'm redlining it. I'm redlining it. You would say that like, Ten times a day for years. Yes. And I think most of us are very familiar with the concept of feeling burnout, which is basically feeling that things are not going the way that we want to go. Right? Right. We're like pushing hard, going aggressively, planning everything, trying to keep everything together. But no matter what we hold on to, there's another piece that's kind of running away from you. And then you try to grab it and then other pieces running away. And you try to grab everything together and there's always something not going according to plan. Right. Sounds familiar? Yeah. Very much for me too. So I want to talk about it because I feel like a lot of people are in that boat and we were in that boat for the longest time. We still go in and out of it sometimes. I mean, we have three kids and a big life and companies and all this stuff going on. So it's hard to keep all of it together at all times. And especially if you're parents, it's just inevitable part of life that this one gets sick and then the other one gets sick and you have a six thirty AM meeting and it's just like everything starts going into this It's life. Yeah, it's life. But then I have realized that a big portion of it is avoidable. I feel like we've been in it for so long that we can now recognize it and tap out of it instead of just going down that rabbit hole. I have a lot of experience with this, as you know. And I've spent a lot of money on coaching to coach me out of that what I call a warrior and I call persona or So if that sounds familiar to you, stick around. Because we're gonna go through this whole journey of how it starts, where it lands, and how to kind of dig yourself out of it. And if you're here and you have not subscribed to our YouTube channel and podcast platforms, please do so because it helps us a lot to get in front of more people and we would really appreciate it. All right, let's do it. Okay. How does burnout feel like to you now that you're out of it? Well, Even to this day, after all these years and coaching and et cetera, is my normal go to. When I'm tired, when I'm angry, when I'm an unaware, whatever it is, it is my normal default position. I love it. I feel comfortable. If and I tell you at times, I only slept three hours last night and I feel like I'm on fire. Is because all of those adrenaline. Cortisol rushes, which is very normal for me, all kicks in. I'm like, I know. I know what this is like. I mean you know I've done this for thirty years. Manufacturing reset button. No, that's right. But now that we know so much more about the underlying effect of what we do and health and longevity, there's actually a science now where a decade ago the science was minimal. What is the science? The science is that cortisol is a very normal part of our circadian rhythms. Now we know induced cortisol levels is killing you clearly. Oxidation. Your body goes into the oxidation system. Your ability to let your body rest, reorganize, regenerate, and replenish goes away. Right? So you're redlining it as we call it. You started calling it. And the body stores more fat. my god, yeah, yeah. Like it's hard to lose weight. Yeah, yeah. I was always overweight. I mean, I tried out my my ass off to be in a relatively decent weight range, right? and But it takes way extra effort. I thought that I am going to rest when I die. That's what people said, right? Emergency room. 12 hour shifts of craziness and go out and party all night long, get up in the morning and work out and do the same thing over and over again and sleep three hours a night. That was your life. That was my life for 30 years. And then I pseudo retired and I went to India and I went to the Ayurvedic Center where I was getting trained to learn Ayurvedic medicine. And I as a patient, the guy comes in. And he goes to me, my doctor goes, I don't want you to be a medical student, I want you to be a patient. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm here to learn. He's like, This is what you need to do. And I'm like, okay, fine. And you need you to surrender. I'm like, what does that mean, surrender? No computers, no nothing. And just sitting there, basically in the meditative state. Three hours in, I was like, I'm gonna fucking die. I wanna pull my hair out. These guys were so smart. MDs, Ayurvedic Medicine Specialists, that's like the specialty over these guys are unbelievably smart. And they and they and they connect with you at a level that we as physicians in the US are not trained to do. So, anyhow, three weeks go by. I lost 25 pounds. Wow. Or 20 pounds in three weeks. My mind was the most clear as I've ever been in my life. And the cortisol was out of my body. But I know that you, as an engineer running SpaceX stuff, at a very young age, went to one of those gifted schools in Iran, which they they put all the smartest kids from the entire country in one school and let compete. That's a lot of fucking cortisol. Yeah. So tell me about that. You talk about it from medical standpoint, but for me, like feeling wise I