Have you ever felt like you were on the brink of burnout?
But then you say to yourself, no, this is normal.
This is how everyone is.
Everybody feels this way.
Well, today's episode is all about how to know if you're in a state of burnout.
And I'm going to give you three signs that I ignored before I went into a state of burnout.
And how to get help.
Let's get into it.
[MUSIC]
You're listening to the Soul Aligned Self-Care Podcast.
I'm your host, Tina Stinson.
And I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout that shook my world.
Now I'm laying it all out.
The deep-level self-care practices and mindset shifts that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced, and thriving.
Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and a soul's journey to alignment.
This is where real conversations about deep-level self-care happen.
Let's get into it.
[MUSIC]
Hey guys, welcome back to the Soul Aligned Self-Care Podcast.
My name is Tina Stinson and I am so thankful that you are here with me today.
And so excited to get into this episode because it really means a lot to me.
We're talking today about how to know if you're in a state of burnout.
And the three signs that I'm going to give you that I kind of got with my body and ignored.
And how you can get help, how you can move out of this.
So let's get into it.
So to get started, I, back in the day, so this is probably, I don't know, 10 or more years ago.
Maybe I was newly divorced.
I was a single mom with three kids.
I was working a high stress sales job that I hated.
I was selling real estate.
And I was just so overloaded with stress and so busy and just going, going, going, going,
going all the time.
And to even preface that before I got divorced, I was already under a straight state of stress.
Because obviously most people are before they go into a divorce.
But I already was kind of acting like a single mom.
My ex wasn't around very much.
Sometimes he was away for three weeks out of the month.
And so it was very busy, very, very busy time for me.
And so very stressful.
And then after the divorce, I did have the responsibility of also working.
And trying to manage and juggle my three children.
And I have to add that part of the stress, part of the added stress was also being a little bit isolated,
completely removed from my family.
My family was like two and a half hours away.
So I had a couple of really, really good friends that helped me.
But not having my family near was a big, like, a big additive to the stress.
Because when you're raising a family, you do depend a lot on your family, too.
Your extended family.
And I just didn't have that in my life.
So community is a really big part of raising a family.
And I just wanted to talk about the importance of that very quickly.
And so all these things combined with years, probably a couple of years,
of the really extreme stress before my divorce,
involving like a serious illness of my ex and dealing with things pertaining to that serious illness.
And then also going through the divorce,
you know, going through the process, everybody note that is so stressful on a family and on children.
And then beginning a career after not working for 13 years.
Doing that was just, it was just a lot of stress.
And so I was going, going, going.
Now my oldest was six years older than my two younger ones.
So it was kind of a weird dynamic.
And she played just about every sport known to mankind.
I think the only thing she really didn't do, like long term, was like volleyball and field hockey.
But she did like everything else.
And so I did spend a lot of time in the car, you know,
going to practices, going to games and tracking the two little ones along with me
and managing that all while, you know, working full time.
And it was quite a busy schedule, a very busy schedule.
And getting into one of the first signs that I ignored,
had a lot to do with this.
So I was constantly going, going, going as you could imagine.
And yes, I still, I did.
I worked out.
I, I ate fairly well.
I was a fairly fit, healthy person,
except for my stress levels, right?
So just to like, um,
preface that also with the fact that I was a pretty healthy.
These, this was, I was in my 30s.
And like I said, extremely fit.
I got extremely,
fit while I was going through my divorce,
because that was my way of handling this distress through the divorce.
Was working out.
So I like ran.
I did boxing.
I did kickboxing.
I did, I don't know, I did everything.
And I was very fit.
And also, as I said, I didn't eat as well as I do now,
but I did eat pretty well.
So those, those, uh,
different areas of my life were pretty good,
but my stress levels were out of control.
And one of the things I remember that was super weird was,
um, you know, after working all day,
and then the kids coming home from school and doing that whole business,
and then doing dinner and, um,
after that, then having to head out to maybe like a game or a practice
or something like that, um,
I actually remember like packing like bottles and snacks and
diapers and all kinds of stuff and preparing for this.
And I even remember my young ones falling asleep on the benches,
you know, like the bleachers and stuff like that.
But anyway, getting to wherever I was going to a game or whatever,
or some kind of activity with my kids,
I remember sitting down and probably sitting still for the first time in my day.
And you all know how that feels.
Sometimes you just get super exhausted.
But what would happen to me when I was going through at this point of my life
was I would sit down and my whole body would like shake,
like it would vibrate.
It felt like it was almost like buzzing.
Um, but it wasn't just that feeling.
You could actually visibly see my body shaking.
Like, so I would feel it and then I would look at my leg
or my hand and I would be shaking.
And I couldn't control it at all and it wouldn't go away or stop.
