The Power Transformation Podcast

79. Reviving Your Spirit: Strategies for Overcoming Burnout with Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis

• Alethea Felton • Season 2 • Episode 79

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Have you ever felt like a candle burning at both ends? Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis, psychologist, personal energy strategist, and speaker joins us to illuminate the often overlooked world of burnout, providing insights and tools to reignite your inner fire. Together we peel back the layers of this condition that's silently creeping into lives beyond the workplace, affecting even those we least expect.

Join Us as Dr. Lewis:

  • Shares her personal triumphs over life's pressures with her self-care toolkit, inviting us to explore the importance of self-compassion and the power of aligning with core values for healing and rediscovery;
  • Navigates the complexities of professional and personal burnout while challenging the shame and guilt that often accompany this state of chronic stress;
  • Dissects the symptoms and societal stereotypes that can increase feelings of exhaustion and dissatisfaction, offering an empathetic ear to those struggling in silence; and
  • Lays out practical steps for reconfiguring your daily routine, taking the breaks your mind and body crave, and maintaining self-awareness. 


Embarking on the path to overcoming burnout requires a shift in mindset, and this episode is your roadmap to transformation. With anecdotes and actionable advice, this conversation is a gift for those ready to step out from the shadow of burnout and reclaim their vitality in a world that never stops spinning. Join us as we share not just stories, but solutions for a better tomorrow.

Connect with Dr. Lewis:


Episode 79's Affirmation:
I acknowledge when I am exhausted, and I allow myself to rest and rejuvenate.

Click here to connect with Alethea Felton

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Alethea Felton:

Listen, have you ever experienced burnout, exhaustion, overwhelming stress? Well, today's guest can definitely help you, for today's guest is Dr. Sandra Lewis, and she specializes in all of that which I just stated. She is definitely one of the best people that I have met so far in this life, and I say that because her personality is contagious and infectious in a good way, and all that she has to share about burnout and more is what you will be so fortunate to hear on today's episode of the Power Transformation Podcast. Stay tuned. She has a story to share, and I know that you do too. Have you ever faced a challenge that seemed hopeless? Yet you think that you have the power to change your life for the better, no matter the obstacles you face? Well, if so, then you're in the right place. I'm your host, Alethea Felton, and welcome to the Power Transformation Podcast, where we explore the incredible true stories of people who have overcome adversity and created meaningful lives. So prepare to be inspired, equipped and empowered, for the time is now to create your power transformation.

Alethea Felton:

Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of the Power Transformation Podcast, and again I am Coach Alethea Felton. Sometimes people call me LeeLee, Coach LeeLee, Coach Alethea, doesn't matter, I'm not caught up in the titles of it. The point is, you're here, and because you are here, I am so grateful for that here, and because you are here, I am so grateful for that, and y'all. I want to jump into this episode, but I want to acknowledge you who are brand new to the Power Transformation podcast. This is more than a podcast. I like to consider this a movement, because everybody has a story and it's all about reaching the masses so that people can understand the power that they have inside of themselves. Yes, you, I'm talking to you. You have innate abilities within you that is still left untapped, that lay inside of you, so that you can just get them out, so that they can burst from everywhere and you can show the world how transformatively resilient you are.

Alethea Felton:

I'm going to go ahead and start with an affirmation. I say the affirmation once and then you repeat it. I acknowledge when I am exhausted and I allow myself to rest and rejuvenate. I am so happy to have yet another phenomenal guest on the Power Transformation Podcast and that is none other than Dr. Sandra Lewis. Y'all, she is a psychologist, a speaker and trainer, a personal energy strategist, and I'm telling you, she connects women, she connects organizations with resources so that you can recharge, decrease burnout. Like I said, decrease burnout and sustain purpose-driven impact. And also she is an author and I will let her tell more about herself as the podcast goes on. But welcome to the Power Transformation Podcast, Dr. Lewis.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Thank, you, Alethea, it is so, so good to be here with you. Your spirit is I don't even know. It just warms my heart. I get such a warm feeling when you speak, so it's great to be here with you.

Alethea Felton:

Thank you so much. And y'all I call her Dr Lewis, but she told me to please call her Sandra. So if I go back and forth here on the podcast, that is why. But I feel like people who have earned these degrees, especially a doctorate, they're going to get the doctor up there. So I might say Dr Sandra, dr Lewis, but sister girl earned that.

Alethea Felton:

So I'm going to say it. Oh, and y'all. She's also a college professor and I forgot to also say that. There's just so much, but I am so happy to have you here and I'm going to jump right into this interview. I always just like to have an icebreaker question, something so that we can get to know you more. So my question for you is what is your favorite hobby or pastime?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

And why do you like it so much? Hmm, now that is a hard one. Um, because I love like little artistic things that you can do that are meditative. So, for example, studying yoga, you come across these sacred symbols called yantras, and sometimes I'll practice drawing them or painting or coloring them in. If you were to ask me the other thing that I love to do, which is also a part of my self-care practice, I would say it's yoga nidra. I would say it's yoga nidra because that that ability to sort of shift into the deepest rest so that I can get what I need to deal with each day as things come along, that has just become one of my treasures, absolutely One of my treasures. So it's probably clear that anything that kind of helps me get to that place inside where I find that peace, and that that sort of like spark that you know like oh, hey, right, it could be art, it could be that it could be yoga nidra, but something like that is something that becomes a treasure for me.