don't think most of people know they're in survival mode when they're in survival mode. no, absolutely. We realize that after we're out of it and look back and like, like the what was that, right? And the same thing happened w after having kids. Each kid, especially our firstborn, she was just she didn't sleep for six months, you know? And I had no they don't come with an instruction and was me and this baby and I would just put her on the floor and she would cry and I would cry all night. I didn't know what to do with her. So I mean I would try everything that I read in books, but nothing worked with her. So it was just event after event of going back, like neck deep in survival mode, and then coming out of it. And every time I would come out of it, I would feel so exha much more exhausted than when I was in there. Cause when I'm in there, And I was telling you today, you're like, are you tired? I'm like, no, I haven't slept because we have sick kids. I haven't slept for a week. But it feels like I'm on the other side. Now I'm running on all the chemicals, you know, I'm high. I'm just like I wake up, I don't I'm not tired, I feel like I'm just like, there's heroin in my blood, you know, I'm just going. But so I'm very familiar with that side. But then every time I'm out of it, I crash. Now I'm resting. And the more I sleep, the more tired I get somehow. And I'm like, I do so much better with three hours, four hours, like five hours, but in forty-five minutes chunks, because it just feels that I'm in a different state. My fuse is very short. Right. When I'm in there. I can go, go, go, go, go, but as soon as the kids are fighting or there's something that's not going according to plan, I constantly have that feeling that I'm holding my life by threats. and I don't have enough hands to hold everything because something just get away and I don't know how to bring it back and I chase that and something else gets away. So I'm in the constant chasing mode rather than being calm. Like I now I can recognize when my nervous system is overloaded and when it's calm. It's a huge difference and calm nervous system is such a different feeling for me. is so unfamiliar. Yeah, it is. I'm getting used to it a lot more now, but it's very unfamiliar to an extent that initially when I would take myself into meditation, into this these phases of completely calm body, calm nervous system, I would start getting anxious. Like I would get anxiety. I'm like something is missing. I I could not fully let go. And I still deal with that. But I just have to get over that hump of being anxious and not knowing what to do. We were both very similar. And I think one of the reasons that we connected, maybe the fortunate thing, trying to look at the positive thing about this, is that we connected where we were both there. Yeah. Right? I remember our dates, we lived in different states. We were working till two o'clock in the morning, you're doing your thing, I'm doing my thing, and the camera's on. And we just kind of saw each other. We were doing our work. That was our like four hours at a time. We'll start at ten o'clock at night till two o'clock in the morning doing that. Do you remember that? Yeah. And then go to sleep and wake up at six and go to work and go. Go to yeah. The times that you're in that high cortisol level and low cortisol level, or what I call it, call it the warrior versus the wizard. Or the overstimulated nervous system versus calm nervous system. Calm nervous system. And I think it's cycles. I mean, you have big cycles. It's like the stock market, right? You have these big cycles up and down. And within those big cycles, then you have small up and downs throughout, you know, going up and down. But I could clearly identify my big cycles is when I was in medical school, residency, sleeping minimum hours, going from that end and then retiring and going to India. And my India trip started in Monasteries where you would just have to meditate for hours. We'd be up in the Himalayas freezing fucking cold from that extreme of running, running, running to to this thing. Well sometimes you need that extreme change to recognize. Sometimes when you're going at that level of redlining it, it's hard to just gradually shift back. Yeah, you need a jolt and when My redlining, the high cortisol was minimized with the monasteries and then the the Vidy Grama when when I was there, I was in full wizard mode. Right? And the amount of creativity, the amount of ability to be wide and receive things that you're not gonna be able to because you're just going at such a high rate is completely different. And then I went down to a low and I came back up when my mom was diagnosed with stage four of variant cancer, and my warrior came out like I am not gonna let this lady die. It was a really interesting time because I wasn't between the wizard and a warrior. I still had that real blanketed peacefulness when I went to the doctor with her and her surgeries and all that. It was like very like mixed with the warrior balance. It was amazing. She lived for seven and a half years, but