From Burnout to Bliss: How Type-A Moms Can Find Joy and Presence Again with Rachael O’Meara
Are you always busy? Working nonstop? Are you sick of your to-do list? Are you ready to find happiness and fulfillment in unconventional paths? You are going to love hearing Rachel O'Meara teach you strategies for overcoming burnout and reconnecting with yourself.
“I think we are all parents to ourselves, and I think we all have to mother ourselves and in our lives as we show up in service to our doing.” - (3:57), Rachael
In this episode, executive leadership coach, author, and TEDx speaker Rachael O’Meara gives you tools and insights into how your life can change once you harness the power of deliberate pauses for personal growth. Listen as Rachael gives you the courage to move to the next phase of living that can be found when you take a deep breath, sit back … and pause. This is an effective self-care practice for you overachieving Type A moms.
“You don’t have to suffer, and you don’t need to go through the excruciating moments of victimhood.” – (15:21), Lauren
“If you can’t find the little things … your job is to pause and find them.” – (32:14), Rachael
You get to learn how to keep building emotional intelligence for resilience and success in this episode. It’s through overcoming your inner critic that you unleash your emotional intelligence for lasting happiness.
The Importance of Emotional Intelligence: "We have to train and teach ourselves how to want and to feel our aliveness that drives our wants and needs." – (34:26), Rachael
In this episode:
(4:40) – How to check in with yourself.
(5:07) – What to do when everything looks good on the outside.
(6:55) – Feeling like a failure.
(7:36) – Discovering the power of the pause.
(7:57) – How meditation and breathwork make a difference.
(8:28) – The value of re-filling your tank in order to serve others.
(9:30) – One of the biggest and best questions you can ask yourself.
(13:20) – How answers emerge for you.
(14:42) – You don’t have to live in a box.
(15:44) – Staying busy can be a badge, but a dangerous one.
(16:44) – The lesson of valuing your path.
(17:31) – Understanding what the pause looks like for you.
(18:35) – Fear and how to name it.
(23:20) – Pausing as an intentional act.
(26:00) – Emotional intelligence is the gateway.
(27:46) – Being lonely at the top.
(29:22) – Asking for help.
(31:22) – The law of little things.
(33:36) – Wishing is not acting What to do instead.
(34:41) – Teaching yourself what your wants are.
Resources and Links
52 Weeks of Hope
Rachael O’Meara
Free GIFT link: Rachael's 5-minute Breathwork Booster pause for high-achieving women to reclaim their life.
Learn more about Rachael O'Meara, including her books, Pausecast podcast, and coaching here: https://linktr.ee/rachael_omeara
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Rachael [00:00:00] If you're listening to this, my thought is there's probably something inside of you that's calling you to actually be more in alignment, right? As a mother, as a person who's into this inquiry of what that pause looks like for me? And it means it could potentially be nothing other than a different intentional way of being. In my opinion, it doesn't need to take time, it doesn't need to take money and it doesn't need to take resources. It's all about what works for you.
Lauren [00:00:27] Are you a burnt-out overachiever, buried in responsibilities? Do you miss laughing with your friends just laughing from the gut? Do you feel like life's passing you by? Welcome to 52 Weeks of Hope, where you get to rediscover laughing from the belly and get back your meaningful one-on-one time with others. This is where you get to learn how to make that lonely ache vanish and get rid of your nonstop inner critic. Learn self-compassion techniques. Give yourself grace. How to stop feeling short Fuzed light up again to see people. If you've been wishing for some kind of shift, you're in the right place. I'm Lauren Abrams, and I get to help you feel that magic again. Since going through my own dark night of the soul. So you can learn from my experience and the mentors and experts I meet along the way. And today we're talking to executive leadership, coach for Women, author and TEDx speaker, Rachel O'Meara. You're going to love this episode. I'm so excited to do this amazing series for burnt out overachieving type-A moms. Unlike other shows for overachieving, burnt-out moms only, we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching the to-do list for the to-don't list, you're in for a real treat hearing from someone who's here helping you stay motivated, productive and thriving being your authentic self. Learn how to take back your time, your vitality and your health. Take a deep breath, and learn to pause. You get to stop wearing that mask-like everything's okay right now. Welcome to 52 weeks of Hope Rachel.
Rachael [00:01:55] Hi, Lauren. Hello, it's so good to be here, I was just giggling as I as you were here. As I was hearing you describe myself, like. Oh, said what? Oh, yeah.
Lauren [00:02:07] Oh, thank you for having me on.
