Oct 30, 2022
“Just keep going, it will
change.” This is Elizabeth Collins’s burnout story, simplified into
six words. The Cait-proclaimed Burnout Witch, Elizabeth now
specializes in helping others recover from burnout. However, she
was only able to truly thrive in this role after confronting her
own feelings of not-enough-ness and developing the boundaries and
coping skills she needed to regain a sense of balance in both body
and brain.
Elizabeth is the owner and
director of The East West Company, an integrative wellness practice
specializing in burnout recovery coaching, functional medicine,
acupuncture and more. Elizabeth explains that functional medicine
is a crossover between biomedicine and Eastern medicine; it uses a
wide range of testing to identify and address the root cause of a
presenting issue. Because the incredible breadth of functional
medicine testing can seem overwhelming to someone who is burnt out,
Elizabeth suggests starting simple with a blood panel and a stool
test. This approach helps individuals correct any initial
imbalances, which sets them on a more manageable path towards
burnout recovery.
Tune into this week’s episode of
FRIED. The Burnout Podcast to hear more about the intersections
between functional medicine and burnout. Learn about the ins and
outs of leaky gut, why Elizabeth uses tarot cards to broaden her
clients’ perspectives, and why feelings of gratitude and
frustration can and should co-exist.
Quotes
- “I had ‘Big T’ trauma, so that very much set me
up for a lifetime of perfectionism, a lifetime of not really
understanding that I am worthy of love simply because I exist.”
(04:00-04:10)
- “My burnout story was: ‘just keep going, it
will change.’” (07:26-07:32)
- “That happens to people who are chronic people
pleasers, who are prone to burnout….It’s very easy for you to set
aside what you like because you’re more concerned about what needs
to happen now, and it’s like, but what you like is what needs to
happen now!” (10:49-11:05)
- “[Functional medicine] is kind of like if
biomedicine and Eastern medicine had a baby.”
(15:14-15:17)
- “When we’re in burnout, it’s very difficult to
see anything other than what we’re focusing on, which is
usually panic, stress and anxiety. And the benefit when I started
reading my own tarot cards again was...oh, this card popped up and
it means this. How does that relate to my current situation? What
is it about this card that can give me the opportunity to stop
focusing on the minutia and look at the bigger picture?”
(31:28-31:55)
- “Being able to address different aspects of
your personality and speak to them directly like they’re
individuals gives a sense of agency to the experience, and it
really gives people the opportunity to fully integrate those
personalities.” (36:28-36:42)
- “We are complicated enough individuals that we
can feel very bad about something that we’re going through and
still be very grateful for the good things that it gives us or the
other good things in our life….They’re not mutually exclusive, and
the idea that we have to inhabit one thing at any given time is
unsustainable and unfair and will absolutely perpetuate burnout.”
(38:00-38:28)
- “If you have symptoms or you are living a life
that is in your experience suboptimal, but in the greater
perspective not catastrophic....you are not crazy, and there is
help.” (49:10-49:35)
Links
https://insighttimer.com/
www.theeastwestco.com
www.instagram.com/theeastwestco
www.instagram.com/thevintagemystic
XOXO,
C
If you know that it’s time to
actually DO something about the burnout cycle you’ve been in for
too long - book your free consult today: bit.ly/callcait