Perfectionism, People-Pleasing, and Burnout: How to Recognize Survival Patterns featuring Cindy Payne

# Edit of BAB 019 Cindy Payne

 

[00:00:00]

 

 

## [00:00:00] Introduction

 

[00:00:00] **Karina Schneider:** Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the show. In today's episode, we are joined by Cindy Payne, who is a therapist and the founder of Rooted Counseling and Wellness, and also the host of the Reclaiming Me podcast. In this episode, I really learned so much from Cindy. We talk about topics ranging from understanding trauma to understanding what it means to be regulated and dysregulated and paying attention to signals in our bodies, which I'm still consistently practicing to do.

 

and also, of course, looking at, patterns and experiences of high-achieving women and what that might mean for our mental health and wellbeing. Cindy helps, like I said, high-achieving women heal from complex PTSD, perfectionism, and people-pleasing patterns that keep them stuck in survival mode.

 

Through trauma-informed therapy and small practical daily practices, Cindy guides her clients towards [00:01:00] reclaiming their voice, building internal safety, and living authentically rather than from fear or obligation. Her approach blends clinical expertise with real-world tools, supporting women in navigating personal growth, boundaries, and nervous system healing, one intentional choice at a time.

 

I learned so much from Cindy. I hope you as well. So let's get to the episode. hi, Cindy. Welcome to Back After Burnout. It's good to have you on the show.

 

[00:01:29] **Cindy Payne:** Oh, it's so wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.

 

[00:01:32] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah, I'm really looking forward because I think I'm gonna learn so, so much from, from you. We're gonna tackle topics that we haven't covered in the podcast before, and I think our listeners will be, yeah, really will find it very insightful to be learning a little bit from you and your, your experience.

 

So why don't we start with you just sharing how you came to doing trauma informed therapy work?

 

[00:01:54] **Cindy Payne:** Yes. So I started off just as a, I would say a general [00:02:00] practitioner where I would see clients anywhere from, basic hurdles that they were going through in their life, just wanting to make some minor changes, anywhere from that to somebody who had, a more severe form of anxiety or

 

or depression and

 

what I,

 

what I, what I found was the clients

 

kept

 

kept coming back to you know

 

thing in common where they

 

they were really high achieving

 

and

 

they

 

getting really good

 

really good response in their everyday life with, you know, work and

 

accolades and feeling like they were moving forward. But when it came to their personal lives, there was this kind of divide and they couldn't quite name what it

 

what it was that was keeping them

 

going

 

going until they

 

until they just kind of

 

And the more that we uncovered things, we found that there was this kind of underlying, thread where there was something that had

 

[00:03:00] crashed

 

years most of them relational. And,

 

know, it, it kind of severed that safety feeling

 

And so

 

and

 

learned that they needed to really perform, and achieve to

 

to get

 

to get noticed, you know, to,

 

to feel validated. And so it

 

so it was this,

 

know,

 

you know,

 

incongruency on what they were experiencing on the outside versus what they were feeling on the inside. And yeah, that's how I

 

kind of.

 

to specialize in what we call complex trauma.

 

 

## [00:03:30] "Trauma" in the mainstream lexicon

 

[00:03:30] **Karina Schneider:** I'm curious to dive into high achieving, women or just, the high achieving population, shortly. but there was something I've been, like, meaning to find someone to talk to about this. I would say in the last five years, my observation is that, a lot of the mental health conversations, particularly around trauma, burnout, PTSD kind of got into more mainstream spaces, which I would consider to be a really good thing because in my recollection, at least in my context [00:04:00] prior to po- potentially the pandemic, this was not really something you spoke about openly with your friends or your colleagues or it wouldn't even show up at work as something that was really important.

 

But I sometimes worry that language like trauma, was used a little bit more loosely,

 

and sometimes might cause misunderstanding or misinterpretation,

 

[00:04:25] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:04:26] **Karina Schneider:** because we just, because part of it being, going mainstream is like everybody feels a little bit more comfortable to kind of push the boundaries as to what's, you know, what we talk about and how we explain certain things.

 

So for somebody like me who is not an expert in mental health, who is not in the clinical practice, and for many of our viewers, can you just help us understand how do we appropriately use and refer to things like trauma, or post-traumatic stress disorder or chronic stress and things like that?.

 

[00:04:57] **Cindy Payne:** No, that's such a great observation that you brought [00:05:00] up, post-pandemic, everybody started to normalize these conversations, but not everybody maybe has the knowledge about it, or maybe it still feels a little taboo to talk about. And, I always describe to my clients, trauma is, anything that happens too soon for the brain and the body to process.

 

And so you get stuck. So think of like a car accident. think people would look at the car accident and say, "Gosh, that's traumatic." And yes, while it is, the trauma isn't necessarily the impact of the, like the actual, car accident, but rather it's the taking the seatbelt off, the walking away, the surveying, the damage, the after effects that show up in your body, after the event happens.

 

And so we have this way of having this energy get stuck in our body and,it can come up through intrusive thoughts and trying to control situations, a level of [00:06:00] feeling hypervigilant, where you're very jumpy, your responses just don't quite make sense to the stimulus that's happening, right?

 

and one other thing that I'll speak to about trauma to help our listeners, distinguish between, I don't wanna say regular trauma, but, big T trauma and little T trauma is that we have these big T trauma events that, you look, turn on the news and like a catastrophic flood or an accident or, relational harm and you think, "Ooh, gosh, that is trauma."

 

And yes, it is. It's a one-time event, typically that leaves our brains and our bodies reeling from the event. But then we also have something called little T traumas. And those are the in- the indiscretions that happen in relationships, the betrayal, the, invalidation of feelings, the neglect, right?

 

Those are also little T traumas that after a while adding up, it just really takes a hit on our bodies and being able to metabolize [00:07:00] that.