she should have died in nine months. After that, the cannabis industry started, which put me in a full warrior mode. And then we had all this other craziness and litigations and lawsuits and so forth. And and then we got married and then we had kids and you know financial situation. So full on warrior mode, right? And then back down again now that I'm really trying to get back into this other so big huge phases. And within them you have your you know meditations and up and down. But Having felt that one time when I left India when I was coming back, that is the most grounded I've ever been, that is a baseline that today when I meditate all the time, I try to get there. Now that all these studies that are coming out, understanding cortisol levels and so forth, then I'm believing and understanding on how we can actually use our red line or warrior or whatever you want to call it. In conjunction with that deep stable wizard mode, and I know what I'm saying resonates with you from the all the redlining engineer hardcore to a Sufi. Well it's not it's not just the redlining engineer hardcore only. That's that's something that I grew up and moved into, but before that it was also being a first child and being the responsible one. You know, I feel like there's two layers for me into it because I had to become responsible very quick because my dad passed away. And when you were 11? When I was very young and I had to basically become grow up fast. And that put me in this responsible mode. I think there is something about being the first child that's that you carry a lot more than the other siblings, you know? I feel like getting into this mode of like you call it call it warrior mode of pushing, pushing, pushing, it could come from just being overly responsible, that okay, I'm the one who's holding everything together. And there is also a certain level of shame in it or guilt that if I can't hold things together. I have let down other people. And it's also another layer of worthiness in it that if I feel in my nature, in the in my core, that I'm not enough, then I need to push so much to get to something to say that, okay, now I'm enough. Now I've achieved something. So it's just like a few layers stacked on top of each other, at least for me. But I also know people I know a lot of people who go through this whole zone of b being in survival and and pushing it and burnout. And I know a lot of people who stay in there without even knowing it, that there is another side, you know, there's another way of living. And a lot of it comes down to the this whole idea of responsibility, holding everything together, trying to achieve something to show that I got there. Something really interesting happened that we are having a lot of water leakage in our house. We went on a trip and there was water leaking in the garage and it got mold from the garage to all the rooms. It's just like we had to take a major construction. So we've been dealing with water leakage. So one day I sat down with Chat GPT, dear friend of mine, of everybody's now. I told Chat GPT, I'm like, look. Imagine you are this spiritual teacher that's so connected to the cosmic cause and effect and energetically how things work out in this world. We're having this issue with water. What can you tell me from that standpoint? Because my mom told me in old Persian Sufi sayings, water is a side of sign of light. It's it means your life is expanding. And I'm like, this is expanding too much. There's so much light in this house. We need to do something. So I talk to ChatGPT, and of course it gives me a list of check for mold, check, get a plumber. I'm like, okay, we're doing all that. But and then at the end of the list, there is something that water needs a container. And water is a sign of a lot of blessings and light. But if the container that you have today cannot hold it, and your life is expanding more than your container is. Then that could be a cause of water leaking everywhere. And I'm like, okay, that's something to think about. And there was something about your blueprint in there that really shook me, because I was in a mode when I was reading this that I felt like everything is like I can't, I don't know where to hold because something is out of control. And the blueprint and control thing came up, and I'm like. Okay, I get it. I'm operating my life out of an old blueprint that has not expanded enough to withhold the amount that our life has grown. And it applies to everything. And it kind of coincides with you and I working on abundance and how we can grow more and energetically what we need to do to align with having a larger life. And it all happened around the same time. And it was very interesting because literally it was telling me this ChatGPT that your operating system is not updated. And I was thinking and I'm like, maybe the reason that I feel burnout, maybe the reason that I feel like redlining, like I'm just like out of control in life, is because I'm trying to control things the way I did. when I didn't have a kid, the way I did when I was growing up, the way I did when