Health Coach Self-Care, Burnout Prevention, Stress Management: How to Stay Grounded While Building Your Coaching Career featuring Gretchen Larsen

Megan J. McCrory:00:00:00

Hey Danna, how you doing today?

Danna:00:00:03

I am good, Megan, how are you doing?

Megan J. McCrory:00:00:05

Um, am also, well, my hip's bothering me a little bit, but that's just 'cause I'm old now.

Danna:00:00:11

My lower back almost gave out, so yay to be old together.

Megan J. McCrory:00:00:15

Danna, we have talked a lot about like mental health, depression, burnout, two topics, you know, very well. and we've touched a little bit on physical symptoms when it comes to mental health, just my hip and your bad back, but, hair falling out.

Danna:00:00:34

the fun one.

Megan J. McCrory:00:00:36

exactly. And I think what we have not really honed in on, but I think we've alluded to it, is it's all connected, right?

Megan J. McCrory:00:00:43

I mean, the fact that, uh, our mental and emotional wellbeing is connected to our physical health and physical symptoms and we can't really disconnect what's going on in our brain from what's going on in our body Right now there's shit ton of bad stuff going on in the world today.

Danna:00:01:00

Too much.

Megan J. McCrory:00:01:01

Yeah,

Danna:00:01:02

Yep.

## Doomscrolling And Boundaries

Megan J. McCrory:00:01:02

the news. We see it on the internet. It's negative, blah blah. Like for you, you've like totally said fuck off to social media and

Danna:00:01:11

Yeah,

Megan J. McCrory:00:01:12

Exactly.

Danna:00:01:12

can't handle it. I can't handle it. I feel sick to my stomach after, not to my stomach, to my soul I go on and I see either. You know, people who I love speaking exact opposite of what I know and believe to be true or, everything just kind of like shakes me to the core by now.

Danna:00:01:31

So I'm, I, yeah, I quit on everything. I, literally, everything I am behind YouTube and just watching stupid little videos, and that's all I will do.

Megan J. McCrory:00:01:46

Unless I drag you onto something like Substack and you go kicking and screaming, but it's still

Danna:00:01:51

I know. I know it's, it's rough, but Yes.

Megan J. McCrory:00:01:55

I, I also, I wouldn't say I'm off social media, but I definitely choose actively not to look at news.

Danna:00:02:02

Mm.

Megan J. McCrory:00:02:02

bad happens in the world and I'm like, oh, I didn't even know because I'm not, I'm not watching the news because if I watch too much news, then I start to get concerned. so in this episode, we're talking today with Gretchen Larson about how we can actually take care of our mental wellbeing while we're living through these kind of turbulent times.

Megan J. McCrory:00:02:24

I, I think every generation feels like there's a tur. It's turbulent times. 'cause I think there's always bad shit going on in the world. So I think this is relevant for any time. I feel especially exactly, but especially right now, if things are just getting to a, a boil point, because, you know, we need to take care of ourselves and so

Megan J. McCrory:00:02:43

Hello Gretchen. Welcome to the show. Happy to have you here today.

Gretchen:00:02:46

Hi. Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

## Gretchen Spiral And Control

Megan J. McCrory:00:02:49

Gretchen, I know that you've also been thinking a lot about this today, about how when we're surrounded by so much of what's happening in the world and we can't control that, What have you noticed about how that affects what we can control in our lives? walk us through where you are what does this feel like for you?

Gretchen:00:03:12

I mean, I'd like to start with a little bit of a personal story. watching some of the activities in the news for over the last several weeks. Thank you, Danna, for what you said. My soul also hurts, and we all have to find a way. That's right for us to navigate being aware of what's happening in the world as well as shielding ourselves.

Gretchen:00:03:32

Because there's a lot that I think you guys have probably talked about, nervous system regulation in your podcast. I'm not gonna go into that, but there's a lot that's gonna trigger that. Um, my own story in watching some of the recent, deaths online and some of the video footage of. Renee Goode, set off for me sort of a spiral downward, right?

Gretchen:00:03:53

And I had my own like, really intense reaction to a lot of the news that was coming out about that, and then watching some of the things that were being posted on social media. And in the midst of that, for me, there's, you know, the things we can't control in the world, right? We don't control, the politics of the United States or Europe or other places.