Alethea Felton:

Wow, and just out of curiosity, what inspired you to start studying yoga?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Oh, wow. So I think was my first introduction to yoga was like maybe high school or something right. And it just sort of seemed sort of slow and I was like, okay, this is interesting. And I was like, OK, this is interesting. But when my dad passed away, my brother had started doing hot yoga.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Oh and so we were in the hospital. A lot there were. There were a lot of things going on. He went into renal failure, there was just a bunch of stuff going on. So he took me to this class and at the end of it I was like I feel OK, I feel good, I feel like I released some of the tension that we've been dealing with. So literally we would leave the hospital, go practice and come back. And that was my introduction to yoga on a, on a steady basis. You know, before that it was just kind of dipping your toe in here and there basis. You know before that it was just kind of dipping your toe in here and there. I also went to a retreat and there was a man there who was a phenomenal yogi and he'd started talking about chemetic yoga.

Alethea Felton:

I've heard of that. Okay, yeah.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Right, and so he. He was just phenomenal. So that was also like oh wow, his breath, his ability to breathe and fill his lungs and his whole body could move just from his breath. It just intrigued me, like what the body can do and how we can get to these places of learning more about our bodies. Those are probably the two things that really were like sparks for me to get involved in yoga you the two things that really were like sparks for me to get involved in yoga.

Alethea Felton:

Wow, so we know now even more about you than what we didn't before, and so that leads me to my next question is if you could describe yourself to anyone, how would you describe you? Who is Dr Sandra Lewis?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

you describe you. Who is Dr Sondra Lewis? Yes, the first thing that always comes to my mind is how I am connected to my family. So I think of daughter, sister, grandchild those are the things that come right to the surface, and that, to me, means I am somebody who's very connected to family and community and whatever I do, I'm always thinking about yes, this is going to benefit me, and if I benefit myself in some way, I'm also going to be able to spread that to other people. So I would say I'm the person who's very much interested in how I create ripples that bring good into people's lives.

Alethea Felton:

I actually visualize that. I saw the ripples, because I grew up down South by the water, that's where. I am now, and I can just picture that ripple on the water and it just. What's so beautiful about ripples is that not only do they make a significant effect, but they reach out and can actually go quite a distance.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yeah, wow, wow. Yeah. You know it's that sense that when you touch somebody, you never know who they're going to touch. That's right to do something else, and you just never know. Like you could be at a bus stop but that person might go home and that would spread to their family, right it just. I know what happens for me, like I've met total strangers and they just said something nice or they asked a question or struck up a conversation and it shifted me. I know that meant the next place I was. Those people got the benefit of that shift as well.

Alethea Felton:

And I also think there are some of us, like you, who just have a certain aura or light around you where anybody can just come up and just start sharing their whole life, even if you don't ask a thing, and so I find that happens even to me, where I can just be minding my business. Or somebody come up and I know their whole history and I listen to it. But I think that is a beautiful testament to who you are as a person. And then you actually do, in real life, help people with some very challenging situations. And that brings us to the topic of this whole concept about burnout. I could have you on for multiple episodes talking about many, many subjects, but I want to hone in now on this burnout. We hear it, we hear the term, we hear people saying that they're burnt out. But, dr Sandra, what exactly is burnout?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yeah, it's interesting. It's a word that's been around for a long time. It's been used. It's now being used very much in workplace wellness circles or in how do we understand people functioning in their careers and, I would say, in the sort of psychological world it came into. It was probably like the 70s that there were two researchers that were looking at this whole idea of burnout and how it was impacting people who were teachers, people who were in healthcare, people who were psychotherapists. So now, well as of 2019, the World Health Organization has recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon and they actually highlight three different symptoms that are common the mental and emotional exhaustion that are common.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

The mental and emotional exhaustion a cynicism, you know, that kind of like. People go to work and they're just like, yeah, yeah, they said they're going to fix that, but I know they're not going to fix that. It's like, yeah, I know this job's never going to change. I'm just here to get my paycheck, I'm going home, right, and then a feeling of ineffectiveness. And I will say that when I first learned about burnout as a as a graduate student, they were there earlier. They used to talk about this whole.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Two other symptoms that were discussed were the sense of disconnection from yourself, like you actually don't quite feel like you Right, like who am I? Like I was me but I'm not me anymore. And this loss of fulfillment, the loss of fulfillment that you know that, ok, it's Sunday night and Monday I have to go to work and I don't feel any kind of love for this job. Yeah that, so you could really say this the exhaustion to me, the emotional and the physical exhaustion and the mental exhaustion, show up in that kind of I've disconnected from everything. And you know the cynicism. There's a kind of loss of hope and a self-doubt that often shows up when people feel burned out. It's like I used to be able to do this, I was doing a great job, but now it feels like I'm losing my ability to do, to be me right.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

This life is moving faster than I can even catch up with it and maybe I'm not cut out for this life I've created, and then that sort of I can't be effective anymore, and then that that I don't, I'm not loving it, I'm not feeling it, it's not feeding me.