Rachael [00:02:08] I'm so, so excited to be here with your peeps.
Lauren [00:02:11] Yeah, I know. I'm so excited to talk to you. I love that a mutual friend of both of us said, Oh, my God. I told her, You have to talk to that. I start reading everything and you're stereotypically what? I read the series about where everything looks perfectly good on the outside and you are your neighbor.
Rachael [00:02:34] Right? And then you meet me and it's like, Whoa, who is this lady?
Lauren [00:02:38] Yeah, And it's like kidding. And now you're a poster child for taking the pod. You have a podcast, You have a TED Talk about it. Like everything. Yeah, It's so great. I was listening to one of your episodes and you're talking about I had to write it down. I'm like, I don't want to get the kind of anxiety you talked about wrong, the.
Rachael [00:02:58] Static anxiety or.
Lauren [00:03:00] Erotic anxiety. So yeah, right. I was like raising my fifties and I hear like he was so forward thinking or I actually don't, man.
Rachael [00:03:09] Yeah, that's a big, vague thought leader right there.
Lauren [00:03:12] Yeah. And I'm like, how forward-thinking anyway.
Rachael [00:03:15] But yeah,
Lauren [00:03:17] No, I love the whole people wearing masks and strong so tight they can't even I can't pause. I had someone say I can't pause. I'm a two and a four-year-old. You don't understand. I think I actually do. I had full custody of my kids and I can remember getting a call saying you need to go to the hospital for a blood transfusion. And I said, I don't have time. I can't. I was like, And I actually wrestled with, do I go and get that done or don't? I just dropped off the carpool. And I was like, Yeah, I don't really have time. And and that that's when I knew, like there's stuff I was just.
Rachael [00:03:50] Saying about the parts when you need a pause, whether you're a mom or not. And full disclosure, I'm no, I am not a mom to matter. But I think we all are parents to ourselves and I think we all have to mother ourselves and in our lives we show up in service to our doing, and that requires growing ourselves up. As my old coach Bob Wright would say, and never too late to have a happy childhood. So here we are as moms and moms of ourselves, really to lead and live lives that we were born to live so we can shine. But yeah, it's so funny. You mentioned that blood bank example. That's the example I use when I speak about pausing. I literally have a picture of Kermit the Frog, who's all tattered up with bandages and a first aid kit. You see now he's like all he's like all bloody. And it's the analogy is if you go to the blood bank every day, how do you think you'd feel after two weeks three weeks or a month? Have you gave blood every day? And the reality is we would pretty much feel like crap, right? Like Kermit, Like you'd feel deterred and tired, exhausted, depleted. And I think that's kind of what we do to ourselves when we say we don't have time. And trust me, I know that when I use that excuse most of my life and that's how I burned out of Google is I just kept pushing and pushing and not checking in with myself and not really facing the music of, Hey, things aren't working out right now. I don't feel aligned. What could I do differently? I feel like that's what we could all be doing right now. But yeah.
Lauren [00:05:16] Yes. And the loneliness. The first higher you are at the top, the less you can tell anyone because your life looks so good.
Rachael [00:05:27] It's really.
Lauren [00:05:28] Not. How can you complain? You can't complain because you can. You don't have a money problem, are you? There's so much fright. Your kids aren't seeing you. You don't laugh. You're not getting on the floor with them. You're not walking your own dog. You're not seeing your friends. And when you used to laugh with your friends. Like what? Friends who? I can't tell anyone how miserable I am because I've seemingly achieved what I was striving for.
Rachael [00:05:53] Yeah. And I think.
Lauren [00:05:54] With you, you had this job at Google. Isn't that what everyone wants? The job at Google?
Rachael [00:05:59] That's right. That's what I look great on paper for it. I say I literally see that in the first chapter of the book Pause, where on paper I was the model person that most women wanted to be, where I had my own apartment and I was a crazy overachiever. I'd run marathons. I lived in New York, and then I lived in San Francisco and I worked at Google for at that time, a couple of years and what could go wrong? I was a national champion for like just all these awesome things. I was a.
Lauren [00:06:27] Six-time national champion.
Rachael [00:06:30] Right? Yeah. And the reality is I felt broken. I felt like I could not for the life of me figure out how to feel good again. And I was just getting this feedback. It was external, was my boss. But my sense is this could come from anybody, come from yourself. It could come from a relationship where you feel like you're doing the best you possibly can. Like you're just like I am. I'm in, I'm everything I'm doing. And yet you feel like a failure. You feel like, Why isn't this working? This is work. My entire life I've done whatever I needed to do. And now, for whatever reason, it's like I'm on that treadmill, like you said, spinning my wheels, and I feel like I'm in a tailspin. And that, I think, is the essence of what burnout is, because it feels like you're you continually, no matter how hard you try right the ship, you want to right the ship. And yet for whatever reason, you're, you're not going anywhere. You're going one step forward, two steps back.