Gretchen:00:04:15

And then there's our own sort of circle of control. But for me, in the days following, watching these things online, I found that, my sense of helplessness in, I can't control the world tipped over even into my own sense of control. I questioned myself, I questioned my own, .

Gretchen:00:04:35

Productivity, I questioned, my career choices, right? My recent one to become a coach and to help people. And I struggled for several days to just, really get back into what can I do and how can I show up? I dunno if some of your listeners are having some of these same problems, if you're seeing or hearing about it.

Megan J. McCrory:00:04:57

Yeah.

Danna:00:04:57

mean, I'm sure that they do. I think no matter by now, sadly, no matter where you're from and, where you live, you're affected by these things. it's because of social media and the exposure to that or, you know, just it. Happening everywhere, all at once, what it seems to be. but I, I can totally relate to what you're saying because I feel like a lot of the, funny enough, when, when I went through my burnout, a lot of the things that I felt were problematic loss of control.

Danna:00:05:34

And I think that feeling of. Helplessness, when you're kind of growing up going like, well I'm, I'm basically, you know, navigating left and the car is taking a left or vice versa. and then all of a sudden everything kind of crashes around you and you're like. Who is pulling the strings on this and where, how can I call him? that is basically where it takes you. so yeah, I don't even have a question in that. I just wanted to, to say that I, I very much relate to that feeling.

Gretchen:00:06:04

And I think it's hard when we're in our own circle of control, right? Feeling helplessness still.

## Small Actions To Cope

Gretchen:00:06:10

one of the things I did when I was in that container was I started to think about even the smallest thing that I could do. Right? Like Danna, you talked about, one of your responses was to turn off social media, and that's an action we can take and that can then feel like, oh, I've done something that's helpful, at least for myself,

Megan J. McCrory:00:06:30

Mm-hmm.

Danna:00:06:30

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:06:31

right?

Gretchen:00:06:31

We may want to have, a greater impact. We may want to be able to jump out there and, you know. Whether it's to protest or to call, our representatives, I'll be honest, that's one of the first things I did that first weekend was I realized even if I'm just one voice in thousands and thousands on a voicemail or an email, I felt like I did one small thing and it was an action I could take, and it is in my circle of control.

Gretchen:00:06:59

And that's a way to put myself and my view forward.

Megan J. McCrory:00:07:01

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:07:02

Right. So I think we all are gonna have different responses to this, but we're also all gonna have different actions that feel right for us to take.

Megan J. McCrory:00:07:12

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:07:13

And I think as we're taking those actions, one of the things I would invite people to do is to not, if you find yourself thinking globally, like I have to get on a plane and go to Minneapolis and I have to be in the streets, which I'll be honest, for myself, I felt some of that pull, How can we come back from. This sort of big thing and can we make it smaller? So one is to notice when we're outside of our own ability to control, when we're in the things we can't control, stepping back into things we can control. But once you are in what you can control, sometimes that even becomes unwieldy.

Gretchen:00:07:49

So can we make it in smaller bits?

Megan J. McCrory:00:07:52

So maybe Gretchen you can talk a little bit more about this. 'cause I am coming from the perspective of, I don't think I feel the feelings as deeply as other people do. And I'm okay with that. And maybe, maybe it's a self-preservation mechanism. Maybe it's just the way my brain works. I don't know. But I know that, I rarely feel out of control. Like somehow my life is being puppeted by somebody else. I feel like I'm kind of , separated myself from the world. And I'm a bubble within a bubble. uh, don't know where I'm gonna go with this question.

Megan J. McCrory:00:08:30

I guess the part was when you were explaining how you can do this, like bit by bit,

Megan J. McCrory:00:08:35

what example would you have for how to do that?

Gretchen:00:08:39

Before I answer your question, I don't mean to be obtuse at all. I wanna address that. Yes, everyone is gonna feel differently, right? I felt in the wake of events, very helpless. That was one of my predominant feelings that I had. And I had a lot of feelings. And there's other people that maybe. Either because they're not watching as much or they're already shielding themselves from news and social media and they've gotten a really good balance in how do they get information that doesn't trigger their nervous system and really upset them and you know, go straight to their soul.

