1.02 - Spare Yourself from Burnout with Caroline Hughes

In this episode, Caroline Hughes shares how her climb up the corporate ladder took a devastating turn and what she's learned on her journey back to health and, ultimately, to herself. She is passionate about helping leaders prevent and recover from burnout and encourages everyone to get granular about how they're feeling, rather than label everything as "stress."

Caroline is a highly accomplished global talent and leadership executive, and advocate of leaders everywhere who live and work from a place of authenticity. She frequently finds herself as a minority female voice in senior leadership "a woman in a man's world," is a strong advocate of women in business, and has learned to use her status as a means of standing out and engaging others on constructive dialogue around change. 

Guest: Caroline Hughes

• Website: https://www.consciousleaders.ie/ 
•  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-hughes-34684a4/
•  Instagram: https://instagram.com/caroline_consciousleaders/
•  Facebook/Meta: https://facebook.com/esker.humanresources

Host: Tina Unrue

• Podcast Why: 1.00 Trailer
• Website: www.selfishmama.com
• Newsletter: Selfish Mama Insider
• Facebook/Meta: @SelfishMama
• Instagram: @realselfishmama
• LinkedIn: @tina-unrue

Transcript

Caroline Hughes: I would say that was the hardest lesson. I think it's what I'm still learning, two, two and a half years later, that this beautiful mind that's very determined and very brilliant in so many ways actually needed to really learn to take a backseat.

Welcome to the Selfish Mama Matters Podcast with your host, and my mom, Tina Unrue. 


[00:00:23] Introduction
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Tina Unrue: Caroline, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast.

I am really excited to be able to talk to you and to dive into a discussion of burnout. So, for everybody who's joining today, would you please introduce yourself, share your pronouns, and tell us how you're showing up in the world. 

Caroline Hughes: Thank you, Tina. It is, it's really nice to do this cross Atlantic collaboration with you.

I'm looking forward to our conversation too. My name is Caroline Hughes, as you kindly introduced me. My pronouns are she /her. It's a new one for me. I've never been asked to actually do that before, so, so thank you. 

Tina Unrue: Yeah, you're welcome. I wanna make sure I, call people by the way that they feel most comfortable. So thank you for sharing. 

Caroline Hughes: Yeah, I really appreciate that. And, you know, it's interesting, you're asking me like, how do I show up in the world and in some way, that's a really brilliant example. I'm always willing to try new things to explore, you know, and see what happens. I have a great spirit of experimentation, I would say, which thankfully, you know, even though getting on in years, you know, it's never left me. I still feel like I'm that teenager inside with the inner compass outcome. Where to next? What's exciting? What grabs me in order to get involved in? And that's part of why actually I set up the business when I did because I felt it was time for change and moving away from the corporate life and then getting a chance to have a different type of conversation with people.

Cuz that's really what motivates me. What looks, what's the art of the possible when it comes to how we are most effective in our daily life, in our daily work? And whether that's in an office or in the home or in a retail environment, you know, whatever it is. I think there are always certain things that are inside of us that's just dying to get out and I love being in conversation with people and with organization on how to really even put words on that.

So that's a lot of what I'm doing at the moment. And I suppose how I'm showing up that spirit of curiosity, entrepreneurial spirit, yes. But more that... What is possible? What is the art of the possible when two or three or five people get together to try to figure something out? I love that. 

Tina Unrue: Oh my God, thank you so much for sharing that.

That's so exciting. I love that you kind of tied your,your zest for experimentation and curiosity and exploring and pursuing possibility, not just in the current moment, but you tied it back to, when you were a younger you, and that's just, it's a part of you that has not left you.

You know, that you, it's just continued on, but yet it's probably manifested itself in different ways. So you're showing up with great curiosity and experimentation, and you obviously mentioned you have a business and you left the corporate life. So, you know, it sounds like there's a before and after story. 