Lauren [00:07:27] Yeah. So how did you discover the port? It's actually like a resort, like in Arizona.
Rachael [00:07:35] You first. Yeah. How do you?
Lauren [00:07:36] I mean, I ended up discovering meditation and taking four days, going to the someplace just. I needed rest. The whole thing. I didn't. I don't have any family. I'm raising the kids I needed, and I just hired somebody to watch my kids for a long weekend, went to a resort, and I discovered meditation. I did yoga, I did meditation. I discovered breathwork through that, not breathwork the way you are certified with Breathwork how much the breath matters and am I holding my breath and about meditation and gave me a it was a meditation, a disc, a USB drive. It's been over 20 years now, 20 or 18 probably at least. And I started meditating and it made such a difference. But also I started quarterly taking time for me. I needed to refill my tank in order to serve others because it wasn't just I mean, I volunteer, I help in all these various places, and if I didn't take care of me, I couldn't help anyone. I couldn't help my employees, I couldn't help where I volunteer, I couldn't help my kids. I couldn't help anyone if I didn't take care of me. And so it started with filling my tank for sure. Just like on the airplane.
Rachael [00:08:50] It's true. Exactly. I knew you were going to say that. That's why I said it's true. I was reading your mind. No, I'm just kidding. Because we can't help others unless we're helping ourselves. And that, I think, is the challenge of finding the pause. And I think each of us finds that in our own path at some point. Hopefully, it's before the breaking point. Hopefully it's before a brink of whatever you're dealing with, Right. Whether it might be physical ailments or health or emotional or mental alignment. And my sense is that pause and I call a pause, an intentional shift in behavior is the key is like the key, like the clue to say, hang on a second, what's happening here? What could I have different how am I feeling? Is one of the biggest questions we can ask ourselves. And for me, going back to how I found the pause. So I did burnout. I burned out of Google, basically, and I took a three-month unpaid break, which was a very fortunate and privileged position at the time. This was over ten years ago. But what it really taught me was at some level and by the way, I had no training at all in meditation or mindfulness or emotional intelligence, the things that I now coach and teach on. But what I did have was like all this business training. I was really good at sports. I was an athlete and had an MBA, so I felt like I could figure stuff out, like probably all of us. But that's what I felt like. My head was against the wall. I took a three-month unpaid break because I figured I'm the common denominator. There's probably something going on here that I have to figure out, because if I just quit and go find something else in the way I relate this to moms is you just. You kind of keep pushing through and doing your stuff, doing your thing, whether it's your dinner, the dinner on the table, or you're getting your care for kids as you're at work or whatever it might be, and you keep moving forward in that, but you're not necessarily changing anything about what care do you need as you increase your load, right? Because that's what happens is when we increase our growth, whether it's being a mom and caring for a whole nother human, that requires a lot more resources. And if we don't up what we do in self-care or how we can how we can do that, then we'll just stay stuck. And that's how I think we do burnout. And so for me, you know, it was a forced pause. I took this break and then I this is the story I have. I took that time to study about myself and I took a couple of classes. I rented a friend's home in Tahoe, and then I went to Burning Man that last week that that was in 2011 and which was a meditation camp. I went to it and by the way, I didn't meditate once. There are no good things. So here I am. I'm surrounded by literally change and pausing and only meditation. But what happened was I made really good friends with the meditator, the instructor who had written a book, Mark Thornton, called How to Meditate in a New York Minute. We became great friends. And then I started reading that book after Burning Man.
Lauren [00:11:48] And I started.
Rachael [00:11:49] To meditate and I thought, This is profound. I started really like calming myself in those moments of deep reflection, which is literally just breath, like, just like taking an inhale. Exhale. We just meditated. Congratulations. Right. That's. That's what it is. And so that's kind of where I ended up finding the pause. And then what I realized was I did go back to Google. I didn't quit. I got a new job that I think resonated with what my strengths were because I looked at those a little bit and I started hosting speakers in the talks, a Google program that I thought had meaningful messages to share between my friend Mark, so you can find them on YouTube, Foxy Google and I'm one of them. Another mentor who he introduced me to, Judith Wright, eventually became my mentor and I ended up studying in Chicago at the Wright Foundation. I got my master's in transformational leadership in coaching there, and I realized holy cow, there's so much depth to self-awareness. I didn't even know about it. I was just like clueless. And I started to realize there was a lot of work to do for me that would serve me if I wanted to tune in. And that's how I found the pause. And so I wrote the book hoping that maybe I could help a few folks in the world of feeling stressed and overwhelmed, learn that they can actually create these tools and use these tools in emotional intelligence and meditation so that they can lead lives that feel and really thrive and be in service to all their amazing doing that they're doing as parents, as people and as leaders.