 

 

## [00:07:00] What Factors influence whether something is big T or little T trauma?

 

[00:07:00] **Karina Schneider:** So thank you for that. That's incredibly helpful. what I'm hearing is it has a lot to do with our ability to cope with it. is that a part of that? Like, what, what factors play into whether something becomes big T trauma or small Trauma as far as the resources and our capacity and our maturity to be able to, to respond to it in a healthy way?.

 

[00:07:25] **Cindy Payne:** yeah. No, that, that is a, another great question, and I think,it, it kinda lends itself to this conversation of why can some people move through something seemingly difficult and horrific, seemingly unscathed while another person might get locked in it and they can't seem to progress or heal.

 

And if you think about, if you have ever watched, National Geographic videos where they have, a predator coming up on the prey and the prey will freeze, the prey kind of plays possum, in order to protect itself. But then once the predator is gone, the prey does this thing where it just shakes [00:08:00] vigorously.

 

And we know that animals possess this ability to regulate their nervous systems after the threat is gone. And so essentially, they're moving it through their body so they're not trapped in it and carrying it for years to come. But with humans, we're very different, right? We go into this, what's called a functional freeze, and then when the predator is gone or the trauma is out of the way, if we don't have anybody to help us name what happened and validate our emotions and maybe give us some support, then it gets locked up in the body and we're just spiraling, trying to make sense of it and maybe not understanding how to move that energy that's stuck through our body.

 

 

## [00:08:45] How to use your body to regulate your nervous System

 

[00:08:45] **Karina Schneider:** It's really interesting and, it reminds me a little bit of what I've learned to understand is the stress cycle. So help me understand, are these parallel things that happen to us as human beings where, I [00:09:00] know that, you know, go- having gone through burnout and having learned more about it after the fact is when the stress builds up in your body and you don't take the time and make the effort to actually release the stress from your system and regulate your, your nervous system, then that's when it, you know, it, it escalates into chronic stress and eventually potentially burnout if not managed.

 

It sounds very similar because I often also hear how it stays in your body, you need to use your body and have an understanding of your body to regulate your nervous system. Are those parallel things, does one lead to the other? Like what's the relationship between ... And is that a correct, am I even representing it correctly, right?

 

Like let me first check that. Is that even correct?

 

[00:09:43] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah, you're on the right track, exactly. And, it's making me think of, Emily Nagoski's book, Burnout, and it's the, where they, she and her twin sister write this book, about completing the stress cycle. And you're exactly right. There's a beginning and a middle and an end to every stress cycle.[00:10:00]

 

And so if we do not complete the cycle, then yes, you're correct. It can get trapped in the body and then we have fatigue and we have that nervous system dysregulation. A lot of the clients that I work with talk about feeling numb and frozen. And so their nervous system is working on high alert, but then they have a difficult time kind of downshifting into this state of rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic state, right?

 

And so you were talking about this in terms of burnout and completing the stress cycle, but when I'm working with my clients who have maybe, suffered from complex PTSD, a lot of this messaging starts from very young, very early. And then the cultural conditioning, supports that, right? That, and I'm gonna speak on Western culture that, women tend to be the emotional, laborers of the family.

 

And not to say that men don't have emotions and [00:11:00] labor that way, but we just get tasked with it, more regularly with caretaking of children and house and, those women that choose to work. And if that goes in- invalidated,

 

[00:11:10] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:11:11] **Cindy Payne:** difficult for us to understand how to complete that cycle.

 

[00:11:14] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah, I can understand that because like, your, your brain's just wired to operate a certain way, right? Based on certain expectations and

 

[00:11:21] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah.

 

[00:11:22] **Karina Schneider:** holding back and not speaking up are things. I know, but particularly growing up, I, I can see how much of my upbringing has played into how I showed up at work in the end and how much of it was helpful and how much of it was not helpful.

 

[00:11:37] **Cindy Payne:** So that was incredibly clarifying. Thank you, Cindy. and maybe more questions will come back as we continue with our conversations. Yeah.

 

 

## [00:11:44] What does that mean to "feel safe" in your body?

 

[00:11:44] **Karina Schneider:** Far, as we've been speaking about trauma and nervous system regulation, you talk a lot about the body and you even used the phrase earlier, we need to feel safe in our bodies.

 

Personally, I never learned to [00:12:00] understand how I feel in my body. It took me a while to understand, like, actually you should be paying attention to this. So for people who are not used to naming sensations in their body or understanding what regulation or dysregulation means, What does that mean to feel safe in your body?.

 

[00:12:19] **Cindy Payne:** that is a wonderful question and I can't tell you how many clients I have that come in who really share the same sentiments, that maybe I move through the world dissociated a lot because I'm in environments that I don't really have time to process things. I just have a deadline to meet, right?

 

And so we would begin with, real basic, noticing tightness, noticing constriction in the body versus expansion. And so a lot of times when clients will bring up, painful, memories or even just something that they're going through currently, I will ask them to slow down, right?

 

and we do a lot of breath work in the beginning. So [00:13:00] just really even acknowledging, I, I personally am a breath holder, so if I'm under stress and I'm moving through my day and I've got deadlines and people expecting things of me, I don't realize ... I do now because I've done a lot of work with it, but I didn't realize for the longest time that I was a shallow breather.

 

And so I, it's sternum up. And so even just working with clients to help them understand the benefits of even being able to elongate the breath from like your sacrum all the way up to, where you exhale and how what that does is it provides oxygen in the body, which helps you think clearer, right?

 

[00:13:36] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:13:36] **Cindy Payne:** it's all just this like mind body integration and, if we can begin to play with that, just little micro practices at a time, then we can move to other parts of the body that might be holding tension, like our

 

[00:13:50] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:13:50] **Cindy Payne:** clenching our jaw. My yoga teacher

 

[00:13:52] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:13:53] **Cindy Payne:** know, remove your shoulders, lower your shoulders, your shoulder shouldn't be earrings, those things.