And the only time it would stop is I would go home
and I would go to sleep and then the next morning I would be fine.
So I kind of summed it up as I was completely exhausted and that's all it was.
But this was a sign that I should not have ignored.
This is not normal, first of all.
Um, obviously it's kind of weird to see a whole body shaking like that
and not having any control over it.
But also, you know, the reason it was so easy to ignore is
I would go to bed and then the next day I would be fine.
Right?
And then it just wouldn't happen until the end of another busy day.
Now every day was not like this.
It didn't happen every day.
But it happened quite often and I completely ignored it.
So this was my warning sign.
Now I also want to say that everybody is different.
So when people experience stress, um,
anxiety, trauma, anything like that,
everybody responds differently to it in their bodies.
And so, you know, some people might get high blood pressure,
some people might get migraines, some people might get heart disease,
some people might get autoimmune disease,
some people might get cancer.
Like everybody responds different to all this type of
disruption in your body or you can call it disease, right?
So everybody has different symptoms.
So what I experience might not be what you experience,
but my point here is to pay attention to your body.
And listen to those little signs and don't ignore them.
Even if you're like, um, as I say,
scoring high in all the other, um,
health areas of your life, if you're perfect in all the other health areas,
don't ignore, you know, anything like this.
I actually thought like another mistake I made was,
oh, I'm young, I'm healthy, right?
I take pretty good care of myself.
Surely I can handle the stress.
Why wouldn't I like nobody at my age
just drop stead from stress, right?
Right?
And so that was just another mistake that I made
that I kept overlooking the fact that you can't overlook symptoms
and keep continuing on and on and keep going.
Okay?
And it was just too much, too much.
And, you know, another symptom.
So that was like the first symptom that I ignored.
The sunken symptom that I ignored was I had
extremely exaggerated emotions.
And so this showed up as me being quite short
with a lot of people including my children.
It also was a, I did a lot, I cried really easy, right?
So I, and in, in, in appropriate times.
So like I would, you know, have like bursts of anger
or just shortness, like maybe a whole day of just being short with everybody.
And then responding to frustration and anger also with crying, right?
And so it would show up at really inappropriate times.
Like if I'm negotiating, I sold real estate,
so negotiating the like the sale of a house,
like with another realtor, you know, letting my emotions get the best of me then.
And, you know, maybe even crying sometimes,
just completely unprofessional and embarrassing.
Because I really didn't have control over it.
And it felt very, very scary.
And so even though these symptoms, the shaking and the uncontrollable emotions
were very scary, it still didn't prompt me to do anything.
I also want to say I didn't really know what to do, right?
I felt like I had no space, nothing.
And so the way this felt was like, I just, it was almost like I was just so overlit loaded.
And I always, I always talk to my clients about this.
And I say it's like you have a cup inside of you.
And it gets filled up with all those things that cost stress, stress, stress, stress.
And when you're doing like regular self-care and you know, you have time like down time and stuff like that,
you get to empty that cup, you know, you get to like, you know, control that.
But when you don't have those down times, you're not taking care of yourself,
that couple overflow and it's going to show up like this.
It's going to show up with exaggerated emotions and physical symptoms,
like I was experiencing and ignoring.
So that was the second thing that I ignored completely. I just thought, well, I'm, you know, I'm emotional.
You know, yeah, I'm under a lot of stress.
And maybe this is how I respond.
And I hate that I respond this way, but I do.
But it's really a sign that it's like you're just at your capacity and you have nothing left.
That's what it's a sign of.
And I recognize that now I still judged myself.
You know, I still thought, you know, our society expectations are to work, work, work, and do, do, do.
And not complain about it, suck it up.
Hustle, hustle, hustle.
Now this hustle culture is definitely changing.
And I love this because that's the name of my game.
That's what I'm all about.
But it's still, people still wear it like, you know, like a badge of honor that, you know,
they're exhausted.
Oh, I'm so busy.
Or you ask a friend how you do it.
Oh, I'm so busy.
I'm overbooked.
I, oh, all these things are happening.
You know, like, it's like, like people brag about how busy they are, you know?
And so I just kept, you know, beating myself up about it.
Well, maybe you just can't handle it.
Maybe you're just not good at this.
Maybe you're just not good at anything, right?
And so, um, beating myself up just kept, like, putting my confidence,
even more and more into the shitter.
And confidence is something that you need when you're raising three kids by yourself.
And you're also selling real estate.
It's definitely, it's definitely something that's needed.
And when I say I was raising my kids by myself, let me be clear about what that means because
that means so many different things to so many different people because some people have it
so much harder than I did, right?
And I do realize this, but my capacity for this wasn't, it just wasn't there.
And so my ex-husband did not really participate in raising the children,
but he always paid his child support, always.