Lauren [00:13:18] Yeah, definitely. And answers emerge in the pause. I say a pause can be taking a walk around the block without a device or. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be. I mean, people say, I can't meditate, you can't do it wrong.
Rachael [00:13:33] Hey, the phrase that really struck me when I was thinking about that because I would come up with that all the time. Like today I got up and went right into a meeting. I have not meditated and I feel like I want to go do it actually now because, you know, years later I do it. But Gaby Bernstein, I don't know if you know her. She's an author, health author, and has written numerous books and she would say so that was someone who I found in my in my pores. If you don't have 2 minutes, then then you have 2 minutes. 2 minutes to feel like crap, like you don't have 2 minutes in your life, then you have time to feel like crap because you probably do. And it really struck me because I'm like, okay if I really like, can I really not have 2 minutes? The reality is I wasn't. I was afraid just to pause and stop because I was afraid. I felt the fear of looking at myself like, Holy, no smoke bombs. I'm afraid that I'm not living the life that really I thought would make me happy. And that's what takes courage and that's hard. And it takes a lot of reflection to be like, Well, well, what would make me happy? Like what? What could be different? How? How, what would that look like? And I'll bring it back to Burning Man because I guess it's on my mind lately. It really taught me I don't have to put myself in this box. I don't have to think. I have to have my job or, like, work in a certain way or be a human in the world. In this way. It's like I could go melt wet, I could go meld metal together and be a welder and like, love it if I wanted to it. Like, I guess I could do that. And it never occurred to me. But that's kind of what I felt and saw amongst the art that I had experienced in this week of like radical self-reliance. That's Burning Man. So anyway, that's kind of how I ended up in this realm of discovering the pause. And now I'm on a mission like you to help as many women as possible know that you don't have to suffer. You don't need to go through the painful moments of excruciating, like victimhood or feeling like there's no end in sight because you've lost yourself. There's actually ways you can go right back to finding yourself and feeling incredible again, Whether you've got one kid or 20 kids, you know.
Lauren [00:15:42] Or not. And busy. Busy is a bit like, How are you doing? I'm so busy. That's a bad right? Can you imagine if you said, I'm doing great, I have all this free time. Can you imagine actually answering that? I, I know certain people come to mind who would be horrified, absolutely horrified to answer that way. They could. And they're not ready to hear this message. They can't receive it yet, which is all that is. And that's okay. It just has to be. But you really can create a life however you want, work however many days a week and make enough money. You really end and you're living proof like you've created. Like you're doing great. You shine, you've got friends, you're happy, you're you are. All these years later, you're not like grovelling, going Google. Please give me my job back. I'll you know, I don't like trashcans.
Rachael [00:16:35] You know. I know what I know. Yeah. Things. I mean, I really I really take that to heart because I think it's been a journey and it hasn't always been this way. Like, we all go through our own path that gets us to where we are today. And it's so serve each of us. I think of like my own story of burn out and just like my zigzag path. And a lot of it was hard. But I also know it got me to where I am today. And so I'm really grateful and I feel like each of us can take. It stands to know whatever your path has been. It doesn't even like it isn't that significant in service to who you could become now because of you at this point in time, right here, right now, listening to this, which is incredible. Kudos to all of those tools and resources that got you here. But if you're listening to this, my thought is there's probably something inside of you that's calling you to to actually be more in alignment. Right. As a mother, as a person who's into this inquiry of what is that pause look like for me? And it means it could potentially be nothing other than a different intentional way of being. In my opinion, it doesn't need to take time, it doesn't need to take money and it doesn't need to take resources. It's all about what works for you.
Lauren [00:17:46] So what's what would you have somebody who's listening, who's afraid? There's they're afraid. They know they're not aligned with what they really want to be doing. So, yeah, of course.