Gretchen:00:09:13

Or other people, their emotional and mental makeup didn't take them all the way to helplessness. Right? So I wanna recognize we're on a spectrum of people. I tend towards high sensitivity So this might explain some of my higher sensitivity to emotional triggering events.

Gretchen:00:09:30

So we are in different spaces, right? So if you're still feeling hopeful and. Helpful. Like you can do things when you're in your, when you come back to your locus of control, then that's good. Stay there. Do the things, behave operationally the way you normally do. If you went darker where I went, I went to a place where I just felt like I can't do anything that's helpful, or even what I do do doesn't really have any worth at all.

Gretchen:00:10:01

You know, I had all these negative self-talk things going on in my head. some of the stories were like, you're just a coach. You just help people feel better. What good is that when people are being shot in the street?

Gretchen:00:10:12

I just help people with how they manage their time. It's, it suddenly didn't seem as important.

Gretchen:00:10:18

And now, you know, now that I'm sort of back in myself, I recognize it is. But now I will answer your question. One of the things I did the afternoon that I was really triggered by all of this was, I made curry, and it sounds really crazy, but like, I love to cook and when you make a curry, you have to mix a lot of different ingredients and herbs.

Gretchen:00:10:40

So there's a lot of different, you know, chopping and sauteing and mixing and tasting and adjusting that goes on. Right. And that took me some time. So my focus could drop out of. The world events

Megan J. McCrory:00:10:55

Okay.

Gretchen:00:10:56

and I could be in a thing where I actually felt like this is helpful. I'm feeding my family.

Megan J. McCrory:00:11:02

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:11:02

do this.

Gretchen:00:11:03

And while I was chopping, admittedly, I thought, one thing that feels like it would be worthy of the times is to show up and start a soup kitchen. I'm not gonna start a soup kitchen, right? I'm a coach. I love coaching, I love supporting people in this space. But for an afternoon, just thinking about, well, I could go do that.

Gretchen:00:11:21

I could cook food for people.

Gretchen:00:11:23

Help me f feel again that I could do something useful.

Megan J. McCrory:00:11:28

Yeah, it's about shifting your perspective on what you can control and going, okay, I can't control what people are doing in the streets in Minneapolis, but I can control the fact that my family is going to have a nourishing meal, which will help them, and being okay with the F, you know, like being like

Gretchen:00:11:50

Yeah.

Megan J. McCrory:00:11:50

to be okay because that's what I can do.

Megan J. McCrory:00:11:53

I feel like there's a strong correlation, Danna, you already mentioned it to burnout because I feel like that was exactly the same thing. You're like, do one thing today and it's make a food, or I can just lay in my bed all day because I can't do anything else.

Gretchen:00:12:06

Yeah.

Danna:00:12:07

Your battery is just so consumed with news or with, whatever is coming at you that you just can't do anything else. But when you do do that one thing, as you say, that is uplifting. I feel like it's really funny. I don't know if you yourself have any, experience with depression, but it sounds like you're. explaining depression in a very, kind of like, this is what happens. Like, you went through depression, like a lifetime of depression in like a week. I don't know, is what it feels like to me. It is those stages. It is the stages of the, the grief that you can't do anything.

Danna:00:12:42

And whether it's for yourself or for your surrounding, it doesn't even matter. And then the, the helplessness and then all of a sudden going like, well, I'll just do that one thing. And then that one thing is uplifting because you're doing and you're active and you're being helpful and you're taking care of, right.

Danna:00:13:01

So. All of these things just make it feel like, okay, okay, I can do this. Like this life shit, I got it down.

Gretchen:00:13:09

Thank you for drawing those parallels because that's, you know, I think we all. Different people are fighting depression also as another part of this,

Gretchen:00:13:18

depression, burnout. Some of these things will be very, very similar.

Gretchen:00:13:22

so coming back to this idea of, control, I think, you know, like in burnout Exactly.

Gretchen:00:13:29

If we can't think of big things to do, make them smaller. If we can't think of a list of things to do, can we pick one?