I just had maybe one kid and much smaller life. And now I'm going based on the same operating system that hasn't grown to hold everything else in it. And it's very hard to understand because you have told me a lot of times that control, you gotta let go of control. You gotta delegate. You gotta use the resources that you have a lot better. And the concept of control comes up a lot. My mom keeps telling me, You're trying to control everything. And at the moment, I'm like, no, I'm I'm not trying to control everything. What are you talking about? I don't control everything. You just do as I said, you know. But it doesn't feel like I'm controlling at the moment. But this whole water thing somehow shifted my perspective in a way that I'm like, okay, I gotta loosen my grip on a lot of stuff. And I want the outcome that I want, especially with my kids, I'm not willing to let things go and see how it turns out. But I also don't want to kill myself over it. So if the amount of cortisol levels that you're saying is directly proportionate and directly linked to how happily and how long we can live, then I don't want my kids to lose their parents just because I'm trying to have everything so perfect or the way I think it should be or the way I think they should be raised. In my book Perfection, which I've been taught to do all my life, is the lowest bar you can ever set because it'll never be perfect. So it'll never get there. But funny enough, this whole water thing, when you told me that, I was actually working on something similar. With my coach, Eva, my spiritual coach that I've had for decades. And there's a very interesting book called Bending Reality. that I was listening at the same time, working with this with my coach, Eva, with you at the same time. And as I move out of that warrior mode and I get it to the wizard, I've b started to begin to see the signs. The signs are coming, you know, and water leakage and what does it mean and your vessel and goes back to the fact that I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I wasn't I didn't make straight A's completely at every single place. I wasn't what whatever that perfection is, you'll never make it to perfection. And therefore this underlying subliminal message that you're not good enough, that you're not good enough for a hundred million dollar net. You're not good enough for a billion-dollar network. You're not good enough for this. And somehow you sabotage it. Somehow, not knowing, you make decisions to sabotage it. So I've been able to connect the dots. And now what I'm working on is emptying my vessel, understanding that all those, what are those internal factors that without knowing come up and stop the growth? You do what you do best as a warrior. It's like, I'm gonna work harder. I'm gonna do this. I have to get there. I'm not I I'm not there yet. That is a huge thing because you're not perfect. You're told you're not perfect because you didn't meet the standards when you were a child to be perfect. And then you always have this feeling like I'm not there yet. Why is the other guy have 200 million dollars and I don't? Why is I'm not there yet? So therefore I have to work harder and harder and push and push and push. But pushing can only get you to a certain extent. Yeah. And pulling is the next level, is the next phase. And having an internal understanding of where you need to open those little lot blocks to be able to go from pushing to pulling, to going from a warrior to a wizard, to going from my vessel, I'm leaking water because my vessel is not big enough, to actually focusing of Not working harder to get more in a small smaller vessel. It's stop working harder but expand my vessel. And you know, that's the thing. A lot of times expansion comes with stopping working harder. It's just it goes hand in hand, which is very counterintuitive for what we have grown up with. The harder you work, the more further you get. But it's just it goes completely the opposite way. When you c when you're in that position of I'm not there yet, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. And if I stop, I'm gonna fail other people. I'm responsible for others. And the guilt and everything, when you stack all this on top of each other, I mean, from that state of contraction, there is so much effort required to push forward. And then the idea of not feeling that you I'm not in control is just You want to control more. You want to control more. Yeah. Because you're you feel like you're not in control. And the more you control, the more you contract, and all these feelings exist. And something gets fucked. Yeah. Along the way. No question. Every single time. You can only tap out of it by not working as hard. Sorry. For for all the type A workaholics out there been there. But it's just it only starts to shift. when you take off your foot from the gas pedal and just go with the right for a little bit. And there are like it's just amazing how the universe speaks to us through different signs. If we would get ourselves out of that like d vision, tunnel vision, and saw everything