Rachael [00:17:55] I mean, who's not afraid? Okay. Like, I work a lot with emotions, and there are five primary emotions that I've learned from my mentors at the right Foundation. And fear is one of the five. So fear hurt, joy, sadness and anger are those five. And so if you just name one of those any given day, you know, you're doing great because you're actually already in tune with how you feel. But fear is kind of this foundation of knowing where I'm at in the world, right? Like, I may not have time for lunch. There's fear there of crossing the street. There's fear there. I don't know if I'm going to get to this appointment on time. There's there's like this low level of anxiety that kind of, like, runs across everything. And so fear is really normal. Everybody, like, that's what we were talking about in the podcast. You heard Lauren about Ramy and Neurotic Anxiety. It's actually a part of human. The human condition is to have fear. What if I don't make it? What if I don't grow up enough? What if I die early, like all of these things, right? Knowing that that's happening, I think is the first step to just acknowledge the fear. Like, if you feel fear. Name it. Name ascertainment. As Dan SIEGEL tells us, write like people who's written many, many awesome books. So if you just name it. Oh, I feel fear. It's it's huge because you're now off of autopilot and letting the fear run you doesn't mean you're going to get out of it. And it's all rainbows and unicorns. But that is the first step. And a lot of us want to avoid the fear because we've been told by society and our conditioning as adults just to run away from that. And it's bad to be in fear like you don't like to push through the fear like you got this, you know, all of this stuff and there's a time and a place for that and not saying it's not a good thing, but if you actually can just start with what's so think of a map, right? If you've got a Google map in front of you, it could be any map, really. But Google map, we all use that now and you don't know where you're starting. How the heck do you know where you're going? You don't you know what? You have no idea. So you have to plot yourself. You have to say, how am I doing right now? And that's why I think a lot of us are burning out and feeling depleted because we aren't touching base with that present moment of Who am I? What am I doing right now? And that's super scary, by the way. That is super scary. So I suggest daily pauses like you were saying, Lauren, Like just these little things. So I think journaling is a humongous underutilized tool and people probably might resist that, right? I don't have time to journal. I don't want to get a pen like that or whatever those excuses are. Okay, great. Like write them all down. That's a journal entry. Congratulations. Like you want you on your way to start because that's the thing we resist what we what persists. And in this case, our brains want to keep us safe and in our comfort zones. So journaling might actually, you know, like expose something that I don't want to know about. Like, imagine that. So we're always up against something in our own psyche sometimes. And that's what the awareness is to kind of say, hang on a second, like, okay, how am I feeling? Fear or joy, Sadness, anger or I feel fear. Okay. And then just be curious. Like, that's the huge thing. I talk about this in my TEDx talk that you mentioned. So like being curious is such a superpower. It's huge because it gets us out of the judgment zone. I don't know about you, but I'm a judging machine because I'm a I'm a human. I was I was an American human. That's the qualifier you can be. Any reaction? I'll be the judge. Everything. That's funny. I think I was thinking about politics or something, and then you can adjust from there. But I think. Being objective is the key and curiosity can actually move us into that space a little easier as gravity can, which I know you're a big fan of that. It actually it can be very powerful just to be like, what? Like what? What went well today? What could I celebrate? Little things are the way, the way, the way to go, because it can lead to bigger changes. But hey. Oh, my God. I mean, I made a healthy meal for myself. Well, give me a high five in the mirror. Yeah.
Lauren [00:21:43] Absolutely. Gradually, less every day.
Rachael [00:21:47] Yeah.
Lauren [00:21:48] Exchanging with your friends.
Rachael [00:21:50] Exactly. So I think we need to be talking about this more. I think the world is changing. As we know, we're 24 seven online. Whether you you know, no matter what your title is, what you do for your living, whether you're a stay at home mom, whether you're, you know, like the leader of the free world, like whatever it is, there is an opportunity to check in, in a line and say, how am I how am I doing? But we need to know that pausing takes intention. It doesn't just happen on its own, especially if you're like me, which I think you are, and probably all of us are achievers. We're we're, we're doers, we're go-getters. We do awesome stuff in the world, and we don't want to stop because we're good at doing stuff, right? We're great at tests. So for us to actually say time out, if it's very I call it the pause paradox, it's like, wait a second. What, like you want me to stop, like, but I'm going to look like a slacker. People are going to think I'm working hard enough. I don't think I'm working hard enough. I was told to push, push, Go, go, go. And I know I can do it. Whatever those are. Right? So it's up against all our belief systems usually. And the key is to consider, just be open to it that maybe that model is shifting and we can each assess it for ourselves through that process of some of these daily pauses, like maybe journaling, going out for a walk, having a conversation about it. The more we talk about it, the more we destigmatize pausing or just doing whatever, because I think pausing is very active. I think it's intentional. It takes the conscious thought to know what to do. And it's not it's not necessarily just tuning out or zoning out and putting your feet up, kicking up with a with margarita and watching Netflix, although that is a pause. But it's what are you going to get out of this? How is this going to serve you? If I think about that and say, okay, I'm going to give myself an hour to watch the show today and I want to feel refreshed and nourished from it, then that's awesome. That's what I would say is like the difference between that and just kind of the autopilot. Let me do this for the sake of it. Yeah, definitely the way I think.