And the podcast, of course, is always about us pursuing ourselves. And what you said, I think just dovetails so well with this podcast because I do not want people to think that Selfish Mama means to make everything about ourselves in the most grandiose and quote, unquote, self-serving of ways in which we care about no one else.

Really what it means is to pay attention to what matters to us including ourselves. That voice inside, that thing that drives us. So, so why don't you share with us, the story of apparently like prior corporate life and maybe what the catalyst was for deciding to depart it.


[00:04:10] When your strength becomes your weakness 
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Caroline Hughes: Yeah. Well, I guess if we had chatted kind of five, 10 years ago, I would've been your average, you know, superwoman, you know, juggling everything, yet another one, you know? And career and family and interests. And I held a lot of roles within kind of the corporate world, both in private sector and public sector where I was leading large teams typically internationally, bringing large scale transformation and always excited to kind of get, bring that art at the possible that I mentioned at the beginning, kinda into being.And in ways, I suppose my story is a little bit whereby almost your strength can become your weakness when it goes into overdrive.

And probably for maybe 10 years as I scaled the corporate ladder and jobs became more complex, more, more difficult in ways, but yeah, more probably just more complex, more geographically diverse, bigger deliverables. What I found was that, I started to work at a pace, which was absolutely fine in my twenties when I had a much simpler portfolio of work to deliver.

Caroline Hughes: But that even though I got into my thirties and my forties where I still am, I found that actually the, my pace of work actually speeded up. My perfectionistic tendencies around standards actually remained consistent, unlike what you might typically see, which is as other things come into our sphere of life, other priorities, very often something like a perfectionistic tendency can start to reduce and rebalance, whereas mine didn't.

Um, and I was hugely driven by my career, you know, even though it wasn't the job titles, I never cared about that, but I cared deeply about the work that I delivered. And so, so working within, you know, I ran a global function for five years for leadership development. Built it up, you know, from the ground up to something that was really incredible.

But actually in the course of doing that, I consistently ignored the signs in my body to slow down. And I would've been traveling quite significantly across that period. And I kind of had a philosophy of, you know, well, why do one thing when you could do three? And why do three things when you can do five?

You know, because at that point, almost like, I know it sounds crazy, right? But yet I think I'm not alone. 

Tina Unrue: That's true. 


[00:06:37] Signs of burnout start of as whispers
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Caroline Hughes: And you know, and it's almost like we're where we start the sense of perspective around how much energy is going into maybe one part of our lives. And for me it was my career really kind of a lost perspective.

And I remember, cause I used to go over to the US about once a month cause I had a team over there, I'm based here in Ireland, and I would've described myself as being in a constant state of jet lag, probably for about 12 months, or certainly all through 2019, if not even earlier. And, and, you know, my body was starting to talk to me.

Caroline Hughes: I had this really nagging pain in my jaw that was becoming worse and worse. But it never occurred to me to actually, maybe I need to stop talking . You know, stopping eating, yes. That was very much a conversation because the jaw pain was so severe, it was really difficult to eat.

And I also did other things like I took on extreme sports as my outlet. And I remember a friend of mine saying, you know, the higher you go in your career, the longer your hours and the longer walks you take, because for my rest, like I did Base Camp Everest at the end of 2015. I did Kilimanjaro 10 years ago. Did a tour, Mont Blanc, you know, walking. South America the same.

Caroline Hughes: And so, because what I found was in order to rebalance my priorities between my commitment to work, my passion for work, my, my delivery focus, I needed something as equally big as that for me to actually start paying attention to myself. So I took on these big personal challenges outside of the office, so that I would be motivated to go to the gym to keep my diet under control, you know, through the long hours and the flights, et cetera. And if I, you know, I would say to myself, well, if I want to be fit and well on a walk, I will get to myself to the gym in the morning before I get to work, or I'll control my food intake, you know, while I'm doing that because there was another external purpose to me for keeping going and doing something differently. 


