Major Points:

                                5:15       Things that usually bring you joy no longer do so is a sign of burnout. Ask yourself why this no longer gives you pleasure.

                                                7:12        There is a mindset associated with burnout that may present as mental, physical, or emotional issues or a combination. Changing this mindset is key to addressing the burnout but professional help may be needed if the mindset is difficult to change.

                                                14:19 Finding purpose: What are the three words that you would want others to use to describe you and what is you intention to elicit that description?

                                               

00:01                                     This is Changing the Face of Yoga and this is the 124th episode of this podcast. And my guest today is Susie Bischovsky and Suzie is an expert on protection from and prevention of burnout. I think that that is and can be an issue with yoga teachers and yoga therapists since we give so much of ourselves. I wanted to talk to Susie about this. Suzie is also a yoga teacher and she has her own podcast called Keep Your Candle Lit and she also works in public school education. She embeds what she learned in yoga into her classroom and she teaches gentle yoga at a yoga studio. You could call it extra, extra gentle yoga. We might look into what that means. She's also taught her school colleagues and students at her middle school and she incorporates mindfulness and burnout prevention in the practice. Her ideal client is someone who doesn't think yoga is for them and leaves the class realizing that it is. Welcome, Suzi. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that introduction?

01:30                                     Wow that after listening to that introduction, I'm exhausted, I'm tired. No.

01:38                                     It is an extensive list. I listened to some of your podcasts and one of them really threw me because I thought I knew what burnout is, but given what you said, I don't. I saw burnout was just being so stressed and having so much to do and that you just can't keep going. But what you said, and I'd really like to talk about this, is that if you don't have purpose in your life, passion for what you're doing and vision, that's the cause of burnout many times. So could we just kind of start there and talk about what the causes might be and why you believe this is the cause of burnout?

02:29                                     Yeah. So thank you for that question. as far as that being the cause, maybe it's more like causality or more along the lines of if we sit down and we look at ourselves and we're asking ourselves these questions, what is our purpose? What is our passion? What is our vision? If we can't answer those questions, that could point us in the direction of possible burnout.

02:55                                     Okay, so what we're looking at is not so much a physical overwhelm as kind of being lost. Is that a fair thing to say?

03:08                                     Yeah, I think so. I mean, I feel like the interesting thing for me about burnout is when I was going through my coach training, I didn't recognize that I myself had gone through burnout because it was never framed that way to me. We talk about depression, we talk about anxiety, but at that time, burnout wasn't that thing. Other than like people would say, I'm feeling really burntout or I'm feeling tired. My key was I would say, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. Or if people wanted to do something, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. It was like that idea of a hamster wheel, but now it's 2019 and the world health organization itself actually cites burnout as a condition to be mindful of and aware of. They do pretty much pigeonhole it towards the workplace, but we see people talking about caregiver burnout and all other things. So I feel it's something that we're still on the cusp of understanding.

04:08                                     So you said that you didn't realize that you had burnout. What would be something to be looking out for if you feel that you may be either on the cusp of burnout or actually burned out?

04:26                                     So if I can add to that question, just the idea of like how is it different or similar to depression or anxiety, specifically depression, because I think someone could very easily say, Oh, I'm burned out and maybe not even recognize the signs of depression. So I also just want to advocate for the importance of having our own wellness team, like your audience, they're familiar with yoga, right? So a lot of us embody yoga as a physical, mental, spiritual practice. For some people it is physical. So what do other people have in their life that guides them to recognizing when something within is calling out to them. So to go back to that original question of how do we know when we're being burned out? Wait, was that the original question? I'm sorry,

05:13                                     That was it. Yes.

05:15                                     Okay, thank you. My brain just went loo la loo. Oh, so to go back to that original question of like how do we know when we're burned out? I think that sometimes people can see it within us before we can see it within ourselves. And one of the things I think to be mindful of is: if the things that normally bring you joy no longer bring you joy, what's underneath that? Or here's an example that seems very like benign, right? So I'm an avid reader, whether it's paper copy or an e-copy, I can sit and I can read and I can read and I can read. And you know what's wrong with that? Reading is a good thing, but if I sit and I don't do anything else for hours and for days for me that pleasurable activity has become either a substitute or a coping mechanism for something else. And sometimes I need someone to kind of say to me like, Hey, so you've been on the couch coma for like a week, what's going on to point that out to me? Or even for yoga practitioners, if yoga is the thing that brings you joy and release and you're avoiding your mat, or you're avoiding yoga on your chair or yoga on your couch or yoga in your car, you're like, we all do yoga all over the place, right? So when you start to run away from that thing that brings you joy or brings you release, I think that's another indication that we need to look at something.