Megan J. McCrory:00:13:37

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:13:37

Right? Even one thing, like you were saying, Danna is really valid and it gives you a sense of having achieved something. Right. And also it steps you back into I can

Megan J. McCrory:00:13:52

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:13:52

instead of, or it is a value instead of keeping you in a space where nothing matters and there is no hope,

Megan J. McCrory:00:13:59

Right.

Gretchen:00:14:00

So I took some small actions. I started reading some books that were helpful to me. I made some calls and wrote some emails to my representatives that. Helped me feel like I did something moving in the right direction. But I think the overwhelming feeling I was having at the end of that, once I was sitting back more in what I could control and what I could do, um, still not really in touch with my hope and hopefulness.

Gretchen:00:14:26

and also realizing, I think all of us have to. I dunno how to describe this. Come back to ourselves

Danna:00:14:35

Mm.

Megan J. McCrory:00:14:35

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:14:36

right out of the unit of group or team or movement into self.

Danna:00:14:41

## Hit Bottom Find Support

## AD SPACE

Danna:00:14:42

so Gretchen, there is a difference between knowing what we should do and actually being able to do it especially when we're coaches ourselves, What happened to you when you actually hit that wall? was your action?

Gretchen:00:14:55

So, I have to say, what you just mentioned was very much behind a lot of negative self-talk I had to myself. I continue to spin out a bit and. The voices in my head were, or the, the stories I was telling myself were essentially, you're a coach. you should be better than this. You shouldn't feel bad.

Gretchen:00:15:16

I also had a whole layer of you're not there, it's not happening to you. You're not an immigrant, you're not even in America. You're sitting in France. you're somehow not allowed to be this upset, and if you are this upset, you should know what to do. You should just be able to bounce back.

Gretchen:00:15:32

And I realize I'm using this, you know, idea of we're coaches and we sh we know what to do, but we're struggling to use the tools. I was using this against me, it wasn't helping me because I felt like it was keeping me from actually feeling my feelings and actually falling all the way down.

Megan J. McCrory:00:15:53

you weren't allowing yourself to actually just go there to be like, really at the bottom of the barrel. I.

Gretchen:00:15:59

Yeah, it was a bit like spiritual bypass. People talk about using meditation and mindfulness to just skip over the feelings, not actually hold yourself in a healthy, loving way while you're experiencing the feelings. Right? So what I did is, you know, I, I kept several, I do connection calls every week with colleagues and friends who are other coaches, people I went to coaching school with, and, we.

Gretchen:00:16:24

Share all kinds of stories and struggles we have in our businesses and in our lives. It's a really great, set of women that I know. And on one of these calls, I was with two friends and they asked me how I was doing. And for the first time all week, it had been like three or four days that I was like, I'm a coach, I'm fine.

Gretchen:00:16:40

I've got this, I've got this. This is what I wanted to portray to people. But inside I was feeling like shit, like my soul was hurting and I didn't know what to do. And there. I lost touch with my purpose, and I just told people, I said, I'm actually doing really, really badly. and I then went to the feelings.

Gretchen:00:16:57

I was like, I feel like I'm not even allowed to feel this way.

Megan J. McCrory:00:17:00

Hmm.

Gretchen:00:17:00

I feel like I'm, I should know better. I should be able to use these tools better than everyone else. And why is this happening and why do I feel so, so bad? And honestly, these coach friends. They just, you know, like good coaches held space for me, shared their own stories.

Gretchen:00:17:20

I heard from all of them, actually there were three of us on the call. All of them were struggling with their feelings of hopelessness. They had all lost sense of hope, and one of them is a long time activist and she was like, I've never lost hope before. And I haven't felt hope for the last day.

Megan J. McCrory:00:17:38

yeah.

Gretchen:00:17:39

we just, we went through that feeling together and we cried and we were mad and we allowed our anger to come forward.

Gretchen:00:17:47

And, I think there's a couple very key things that I want to talk about here that I don't wanna lose, right? One was that I allowed and finally stepped into my feelings, right? So I was with my feelings instead of pretending I wasn't having my feelings. The second is I did it with other people.

Megan J. McCrory:00:18:06

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:18:06

it in connection.