 

just things that we don't [00:14:00] about and how we're carrying ourselves through the world,

 

[00:14:03] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:14:04] **Cindy Payne:** daily. So that's a great place for us to start.

 

[00:14:07] **Karina Schneider:** it's funny because as I listen to you, I'm like, how many times in a day do I actually pay attention to these things? And I'm like,

 

[00:14:14] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah.

 

[00:14:14] **Karina Schneider:** I think it's so much for granted. I think I'm better now than I was seven plus years ago to notice how I'm feeling throughout the day and just like checking in with myself.

 

But, you know, it takes a while. It's, it's, it really is, as you said, a practice, it's a habit you need to form to be able to notice these things, right? 'Cause otherwise nothing really screams at you until, until you're paying attention..

 

 

## [00:14:40] Dysregulation is natural, staying dysregulated is harmful

 

[00:14:40] **Cindy Payne:** Sure. One thing that I wanted to add to this though, because I work with, high performing women, so recovering perfectionists and pleasers is whenever we start doing this work, I always make sure that I remind clients that the goal is not to walk around perfectly regulated all the time.

 

[00:14:57] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:14:58] **Cindy Payne:** so much stuff on the [00:15:00] internet now about regulation and you need to, you're dysregulated and it's yeah, that's part of being a human in

 

[00:15:05] **Karina Schneider:** Right. Yeah.

 

[00:15:07] **Cindy Payne:** We are

 

[00:15:07] **Karina Schneider:** Yes..

 

[00:15:08] **Cindy Payne:** get dysregulated. And sometimes, that's just part of the emotional expression process, just because you're dysregulated doesn't mean that you're doing something quote wrong

 

[00:15:20] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:15:21] **Cindy Payne:** It's when we stay in these prolonged states of dysregulation that can cause the problems. So just wanted

 

[00:15:26] **Karina Schneider:** I'm glad you said that, right? no, I, I think that's such an important call out because I, I do think that we sometimes get inundated with messages that make you feel bad for feeling how you feel.

 

[00:15:38] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:15:39] **Karina Schneider:** you're experiencing secondary emotions on top of just normal response to the difficulties we experience every day.

 

and so I think calling out that the more important part, at least my, my, what I'm taking away from it is the ability to notice it and then the ability to know what to do about it is the more important [00:16:00] piece than the, the feeling or the not feeling aspect of it because that's just, it's normal human emotion and we become less human if we start to, to judge or, or feel bad about, you know, just how we respond to just everyday life and the situations both good and bad that we might be experiencing every day.

 

[00:16:18] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah, that's right. That's

 

[00:16:20] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:16:21] **Cindy Payne:** normalize this stuff.

 

[00:16:23] **Karina Schneider:** Right. I think so too. And also not, ... I don't know what's the word I've heard it mentioned before, like you don't pathologize normal human everyday responses to things that everything feels like, oh, this is now a mental health challenge or this is a mental health problem. And, and I, I ... That's a bit, it co- it comes with a question I asked you earlier about while I appreciate a lot of these conversations becoming more common and more commonplace, I think there is a risk that when we don't truly understand it, we might be, inadvertently sending out the wrong messages around what wellbeing really [00:17:00] is and what good mental health looks like..

 

[00:17:03] **Cindy Payne:** Yes. And thank you for calling that out as well about the pathologizing, because I do tend to see a higher level a- anxiety people coming in going, "Help me name this. What is this? " or, "I saw this, on TV or on the internet and I think I have this. " And so not to discount or discredit what they're saying, but maybe just to help bring it back down to a baseline that,

 

[00:17:28] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

yes, okay, if this was pathologized, how would we view this differently, So let's Yeah..

 

[00:17:34] **Cindy Payne:** see if we can detach a little bit from the pathologizing piece until we can understand it a little bit more

 

[00:17:41] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:17:41] **Cindy Payne:** and what to do about it. Yeah.

 

[00:17:44] **Karina Schneider:** Okay. That's a, that's, that's really good advice.

 

I'd love to dive deeper now into, the experience you're noticing with high performing women. you've touched on this already, a, a little bit, so I'd love for you to expand. what patterns have you observed about [00:18:00] this group of high achieving women, that make them more susceptible to potentially some difficulties in their mental health?

 

[00:18:09] **Cindy Payne:** Sure. Yeah.

 

whenever we look at the swing from, once women, entered, started entering the workforce and more and more women were choosing to, to go back

 

To go back to

 

after having children, and this

 

work,

 

guilt or maybe even shame that they f- have felt.

 

oftentimes I'll have women that come in and they're like, "I'm trying to do it all. I'm trying to be the full-time working mom because that's really important to me to have my independence and my career, but then also I'm not able to show up for my kids' function and I'm beat by the end of the day and I can't be the room mom or the parent that's always up at my child's school.

 

And so I feel like I'm failing, " And so we'll work backwards and through some questioning, what we often discover is this, this kind of l- level of shame, I think, that women, [00:19:00] carry, or we tend to carry about, our worth as, mothers, wives, friends, being in the workforce.

 

And when you look at it like next to men

 

after

 

really nec- I might be overgeneralizing, but for the most part, men aren't

 

are

 

really

 

really feeling

 

super shameful or

 

or apologetic.

 

are worried

 

worried about.

 

and, getting promoted and whatnot. And so have to really deconstruct this shame, I think, and understand where that was born and these maybe kind of unfair expectations that we're placing on ourselves to have it all, be it all, do it all, and then, not even get into the aging piece of it,

 

[00:19:44] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:19:44] **Cindy Payne:** and how we're supposed to do it while looking youthful and rested and all of that, right? And so

 

Yeah..

 

expectations, but then really why I touch on the shame so much is because shame, the research shows that when we are [00:20:00] experiencing shame, our body is metabolizing it the same way that it does a threat. So when

 

Oh..