06:41                                     Okay. So that's, that's really very different from what my interpretation of burnout used to be. It's not really so much, if I'm understanding this, a physical tiredness as much as a mental, not an issue, but a mental problem that you may or may not be able to recognize.

07:12                                     I think that's a really good question. When we think about burnout, it could be physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, right? Or someone might even have a change in attitude or become negative or unconcerned or disconnected. However, from talking to my clients and supporting them through their own burnout prevention, or even recovery at the heart of it, generally speaking, there's like a mindset. And if we can shift the mindset, we can then go after the physical, the emotional, the mental exhaustion. However, if the mindset can't be shifted or can't be unpacked or can't be uncovered, then I think that's when it's time to talk to a traditionally trained professional, like a therapist or a doctor. And talk a little bit more about, is this burnout? Is it something deeper and what are some things that I can do? As an example? one of the things that came up for me years ago was that I was vitamin D deficient and I was like, all right, whatever.

08:11                                     And then as soon as they started to give me the prescription vitamin D, at that time, it was like someone shot sunshine into me. And I was like, wow, is this what it feels like to not be exhausted all the time? So that wasn't necessarily a burnout piece, but that adjustment to what was coming into my body certainly changed how I showed up and presented myself. When I was burnt out, I didn't know that I was burnt out until I wasn't burnt out anymore. And then with the learning and the knowledge that I did, hindsight's everything right? I look back and I went, Oh, that's what was happening. Oh, that's why I took a piece of chart paper and wrote on it all the things that I had to do and wore it like a badge of honor. And that's why before I understood what values were, when I made a list of all the things that I had to do and that were important, my friendships weren't on there, my family wasn't on there, my husband wasn't on there. It was just all very task-oriented. I think that now a days there is still a stigma with mental health. I like to call it mental wellness for some reason. When you say mental wellness, people listen to a conversation differently. I feel that as the conversation has shifted and evolved and has grown, we do talk about this a lot more. Back then I was just, your average really busy really to hired person who thought everything that she was doing was so important and it was not.

09:38                                     So you said that you are in burnout prevention and I like that. What would you recommend to people, the listeners what is important when you’re thinking burnout could be an issue for me. What is the preventative things that you might be able to do?

10:08                                     So one of the things that I like to incorporate into my coaching practice, as well as yoga, and in the classroom when my students allow, for a second, a three words to describe yourself in the present moment without attachment, without judgment, without trying to change something, without trying to analyze it. Like just pausing, taking a breath, really scanning the body and what are three words that describe how you are in this moment? And then at the end of something I like to do a ticket out or I ask people to check again. And the misconception is I'm looking for you to take your quote unquote negative words and shift them into positive ones. I'm not.  I don't like when we label the words as positive or negative, but if that's what someone needs to do. Like if you go into something and you're like calm and peaceful and you come out of something and you're angry or anxious, there's a reason why. So being mindful and truly connected to how we're feeling without trying to sugarcoat it or hide it is important. One of the things that I've advocated for people to do is like to find a ritual to do it. So maybe when you're brushing your teeth or you put your hands on your steering wheel or you unlock your door, something that you do every single day. Like I tell the students, hopefully it's when you put on your deodorant because we want to keep our friends close, right? So something where you can check in and identify that. Another thing that I like to do, and I'll be honest here, when I do it, it's awesome. When I forget to do it, I run into trouble. The simple step of gratitude.

11:37                                     Yes. It's very powerful, isn't it?

11:42                                     And notice we both paused after that word came up, right? Yeah. There's something about gratitude that makes us pause. it can take your breath away if you're having the moment of anxiety, a situational anxiety, taking your breath, noticing your breath, thinking about what you're grateful for. And when we're having our worst moments, the answer is nothing. I'm grateful to breathe. I'm grateful to be alive today. I'm grateful that I have resources at my disposal. I'm grateful that the sun is shining. I'm grateful that there's rain for 40 days, not so much, because the flowers grow. Like what is it we can find grateful for? And I often invite people to just trick your brain. If you're truly not grateful, find something that you can say that you are or practice something until it becomes your truth. Because eventually it will come very organically and naturally.