around, there are a lot of other ways, you know? It's just like we're stuck in that that one dimension. Yeah, w when look at a warrior, men have 60 or 70 conolites per square nanometer. Women have 300. What does that mean? That means that I am so focused, I don't give a shit about anything on the outside. I gotta throw that harpoon or whatever it is and nail that animal so I can eat it and my family can eat and survive. That's my entire job. What I've learned, thank thanks to Eva, is absolute belief. Absolute belief. People believe in gods, believe in aliens, I don't give a shit. But it's you have that belief and that that the universe is there with you. That power, that ability, that you just not the one that's going to get it, get it, gonna get it. There is a huge entire thing conspiring and knowing that things happen for you, not to you. Yeah. And I'll tell you one other thing, a little secret for somebody who never fucking slept. On the days that I get more sleep, like today, right? I just have I can I take deeper breaths, and there is a connection between breathing and your tentorium. You have three three levels in your brain, in your diaphragm, they have three three diaphragm, then your urogenal diaphragm. And when these start connecting, and your ability to calm down and see wider. Is for me what I can create. Yeah. And it's unbelievable that how much I could create more and I could take this thing so much further if my I'm able to be calm as opposed to trying to fight. In fact, you can only create from a calm state. Yes. That's just how it works. So there are two options. One is to push, push, push, push, push, and just kill yourself over it. And the other option is to just sit back. and learn how to use your mind and what you've been given at birth to create things from a calm state, which comes with work too, which comes with putting the effort to. But mixing both and taking action from a calm state is completely different. Right. than taking action from the l state of lack and I'm not there yet. A hundred percent. Which brings us to the topic of the next episode. I think these two go hand in hand. We're going to talk about the feeling of I'm not there yet. Ooh. All right. What you said about the absolute belief and absolute certainty is a huge thing because a lot of times at least for me and for what I see When people get stuck in the burnout mode in pushing, pushing, pushing and redlining it, there's always a lack of faith that goes with it. That I'm the one who's making things happen. I'm the one who's preventing things from falling apart. I'm the one who's keeping everything. I mean, that's a lot of, first of all, that's a lot of confidence to have in yourself that, I am the only one who's doing this. And also a lot of pressure. You know, there is no way to be calm when you think you are the center of this universe who's holding everything together. And one mistake. And one mistake you fucked not j just yourself, but everybody around you, you failed them. That's just it's a lot, you know? And the alternative to that, if I could offer, is that there is another source. That's really protecting all of us and and having faith that I didn't get to where I am today all by myself. If we l go and look back in our lives, I guarantee for every single person there has been a lot of miracles happening that if we open our eyes to it and really understand and feel it and we look for it, it's there. But when we are go into this whole thing that I'm an atheist and there's no God and there's like whatever whatever we want to call it, right? There's no higher power than me, then I'm the only one who's holding this whole thing together. It's too much. It's it's like almost impossible to function from that state of mind. And I remember the time that I was in that mindset, that I'm the center of this whole thing. And it did not get to a point of letting go and becoming calmer until I could Pick myself up from the center and put myself on the side and say there is a higher force that has my back. Sufis say if your creator is who you believe him to be, he can hold glass in embrace of stone. What does that mean? That means glass is the most fragile state. It can stand against a stone and not break, not because it's not fragile. But because there is a power that's holding it together, even if it's attached to a stone right next to it. We don't need to be out of danger to be safe. If there is a higher source that's holding us together, that's helping us go through this life, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, whether we believe in it or not, being in danger does not make us more fragile. Believing that we are safe, even if we are in the eye of the storm. That's what carries us through this life, and that's what brings that feeling of I can let go. So whether you are in burnout today or you have been in burnout before, there is an alternative way. There is another side to it that we might not see at the moment, but it's there. And my wish is For everybody listening to find their way to that site. We'll see you next time. Ciao.