[00:08:28] How burnout demanded attention 
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Caroline Hughes: And so it, look, it'll come as no surprise even in this very abbreviated version of what's quite long, complicated story, you know, that I had a massive burnout at the end of 2019, where I woke up one morning, actually day before my 44th birthday, and my legs felt like lead in the bed. And I remember I was cajoling my body. I was saying, look, it's one more day. I'm about to take a month off to go on holidays. But before I went on my holidays, I needed to fly to Orlando. I needed to close a particular, project that I had worked really hard on kind of for a previous 18 months.

And this was my last day to be in the Dublin office before I, you know, went to office essentially for five weeks. And this kind of deal a day, this is something I had been doing probably for years. You know, one more day, one more project, one more phone call. One more Zoom. One more flight, you know? And when I look back, it kind of makes me quite sad actually to think that, but actually the familiarity with which I would do this deal with my, myself, and with my body to simply, you know, convince myself to keep going because mentally I wanted to, but physically my body really was talking. And actually that morning, actually, I never made it out of my apartment because I collapsed, collapsed on the floor of my bedroom and I live alone. 

Tina Unrue: Oh my goodness. 

Caroline Hughes: And so when you find yourself at, you know, in my case, the bottom of my bed going, oh, what just happened? Like, what, you know, very shaken, very unsure.

I just knew something really had to change. And, you know, that started a period of sick leave where I was treated for a stroke, for brain injuries, variety of different ailments, hospitalized for part of time, and it took about six months to actually get to a diagnosis of burnout when kind of other physiological reasons for the level of exhaustion, particularly I was feeling you know, had to be explained, you know, cuz I, I remember one of the doctors saying to me maybe about a month after this happened, which would've been kind of January, 2020, and I remember her saying to me, please stop trying to go for walks. Please stop trying to be back in the office because your body is telling you she's not able.

And while again, strength is weakness, right? I would've been very driven and the goal was on the horizon and we just would figure out a way to get there. Whereas lesson, my first lesson was really letting go of that because I had, they, they said to me, you know, you have about 13 to 15 minutes worth of energy per day.

And I was looking at them going, well, what do you mean per day? You know, surely I can do something and then I can rest, and then I can do something again. You know? But this was actually the pattern of thinking that was really not in my favor when it came to my recovery, because that was my brain trying to override the body again.

Caroline Hughes: And I remember her saying to me, you know, when you make your lunch, make doubles so you can microwave your dinner. Because from a concentration point of view, that's about what, that's about the capacity you have to get a task done. And physically while making a, you know, making a meal is not necessarily very exerting when you're making a meal for one, you know, that actually this was about learning to pull back and let my body take the lead in my recovery.

And I would say that was the hardest lesson. I think it's what I'm still learning, two, two and a half years later, that this beautiful mind that's very determined and very brilliant in so many ways actually needed to really learn to take a backseat. 


[00:12:05] Wait. Is this really burnout?
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Tina Unrue: What a story. Oh my gosh. I have so many questions, but I wanna try to, really remain focused and make the most of our time together today.

Did you actually have a stroke? Did you actually have, something else diagnosable that was still the root cause of burnout? Or were the physical things that were happening undiagnosable to something other than burnout? Does that make sense? 

Do you understand what I'm trying to ask?

Caroline Hughes: Makes perfect sense. 

Tina Unrue: Ok. Yeah. It was just like, oh. 

Caroline Hughes: Because, you know, I totally understand how difficult it is to put words in some of this. So even in your question, it kind of reflects and reminds me of, you know, back in 2020 when I was going through this, just how difficult it was to go ho, hold on. What's happening here?

Is this, yes all, is this all burnout? Is this all... you know, circumstantial. Or is there something physiological happening? 

Tina Unrue: Thank you for putting words it. 