                                                Another simple thing that I would say is figure out if you like quiet or music. So when I meditate or I relax, I try a variety of things. Sometimes I need nothing. Sometimes I need focused silence. Sometimes I need a candle, a crystal. Sometimes I need music. Sometimes I need an Ohm chant. Sometimes you need a mala. Experiment. I think too many times we try something and it doesn't work so we move on to the next thing as opposed to trying the thing multiple ways and you don't have to do it the same way. You don't fail at it, right? Like there's no report card that says you failed this, you can't do it anymore.

                                                So whether it's any of those three things that I mentioned or just other things, finding something, trying it and finding a way to make it into a ritual. You mentioned that I'm a school teacher, I have been teaching for 22 years. My summers, I'm quote unquote off. And if any of your listeners are teachers, they understand what I mean by the air quotes of being off. But summer does grant me some more freedom and flexibility with my schedule. And this summer I was super, super careful to cultivate for myself some practices that I could then transfer over during my busy season and not go, well that was summer Suzi, false. Suzi can't be mindful, can't relax. She can't find the thing because she's too busy. Like I think a lot of us, whatever our professions and roles are, we fall into these seasons and we find something that works for us, we run out of time and then we let it go. So I really advocate for super simple, short practices. Okay.

14:19                                     I'd like you to explain a bit more about your thoughts on, purpose, passion and vision. I think those are such fundamental things that many of us may not really consciously think about. I at one point not anymore, had a retirement podcast and that was the theme of that was having passion and purpose, because you are reinventing your whole life and so it can be difficult.                 I think it's equally difficult just not with any major changes in your life, but really kind of knowing who and what you are and what you want to achieve.

                                                When you said retirement, I sat up a little straighter. I'm not close to retirement. I did indicate that I was teaching for 22 years. And to be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'll retire in 10, 15, 20 or 25. But for me, I'm being mindful of my own purpose, passion, and vision. So when I do transition, I can transition into that which I love and not transition into a hamster wheel.

                                                So in answer to that about purpose. I invite your listeners to think about purpose as what's your intention? How do you want to be? How do you want to show up in the world? Maybe purpose is: if you are eavesdropping on people, talking about you, right? What three words would you want them to use to describe you and then what's your intention to earn that? What actions are you taking each day?

                                                 And I'm not thinking about smart goals or measurable outcomes, but more about like what is it you want to do? so for me, my purpose varies, but generally speaking, my purpose is to be kind. Yes, I'm publishing a book in the fall, yes, I'm going to release an online course. Yes, I'm going to do these things, but my purpose is to be kind. Before our call I was reviewing old text messages. And ironically I took a picture of one and the person reached out to me and said, I just wanted you to know that when I think about you, I picture you smiling and I can't say the same about everyone else. And I thought, that's awesome because this person has seen me cry, scream, rant, all the things. But when they think of me, they think of the smile and I think that speaks to the kindness. Am I kind 100% of the time? My students would challenge that, right? My husband would and when we just had the discussion about the air conditioning today very loudly. I feel like I can, I keep saying I feel like. Because I feel that that's where purpose is. It's our intention. It's our feeling. It's our heartbeat. My goal is to be kind. My goal is to walk in peace and my goal is to support people in finding their light, whether they're children or adults or any other variation.

                                                 When I think about passion, to me that goes back to your motivation to stick to your purpose. So the name of my podcast is Keep Your Candle Lit and that's because of the light within us. So what is it that we do? What is it that you do that keeps your flame ignited? How do you stay lit? And then on the other side of that is what dims your light? What dims your light?

                                                A heartbeat of the work that I do is this expression, our self-talk becomes our life walk; our self-talk becomes our life walk. So if you are negatively talking about yourself, that's going to dim your light and then you're going to walk in that manner. Think about someone who like gets a compliment and then they walk with their head held high and then think about someone that gets verbally berated and they walk with their head down low. There is a difference there. So what is it that we're doing that keeps us lit? What are we doing or what happens that dims our light and even the people around us, right? Like who are the people that are stoking our flames and who might be trying to distinguish us or I'm sorry, who might be trying to extinguish us? But I like to distinguish us. That's nice. Friendly, right? Head over the people that distinguish you, not extinguish you.

                                                And then, finally on that purpose, passion, vision train. The idea of vision is of course, how do you see yourself? But it's the alignment of your purpose and passion. Like in our best life, those two integrate, right? Like we can live the life we want, walk the path we want and have it all integrate either in the short term, in the long term, it can be action oriented. But truly for me it's like how I want to be. So if my intention is to be kind and I know that taking 10 minutes a day to listen to calming music keeps me lit and I know that engaging in negative self-talk or shoving donuts in my mouth, which is my easy go to dims my light, right? If I make the good choices so I can be kind, then when people leave my presence, they walk with their head held a little bit higher. When people leave my presence, they feel warm. When someone walks away from me and they seem more stressed than when we started a conversation, that's when I know that perhaps I'm not being 100% myself.