Lauren [00:23:55] I think meditation and journaling are the two best tools there are, and two answers emerge in the past for sure. But I don't think in the Netflix fires that the message.
Rachael [00:24:08] What is it about meditation? Would that matter? Maybe, maybe there's a cross there.
Lauren [00:24:14] But I'm not so sure. But we don't have to go there. So for anybody who doesn't know, do you want to just kind of define emotional intelligence? You would talk about that early on.
Rachael [00:24:25] Yeah, Great call. So emotional intelligence is actually a term that's been around not that long. It came out pretty much for the business world and it actually came up first in economics in around 1995. And Daniel Goleman coined this term in his book, Emotional Intelligence to Get to the business world. And so it's only if you think about it, it's only been around about 30 years total as a concept and what it really means. The definition that I like to think about is it's the awareness of myself in how I'm doing in my relationship to myself, others and the world and being present to it in the moment. That means I might know how I feel. That might mean I'm reading a room. That might. That might mean I'm expressing based on how I'm feeling or what's going on around me. And it's all in service to becoming a better leader, in my opinion, because I'm leading my life. I'm becoming an influencer because I'm very aware of myself. And then that helps me move around and navigate the world. Whether it's relationships, whether it's groups in the community or my family, things like that, because I'm able to relate. And it's relating to myself and it's relating to others. And we miss that, right? A lot of us are not trained in that. I didn't have any training in that actually, until I burned out and learned the hard way. And now I help other people, especially women and leaders learn these tools that we're also super capable of. Just like that one where we named a feeling that's a tool. And emotional intelligence is my sense is the gateway to. Really feeling self, self resilient and empathetic for yourself, but also doing what you want to do in the world in a way that feels super supported by yourself because you're learning how to nurture and nourish yourself and self-care for yourself through emotional intelligence. It goes by IQ so much. You hear that word or. Yeah.
Lauren [00:26:25] Yeah.
Rachael [00:26:26] Yeah. And it's modelled after the the IQ, which is your intellectual quotient, but that's different. That's more like the cerebral brain is more like full mind body and definition.
Lauren [00:26:38] But you know, and again, the more you meditate, the more in-tune you are going to be with everything around you and your empathy level rises also, in my opinion.
Rachael [00:26:50] Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, my my mentors say to them all the time, Judith Wright and Bob Wright, what they would say and they are trained in this field for 50 plus years is it's not the feelings that we're afraid of, it's the relationship to the feelings that we're afraid of. Right? So far, when you think about like, I just fear it's like, all right, I'm I'm terrified right now. Like, this doesn't feel good, but it's me thinking about terror, the thinking about the apprehension, like all of the pain and the suffering that I might go through, which is my resistance to being in fear if that makes sense.
Lauren [00:27:27] You name it, you claim it, you know, the whole thing of that, and then you're feeling it and then you get to walk through it.
Rachael [00:27:32] So great. Yeah.
Lauren [00:27:34] I like that though. The once.
Rachael [00:27:37] Yeah. I mean, well, what I think it helps is comforting ourselves to know know a lot of times I think we are alone in how we are feeling like you said like it's lonely at the top and it's like, am I the only person in the world who just feels like a complete, utter, less aimless doom? Doom right now, Like just somebody crazy person or whatever. I'm at a loss for words at the moment, but the I do.
Lauren [00:28:01] Feel like or feeling like life's passing me by. That's a that's a big.