Caroline Hughes: And that's very, yeah. I've heard this story a few times. It's OK. Because it's interesting, Tina is, I had collapsed here, again. I had collapsed quite a number of times, but one of the times unfortunate that I collapsed, I was outside on the street, so I ended up being taken to one of the hospitals. And at this stage I was two months off work. And slowly, you know, energy starting to return. But there I was doing something I shouldn't of course, you know, cause I did not have the energy, the level of walking that I had planned to do that day.

I remember kind of going into our accident in emergency or you know, emergency department as it would be in the US and they were saying to me, okay, we're gonna start physiologically, we're gonna start with your brain. We're gonna understand what's happening here because I did have these physiological signs of stroke with these abnormalities to these, you know, sores or that were appearing on my brain.

Caroline Hughes: But they were looking at me going, you're fourty four years of age. You seem fit and healthy, you know, in a general sense. Okay, you're exhausted. But physiologically we wanna understand what's happening in your heart, what's happening in your brain, what's happening through the system. And actually, and I was admitted to hospital for two weeks while they did this.

And I don't know if you're a fan of medical dramas. I happen to be, but not this one in particular. It's different when you star and your own personal 

Tina Unrue: Indeed. 

Caroline Hughes: But, you know, I remember kind of thinking, I love Grey's Anatomy. And I love when they bring, you know, the interns around to the difficult cases or the more unusual cases, and everyone wants to ask questions.

And in this case it was me because I was in a cardiac ward being treated for stroke with the heart monitor around my neck, not allowed to leave my room because I had, I was collapsing too much at that point. And so therefore I was high risk, you know. And they were all asking exactly the question that you were asking me, is it something physiological?

Let's explore that. And if at the end, we cannot come up with a physiological reason as to why this is happening, we need to talk about your lifestyle. 

Tina Unrue: Oh, okay. 


[00:15:16] I'd like a diagnosis of burnout please 
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Caroline Hughes: And I remember ringing a friend of mine saying, if this is about lifestyle, if this is about stress, I'll take it because at that stage the conversations were getting a bit scary, you know? And so what they found, they've never fully ruled out stroke, albeit that I did not have some of the more typical, side effects of stroke that you might, you know, have heard of, you know, in terms of face falling and speech being impacted and that. But what, because I have these marks, so there's two ways that they can come about.

One is through stroke and the other is through a particular type of migraine where the, is it, the carotid arteries actually kind of spit out a clot that reaches the brain and it's nothing to do with your cardiological health. And so, so that's one of the diagnosis that they landed on that actually that I had this quite severe form of migraine, which at its most powerful caused these, this one of the neurological signs was this kind of gradual folding of my legs, otherwise known as collapsing.

Cuz it was a leg up collapse as opposed to fainting, you know, backwards. And of course then they started saying, well, well, you know, where are you spending your time? You know, what's your circumstance? Let's talk about, you know, your life and how obviously lifestyle and food are contributors, major contributors to migraine, that's well established.

Caroline Hughes: And so that's really the only kind of, if you like, other diagnostic that when they realize that the more I rested and the more that I can actually, you know, physically get my body back up to an energy level that was more normal, you know, for someone in their mid forties. And then, you know, with that, some of the more, I suppose, mental anguish that would go along with that.

You know, when you go from, you know, standing on Base Camp Everest, fittest I've ever been in my life 18 months earlier. Top of my game professionally, you know, materially, you know, having kind of, I suppose being looked at as somebody who had achieved quite a lot, and then to really kind of reach a full stop because the body has imposed the limit, and that's really what the remaining kind of part of the conversation among my recovery was about. Well, how do we look at, what are good boundaries, what are good practices to support my getting well? 

Tina Unrue: Yeah, that's such an incredible story and I think there are so many people who can resonate with your story in one way or another.

You know, being able to be very ambitious and feeling like you have everything as together as you can, putting together in air quotes. But you develop a lifestyle that you get accustomed to and you believe is working and it probably does work right for a certain period of time until it doesn't. And so I'm so grateful that you had what sounds to be incredible medical care.