                                                And I recognize that that is also about another person. I get that, it's a two way street there. For me with students, with adults, I want people to know that they're heard. I want people to know that they're seen. And I want people to know that they're valued. And that's why for me, when we do talk about yoga, I don't do headstands as a part of my practice. I love people that do. I think it's magical. I think it's amazing. It's not part of my practice. I can't twist myself into a pretzel. The majority of the people that I work with, they're looking for the release on the mat and if they one day can get to the twisted pretzel and the head stand, that's awesome. But I want the people that say yoga isn't for me, so I can show them how it's not only a physical practice.

20:46                                     Let's talk a little bit more about that. You said that you do extra, extra gentle yoga. What would that really look like when you call it that?

21:01                                     In full disclosure, at the end of August I'll still be doing yin yoga training, because I kind of feel called toward that. I'm wrapping up Yoga Nidra training as well because I felt called to that. When I teach yoga, I don't even like to say the word teach. I know that I'm the teacher when I facilitate, when I support, when I offer yoga. One of my first classes that I ever taught beyond karma classes, so I was like working for the studio. Here we go. One of my friends came and like she never did yoga and she was like, I'm not doing that for all the reasons why. And she came and at the end she's like, that was the equivalent of a really good massage. Thanks. And she has since gone off to do yoga at a whole bunch of studios, she jumps around, she lost weight, she has more flexibility and I think she has more peace of mind is my understanding, which to me is more important than all the other things.

                                                When people enter a class, I offer them time, like we all do to get settled in and find something that they're comfortable with, a nice comfortable position. And then of course we do breath work and we do body scans and all the beautiful things, but I try to offer some sort of an embedded burnout prevention tip. It could again be a gratitude or the three words, something along those lines or it could be something a little deeper, especially as I get to know some of the yogis that are in the room. I would say my yoga class is anti-flow, meaning instead of inhaling and exhaling into poses like a flow class, we might hold a pose or hold the action of getting into a pose for several breaths before we transition into the next piece. I feel that we do less postures, more holding, more breath work sometimes with props, sometimes without, and as far as it being extra, extra gentle, I have discovered a trend of late that I do more groundwork then standing poses, although I do incorporate them because I understand we have to like bring in the balance of all the things. Mountain pose. Oh my gosh. Do you love mountain pose, Stephanie?

23:22                                     Some days. Some days it seems not worth it.

23:33                                     I will say that I love a mountain pose. And when we do Tadasana. If you can picture this. First, we start in the traditional with the hands releasing to the earth and generally eyes are closed or they're invited to have eyes closed and we take breaths and we breathe and then I ask people to check in with their fingers pointed to the earth, what are they releasing? And then after a couple of breaths, we raise our arms. So they're shoulder height, hands, extended palms facing one another. And I invite them to consider what they're reaching for. And then after that hands go above the head, pointing toward the sky, what would you like to express gratitude for? And then after that hands come to chest. What are you hoping for or some variation of that. So, we can take a pose like that. And play with it a little bit and incorporate some language that really invites reflection. Maybe it invites reframing a negative thought that we had during the day or negative self-talk. Something along those lines.

                                                Oh, and I just want to give a shout out for child's pose. Oh my gosh. I think I just kind of described how I am, right. That just pigeons me. I feel like child's pose is such a delicious release and I love using props to bring the earth closer. And I love witnessing people do child's pose with a variety of adjustments that they make themselves and watching people's faces when they come out of child's pose is like my favorite part of the practice. I absolutely can include sun salutations or moon cycle, but when I do, they're done slow as well. Right? So stepping into one of the postures, holding it, stepping into the next one. So I guess you could say extra, extra gentle is just super slow and mindful.

                                                I don't think anyone's going to break a sweat necessarily, however, I think that they're going to get increased flexibility. And a release from stress and tension. I'm also known, this is so embarrassing, but I think it's just become my thing. Like my brain goes a hundred miles a minute and I have to slow it down during my own practice of yoga as well as when I'm teaching and facilitating. I've definitely called the ankle - foot wrists - so many times that it comes out of my mouth almost all the time without even thinking about it. I'm definitely the kind of person that if you're not interested in laughing during a yoga class, I might not be your cup of tea. Cause generally people are laughing at me in a very nice and gentle way. But I think it, it all comes from wanting to be of service to people, right? Like no one becomes rich becoming a yoga teacher. We all have something that calls us to teach yoga. And for me, I never wanted to be a yoga teacher. I just wanted to deepen my own practice and understand it more teaching was an accident.