 

in shame, nervous system gets, activated and we go into protect mode and we

 

And we don't even know that we're doing it.

 

kind

 

We're just kind of

 

through

 

moving.

 

but

 

But for a lot of us, it's.

 

we get really competitive as a way to protect that, that fragile, psyche, or, you

 

you know, we can

 

go into

 

go into.

 

again, or we can just become fawners where we're like, "Sure, yeah, give me the next task, I'll do it.

 

the people pleasing side comes

 

[00:20:37] **Karina Schneider:** oh yes, on the pleasing side, right? And this is all in an effort to feel safe, to feel that sense of belonging. So if, I think if we can understand the difference between shame and a real live threat Right..

 

[00:20:54] **Cindy Payne:** huge in helping us understand some of this stuff.

 

[00:20:58] **Karina Schneider:** It's so interesting. I never [00:21:00] realized that the impact on our bodies are so similar between the two, and I think you're hitting on a really important maybe provocation or reflection point for our listeners to see, do we recognize the shame? Do we know where it might be coming from? I, I think that's a whole kind of reflection.

 

I know I'm gonna take away from this, but I do remember after going back to work, just after becoming a, a, a mom, I was so,concerned about how I was showing up at work

 

Yeah.

 

and having ... I consider myself part of the high achieving perfectionist people pleasing population. So, and still working on it. I think it's a, it's my lifelong journey, right?

 

Do that. But, but, but I was, you know, it's, it's, you function a certain way for a really long time. And then for, in my case, I became a parent and I was still trying to operate the same [00:22:00] way as I used to when it's just, like, physically, mentally, emotionally impossible, but to still operate that way and think, "Yeah, and I can also be a good mom at the same time, and both can coexist."

 

And I'm not saying that it's not possible. I don't wanna say, "Well, you can't do both roles well." I just think there's some recontracting and renegotiating of expectations with myself, with the people around me to say, "What does good look like for both to, to, to work well together?" But I, I recognize as I listened to you that this, how I showed up at work was really coming from wanting to avoid any, observation, any impression from others about, "Oh, she can't do it anymore," or, "She wasn't as reliable as before."

 

And I, I don't know if that kind of lands anywhere close to what, what you were explaining, but that's the reflection that's coming to me as I am listening to you and kind of highlighting that shame [00:23:00] component because I think a lot of it was coming from that of, like, failing, of not meeting people's expectations, of feeling like,

 

[00:23:06] **Cindy Payne:** I've worked towards is just for nothing."

 

[00:23:10] **Karina Schneider:** And because I'm now a mom, which I also love being a mom, right? So, yeah..

 

[00:23:15] **Cindy Payne:** Yes. And we get into this really, this binary thinking, this either or, this very black and white. And, if I'm feeling that I'm not measuring up and it's maybe hitting on an early family of origin story, because oftentimes I'll ask my clients, "Where did you learn that it had to be this or this?

 

And

 

[00:23:35] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:23:36] **Cindy Payne:** times it'll come up and not to blame our parents. We love our

 

[00:23:39] **Karina Schneider:** Of course.

 

[00:23:40] **Cindy Payne:** but they were just doing the best that they could as well, right? But a lot of times I will have clients tell me,I took away the message that I was not to disappoint and that I was to be exceptional at everything that I did.

 

And

 

[00:23:52] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:23:52] **Cindy Payne:** do it exceptionally, then I didn't do it at all. " And so we get

 

[00:23:57] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:23:57] **Cindy Payne:** real rigid mindset of, [00:24:00] I either have to do all the things or

 

[00:24:03] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:24:03] **Cindy Payne:** I'm just no good at that at all, right? So

 

[00:24:06] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:24:07] **Cindy Payne:** how to hold that nuance of both and,

 

[00:24:10] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:24:11] **Cindy Payne:** yeah, it's that

 

[00:24:13] **Karina Schneider:** That's really interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and I think that, that is important, particularly as we kind of learn to navigate just very difficult life situations as the world gets more complex and, and more difficult, over the years is how can you hold both, right? Acknowledge some of the difficulties you've maybe experienced growing up, but at the same time, saying, "Well, I also have agency to operate in the world in a way that works for me without having to carry so much of that, that baggage and having to work through all that baggage."

 

[00:24:46] **Cindy Payne:** Sure.

 

[00:24:47] **Karina Schneider:** as we're speaking, I can, like, point to experiences growing up, particularly around financial security and financial independence that I know was, was a big driver for many of my professional [00:25:00] decisions, but not because of ambition and drive, but more to protect from shame in the past around that.

 

So it's just interesting to, to hear you, talk about it that way because it puts a lot of things into, into perspective.

 

 

## [00:25:16] How do you differentiate behaviof patterns?

 

[00:25:16] **Karina Schneider:** the interesting question to me is, how do you differentiate behavior patterns that is just part of your personality and your character as opposed to patterns that are coming out of protecting yourself or coming out of coping with potentially difficult experiences growing up?

 

I don't even know if that question makes sense, so tell me if it doesn't make sense but I'm just like, you know, how do you know, right? Like, it took me ... 'Cause I mean, I knew my, I knew myself to be a very specific kind of person, but, but on hindsight, realizing, well, a lot of wh- what I thought I was was just coping mechanisms rather than who I really want.

 

So, like, [00:26:00] ambition ... I, I remember taking an assessment recently where my ambition scores were really low and it really struck me. I'm like, "Really?" not that I'm not ambitious, but it's just like I always operated feeling like this is who I am, but actually it was a lot of those protective behaviors of being perfect and wanting to, move ahead and progress, but actually that's not really, that's not really what I want and that's not who I am.