So if you had to share with people or identify, one or more things that you would have done differently had you known before that, you know, the mind was not all knowing, that it kind of had to share some space with body wisdom too , right? What would you have done differently or what do you suggest to people listening right to do differently?


[00:18:36] Burnout is preventable
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Caroline Hughes: Yeah. You know, it's one of the reasons I decided to talk about what happened with you Tina because when I reflect back with, say, on the two to three years before my collapse, although my doctors would say really it probably was 10 years prior, it was 10 years kind of in the buildup, I felt like I could have slept walk my way into what was fairly significant life event.

And now when I work with people, what I realize is actually it's full burnout is so preventable. Full, burnout is horrible and it's a very humbling experience, but yet it's a very transformational experience, but not a route I would recommend to travel. Acts, quite frankly, there are easier ways to change your life to change your life. 

Tina Unrue: Amen. Give me the easy button. Give me the easy button, please. 

Yeah, and what I like about what's happening, see, I think one of the positive side effects of the pandemic in particular, where we start looking at kind of our mental and emotional health with a much more balanced point of view.

Caroline Hughes: Whereas before, I think particularly in Ireland, and I think also within a corporate world, there's almost a, a smell of that conversation. There's some element of taboo and that will vary dependent on different jurisdictions and work environments. Of course, it's not all, it's on all everything. But you know, the research shows that burnout is 50% personal and 50% the environment around that individual.

So whether that's the home or whether that's, you know, corporate or whatever, you know, work environment you're in. And long before you get to burnout, there's anxiety, there's stress, there's overwhelm, there's fear, you know. And all of these, if we intervene along the way, we can stop. Yeah, we can put coping mechanisms in place for each of those different body responses so that actually you can equip yourself to come back from the brink because by the time you get to what I experienced, the recovery is quite complex and a little bit more like, I call it navigating the maze with only your torch on your phone, you know, that you can only really see what's in front of you. And some things will work a little and some things will work a lot. But there's something in that combination between, you know, first off, if you're starting to feel overwhelmed or stressed or anxious, or any variety of those panic might even come in there on that spectrum.

You know, talking to your general practitioner, your medical doctor is really important. The honest conversation, this is what's happening for me. And find during the day when I go to sleep, put my head on the pillow, you know, all hell breaks loose. Yeah. That constant reworking of the day or the coulda, shoulda, woulda, or the project or the scenario that used to be something exciting to do becomes actually quite, difficult because now there's a fear built into it or there's an insecurity maybe is a better word than fear, around what's happening.

So really have an honest conversation about what that is, I think is a really important stepping stone at any point along the way. And using, you know, a good friend, family member, spouse also to be in partnership around this is what's really happening for me. I know I'm showing up, looking fine and you know, everything sounds like, but actually there's an effort under the surface that maybe is not visible, but actually is really taking a toll in terms of the energy cost to show up, you know, at that moment and put the mask on and go out and do what needs to be done. Mm-hmm. . So I would say that's really important because in those conversations perspective is possible.

Because if I, again, if I look back, it's as I started to lose perspective, which is where I can easily agree with my healthcare team who said this possibly is going on for 10 years. Because for me, I can go, yeah, the jobs got bigger, I got more and more passionate about what I was doing. The complexity increased and therefore I gave more and gave more, gave more.

Rather than going, how do I balance that and give what I have resourced myself differently? Well, that means more people around me are different skill sets or outlets for pressure and stress, which might not physically manifest, but is taking up, you know, some of the battery running, in the body every day.

I think that's really critical because when you get into that conversation about perspectives, then it is more feasible to start talking about, well, what's possible, where are the boundaries? And I think particularly where we work more remotely nowadays. Where we might have less social contact if someone is not, you know, with living with an immediate family, it can be so easy to find yourself slipping into a, giving everything to one thing and not actually turning back the mirror on yourself to look at, but what do I really need to be effective? 