Alethea Felton:

Yeah.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Right.

Alethea Felton:

Yeah, and kind of piggybacking on what you said about Mondays, about how sometimes people dread Mondays. There was an article that I read a couple of years ago true story, actually, it was pre-pandemic, but it showed a statistic that said, in the United States alone, most people have heart attacks on Monday mornings and it's connected to them thinking about having to go to work. And, on a somber note, this is a true story. About five or six years ago, one of my supervisors didn't show up at work and I was a teacher then. Of course, I'm a full-time entrepreneur now, but this is maybe six or seven years ago, I can't think when exactly, but anyway, she always showed up early to work, was one of the first people there. She didn't show up at work. Her kids were left unattended in her classroom. They ended up doing a wellness check.

Alethea Felton:

My principal at the time ended up calling somebody, ended up doing a wellness check, found her passed away at her home. She had a massive heart attack on a Monday morning and she had been going through some stressful experiences in her life, including burnout, and I know that not as a rumor but as a fact. She was very, very burnt out with a lot of things going on, just like a lot of people are, and so my question to you, though, is, within the realm of psychology and all you do, of course, this podcast, the Power Transformation podcast, focuses so much on just people's real stories of transformation, but what in the world Dr Lewis got you to say I want to really study burnout more, specialize in it. What is your story in dealing with burnout, and what led you here?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

It's so interesting. I have this story from two sides my personal side of dealing with my own burnout, and then as a psychologist, working with healthcare providers during the AIDS epidemic. So just trying to learn at that time, right as a psychologist, how do we support people who are navigating an epidemic that's moving really fast and we don't yet have all the things we need to help people stay as well as possible? So there was that. So I actually spent time in various countries doing stress management. You know, trainings for healthcare providers who were working on and helping families. You know navigate AIDS. And in my personal life, here's the thing people don't really always think about it's like the person who's doing all the work that probably is the one that's burned out. People think like people. When you hear burnout, people think of this person. That's like they've just collapsed, they've given up, they can't Right, and I'm sure, certainly, absolutely, that can happen, right.

Alethea Felton:

Like you just mentioned.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Like people have these Monday morning heart attacks, like because work has got, there are people who get so burned out that they really wish that they would get sick so they could take off work. Oh right, yes, right. And so when someone, ever someone says to me and man, if I was just sick, I could just not go to work, then I know they're really, really burned out Right, and they just haven't caught on that they're hard working is a part of is another way that burnout shows up. They just push harder, they go more. Like every time it looks like something is not going to go right, they say no, it can go right, I'm going to push a little harder. So, like that hard pushing is like really that sort of sense that I'm depleting all of my resources and I don't have what it takes to make this work. And for me, I was in a position where I was like okay, I've done all, I've jumped through all the hoops. Pretty much I've gotten to this place as a professor, now I can add a few things, I can do a few more things. And I started a project. See, it's the person who takes on more, right.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So the project then grew from what should have taken maybe a year. Now it grows into two years, and so there was a lot of like backtracking and by the time we got through this thing and we got it to about maybe 80% of where we really wanted it to be and it was complete I was turned into the office and literally had the worst anxiety of my entire life. I turned into the driveway and my heart is pounding, my breath is short and I'm like, oh shoot, wait a minute. My body, I can't be here anymore, like literally. But all the time I was pushing so hard, I didn't hear myself, right, I didn't hear my own body talking to me or I just ignored it. I said no, no, no, we can manage. Let me just do this. I'll go to a yoga class, I'll be okay. But you know, your, your everyday yoga class is not enough. If you are pushing yourself extra, right, you just use up everything you got in yoga. Now it's just like you're just trying to plug up the hole. Every time you make a new hole, you're trying to plug it up, right. So that was my call, that was my call to action. That look, you can't keep going like this. This is living in anxiety.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

I totally lost track of why I loved the work I was doing Totally. It was gone. I was just like gotta get this done and all my other responsibilities didn't stop while I was working on this huge project. But that moment made me turn around and made me take a step back and, luckily for me, that was also at the end of an academic year.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

What I could really like have more time to me, and that's probably why I was actually able to feel the anxiety, because there weren't. There weren't all these things to do taking up the space. So that person who sometimes sits down and they notice that they start to feel stressed and then they start to get up and do something else, is literally they're trying to turn off the feeling of the stress because, oh my God, I can't get this done if I feel stressed. So they turn off to their bodies until sometimes people collapse or, like me, you have anxiety show up.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So I took a leave. I knew that I could not go back to work. I was like I've poured more than I don't even know why I'm working anymore. So I was like I've poured more than I don't even know why I'm working anymore. I was like I know why I started this work and why it was important to me. I knew that, but, like now, I don't know what I'm here for and it doesn't feel good to be here, so I had to reconnect with my love for the work that I do in the world, because without that, I don't know.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Work just feels like a thing to do and I don't. It's just not a way I want to live and I that's why I always talk about being purpose-driven, like when I'm working. It's because somewhere deep inside of me I feel that the work is connected to something really important, a value. I have something, and if I lose that, I know then I've gotten caught up in some sort of emotional turmoil and I haven't really processed it. So that was the story for me of how burnout got really personal.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