 

[00:26:24] **Cindy Payne:** what this question makes me think of is, I will often do like a values exercise

 

[00:26:30] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:26:30] **Cindy Payne:** my clients who are coming in with these perfectionistic tendencies where they're like, "I'm anxious and I really, I want to work.

 

I

 

[00:26:38] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:26:39] **Cindy Payne:** being driven. I like my job, but also I'm having all of these other side effects showing up in my life. And so it's taking away from what is ma- maybe most important to me that I'm not even sure I knew that was important." And

 

[00:26:53] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah...

 

[00:26:53] **Cindy Payne:** we will sometimes do like a values exercise where, the things that we value are the things that [00:27:00] we feel define us, that are most important to us, but they're going to shift in the course of our life, that our values

 

My values when I was in, weren't, I was in my 20s are so radically different now in my 40s, and just even the permission to change my mind about what's important and what I value. so getting really clear on the things that we say we want to define our lives, and then what are the behaviors that we engage in that either support those things or take away from those things.

 

And so if you're having a lot more withdrawals from the bank account, so to speak, than deposits, then perhaps maybe the things that I say I value or that are important to me as a human, maybe not so much anymore.

 

Yeah.

 

maybe

 

think there's some,

 

some work that needs

 

work that needs to be done around.

 

that a bit so that I can become more of, we call it self-authoring and developmental psychology to where now I'm starting to try [00:28:00] on this story that I was given and it's does this still fit me?

 

Yeah.

 

And if

 

And if not,

 

can

 

can I,

 

how can I move

 

I.

 

self-authoring now versus what I was told I was supposed to do?.

 

[00:28:11] **Karina Schneider:** It's so interesting. I, I find that a lot in the work I've done supporting individuals go back to work post burnout is, I think what came up very surprising for many of them through the recovery is precisely that, is, is that reevaluation of their value system and acknowledging how much of the way they've been operating actually supports the values they say that are, are important or not.

 

[00:28:39] **Cindy Payne:** but also to your point, it's, well, are the values that kind of felt important to me five, 10 years ago, are those the same? And I think for me, it was quite pivotal becoming a parent and then burning out and then having to actually, reassess what my value system are now that I have another role to play, right?

 

[00:28:57] **Karina Schneider:** Like, it didn't shift. I mean, I have to say, [00:29:00] it didn't shift so much when I got married because my partner and I are, were both, you know, work was really important to us, but we found our ways to, to navigate that. But then having a child really put everything into question to say, "Well, what is the mode of operating in the world?

 

And how much of my perfectionism and people pleasing was still the right thing, even if it may have come from a, the right place, right? And from a, from a values perspective, it's just, but that doesn't really serve me and the family unit well after becoming a parent." I, I think people underestimate the importance of doing this values assessment and evaluation through different milestones to just check, you know, are, are we still operating in coherence with what we say is important?

 

[00:29:50] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah, absolutely. I would advise anybody to do that, right? Just that because maybe you did this once five, 10 years ago, [00:30:00] let's dust that off again and see where

 

[00:30:02] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:30:02] **Cindy Payne:** at and see what's coming up for you because if you're telling me that don't want to do something anymore, it's not serving you, but you have a lot of fear and letting that go, then there's I'm not saying always, but most of the time with that resistance, there's a wound there and there's a story about that wound.

 

And so getting curious and even just getting our bodies into a place where we can be curious, because

 

[00:30:31] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:30:31] **Cindy Payne:** let's be honest, if my nervous system's activated all the time and I'm constantly fight, flight, freeze, fawn, I cannot be curious.

 

[00:30:40] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:30:41] **Cindy Payne:** to be curious and feel unsafe at the same time.

 

[00:30:44] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah. That makes sense because you're just, yeah, you're just not resourced enough to, to be open and to be curious because you're, you're, you're fighting something. You're constantly in, in battle battle mode, right? And in, in surviving.

 

 

 

 

## [00:30:57] How we relate to the work environment?

 

[00:30:57] **Karina Schneider:** What other experiences are you [00:31:00] noticing among these high achieving women, particularly as to how they relate to the work environment?

 

So apart from their own behaviors, apart from, you know, noticing their own patterns, what other factors in the environment should we be paying attention to that might play into our experiences?

 

[00:31:18] **Cindy Payne:** Sure. Yeah. As, in terms of, working, is that what

 

[00:31:22] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:31:23] **Cindy Payne:** like, like in

 

[00:31:23] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:31:24] **Cindy Payne:** just the climate and the culture of the

 

[00:31:27] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah. And, and the reason why I ask the question is, I, I think particularly in, in burnout, there's always this debate of, is it the person's responsibility or is it the workplace, the workplace responsibility to manage kind of emotional wellbeing and stress and things like that? And I have the perspective that it's always an interaction,

 

[00:31:52] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:31:53] **Karina Schneider:** between both.

 

Like you can't just isolate that it's one or the other. It's the, it's the outcome of the interactions [00:32:00] between what you bring to the table and what your environment brings to the table too. what's been your experience around that? And, and when it comes to the environment, what should be, people be paying attention to that could be supportive or not supportive through all of this?.

 

[00:32:14] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah. Yeah. the first thing that came to my mind, so I'm a former educator and I work with a lot of educators. they come to me because they are just being asked to, expand their skillset and their ability to handle all the demands and education while also managing 20 plus, young brains, which my hat is off to educators in this day and age.

 

I've been out of the

 

[00:32:39] **Karina Schneider:** For sure..

 

[00:32:39] **Cindy Payne:** for about, 15 years, but I do remember what that felt like. And, we always talk about the importance of the culture and the climate and that, is there, a culture of curiosity? I'm gonna go back to curiosity again, So if you're feeling like the demands of the workload are increasing and you can't quite keep up, [00:33:00] is that a you problem or maybe is that a cultural

 

[00:33:05] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:33:05] **Cindy Payne:** a workplace climate problem?