[00:23:29] The benefit of getting granular with your stress
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Absolutely. So it sounds like, the perspective that you speak of, it sounds like, you're recommending that kind of getting more granular with identifying the challenges and emotions, that you're experiencing. Not just labeling everything as kind of stress and just accepting that stress is just part of the game, right, but yet really focusing in and some of the terms that you used were overwhelm and, you know, lack of boundaries and, anxiety, you know, is a big one right here in the US. 

Tina Unrue: And so, we can do ourselves such a service by being able to accurately label some emotions that are happening instead of just putting it all under some broad umbrella. And yeah, it sounds like doing so even though in your experience was, you know, unfortunately after the fact, right? It's your lesson learned.

It's like, okay, looking back now, I can kind of see and pinpoint maybe the more granular pieces that I could have picked up on, and maybe that would've been more empowering for you at that time, then to be able to identify and implement boundaries that you wanted, but it would've also been very helpful to be able to have that level of insight and detail in order to speak with, professionals, whether it's our medical doctor or teams, or it's a friend, 

Yeah. Because when we just say the term stress, everybody's like, oh yes, we're just all stressed. You know, there's a lack of really progress that can be made from that conversation, and it's certainly provides a, an opportunity for connection, right? And empathy, because we can all just understand what that sense of stress feels like.

But when we get more, specific, we can really get the attention and care and clarity that we need in order to make changes moving forward. Did I interpret that all correctly? 

Caroline Hughes: Yeah. Beautifully, Tina. Yeah. You're good at this. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a lot of it is about being really diligent about what's going on for you.

You know, and you know, and I've even learned very simple techniques because like, exactly like you described, if we label something as the big label, then that's of course that is what it'll become ultimately, right? But even in doing that, you know, in that moment where we feel stress, anxiety, pressure, fear, concern, insecurity, overwhelm, whatever it is, even in closing your eyes and going, okay, what's here?

Caroline Hughes: And recognize that and say it out loud. And then ask yourself and what else? And say it out loud and what else? And say it out loud and feel the difference maybe in the resonance of what it is gets spoken, because that's gonna help you get clearer on what's really going on. 

Tina Unrue: I love that you said that because another big aspect of, this platform and something that I want this episode and ultimately the entire podcast to be able to support moms in doing, especially moms who resonate with being overthinkers, where they predominantly live in their head. And it is to start connecting to your body because your body has wisdom and oftentimes all of those emotions, especially the negative ones that we try to kind of stuff down, push through, feel like we don't have time for. Life needs to be done and lived and there's a to-do list to get to, and children to tend to and all of that. It's that those are like the whispers. They start off as whispers, little signals for us to start paying attention. And the question that you just posed to people listening is so genius because if we're willing to be brave enough to go there, we give our body the opportunity to be heard. What am I feeling? And then what or what else? It's something that we don't do often enough.

And if we do, then maybe we can prevent ourselves from getting to a point where we're in recovery mode for weeks, months, years, or longer. Yeah. 

Yeah. So thank you for that. 

Caroline Hughes: Yeah. Oh, you're welcome. And what I've noticed in that practice is it just creates more alignment around what is true for me in a moment.

And not just in moments of overwhelm or distress, but actually even in moments of joy and stepping into that. Because I think sometimes when our energies are depleted, when we feel we've had to, shrink down to survive the day, survive the week, survive the, the dinner, whatever it is.

Tina Unrue: Mm-hmm. 

Caroline Hughes: It actually can be difficult to then come up into what feels like the polarity of that, the, the joy of life, the , the zest for life, the bigger meaning behind, you know, what's it all about anyway. And so that technique is as helpful in fully embodying, you know, celebrating someone else's achievement, whether it's your spouse, your friend,your family member.

That's as important. And very often when we feel overwhelmed to any degree, they become diff more difficult because we feel, oh, I have to show up now. Now this is more stress because I have to look good and have to have small talk to talk about, or I need to talk to this person I haven't seen in so long.