And so I always had that at least.
And so I didn't have the parenting help, um,
and he really didn't spend a lot of time with them,
but I did have some money.
And so obviously that made things a lot easier.
I still had to work, obviously, but I did have the money.
And I know people who have done what I did without that.
And so I, I, I acknowledge you.
And I know how hard that is.
Now moving into like the next symptom that I had and ignored was I had extreme memory loss.
And this still pops up in my life today sometimes.
But what would happen is I would forget really, really, really important events, right?
Like my mom's birthday, my best friend's son's birthday.
Really important events for my children.
Like things we plan for for months.
I would just forget about.
I would forget about appointments, even if they were in my schedule.
And I would sometimes double triple book myself for things.
You know, like Monday at 10 o'clock, I'm in charge of giving everybody a ride to soccer practice.
I'm also meeting with a new buyer.
And I have a doctor's appointment.
And so I would do this all the time.
And then I would scramble to like cover myself.
Get someone else to drive the kids.
You know, like move my buyer appointment a little bit ahead or a little bit back.
You know, and then go to the doctor's appointment.
You know what I mean?
Like it was like absolute craziness.
And what it was like, it was like almost like my brain was at some kind of capacity.
And it couldn't, it couldn't take on anymore.
And so it was just dumping things out that I had no control over important things.
And so when I see myself forgetting things like important birthdays, important moments in time,
I always check myself because I know for me this is a sign of stress, like extreme stress.
So as I said earlier, you might get different symptoms than I experienced, right?
But my point is, is that we need to be able to take the time every single day to check in with
ourselves and see what we need, see what's out of balance.
And then deal with it before it becomes really a much bigger issue.
And it can become a much bigger issue.
So just to recap, like the first sign was that I was having those weird symptoms in my body.
And I was like shaking, right?
Complete exhaustion, complete exhaustion, complete, there was nothing left, right?
The next thing. And now I want to point out at this time when I was shaking, I didn't feel tired.
I was so like jacked up from like being in like fighter flight, you know what you feel like when
you're like, it was almost like I was always on adrenaline, right? And and I probably was, right?
And so I didn't feel tired. And so that's why I just, I actually didn't know I was tired.
And another point I want to make that I didn't really talk about, including what the shaking was,
I didn't even notice when I was sick. I just, I didn't notice until I was about to collapse.
Like so I could have like a sinus infection or something like that going on.
And I wouldn't notice it until it reached a point of like no return, like bad, right?
And so I was just always overcapacitated. Like so this, the shaking and like I said, not even noticing
when you're sick, not even like knowing, I think, I think what happens is you become so accustomed to
ignoring the symptoms that your body is telling you because most of the time you can't do anything
about them or you think you can't do anything about them, that you just stop noticing them.
And I think that's really what happened with me. And then the second one was my exaggerated emotions.
So like just crying at inappropriate times, being very short with people.
The crying thing was a real problem for me. It was embarrassing, so embarrassing because I had
absolutely no control over it. The last thing was that extreme memory loss. And I called it extreme.
It's not like I'm forgetting what happened like in five minutes, but the reason I called it extreme
was because family events and birthdays were so important to me. And it was a really,
some people don't celebrate birthdays, but in my family, we were like over the top about birthdays.
My mom was like, she was over the top. When I was growing up, I had like the best parties,
the best cake, the best presents, like just over the top. And I think it was because she did not
experience that when she was a child, right? And so she wanted to give us the best of everything.
And we had so much fun. And my mom has since passed, but she was always big on this. Even when we were
older, all grown up. Like she still made cakes for me when I was in my in my 30s. She still did.
She made cakes for everybody, right? She still did it. It was a big deal. And I would just forget about
this stuff. I would just forget about it. And like say my kid had like a school player, something like that.
And you know, so you're you spend a lot of time with this on your child, your child's doing their
lines, learning, you're taking them to all these rehearsals. And you know when the date is, you know,
like and you forget about it. Like so this was that's what I mean by extreme. To me, it was extreme
because I knew it was so important to me. And I would still forget about it. And also forgetting
about really important appointments in real estate, you know, you forget about one appointment and
you lose that client. It's done. It's done, you know? And so you just can't. It's just unacceptable.
And so that was those were the three things I noticed. And I I want to just go back to what I said
earlier. And that is everybody is different. And you might actually experience some of the same
things I've experienced. But at the same time, you may be experiencing different things. And I just
want you to know that you need to start paying attention. Check in with yourself every day. Practice
self-care every single day. Now let's get into that. So there's there's two different types of
self-care. There's surface level self-care and there's deep level self-care. And both are equally
important. They're both important. We need both of them. So surface level self-care is like those simple
things like the bubble bath, getting many patties with your friends, you know, taking a walking nature.