 

And that can be very scary and intimidating for people just to feel like, yeah, the demands that my school or my boss are placing on me,I can't use my voice. I can't speak up. And so we will begin to explore our options there. Is there

 

a

 

a place.

 

that, work environment where you can get some, peer-to-peer support so that you don't feel as alone?

 

Because again, this can be a threat to our sense of belonging and our safety again, So if there's not, we sometimes have to reevaluate the fit, and I'm certainly not encouraging to people to go quit their jobs, anytime soon, but let's really kind of see if we can, move to a place of choice as much as we possibly can.

 

And I mean that like in this, in the smallest sense sometimes, because when we're feeling threatened and burned out and like [00:34:00] we do not have choice, we're gonna respond from that, again, heightened sense. So how can we get you back in choice in your workplace environment little by little to where you can start to feel some expansion there?

 

[00:34:15] **Karina Schneider:** So that's one big factor I would ask my clients to really consider. and if they struggle with that, then we can take it even more micro. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. I think what I often observe as well is when they're at their most vulnerable, these high achieving employees or professionals in general, when at their worst often feel like I don't have a choice in any of this that's happening to me. and I think particularly for burnout, it's hard to spot it early.

 

So usually people realize, okay, this is a problem when we're kind of more past stages past, you know, quick interventions to fix things. and I think that's often with stress where we kind of push ourselves and we keep going and we're overf- you know, [00:35:00] we're we're very much in our heads. We, you know, rationalize everything, we keep functioning, we don't pay attention to our bodies, and that leads us to noticing things kind of a little bit late.

 

And at that point, we just feel victim to our circumstances and saying, "I, I don't have a choice in this. I don't have control." And I think particularly for return to work, I think that's a, coming back out of absence, whether it's, you know, burnout related or mental health related, it's how do you start to build those choices again earlier, in the return to work and in the recovery process to avoid, again, going back to the system just doesn't work for me.

 

[00:35:38] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:35:38] **Karina Schneider:** While I know at the same time, the environment also needs to be paying attention to what the people are experiencing at work and not take it for granted that just because only one person in the team is burning out and the rest aren't, then it's a person problem and not a system problem. I think that's the debate and that's the conversation that I wish would happen more often, in, in the workplace..

 

[00:35:59] **Cindy Payne:** sure. [00:36:00] Also, too, something that you were speaking about with burnout, we know that there is a high correlation between people that experience burnout and people that, again, some people call it people pleasing, but even more extreme, the fawn response,

 

[00:36:13] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:36:13] **Cindy Payne:** I'm going to and ignore the signals that are coming up in my body that are telling me that this is not okay, that this doesn't feel good.

 

And if you tell a client, just set a boundary." That is always, I think I, I have a little bit of problem with that because said than done, right? It's really intimidating and scary for a lot of people to be able to even find the language to communicate this. And so we'll

 

And so we'll do a lot of,

 

know,

 

you know,

 

again,

 

again, micro practices,

 

play,

 

play, starting.

 

really small.

 

What are some small wins that we can start to get under our belt so that we can begin to build that muscle up? Because it's not that you lack the ability, it's just that you don't have the practice, you don't have the language and it can be very intimidating and [00:37:00] scary.

 

[00:37:01] **Karina Schneider:** I, I can totally see that, and I can think of so many people in my head right now who are like, yeah, it can be very difficult to notice and to, and to take that time. And I think because we tend to operate with function, function, function, get through this,

 

I find that it's really hard to acknowledge that we also need help and we need to slow down because it goes counter to, I'll speak to my, my, just I'll speak for myself.

 

It feels counter to, I have to be productive, I have to keep getting things done, I have to keep showing up, I have to always do my best job. Like it feels counter to all of that.

 

[00:37:36] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

 

## [00:37:36] How do you build acceptance and awareness?

 

[00:37:36] **Karina Schneider:** So how do you help people like me just recognize like, hey, this is not a bad thing, this is not a fault, this is not a weakness, but just to recognize that, hey, we also should be allowing ourselves to, to slow down, to

 

[00:37:51] **Cindy Payne:** notice if this is working for us or not.

 

[00:37:53] **Karina Schneider:** I mean, you've mentioned some of these micro practices, but I, I find that sometimes even before engaging with a practice is [00:38:00] this acceptance and this awareness. So how do you help build that acceptance and awareness?.

 

[00:38:06] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah. Yeah. No, you're hitting it, right on the head there with the acceptance. You said the word acceptance and I was thinking about,like I, I work with a lot of clients in recovery spaces too, and we talk about the acceptance, the serenity prayer, to accept the things that I can't change and have the wisdom to know the difference.

 

And so when we start really small with acceptance, it's okay, what is out there that is in my environment that I just have zero control over right now anyway?

 

I don't know who said this quote, but like

 

[00:38:38] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

a small quiet room, Mm..

 

[00:38:40] **Cindy Payne:** I might have to look at some of the things that I cannot change in this moment. So maybe I don't have the option to look at a different route or a path, but I can work within the limits of what I have and I teach a self-compassion practice and, sometimes I'll get the eye rolls at first with "Oh, here comes the [00:39:00] self-compassion again.

 

Just be nice to myself." And it's so much deeper than that. there's a wonderful author, her name is Kristen Neff, N-E-F-F. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and she did a whole movement dissertation on self-compassion work. And there's common humanity in it, there's skills that we can build with this because really compassion literally means to suffer with.

 

Yeah..

 

know, it's learning how to sit with ourselves in this pain that we're experiencing and not be our own worst critic. And again, we've got to start really small with this. So noticing that part of ourselves that wants to show up and criticize and really understanding that's a protective part. It's not trying to hurt us or

 

Yeah..

 

mean, but it's trying to protect some vulnerability and this was vulnerability again that was maybe shown [00:40:00] earlier on in, in life that was not, welcomed or perhaps it was shut down. So can we begin to view that as just this part that really is just trying to be proactive? It's just

 

Yeah..