I took time off, spent a lot of time, I did a yoga teacher training I, you know, got worked with my doctor, got lots of support to heal myself, and actually teaching yoga after burnout helped me find my voice again.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yeah, it was interesting because we had to deliver a specific dialogue, you know, to help people go through this series of postures, and everybody kind of makes it their own in the way they speak.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

But so many times people would come up to me and say I love your voice in the class, I love hearing you in the class, I love the way you lead, I love the way you compliment people, and it was like for me it was this wow, I'm looking at people going through these postures and then just noticing these very slight changes in them and how those slight changes made their bodies have a little bit more ease, a little bit more flexibility, and so I would just encourage them if you could just give it one millimeter more, could you feel that, you know, and then they would do it and they would feel something open. So that got me into this sense of like wow, the give and take between someone who's guiding you and you taking that, and how they impacted me. It was a beautiful circular kind of a process working with people in the yoga class, you know.

Alethea Felton:

Yeah, I really like how you literally took us from beginning to that. Transformative part of your journey and I think that's what a lot of people need to hear is that you can recover and be resilient after burnout. Now suppose a person is experiencing burnout now but aren't quite sure exactly if they are or not. You gave a few symptoms, but what are some general characteristics or symptoms that a person might notice in themselves if they are experiencing burnout?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

themselves if they are experiencing burnout. Yeah, I think some of the simplest things are people, that feeling of how do you feel when it's time to get to work. Are you right? So that that's one thing noticing. Also, can you let work go? Is it always on your mind, like even when you close down your computer and you walk to the store or you hang out with your family or your children or your partner? Are you still at work?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

How are you feeling in your relationship with stress? Are you feeling that you're navigating it okay, or do you feel like you put out a fire and then you're just kind of holding on and ready mode, waiting for the next thing to happen? That could be also, how are you sleeping? Right, all right. Is your body able to rest? And and do you think of rest as as a bad four-letter word or a good four-letter word? Yeah, um, so you can see in yourself, you know these like little patterns where you're the person you sort of getting caught up in worry all the time. You can't sort of stop your mind. You notice that you actually can't stop. Anytime you stop, you're saying to yourself I could be doing this or I could be doing that. You never give yourself a break. Those are all things that can be both symptoms and patterns that lead to burnout.

Alethea Felton:

Hmm, and I think it's also important to recognize the fact. Even people who are, say, senior citizens as well as retired, can still have burnout when they're taking on a lot of extra responsibilities. I know some seniors who seem busier now than they did when they were working. And then they can get burnout also, and sometimes, whether they are younger or older people with burnout, there are some people who actually feel guilty and feel shame about being burnt out. How can a person recover from shame or guilt of having burnout?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Wow, this is one of the things. Now, two things came to mind as you were talking about the seniors around the shame, right. So let's talk about historically, how, in some cultures or traditions or social experiences, rest is not really allowed. It's not seen as something that you deserve. So you may push harder or you may be like I did a LinkedIn Live one day and I was talking about pouring from an empty cup. I think that was the day I did pouring from an empty cup and why we might do that. One of the things a woman was on and she commented yeah, I'm trying to fight this stereotype where people might think I'm lazy. So sometimes right, sometimes we are pushing ourselves harder because there are some stereotyped images of us. There was even a few years ago.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

A team from the Center for Women in Business at Rutgers wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review where they talked about these five maladaptive ways that women cope in spaces where they feel alienated. So because they think they are going to have a hard time getting promoted as a woman, sometimes they do more and they push themselves and sometimes they don't let people know when they need help. So they had these five different things that left them in a position of being, of pushing themselves harder and getting to that point and being ashamed that they couldn't. They can't tell anybody because it would't tell anybody, because they would then lose their opportunity for growing in a career that really matters to them, right? So there's this combination of this is how, sometimes the stereotype of you feeling lazy, right, and you trying to fight the stereotype, or you not being good enough, right, you're trying to fight the stereotype and you feel shame in yourself because something else outside of you this right, this stereotype, is outside of you. That's not who you are, but now it's seeped into your consciousness and you're trying to fight a thing that you won't change that way. Right? Though the people who hold in a stereotype have to change. They have to change right, and then we can't change them by showing them that we're not what they think. We are right. They have to change and actually be willing to look at us differently. So sometimes those stereotypes lead us to feeling shame because we feel like we can't hack it, we can't right. So and then and I think sometimes people look at, this is my story, this is how I'm moving through my career. Somebody else is moving, you know there's this comparison thing and why am I not doing as good as they are? I'm feeling exhausted and I can't do it.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