Gretchen:00:18:07

I didn't do it alone. You can do this alone. And if You have mindfulness tools or meditation tools, there's other tools. People use prayer also, to do it by yourself. You can create a container for yourself that's safe, but there's really a power, especially when things are dark like this, of having a close friend, a colleague, someone you really trust.

Gretchen:00:18:32

I think of Brene Brown in these moments, right? She talks about, you know, confiding in people with your vulnerability, but you don't call like your worst enemy. You don't call somebody who's gonna shoot you down or is even gonna give you critical advice like a mentor even you. For these conversations, you call someone who's on your side no matter what.

Gretchen:00:18:54

These are your champions. These are the people who cheerlead from you, from the side, even when you fall flat in your face, you know, and mess everything up. These are the people who help pick you up off the ground. These are the people you want to connect or do this with. Alternates to, that would be a really good therapist or you know, a priest or spiritual advisor, right?

Gretchen:00:19:14

There's people who are trained in holding a container and accepting you where you are with all of this feeling and confusion and hopelessness and keeping you safe.

Megan J. McCrory:00:19:26

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:19:26

can't do it for yourself, I really do encourage people to try to find ways to do it in connection with others.

Danna:00:19:34

Yeah. Find your cheerleading team.

Gretchen:00:19:37

Yeah,

Megan J. McCrory:00:19:37

it's interesting the allowing yourself to get to Bottom. I feel like that's, you know, it's kind of admitting to yourself that you have a problem. Right. You know, the whole,

Gretchen:00:19:50

Yeah.

Megan J. McCrory:00:19:51

anonymous, anonymous, you know, like, I have a problem. I need to accept that I have a problem. and then you basically went to your AA meeting your friends with coaches and got it all out. I mean, I think there's a lot of parallels with a lot of other things in the world that we

Gretchen:00:20:08

Absolutely.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:09

when it comes

Danna:00:20:09

A hundred percent.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:10

understanding our habits, understanding our desires, and our emotions and our addictions.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:18

I mean, somehow there's

Gretchen:00:20:20

Yeah.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:20

thread through all of those things.

Gretchen:00:20:22

I think even though we're coaches. and coming back to what you started with, right? Knowing the tools, remembering we're all human too. just 'cause we know how to use the tools. We are gonna always struggle with leveraging them.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:35

Right.

Gretchen:00:20:36

Our clients do. We do, everyone does.

Danna:00:20:40

Yeah.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:40

So Gretchen, Once you stopped yourself and resisting this, need to feel like you're perfect on the outside, you're a perfect coach and doing all these things perfectly.

Megan J. McCrory:00:20:52

And then you found that support, did you come out of that? Like, What were the things that you did next? Once you've got to the bottom, now you know you're at the bottom. You've acknowledged that. So where, where do we go from here to then actually function in the world when it's a shitstorm?

Gretchen:00:21:11

## Make Space Choose Response

Gretchen:00:21:11

there's a number of things we can do to help ourselves right in this space and come sort of bounce up off from the bottom, but also in some ways keeping the, bottom in view in a way. the first thing that I did once I realized I wasn't feeling my feelings, was to make some space.

Gretchen:00:21:30

For my feelings, right? We can jump right to, let's allow our feelings to come forth, but if we're not in a safe space to do that, It's harder to do it. So I think a step before just allowing our feelings and feeling our feelings is really making space and being thoughtful, especially now of when and how we do that.

Gretchen:00:21:52

Right? some people are comfortable doing this in a group, Continuing to talk to friends, close ones, these close advisor cheerleader people we have, um. Continuing to have our feelings and share our feelings with other people are good spaces, but I also think we can create alone space and time.

Gretchen:00:22:11

For this. So I'm a long time meditator. I take it to the cushion, right? I have a little meditation, quiet space in my house. It's filled with books and little plants that make me feel happy 'cause they're live living things. And it's just this beautiful space that I've created. I also have a meditation cushion there and meditate.

Gretchen:00:22:33

Almost daily, we're not doing perfection. Right? And, that space is one I feel very safe and, supported in, So for me it's a physical space. It creates a mental space for me. I guess by comparison, I would say, you know, you guys have talked a little bit about burnout, When you're at work, With a team of people, it might not be safe for you to have these feelings. It might be safe with certain groups of people over coffee to let some of it out. but you know, if these feelings are overwhelming for you, I think about friends of mine who suffered burnout or emotional stress when they're at work.