 

ahead of the game. we can break that down into bite-sized pieces and learn how to work with this and speak to this in a way that is gentle,

 

Yeah..

 

to soften that layer of that hardened, rigid, "Nope, I messed it up. Got it. I

 

[00:40:27] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

do this, Yeah..

 

[00:40:29] **Cindy Payne:** would start there.

 

[00:40:31] **Karina Schneider:** I've, I've benefited so much from just learning more about self-compassion, and yes, I second your recommendation on Kristin Neff's, work. I also found that the kinder and more compassionate I am to myself, the better I also show up towards others.

 

[00:40:46] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:40:46] **Karina Schneider:** so it's just, it's just a plug, just a side benefit out there for humanity.

 

You know, it's contagious. So it's just like, you know, like, it's just a little cherry on top there, a lot of what we talk about is the work we do our, with [00:41:00] ourselves,

 

[00:41:00] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:41:01] **Karina Schneider:** more and more that the, the more work we do with ourselves, the better people we become also towards our partners and our families and our colleagues and to strangers and just to the wider, environment and, and I somehow, I don't know why this is not covered in curriculum in schools, right?

 

I mean, I, I don't know how many episodes I've done where I'm like, why didn't we learn this in school? 'Cause these are just such important life skills, right, to, to move through the world.

 

[00:41:26] **Cindy Payne:** Yes, absolutely. I'm all for that change, that shift.

 

[00:41:30] **Karina Schneider:** And I, I think we will get there. I mean, you, I, I do see how, you know, even with my, my son's seven, and there are some things that they learn in school that's very subtle, but you're like, "Hmm, I wonder you know, like, what's driving this? " Like, it's, it's, it's shifting as well. So I think there is hopefully hope for, for the future here.

 

[00:41:51] **Cindy Payne:** yes. I agree with that. The social emotional component and how we're really ... We're trying. We're trying

 

[00:41:57] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:41:57] **Cindy Payne:** it more in, in education, [00:42:00] but

 

Yeah. we have a ways to go, but it's there.

 

[00:42:02] **Karina Schneider:** yeah, we have a ways to go but, you know, a step at a time.

 

 

 

 

## [00:42:04] Trauma Informed

 

[00:42:05] **Karina Schneider:** speaking of embedding things in, in our environments, what's your view on the phrase trauma informed, being attached to things like being a trauma informed leader or being a trauma informed workplace? I, this is, again, like, it ties a bit back to the normalization and the, the commonplace conversations, but I sometimes found myself struck with how much this phrase has been attached to even trauma-informed coaching and trauma-informed programs that where, help us understand what we should be inferring when we see words like trauma attached to other kind of everyday development activities that we are exposed to, particularly in the workplace..

 

[00:42:54] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah. I ... So this is interesting because I'm seeing it a lot more, now. [00:43:00] I'm seeing it popping up in yoga studios and work environments and conversations and coaches and therapists. And me, it just, it speaks to the fact that I think to be human is to experience trauma. And I think some of us have experienced more than others. some of us have more complex trauma with things like relationships, but to be human is to witness and experience pain how that pain can metastasize in the body if we're not, aware and we're not careful. And so I'm grateful that we're starting to hear more of that language around trauma informed.

 

And yet also, if I'm being totally transparent, I'm not sure that always understand in the workplace what that means, you

 

[00:43:56] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:43:57] **Cindy Payne:** and can we ... So we can talk the talk, [00:44:00] but can we walk the walk? So I would

 

[00:44:01] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah. And

 

[00:44:03] **Cindy Payne:** what comes with trauma, with saying that you're trauma informed,

 

[00:44:08] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:44:08] **Cindy Payne:** are you going to give me some more education around that?

 

[00:44:12] **Karina Schneider:** Are you going to now build in a little extra time between, deadlines because maybe you're being respectful that I'm coming out of something that's traumatic? Yeah. Yeah.

 

[00:44:24] **Cindy Payne:** if that answers the question, but it's just it it's

 

[00:44:26] **Karina Schneider:** It does.

 

for pause, Yeah. And, and, and I just appreciate you also just sharing your perspective because you're, you work in this space, so it matters to me kind of what people like you think about it. I work in human resources in the, in that field in general, and so I'm always extra careful about what expectations we set out and language plays a significant role in the culture you create and the practices that you set up.

 

But also, what we tell ... If, if I use leadership as a theme, what [00:45:00] expectations are we putting on people who are leaders who never signed up for feeling like they are responsible for understanding trauma and understanding mental health and taking care of that for their employees too? so I, I, I appreciate your point of view and I also als- I, I would also just ask more questions and get curious, like, what does it really mean when you attach the phrase to any other terminology you can think of?

 

And as a practicing coach too, like, sure, I may ha- I may have a basic understanding of mental health that allows me to engage in conversations around burnout and things like that, but I, I cannot claim trauma informed in any of that until I've kind of done more education around it and, you know, be practicing it with integrity, right?

 

So I, I think ... Yeah, that ... I'm just rambling my thoughts around it, but it's helpful to hear you share your perspective around it too..

 

[00:45:55] **Cindy Payne:** I appreciate you saying that because again, I think all too often we can put [00:46:00] labels on things because it sounds really good but really what is our level of understanding of it? And curiosity piece is so crucial that what does it actually mean to be able to stay curious around trauma informed, because all too often we've, we're in environments with people that we say we're being curious, but then we're really just waiting to speak.

 

[00:46:24] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah. Yes.

 

[00:46:26] **Cindy Payne:** We're waiting

 

[00:46:27] **Karina Schneider:** Right.

 

[00:46:27] **Cindy Payne:** our next thought rather than just really deeply listening with

 

[00:46:32] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah.

 

[00:46:33] **Cindy Payne:** that we want to be understood with.