26:52                                     But I do like all of the things that you're incorporating. I mean I think I can really like Tadasana if I had all those cues to really reflect while I'm doing it. I mean I can understand that. And yet you've said previously those are really good cues, really good things to be thinking about, especially in the context of burnout and looking at it from a preventative point of view. I'm wondering if slow yoga, we'll call it that or we could call it extra gentle, gentle yoga is kind of the opposite. The pendulum has swung from the very, very athletic, physical aspects of yoga and now people are maybe starting to talk about some other aspects of yoga. They aren't sometimes as accessible as the physical and yet they are equally, if not more, important. I think I would enjoy an extra gentle, gentle yoga class with you. I would like the reflection part of it, because that, especially when you're teaching, I think it's, it's difficult to be reflective of your own practice. You are working out poses and all that kind of thing. I think that's a really good offering. If you were going to tell the listeners anything that we haven't talked about or that you would like to talk about in more detail, what would that be?

28:52                                     So I love the title of your podcast and when I think about changing the face of yoga, I want children to understand that yoga can be athletic like you've said. Right? But that yoga can also be a way for them to chill out, decompress. And even if they have to go onto technology to access a yoga class, it's okay for them to step away from the technology and, and take a break to do something along those lines. When I've incorporated yoga in the classroom, not systemically, I like to do a little more systemically this year I've had some sections that are more receptive than others and sometimes it's a chair, sometimes it standing, but it's certainly more relaxing than athletic cause we have some space considerations and safety issues to consider. But when they do like a half moon pose or tadasana or even a simple twist that's slow and they're breathing, that change in them and the change in the environment after. It just makes sense.

                                                So for people that are listening, if they are yoga teachers, encouraging them to find a way, if their schedule allows just to do a, maybe a voluntary drop in at a school somewhere, someone was receptive to that or if someone has a studio, I'm sure that there are people that are doing yoga classes for kids. I would love to see more of yoga with parents and children, specifically adolescents because that can be such a time where adolescents and parents are butting heads. And I think a yoga experience could be a nice way to bring people together, especially around a real beautiful theme. So I would just invite your listeners to just to consider, to think about how the world would change and how the way we all engage with each other would change if our children could find ways to be mindful and prevent their own burnout. Hmm.

31:11                                     Well thank you. That's a lovely thought. I taught seniors and yes, yoga is very, very beneficial for them. But, when you teach children, hopefully you're teaching them some lifelong skills and giving them tools that will help them. I think that's a lovely thought. So thank you so much. I want to thank you for coming on. Suzi is going to be part of yoga teacher month where we're going to talk about issues, opportunities, those kinds of things for yoga teachers and one of them is burnout. I've learned quite a bit cause I obviously had the wrong idea about it, which is okay.

31:59                                     Can I jump in on that one thing? I don't think that you wrong idea. I think everything you said or thought is valid and it's what's out there too. I just invite us to think about it on an additional level because I think sometimes, if we say that it's a physical piece, there's a difference between being tired and tired, right? If there's an emotional piece, well I'm really fine, right? Fine is the worst F word that's ever been created. And if it's mental exhaustion and mental exhaustion or mental fatigue, like who wants to talk about mental health, right? So if we can look at it from that lens, like you said, and thank you for listening into that episode. I appreciate the feedback that you gave. It could be safer to think about purpose, passion and vision, and that could then lead to deeper conversations that support people and understanding the difference between being tired, being exhausted, being burntout and being depressed. So, please, I absolutely think your interpretation and understanding is correct. I just think we can also add more to it as well.

33:02                                     I think that that's important because if you feel stressed because you're doing so much, you may or may not have the opportunity to change that. But if you look at it from a differently - a different lens, you can certainly look at what your passion is and what your purpose might be and how you achieve that. So I think that's a very positive way that everybody can do. It's really part of yoga, isn't it? The reflection part. We really think a little more deeply about some things. So thank you so much, Suzi. I really appreciate you coming on. I think that this has been very, very informative and I agree with you, a very different way to look at burnout and, and hopefully, getting a little more into the burnout prevention mode than we've been before. So thank you again for coming on the podcast.

34:03                                     Thank you for the invitation.

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