During the pandemic I was working. I was a member of this professional women's organization and they had a round table and I was helping like talk about mental health in the workplace and some of the challenges people might be dealing with, as people were not in the office anymore and there was a woman who said what do I do? I am the only woman in this office, maybe it was like an engineering kind of a business, and all the guys are at home and they're working double time and I need a break, I need to slow down. The pandemic is like you know, I'm isolated. So she's feeling her pace is not the same as theirs and now she can't. She's feeling like I can't keep up and they're going to leave me behind, right, and so now she's trying to push herself to deal with that.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So sometimes the what, shall we say? The setting, right, the what is considered to be the norm in the setting. I hesitate to call it a culture, because culture to me is like cultivating. Yes, cultivating culture nurtures you. So I say you know, the norms in that setting are such that you can't slow down, and those kinds of norms can leave people feeling ashamed if they feel like they need to slow down. So they won't tell you that they are actually experiencing this emotional exhaustion. They won't tell you that they've lost a sense of effectiveness or fulfillment in their work.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

They won't say that. They feel that the people around them don't welcome them anymore, Like there's a sort of a I'm here but I'm not really here, and they feel maybe even cynical about their relationship to their work and they feel the shame is real, and this is something that troubles many of us who work around. The issue of burnout is the concern that people feel ashamed, and my my own thinking about that is that they feel ashamed and they feel like burnout could be just the end of their story, Like this could actually take me out of everything I ever wanted for myself and I always want to say what if burnout is not the end of your story but your chance to rewrite it?

Alethea Felton:

Oh, my goodness. Okay, let me pause you right quick, because everything you just said literally almost brought tears to my eyes. Because I think back years ago when I experienced severe burnout and what happened was my body shut down on me where my body made me and of course, you know my own spiritual practices, and so I'll say God was giving me a wake. In my eyes come from so many people that I know, specifically in my former profession as a public school educator, where teachers, even principals, people in leadership in general, school employees Now, I can't speak for higher ed, but I know K-12 education oh my gosh, it is so stigmatized if you have a nerve to take off, if you have a nerve to even have a little bathroom break and have to leave the kids by themselves, although you're not supposed to but you haven't gone to the bathroom all day, and that there are people who feel such guilt for having to take leave off because they are literally about to come crashing in and don't know what to do.

Alethea Felton:

And so for you to say that burnout can be a catalyst for rewriting our stories for rewriting our stories, dr Sandra, convince these folks. How in the world can that be?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yes, and this is, you know, this is the story I feel inside of my own experience. It's that that moment when I was so anxious in my car, which is often what people feel right, there's another thing. People leave the office and they're in the car and they're crying. They're crying all the way home and they're not saying I'm burned out, but they're crying all the way home. So in that moment I was like, yeah, no, sandra, it was such that it was so clear to me that I had to take this time and get back to who I came to the world to be. I could not continue this way because it was going. It was actually moving away from what I feel is my journey in this life. I was literally leaving me behind, so I had to come back to me. What better way to do that? I love yoga. Yoga for me, had both a physical, had a physical, emotional and spiritual component.

Alethea Felton:

When.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

I was at the end of the practice and I just lay there in meditation for two to five minutes. That, for me, was taking it all in, allowing every gift that my body had given me by squeezing out the stretch, out the stress, feeling a little bit of extra stretch that just awakened me right to what's already inside of me, what's in here, sandra. So I had to come home to myself before I could start to feel like what I could do in the world again. So at that point, you know, when I did do that right now, I started teaching these yoga classes just because I love it, not because yoga teachers it's hard for a person who teaches yoga, so it's hard for them to like make a living of that. So for me it was like, oh, this is just right. You know, this is cool, it's a great thing. And when you watch people like your voice and people's bodies interacting, it became like, oh, wait a minute, sandra, you have something to say. You have an energy to offer that can be healing and supportive to other people, that can help work through something that can help them grow. You know, imagine someone working on their practice, you know their yoga practice for several weeks in a row and then they come to your class and you see like they've changed, you see like they've given, and you want them to know. You see they're working their own transformation right. You're working your transformation here, that's right. So it's like everything you see outside of you in a yoga room also you can experience inside of you. You can feel like I'm creating my own transformation as well.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So I got back to one of the things that came out of me. Burning out was a question that I asked myself, which is when I get stressed something's going on. I say what does this have to do with who I came to the world to be? Because I realized I'd lost all love and connection to the work I was doing. So I had to come back to that because that was really why, like, my whole reason for teaching, doing psychotherapy, is because I want to see people's brilliance come through and I want them to embrace it. I want them to like, feel like oh wait, wait, wait, I got some special sauce and I'm not even it doesn't even just show up at work this special sauce that everybody has that, you know, in an African tradition, we might call it your purpose. You know, somebody might call it your light, that great old Christian song, this Old Light of Mine.