Although I could I could kind of move into like movement and being in nature as a deeper level self-care.
But you know those little things that really make the difference in our everyday life. And then deep
level self-care is like, you know, working on your boundaries, right? Working on your self-love and
yourself worth forgiveness of others and yourself, decluttering your mind, your spaces, and your
processes in your life. And I have 11 different practices that I talk about over and over again
that I share in my group intensive, sole line self-care intensive, which is like one of the main
programs I offer. But I also talk about all of these on the podcast. So you could listen to the episode
about deep level self-care and surface level self-care. And I'll put the link in the show notes so that
you can listen to that one. And also my 100th episode, I talk about the 11 practices that I talk
about all the time that I consider deep level self-care that helped me heal, right? So
this is what you do. This is where you start when you need help. You start practicing and being
more intentional about the deep the surface level self-care that you experience every day and the
deep level self-care practices that you need. And if you do all these things and you still feel like
you just can't manage, you just can't, you're just you're you're slipping, you're circling the
toilet, you know, then it's time to like maybe get some counseling help. And this has helped me many
times in my life. And doing both of those things really, really can help you have really good results,
right? So the pivotal pivotal moment for me that was my actual wake-up call, right? Because I was
unaware that I was in a state of extreme burnout was I actually had a vertebral dissection. Now what
that means is the artery, my vertebral artery, which is one of the arteries in your neck, you have two
of them that go into your brain. It's a blood flow to your brain. I had a dissection which kind of means
like a tear, right? So I had a little tear in that artery and that ended up creating a clot that went
into my brain. I had a stroke from that also. And so there was a lot of healing after that. And it took
me probably about a year's time to get back to normal, right? But it was like I wasn't resting, I
wasn't taking care of myself. So my body said, okay, here's a stroke and take that and now you're going to
rest. And I did. And over that time period, I really, I had to actually sit still because I had an
actual injury in my neck. So part of my healing process was at the beginning, I had to sit still
for eight weeks. They literally put a neck brace on me and told me not to do anything. And so
I had a lot of time to think and learn and investigate and figure out how I was going to keep myself
alive for my three kids and heal and get better and learn to take care of myself. And that's where I came
up with those 11 practices. That's where that all comes from. All the things that I tried over
probably a 10 year period. And I still focus on this work. I'm still learning stuff. And every time I
learn stuff, I share it with you. And so that's where all these processes come from. So
now now I know what my price was for not paying attention and for not dealing with my stress levels
and trying to push it aside or not knowing what to do and not knowing how to get help. Right? So I
know this. And so now I'm very intentional about myself care, very intentional. And I believe that
it's my mission, right? I'm still here. So that I can take care of my kids. And I'm also still here
so that I can share this with you guys. I could share the tools that worked for me, right? And I could
learn and continue to learn so that I can continue to grow and help myself but also help the people
that I share this with. So I hope that was really helpful to you. It's a place to start. So like if you
need an actual physical place to start, I would say listen to the podcast, go back and binge listen to
all the episodes right from the beginning and I go through everything multiple times over and over
again, all those 11 practices. But I also have a really cool masterclass coming up where I'm going
to share a tool with you. I call the balance sheet, which may sound really horrible right now because
it's tax season when I'm releasing this episode. But it's nothing like that. It's really just to see
where you're at a balance in your life. And I thought it was kind of silly and a fun way to, you know,
fun name for the actual tool. But it helps you see where you're at a balance in your life. And then I'm
going to also show you how you can maximize your self-care to get the best results. And then moving
forward, how to thrive in your life, how to add on to that and thrive and reach for those goals and
do all the stuff that you want to do without getting stressed out without going into a state of
overwhelm without going into a state of burnout. So if you're interested in joining me for that masterclass,
it's happening in April. And it's going to be because of the topic and because of the intimate nature
of the masterclass because I'm going to be working with you like on a zoom one-on-one is going to be
limited spaces because I have to keep it down to a certain number of people. And so if you're really
interested in this and starting the process of like your deep-level self-care journey and if you're
really interested in taking care of yourself so you don't end up in overwhelm and burnout or you
feel like you're already in a state of burnout, then sign up for the masterclass and join me. It's
it's a pay what you can for the masterclass so you can join for very little. So I want to keep it open
to everybody. And I'll share with you also how to move forward, you know, from this masterclass.
I love you guys. I hope today's episode was very helpful. Be sure to if you're listening to this on
Apple, be sure to subscribe anywhere you listen, but also if you're on Apple do or waiting for me.
It helps me get in front of more people so that I could help more people and I would really appreciate
it. So if you do give me a review and a rating, reach out to me and let me know because I would like
to thank you personally. Okay guys, until next week, I love you. Remember to practice deep-level self-care
every single day. Bye.