Gretchen:00:23:09

they were in the bathroom. Crying quietly. Like that was the only space they could find in the workplace that was acceptable for their feelings for that moment. So definitely make space, alone and with others that's safe and comforting

Megan J. McCrory:00:23:26

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:23:27

can let your feelings come out.

Megan J. McCrory:00:23:29

Can I, can I add on something there before you move on? Because I think that this is a.

Megan J. McCrory:00:23:34

that, people can use regardless of what kind of emotion that you're having. right now we're talking about the feeling of helplessness and despair, for example, the other Gretchen in my life, Gretchen Rubin, she, if I, if I'm not misquoting her, having. A time and a space to worry about something like, you know, worrying about X, Y, Z, right? And, and going, okay, going to allow myself two weeks and on this date, now I'm gonna start, then I'm gonna start thinking and worrying about it. And some people are like, I, I don't work like that. I don't work like that.

Megan J. McCrory:00:24:11

And I think. Like meditation, that is a skill which in, when it starts to come up into your brain that you're worrying about something, whether it's something you need to physically do that's in your control or worrying about something out of your control. I think there's also, a relaxation to the brain and the nervous system to allow yourself to say, I cannot and will not think about that. Topic right now I need to do this. And you can't do that forever, right? You can't keep pushing it out forever. But there is a coping mechanism. There is a way to, to, to do that. And I, Danna did talk about this, uh, I don't remember if we actually talked about on the episode, but like when Danna, when you were in the burnout clinic and you were feeling. So many feelings the time, and you just

Danna:00:25:04

Yeah,

Megan J. McCrory:00:25:05

break from feeling

Danna:00:25:06

yeah,

Gretchen:00:25:08

Right.

Danna:00:25:09

yeah.

Gretchen:00:25:10

true as well.

Danna:00:25:11

of

Gretchen:00:25:11

Yeah.

Danna:00:25:13

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:25:13

And I wanna, I wanna be,

Danna:00:25:14

there.

Gretchen:00:25:15

I wanna say too that, I'm not purporting that we just have our feelings everywhere, all the, the time or also that there's always a perfect container.

Megan J. McCrory:00:25:25

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:25:25

our feelings. Right. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying give yourself the reward I guess, of. Allowance, You're allowed and you deserve to have a space where it's safe for these feelings to emerge and for you to have them and for you to be with them.

Megan J. McCrory:00:25:45

Hmm.

Gretchen:00:25:46

And likewise, having some boundaries, right? Like Megan, you were talking about, it's a bit like a muscle. Setting some boundaries on it. I meditate for 10 or 15 minutes a day.

Gretchen:00:25:56

Generally, I can meditate a lot longer. I can meditate in shorter spans of time, but that's kind of a container that's not too long, right? Also, with your feelings, I'm not saying sit for the whole afternoon in this space and just sit feeling helpless or hopeless, but giving them a space. Place where they can emerge and it's okay for them to be there.

Gretchen:00:26:20

I also think there's a big parallel here for grief work. So I don't know if you've talked a lot about grief or grieving, but one of the, more recent sort of writings around grief is that. Grief kind of has these two layers to it. There's just the grief, there's the feeling of loss and the feelings of sadness around something being gone or missing or a person.

Gretchen:00:26:44

And then on top of that. There's all these stories and mental mindsets that we put on top of it. I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm supposed to be over it already. I have to be over it in a set amount of time. I have to do it faster. I have to make it look better, and all of these things actually don't serve the grief or the sadness.

Gretchen:00:27:05

They might cover it. We may not be able during the day to allow our grief out, but can we make space in the evening or when we're not at work or when it is safe to allow just the grief feeling to come forth as opposed to spending all of our time also with the stories that are actually only making it worse.

Megan J. McCrory:00:27:29

Yeah.

Gretchen:00:27:29

And this is some of the same journey I was on this past week. Can I let go of all the stories I was telling myself, I should know better, I should be able to use these tools. I don't really need to feel the feelings. They were keeping me from feeling the feelings.