Or maybe it's a social situation, which I would naturally not be my most comfortable. But now that I'm in this state where I'm not feeling a hundred percent, it gets exacerbated. So tuning in, in the good moments, and this is something I have learned, you know, we're brilliant at bypassing the good stuff, you know, because that negative activity bias in our brain just naturally goes, oh, goodie, here's something else to chew on.

Yeah. So there is that kind of almost training we have to do to kind of settle into. Those moments of joy that really, you know, bring it home to us. But this is what life is all about. This is the stuff, this is the reason we show up. This is what gets us outta bed in the morning. It's the joy of seeing a task well done or celebrating somebody else's success, even if it's only winning.

We have an egg and spoon race. I don't know, does it exist in the US where you literally put an egg on a spoon and you run a race and see, can you get to the end? With the egg still on the spoon, unbroken. 

Tina Unrue: I dunno if it's very popular here, but I have seen it. I just don't know where the videos were taken, so I'm not sure.


[00:30:11] The importance of finding joy
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Caroline Hughes: Yeah, you know, so where do you find joy in your day? And that's a practice when it's a great practice in any context, but particularly when life seems difficult for whatever reason, that remembrance of what went well today. Where, you know, where did I feel joy today? Because it's easy to look back and go, no, there was nothing.

Cause it takes deliberate effort to reroute our neurology towards the things that went well. 

Tina Unrue: Exactly. Thank you so much for saying that. It's so essential and you know, I don't wanna lose sight of the fact that you mentioned something incredibly important, which is the negativity bias. 

Lots of times people wonder what's wrong with them because they kind of ruminate and they focus on the negativity. And I know that, you and I share this sentiment, which is there's nothing wrong with you. It is default programming. And as soon as you know that it's default programming, then you can follow Caroline's guidance, right?

And make more room for joy and just know that you have a brain that can be reprogrammed and that, it just takes intentionality to be able to say, I'm going to focus and just lean in. Even if it's just a few moments at a time of the joy and the goodness and how this moment felt. Right. I just wanna commit it to memory.

Yeah. That's kind of what I do with my daughter sometimes if we're sitting together and she just looks particularly beautiful or just the moment is wonderful, I just try so hard to say, commit this moment to memory, commit this moment to memory because life is literally just many moments compounded.

That's it. You know? 

Caroline Hughes: Yeah. 

Tina Unrue: And if we can lean into all the beauty that oftentimes we overlook, we can just realize how beautiful our lives are. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I don't wanna end our conversation without at least asking this question, which is how are you today?


[00:32:13] What post-burnout life looks like today
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Caroline Hughes: Well today, Tina, I'm great. 

Tina Unrue: That's good. 

Caroline Hughes: First of all. Yeah, I, and I always say that, and any, when I talk about this, you know, while there were dark moments along the way, for me, burnout has been so transformational because it has really allowed me to access that in a wisdom you talked about really, and paying attention to it.

It's broadened my horizons around actually not judging myself for the things that might help me. And being able to let go of that, of the judgment and of the comparison, you know, everyone else is doing it, why can't I. And I just, I rarely go there. I go there time to time, but it's not sticky. 

Because I, I know that's just something I can choose how to think differently about, without any great, intervention at this point. So, so as I said earlier, while I would not recommend burnout as a route to travel, I think there's a joy and a fulfillment in full recovery that is as unexpected, maybe as the fact that it happened in the first place.

So beautiful. Wow. I'm so glad that you're doing better and I'm so thrilled to hear that you are applying the meaning that really, lights you up and provides a sense of joy to you. Even in the midst of all the challenge that you had to experience. 

Tina Unrue: As we finish up today, would you mind sharing with us what is mattering most to you in this season of life?