Rachael [00:28:05] I've lost my lustre for life. I'm just kind of in the motions now, going through the motions, whatever that might be. Right. I guess this is it. Yeah. And the reality is actually no, like, that's just, you know, there's peaks and troughs all the time. And if I'm able to name how I feel, that's the starting point. And then I can move out of that, right? I can move through it. I can complete that feeling, I can get support for it. A lot of times there are ways that we want to move forward, but we don't know how and no one can do it alone. That's the other part. Yes, Seeing in support, and listening to support groups and podcasts like this are really good help, but I'd say we have to get out of our own, like literally our own minds and our heads, because that's what we know and that's what we project and transfer around to the world and everybody else. So having allies, coaches, having support groups at our side to help support us a lot of times is what's needed. And that's what's so great about community because we can all do it. But a rising tide lifts all boats and it's really hard. We just cannot do that sometimes too much. And that's why we stay stuck and we just think like, Oh, well, I guess that's how I got to live. But the reality is no, but we can ask for help, we can get support. And I think that's really a pause in itself, which is really important and really hard for a lot of achieving women.
Lauren [00:29:31] Yeah, it's true. And Rachel has a community and I have links for everything I've heard.
Rachael [00:29:36] So just yes, of course.
Lauren [00:29:38] On the website, in the show notes and everything else. What is the hardest challenge you've ever gone through and how did you get through it? Yeah.
Rachael [00:29:46] Okay. Well, my sense is. I have two that come to mind. So one was that time in my life I described where I burned out and it was just me, like full-on frontal, like facing my mask. Like, am I this like a chief or Googler? Is this my life? And I was really scared to look at that. And I did. And it changed everything. The second time is actually when I was 22, I went to France on a working permit after college, and I, for whatever reason, thought I'd want to work in a ski resort because I think I love skiing. Why not? And I spoke French, but not much. But I was before Internet and we had telecasts. And I thought, like, I was I didn't know what I don't know if I'd make it. I was on credit card debt. I was kind of making it big, making ends meet. I was fired from my job. I just like I felt like I was literally living in the moment. I was there for nine months and I did work out and I lived to tell I got another job. But it was a challenge because it was in a different country. I was by myself and I made it, so I didn't know that was 95. If I figured if I could make it through that, I could probably do anything. And I did. So I'm sure there are other challenges ahead of me now, too. But those were two that I always think of. But I feel like I need some motivation and inspiration.
Lauren [00:31:03] Are your adventure, and it's now one of the hardest things you've gone through.
Rachael [00:31:08] Mm-hmm. It was also great. It was a lot of fun that travel for two months on the euro, but it was a very daunting time.
Lauren [00:31:17] Do you have a message of hope you want to give?
Rachael [00:31:20] Yeah. I would say little changes, little step by step changes is the way that things get done and shift long term. I call it the little things. And if you think that it's too hard or there's too much on your plate or there's whatever is coming up for you, what's the next thing you could do? Like, what's the next little thing you could think of that would help move you in the direction you want to go? That's it. And write it down. Put it on. That's your one thing to do that day is to try that. So I think nothing can be over. Like nothing can be too far out of reach. But if we break it down into little steps, we generally can achieve where we want to go in service to our doing, whether it's being or the doing.
Lauren [00:32:10] I like that. Yeah. Just do the next right-indicated step.
Rachael [00:32:14] Yeah. And if you don't know what that is, then your job is to pause. And to allow that to surface and emerge because chances are it will. You just need to listen inside and kind of tune in. Maybe. Maybe it's just meditation. Maybe it's a walkout in the woods.
Lauren [00:32:32] I love that way to work the past. And one more time to I. I mean, to me, that's. That's everything.
Rachael [00:32:38] It's everything. I think this is why I'll not talk about this because to me, it's the gateway towards everything you want in your life. Everything. Because if we don't stop in the line, we're going to miss it. You will miss it if you're not pausing because, like, things just happen all the time, right? Life is in the fast lane. Nothing's going to be slowing down any time soon. But if we're not slowing ourselves down just to even take a breath, we're probably going to miss any signs that we could do anything different. And then we just end up staying stuck. We stay on that treadmill. Nothing changes and we go. We just don't. We just aren't satisfied. It doesn't work well for us, I think. I don't know. But yeah.
Lauren [00:33:20] No, definitely.
Rachael [00:33:21] I would say most of us think that.
Lauren [00:33:22] Oh yeah, of course, I'm going to fake that. And God doesn't drive parked cars is what I was told. You can't sit in a corner wishing you had to take a little step.
Rachael [00:33:31] Oh yeah, I like that one. I haven't heard that before.
Lauren [00:33:33] Yeah, no.
Rachael [00:33:34] I was in Parkhurst.
Lauren [00:33:36] Yeah. You can't sit in the corner. Wishing is what I was told. That I want this to happen. And if I had not done, you know, just open emails or asked, Hey, do you know anyone? I wouldn't have met Rachael, who has a book on the Pause and a ten and podcast on the pause, and it couldn't be more in sync. And from this, I'll ask her, Hey, who else do you know? You know? And that's how she may ask me and, and that's how people always say, How do you get such a good guess? Because I ask. And if I didn't ask, that's not sitting in a corner wishing and hoping it happens. It's by taking steps.