Alethea Felton:

Yes.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

This thing, this thing that's you. It shows up in your family, it shows up in your work, how you, what causes you choose to take on in the community. It shows up in the way you relate to you. So I had to remind myself, right Like this purpose. I have, this thing I feel like I want to do for others. Okay, how am I doing that for me? So that question became one of my ways of resetting, to come back and to realize that I have a voice and that my body had given me the wake up call I needed.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

I was blessed because, like you know, there are some agencies where they have you can take leave, right, you can take a. You know they might have sick leave, they may have some kind of paid leave. So it's important for people to know what resources are available to them. Trust me, when I had that experience in my car, when I drove, I started counting what do you have in the bank Just in case you have to take a leave without paying? I literally started planning it because I knew that I could not go on that way. That would have been, and this is something I often say to people don't try to hide from your body.

Alethea Felton:

It is so comical when we hear it, but it's the truth. Don't try to hide from your body, don't try to hide from your body.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

My body was like, sis, we can't come back here. You know your body is your closest partner. Yes, my body is like, yeah, we, we need a break. And I was like, yes, we do. We're not about to have like some kind of panic attack, we're not about to be diagnosed with panic disorder so that we can keep working Right.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So, um, the shame that people feel is real and I don't, you know it's, it's. We don't want to minimize it, but I want them to know there's a way out of it and that what they've experienced, like when you know, if you uh listen to the people who, like Garmer, chris Garmer, um, kristen Neff they talk about shame sort of being the opposite of self-compassion, or like what people do when they feel shame is so different than what you do when you feel self-compassion. So, for example, in self-compassion you have this recognition that your experience is common with lots of other people, but in shame, you see yourself as the only one who's screwing up Right, and so, if it helps anybody, burnout statistics continue to rise. So you are not alone. This is something that's real. We could talk about the ways organizations are ordered and some things that happen in organizations that can increase the likelihood of burnout.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

There's, like at least six factors that most researchers talk about, and we can also talk about what we do in ourselves that can make us more vulnerable, even our histories like how do we learn about our emotions? How do we learn and navigate our emotions? A lot of us just don't. That's true, right. So this becomes a moment when you can get in this journey of starting to make friends with your own emotions, learning how they speak to you, learning how your body speaks to you and giving yourself that grace to be able to walk through that, that, what might feel like a fire, even though you feel burned out, you feel like you're in a fire, right, and find your way to your cool self, right, and find really not being surrounded by fire and burning down, but actually finding out what lights your fire like, what makes you want to go, what motivates you, what moves you.

Alethea Felton:

I wasn't going to ask this question, but I'm curious. But if the answer is too long you can consolidate it. But is there a difference in how men versus women process burnout?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So probably most of the stuff you'll see. Sometimes you see higher rates of burnout among women than men, right, at least in the studies that you see, like the big studies. You'll see big companies like Deloitte or you know, right, these big companies Gallup all those you know. You might see higher rates, slightly higher rates or percentages among women, and one of the things that we see in the research is often because women are navigating, often navigating responsibility in so many roles, like they have their career and so they have a responsibility to people if they're like managers or there's this or this project they have a responsibility for. They also are often parenting and also in relationships. So they're navigating that. They often are the coordinators at home and the coordinators in the office. So sometimes the burden right when you don't have enough. And sometimes that's another place where people may feel like women may be more likely to feel that that they shouldn't ask for help, that they shouldn't ask for help.

Alethea Felton:

They're supposed to be able to do it all, but yeah, no, nobody can do all those things Okay. We don't have on superhero capes, literally yeah.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So, yeah, so sometimes I think we're socialized to be the ones right. The way we're socialized, it can can definitely right Influence how we show, how burnout may show up for us, right. So, but you know, so it could be also older children, like. I don't know if anybody's ever done this, but it just makes me think, like, being the older child, I think I've always felt more responsibility, right, the older child, you're the one like when the younger kids. I only have one sibling, but he was five years younger. So, and then I just watched my mom who was the oldest sibling. My dad was the oldest sibling. You know, I just saw the older sibling pattern in my family. You know, I just saw the older sibling pattern in my family. So sometimes the older sibling pattern can be a way that people feel that desire to take on more and to push themselves and not be the one that sits on the side, right?

Alethea Felton:

So I think gender can definitely be a factor because of the way we're socialized. And, as the younger sibling, I would actually agree with you Because, although at this point in my life I live closer to my parents, I do know if anything detrimental God forbid would have to happen, my sister would more than likely step into more of that role of navigating things. I can do it, but I think you're right. It's almost as if it's a societal expectation that the eldest come in and handle all of the heavy lifting and handle all of the heavy lifting. Now, while people are hearing all of this and this is probably resonating with more people than not what do you say in terms of relation to how a person's mindset and their overall perspective or outlook, what is the connection or what role does mindset play in overcoming burnout and how can a person shift their mindset so that it can support more of their mental wellness and overall being?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yeah, you know, a few minutes ago, when you were talking I don't know if you mentioned something biblical or reminded me of something biblical, but I grew up in this family where my mom used to quote a couple of Bible verses.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