 

 

## [00:46:36] Advice for being Crisis Fit Ready

 

[00:46:36] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah. That's really, really good advice to be, leaving us with. And I, I know we've jumped around a, a couple of different themes here, and I know we can go on forever talking about this.

 

[00:46:46] **Cindy Payne:** has been great.

 

[00:46:47] **Karina Schneider:** it's been great. But a- as we're winding down, we might have people listening to us who have gone through extremely stressful times, and whether it's born out [00:47:00] of trauma or not, that's for them to discover.

 

[00:47:04] **Cindy Payne:** Yes.

 

[00:47:04] **Karina Schneider:** they've abruptly called off sick from work. They're suddenly feeling like, you know, the rug has been pulled under their feet, and a lot of what they've attached their identities to is suddenly not present in their everyday life as they're going through recovery.

 

What advice or what, yeah, what perspective can you offer as they're figuring out recovery time,

 

[00:47:29] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah.

 

[00:47:29] **Karina Schneider:** as they're listening to this episode is hopefully a companion, a helpful companion to that.

 

[00:47:34] **Cindy Payne:** You know, I think so much of what you're speaking about,and not to use dramatic language, but, I, the first word that came in my mind was, was crisis, that if I've had something that's burned me out to the point where I'm like, "I cannot work in this environment anymore, or I need a big life shift, because I'm not well, I've had to really tend to what feels, [00:48:00] guess, maybe most extreme in the moment." To me, that, that sounds like a crisis situation, but I also wanna point out crisis a lot of negative connotations to it, but crisis actually means to sift. And if we can look at crisis as a time where we're just sifting through what's not working for me and letting all of that kind of fall away, then we're left with what really matters to us, but we still need a support system.

 

And so I always, you know, like to talk to my clients who are in the middle of life transitions as framing it as being crisis fit ready. being crisis fit ready means that all the extraneous stuff that's getting in our way and, all the details that don't really matter, they have to fall away and we're left with these pillars.

 

And so I talk with my clients a lot about, you have four main things and that is, like your diet, so getting you know, fed, so [00:49:00] nutrition, rest. I'm not talking about REM sleep, although that's lovely if you can get

 

[00:49:05] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah,

 

[00:49:05] **Cindy Payne:** I'm talking

 

[00:49:06] **Karina Schneider:** right.

 

[00:49:07] **Cindy Payne:** rest,

 

[00:49:07] **Karina Schneider:** Restorative rest, yes. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[00:49:10] **Cindy Payne:** yeah. Oh, that's a whole other episode, right?

 

[00:49:13] **Karina Schneider:** Right..

 

[00:49:14] **Cindy Payne:** and connection with other people, so some kind of community, that would be like my third pillar. So nutrition, rest, community,

 

and movement,

 

[00:49:27] **Karina Schneider:**

 

[00:49:27] **Cindy Payne:** And again, I'm not talking about vigorous exercise or anything like that. I'm just talking about those pillars that can sustain us when we're in the middle of the transition period

 

[00:49:37] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:49:37] **Cindy Payne:** really helping our clients understand that we're not trying to perfect this transition right now.

 

We're just trying to sift and get to a place where we feel anchored and grounded. So

 

[00:49:48] **Karina Schneider:** Yeah..

 

[00:49:49] **Cindy Payne:** those are some things that, that people can think on if they're in this, kind of transition stage, [00:50:00] movement, yes.

 

[00:50:02] **Karina Schneider:** so important, and I think you're nailing a really important point that crisis helps us really focus on what's really important, and it can be incredibly clarifying if we allow ourselves the time to do the work and to stay curious and open to what this crisis might be trying to teach us, at that period of life that we're in.

 

So I really, really like that perspective, and I, I think it's gonna change personally for me, like, how I view certain situations to say,

 

[00:50:33] **Cindy Payne:** Yeah.

 

[00:50:34] **Karina Schneider:** "Okay, what's the clarity that I can get out of this? And what's the noise that can kind of fall away?"

 

[00:50:39] **Cindy Payne:** Sure.

 

[00:50:41] **Karina Schneider:** and I know a lot of people who've gone through burnout, when they go through their recovery and they're well-supported, they really come out of it with such clarity about how they wanna move through the world and what's important to them and what they let in and what they don't.

 

So I think you're, you're really capturing that experience [00:51:00] really, effectively, so thank you for that. Really helpful.

 

 

## [00:51:04] Wrap-up and where to find Cindy Payne

 

 

 

[00:51:04] **Karina Schneider:** where can people learn more about, you and your work, Cindy?.

 

[00:51:08] **Cindy Payne:** you can find me at cindypayne.com. That's P-A-Y-N-E. And there's information about my therapy practice, so I'm currently based in Texas. I'll be expanding to California here shortly as well, so I'll be licensed in both of those states. and I also have a podcast called Reclaiming Me, which just dives into more of the complex trauma, and how to heal and reclaim yourself through that.

 

[00:51:36] **Karina Schneider:** Thank you, Cindy. I do recommend your podcast. I've listened to a couple of your episodes, and I find them really, very insightful, very thought provoking, and all the best with your expansion to, to California.

 

[00:51:47] **Cindy Payne:** Thanks so much. This has been lovely. I can't wait to have you on soon,

 

[00:51:52] **Karina Schneider:** you.

 

[00:51:56] **Cindy Payne:** ... [00:52:00] Yeah.

 

[00:52:06] **Karina Schneider:** talked it through and answered the questions and just engaged with, with this conversation just helps people like me just understand life a little bit better and understand what it means to be human and how to think about difficult or challenging life transitions in a way that's, helpful and, and constructive for us instead of kind of falling into panic mode and getting to think about how do I get this perfectly and how do I get this right along the way?

 

I, I think it's, it's so easy to fall into that pattern. So thank you for spending the time and for the generosity that you've brought to the show today.