Rachael [00:34:11] I yeah, you stick to your guns a little bit in terms of like what feels good. And if a lot of times we're out of we're out of like basically, like out of shape for that reason. Forget. Right. So you haven't been tuning in. I would you know so it's it's going back to thinking about, well, what would I want? Like if I could actually want anything, What would I want? I want to I would love to interview some interesting people. Great. But we have to literally it's a skill, right? This is the part that's the discipline is to ask ourselves, okay, yeah, how am I feeling? What do I want? In? A lot of us have broken munchers. That's what I like to think about is, you know, we have to we have to train and teach ourselves how to want to feel our aliveness, that that drives our wants and needs. And we're really just connected to that. That happens, right? Life happens, We get busy and the next thing you know, we don't have we don't know what that is. And so that's what the regrouping is with emotional intelligence is kind of like, okay, well, let's go back to basics. Let's go to ground Zero myself. How am I feeling? What's going on with me? And we start there and believe it or not, we all have capabilities that just probably needing a little conditioning, right? Just like going to the gym, like meditation, right? Practice. And the more we practice these things, the better and more aware we can be that will help align us and get clear on what we want and how we would want to change things up if we did at all. Maybe you don't. It's all good.
Lauren [00:35:37] Yeah. And you can also think, well, what fills you with joy when you think about that? I love that knows you with joy. That's the best question to ask it and then go, Oh, well this does. Oh good. But write that down.
Rachael [00:35:51] Yeah, I love thinking about this to make a list of I just did this recently of like ten list of ten things that bring you joy. If you just love doing make a list of the ten doing and doing that and then bring you joy and then you can circle one or two of those to just focus on your next adventure and have the joy.
Lauren [00:36:10] Whatever. Yeah, this all started with me asking a much older demographic what they've gleaned from living life because they say nobody on their deathbed ever wish they worked harder, or made more money. So I wanted to know. Okay, so tell me you've lived a long time. Let me know. This is my soul journey, my soul searching right now. And that's how this all started. So you mentioned community and we need community. Don't do this in isolation. So, Rachel, this is so great. I have links to everything. The Rachel's. She can't coach everyone, but she has a lot.
Rachael [00:36:42] Of lots of resources.
Lauren [00:36:44] Yeah. So I will definitely have links to everything of hers. Thank you so much for being our guest today. I'm 52 weeks of hope. Is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn't? And we're going to be done and you're going be like, Lauren didn't ask me this.
Rachael [00:36:58] I think we covered a lot and I think this is great. And I think a lot of times what, you know, we hear these kinds of things are our knee-jerk reaction is, oh, that's overwhelming. Like, that's too much. And I just invite everyone to listen. What's the one takeaway that you would take from this for you? What would that pause plan look like? So maybe it's to tell a friend about the podcast that you just heard and like this pause in concept. Maybe it's a lot of little things. Maybe it's naming a feeling like whatever that is. Just take one thing that's a lot of little things that work right there and it's not about so much the. The same stuff, but it's like, let's apply. Right. Like, experientially shifting is where the change in the rubber meets the road. You use another car analogy, but that's what I would say is just what's that one thing that you want to take away and really savour from this time together we've had and go for that.
Lauren [00:37:49] Yeah, that's great. Thank you.
Rachael [00:37:52] Yeah. Thank you very much for having me.
Lauren [00:37:55] I hope you enjoyed this week's episode and take with you the messages of compassion, openness and of course, the pause, such fulfilling messages to take into your week ahead. Be sure to share the episode with your friends and to rate and review the podcast so more people feel less alone in overwhelmed and remember the pause. Answers emerge in the pause, and instead of adding to your to-do list, how about a to-don't list? Be sure to tune in next week when Sarah Peck joins talking about how you can stop the struggle, heal your humanity, and why you do the things you do so that you can feel more authentic and focused again, you do get to align with who you really want to be and do those things you really want to do. She's the founder of Start-up Parent and it's an amazing empowering episode. You're going to love this series. She's just phenomenal. You'll love that, that's next week. This is a show for burnt-out, overachieving type-A Moms. It's a special series I'm doing and unlike other shows for burnt achieving moms only we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching the to-do list for the don't list until next week I'm Lauren Abrams. Thanks for listening.