One was as a man thinks, so is he. And then the other one was be transformed by the renewing of your mind, right? So I thought about that and I also thought about how now there are so many people who are focusing on belief systems and mindset. For me, it was hearing that, those words from my family, that made me interested in cognitive behavioral approaches to understanding. Oh yeah, because it made sense to me, right? So, like, cause I'd heard it all of my life. So a lot of times I got to graduate school and this is I was like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. And then you know, you start seeing the research of how, when somebody shifts their beliefs, they actually start you have to start to see long-term changes in their, their depression or their anxiety or whatever they're experiencing. So I think mindset is a key component, it and it. It's hard to think about, like what it means. So many different things to different people, right? Right, and as a psychologist like I could.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

I could think of, like your mindset, part of the way we know. It is like what you're saying to yourself in any moment, and then that what you're saying to yourself. If you go deeper, right, if you start like cataloging these things you're saying to yourself and finding these little patterns, eventually you're going to get to a place where there's something you believe about you and about life and about your experience, or what there's going to be, some belief that pops up. That's actually like undergirding all of these kind of maybe negative things you're saying, or maybe patterns you've gotten stuck in things you're saying, or maybe patterns you've gotten stuck in. There's a belief in there. What we say in our heads are great clues to get deeper into. What is it that I really believe that's helping to sustain this thing, because you could say something in your mind oh, I'm doing this, I'm getting this done, and dah, dah, dah, dah. But maybe in the back of your mind there's another thought that you know, cause you don't want to fail and you don't, right? So people can often have two things happening at the same time, right? So we just have to get to know that the only ways we're going to be able to use our mindset to help us through burnout is to just start unraveling what we're saying to ourselves, because that, you know, you could be saying to yourself, like you know, like the person who is what I call this kind of robot on skates problem, a pattern where they just kind of always going and never stop Right. So this person never sits Right. They probably eat standing up. They grab something on the grill oh, they're at their desk. They take a bite, they work some more Right.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

And so if we were inside that person's head, right there, you can't even really digest your food that way. No, no, you can't digest your food that way. Your body is somewhere, is going to tell you I didn't digest any of that. I don't know what that was you had. It's just sitting here in your belly, right? So we have to slow down enough to hear what we're saying to ourselves.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Now that could be a dialogue around people who rest or I'll rest when I'm dead. Yes, right, I'll sleep when I'm dead. People who rest don't get anywhere. People who stop don't get anywhere. This person is going to pass me if I don't keep going. So, and what does that mean? Maybe below that, there's still a questioning about whether or not I actually have what it takes to do what I really want to do.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So if that's in there, kind of lingering, that belief can be the catalyst for you spiraling into just taking on too much, the catalyst for you becoming stressed and continuing to push yourself to the point that you do become depressed or burned out or very anxious, right.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

So I would say that mindset is more of a deep dive. You can have an affirmation like I have plenty of them. You know, I have some that I say regularly. I have plenty of them. You know, I have some that I say regularly, and I also still have to watch when I'm, like, feeling stressed, like so what are you? What's going on inside of you? One of the best ways, though, alethea, for people to start uncovering this is literally simply the free write. Ok, I'm in this situation and I'm saying so on and so on and so on, so, and I'm thinking, and I'm writing in this and just to write whatever is there, yes, do that for about four days in a row, and then you go back and you look and see are there any patterns here? Is there something that keeps coming up in this?

Alethea Felton:

Then you, you actually get started and that you if you work with a coach or somebody to help you through your burnout, then you already have gotten sort of a head start of I discovered this and that that will help them be able to help you. Wow, thank you. Oh my gosh. Our interview is coming to a close, but I have so many more questions. This is so good and thorough, but I will ask you this A person that's experiencing burnout, what are about three practical steps or tips that you would give them if they're experiencing burnout? And when I say tips, it could be what you recommend or advise them to do? Resources it's pretty broad, but what are the top three things you would say to that person who's currently experiencing burnout?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yeah. And if it's somebody who's not ready yet to hire a coach or be a part of a group program or something like that, then I say, really start looking at your patterns, looking at how you're navigating through stress, really start looking at your patterns, looking at how you're navigating through stress. And easiest way to do that is just to say here's what I did today. Where in this day did I take a break? Right, to notice, if you're taking a break Right, first, you just want to notice Do I take any breaks? Do I ever stop and give myself a chance? Did I eat well today, right? These are all the things. You just want to look at your day to see. Did I do the things that would actually sustain somebody with the load I'm carrying, right? Secondly, you do want to start putting into your day some moments when you are resting, when you are just giving yourself a moment to recover. Bring in some energy so you can do the next thing. And if you like reading, there are several books that could guide to get started on understanding burnout and maybe start, you know, helping yourself get out of it.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

The other simple thing you can do is just take every day, take about three times a day, stop and take really three deep breaths, or take three minutes and just focus on your breath. It helps to reset your nervous system. When you burn out, your nervous system is pretty shot right. You're emotionally exhausted, so you don't even really quite have the fuel right. All your nervous system is not quite working well enough to help your body calm itself. So those little bits of just starting to remind your body that it can find calm, your mind can find calm, you can take breaths, you can stop, you can slow down, and then, once you start to slow down, right this, this part of you that feels like it's always got to be moving, then you may start to get access to oh, how do I want to be different? What do I need that will help me be different? So the simple just noticing your patterns, taking some rest breaks and breathing.