Megan J. McCrory:00:27:42

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:27:42

But like with grief, if we just allow ourselves to feel the feelings. If you're a meditator, you know this really well. As soon as you allow the feelings, the feelings start to move and shift and change. They don't stay the same.

Megan J. McCrory:00:27:57

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:27:58

don't have the same power. They ebb and flow,

Megan J. McCrory:00:28:02

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:28:02

but they move. I don't know, Danna, if you have any experience with this in your burnout,

Danna:00:28:07

Yeah, so this totally reminds me of something that one of my therapists told me, she told me, don't try to avoid letting the feelings in in order to protect yourself, but rather. Invite them over for tea, sit down with them, have a conversation with them. Ask them what is bringing them to be, and then just lovingly send them back on their way. And I think that was such a breakthrough for me to. Really not try constantly to shield myself and feeling that heaviness like you feel a, a physical load on your shoulders, on your chest, on your heart, that because you're not letting those feelings through, and when you do, it's so scary.

Danna:00:28:53

And at the same time, it's like the easiest thing that you can do in a way, especially in those moments. yeah.

Gretchen:00:28:59

That's a wonderful way to describe it. And that's, yeah, that's what we're going for is something like that, right? We don't wanna dwell, we don't want to persist, right? We don't wanna resist, but we wanna have a space. So we are creating space and then we're feeling the feelings.

Gretchen:00:29:15

just take a moment to be with yourself, and I would invite you also to, you know, I'm gonna sound like a meditator here, but just take a few deep breaths and feel your breath in your body and notice where you are, that you're safe and thatyou're alive, And, breathe into yourself, and, and just notice yourself and your humanity. and just be, be with yourself. Whatever form you're in right now.

Gretchen:00:29:47

Another thing to add is that I recently, reread Viktor Frankl's work. You guys may have read his book, man's Search for Meaning, and his experience during the Holocaust, but.

Gretchen:00:30:01

It was great to reread it because it reminded me again that there's really only one thing that we as humans will always have control over. Always. It's the only one thing that we will and have, and that is how we respond to an event, to a stimuli, to a feeling. And so I encourage people to recognize. The choice that's in there.

Gretchen:00:30:30

And we might be in a situation where, we're very highly reactive, so we're just going immediately to response without taking that pause before it to decide how we wanna respond. But I really do now more than ever, wanna invite people into noticing that this is. The only thing we have as humans that is incontrovertible, and that is we have the choice of how to respond.

Gretchen:00:30:58

How do we want to use that? And how do we want to use that in a loving, powerful way in the world? And this again comes back to your question are there things we can say to people around their anger? You may have an opening to talk to people about response, like you always have a choice in how you respond to a situation and how you respond can either invite other people to join you, to do something good, to work together, or it can go in the other direction and shut things down, lead to hate and more anger.

Gretchen:00:31:33

More upsetness.

Megan J. McCrory:00:31:35

Mm-hmm.

Gretchen:00:31:35

always have this choice and I just really encourage people to use it.

Danna:00:31:39

love is always gonna be stronger than hate. We just need to not be shy and use it, use it as a weapon.

Gretchen:00:31:47

Yeah.

Danna:00:31:47

Beautiful. Thank you so much Gretchen. This was really great. and thank you for your openness and, and vulnerability to share your story.

Gretchen:00:31:54

Thanks very much for having me. It's been wonderful to be here.

Megan J. McCrory:00:31:57

And, to our listeners, we will put Gretchen's contact information in the show notes as always, along with links to the resources, that we mentioned. Gretchen mentioned a few books, so we'll make sure we have those in there as well. And, something special, Gretchen, as she's mentioned several times, is a meditator.

Megan J. McCrory:00:32:14

Gretchen does, have a 10 minute meditation, guided meditation that she's recorded, especially for so freaking healthy. And that is available now as a bonus episode that you can listen to right after you get done with this. So you can actually do that 10 minutes of breathing that Gretchen has just said. That would be very good for you to do in case you haven't done that yet. So, take care of yourself. And take care of your loved ones.

Megan J. McCrory:00:32:38

And, being healthy really starts with, thinking about all the things, not just what you eat and how you move, but also how you think.