I'm really looking forward to my holiday, which is gonna be a very new thing for me to do. Cause I discovered breath work as part of my recovery. And I get to spend a week with a group of girls that I've learned to,come, to know over the last two years who've been very much, we've been part of each other's stories.

Caroline Hughes: So we make our way to Munich in Germany for an international breath work convention for a year joined 250 others, like-minded people. And I'm really looking forward to being around like-minded people. I've missed social interaction, between lockdowns and then working on your own, you know, you need other people outside of your work in my case or you know, outside of the home is that's your full-time work. And this is a group of friends that bring me a lot of joy. So I'm really looking forward to that. And I'm happy that my family are back in Ireland. Cause they all live abroad with a big family weekend actually coming up.

And I'm really looking forward to that because it's simply been too long. You know, we've separated for too long. And after that, I suppose I just take opportunity as it comes and I look forward to doing more of that and see more life takes me. 

Tina Unrue: Yeah. It sounds like exploration continues to matter to you, as does, family, and it sounds like connection. Connection to yourself and connection to others, especially after,the past few years of independence, right? . So thank you for that. How can people find you and connect with you? 

Caroline Hughes: Yeah, well through my website probably is the best way, Tina.

My website is www.consciousleaders.ie. And as the title suggests, I work with people who are looking at this opportunity to explore either personally or professionally. You'll also find me on LinkedIn probably as the second best place to, to get me and you can access my calendar there. And if anyone wants to have a consultation, the first one is always free of charge for 45 minutes.

And sometimes that's enough for people and sometimes it's enough to give an insight as to whether or not we'd like to work together or for them to go work with whoever is the right person for them. So that's where people can find me. 

Tina Unrue: Wonderful. 

Caroline Hughes: And for everything else there is Zoom. 

Tina Unrue: There is. Yes, there is.

Caroline Hughes: It used to be MasterCard I think, but now it's Zoom. Yeah. 

Tina Unrue: Well, I will, provide your contact info of course, in the show notes. And again, thank you so much for spending time today, sharing with us your story and your excitement for things that you're looking forward to. It was a pleasure to have you.

Caroline Hughes: Thank you so much, Tina. Appreciate it.

This conversation with Caroline really struck me hard. I was baffled by the fact that burnout could result in a medical mystery and affect her, and her life, and her body the way that it did. 

But I certainly know that we can all have physical manifestations of problems because of stress. And Caroline's level of life was kind of to the extreme. You know, she liked it that way and unfortunately her level of burnout seemed to match that. 

I feel like some key points that she hit on that I want to reiterate here as we close is the need to have a mind- body connection. She was always on the go and really relied heavily on her brain, on her logic, as I think a lot of us do. A lot of us who resonate as being overthinkers, you know, we give a lot of power to our brain, but our body has wisdom.

And she said that that was the lesson that she has to keep learning in essence, right? Is that her body has something to say and needs to have a voice. 

And the other thing that she also said that I want to zone in on is that for 10 years, presumably 10 years, she might have ignored signs. I realize that this is not all within our scope of responsibility. There's a lot of things in society and employment that needs to change to be able to support mothers, women, and even men, having a better work-life balance.

But, we definitely deserve to remind ourselves that we do have some agency, and I hope that this conversation gave you some insight as to what can happen when we ignore the little signs. Please try and listen to your bodies and prevent any type of potential burnout to get to this level. I know Caroline would be thrilled to support you in prioritizing yourself, and that's what this podcast is all about. It's really helping you to come home to yourself, to start paying attention to your whole self. Many, many times I think we have options that we just can't see ourselves, and we deserve some support in helping ourselves see the breadth of options that we do have available. And so I will provide Caroline's information, of course, in the show notes so that you can contact her to be able to get some support if this episode resonated with you.

And if you enjoyed this episode, I would be deeply honored if you would leave us a review, share the podcast, rate the podcast just so that other mamas who might need to hear this message can find it and maybe get the same benefit that you did. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for daring to be selfish, and we hope to see you next time.