Alethea Felton:

Dr Sandra. What has burnout and overcoming it? So what has overcoming burnout taught you the most about yourself?

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yeah, taught me about my patterns. Taught me how, because if you are an overdoer which is my pattern it's like you've been doing it a long time and you just it's just the way you live, right? You don't even know that it's a problem, right, until you reach that problem't even know that it's a problem, right, until you reach that problem, that point where it is a problem, because now you stop noticing what you need. So I would say the gift of burnout for me was noticing my patterns, but also reclaiming my purpose just reclaiming my purpose and wanting to live from that place. That is the one thing that helps me. It helps me, like, because I still have this tendency. I have to watch myself. So I have these ways. Now I've learned all these little things and ways I support myself so that I can catch myself in doing too much. Bullet journaling was actually one of the things, because I was looking. I was like you know, sandra, there's no way you can do all that in a day. You have to divide. That that's right. It's not possible. This is actually a really great thing that I like to share with people.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

When you're planning your days, try to plan maybe four days a week when you have, like, big projects that might take you a couple of hours to do, but then you know maybe three to four days of that, and then another couple of days where you have medium-sized projects that you're doing, so that you don't have every day. You have two or three projects that take two or more hours to do, but there's going to be other stuff that has to happen in between. That's shorter stuff. You got to get the dinner, you got to get the kids, you got to right, you got to take some phone calls, you need to go to the bathroom. And you made me think when you were.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

I didn't mention I've thought about this before but, like, teachers are among those professions who are more prone to bladder infections because they never get to take a bathroom break. So I mean, I think, if we can just start to, for me, noticing my patterns right like, oh, I'm going to teach a class. My patterns right Like, oh, I'm going to teach a class, I always, before I just check in, does my body need any support before I go right, like, do that? So I think that for me, you know, what I got back was a deeper relationship with me and, most importantly, a deeper relationship with who I really want to be in the world.

Alethea Felton:

Mm, hmm, wow, this was so loaded and so I don't want the connection with the listeners to end here. So how can a listener get access to your book, your platforms, how can people connect with you and what offerings do you provide? Whether it's speaking, whether it's in the book, just the floor is yours to just share all of that information.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Yes, so I do offer like training, like courses, like I have this, this one called find more ease and stressful times, which is really a shorter term training with some individual coaching to help people be able to make stress less of a burden, right To feel more.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

How do I find some ease in here and really get out of this pattern of just holding our bodies in stress and actually being able to rest enough that we can be creative, that we can actually say, oh, that's done. So that kind of training, short term, I do that. I also do one-to-one um coaching with people who are going through burnout, and if there's an organization that would like support around wellness, understanding what burnout looks like, how to cope with it, I am happy to share a presentation around that or even training around it, because one sometimes you do a presentation and people get the overview, but what they really need is like how do I put this into practice day to day? My website is lifein4partharmonycom, the number four, which is also the same name as my book, and it's very easy to get in touch with me there.

Alethea Felton:

Wonderful, and you're also on LinkedIn and I'm on LinkedIn. Yes, and it was there yeah absolutely LinkedIn is another way.

Alethea Felton:

So, dr Sandra Lewis, you have been exceptional. You are just such a warm spirit. I am so glad we connected. John Narrow connected us and I am so glad he knows me well and when he first told me about you he always asks first and he said can I please introduce the two of you? So I said to him I said, john, you've known me for years and I trust anybody that you send my way and I'm certainly glad this connection was made. It was an honor having you as a guest on the Power Transformation podcast and I will definitely keep in touch with you. But thank you again for gracing our presence today with such insight, knowledge and wisdom.

Dr. Sandra Y. Lewis:

Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure to be here with you, so such a pleasure.

Alethea Felton:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, dr Lewis. Y'all everything she shared can definitely resonate with even you and me. We have all been there, we have all been at the end of our rope at times and we need to acknowledge when those times happen so that we can take care of ourselves. Please connect with Dr Lewis if you want more questions answered or just simply if you want to follow her work. She's a phenomenal person and I am definitely keeping in touch with her, and I am so grateful that she took time to be on the Power Transformation podcast. Let's go ahead and close out with our affirmation I'll say it once and you repeat it I acknowledge when I am exhausted and I allow myself to rest and rejuvenate. If you enjoyed today's show, then you don't want to miss an episode. So follow the Power Transformation Podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you usually listen, and remember to rate and review. I also invite you to connect with me on social media at Alethea Felton, that's, at A-L-E-T-H-E-A-F-E-L-T-O-N. Until next time, remember to be good to yourself and to others.