339. Burnout's Secret Language: Completing the Stress Cycle

What happens when the warning signals from our bodies become so normalized that we fail to recognize them as distress calls? After experiencing a sudden atrial fibrillation episode that landed me in the emergency room, doctors asked the question that haunted me: "Why did you wait so long to seek help?" The answer was both simple and profound – I had been ignoring my body's desperate attempts to complete stress cycles that had accumulated over the years.

This deeply personal episode explores the science behind stress cycles and explains why completing them is essential for our overall well-being. Drawing on Emily and Amelia Nagoski's groundbreaking work, I explain that stress isn't just a feeling, but a physiological cycle with distinct phases that must reach a state of completion. When we continuously interrupt this natural process, moving from one stressor to the next without allowing our bodies to process and release, we remain in a state of hypervigilance that takes a devastating toll on our physical and mental health.

Whether you're feeling the early warning signs of burnout or want to develop healthier rhythms, this episode offers seven practical strategies to complete stress cycles and return to a state of flourishing. 

Revisit these podcast episodes mentioned in today's episode:

E337. The Art of Slowing Down with A.C. Seiple

E314. Radical Relaxation with Tracie Braylock

E272. Forest Bathing in the Hallerbos

E274. Everything is Reconciled in a Garden

Read Dr. Brene Brown's interview with the Nagoski Sisters

Read the Stanford U article on "Cyclic Sighing"

Chapters

• 0:00 Reimagining Maternal Power
• 6:07 Stress Response Cycles Explained
• 12:47 Living with Atrial Fibrillation
• 19:11 Self-feeding Stress Cycles
• 26:08 David White on Rest
• 30:23 Why I Waited Too Long
• 34:53 Seven Ways to Complete Stress Cycles
• 36:27 Embracing the Art of Flourishing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme, here on today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift with Janelle. I'm Janelle. I am your guide for our conversation. Today it's just me. Today there is so much going on in my world and in the world that I thought it might be really good for us to take a deep breath, individually and collectively. Okay, so here we go. I might just need one more Inhale, exhale, inhale. Last week we talked to Katie Schnack and Katie from her book Everything's Fine. No, it's actually. Everything is Not Fine. And in our conversation with Katie we talked about the stress response cycle. And so today I thought, after the last 10-11 days here in the United States anyway, with the death of Charlie Kirk and all that has come with that, I just have needed to take a breath, to listen, listen some more, read, read some more, educate myself, re-educate myself, do some unlearning and some learning. And due to the current condition of my heart, this atrial fibrillation and all that comes with that, I am, seven weeks into, still an active AFib. I see the electrician, the electrocardiophysiologist, in about 10 days and we'll decide what we're going to do to get me back into rhythm. We'll decide what we're going to do to get me back into rhythm. I have done a deep dive, as you know I would to find out more about cardiac care in women, and I'll be sharing tidbits here and there. But one thing I've learned, one thing I am learning and wanting to unlearn, is how I got in AFib, what led me into this state of being where my heart lost its natural rhythm and I really want to know how to get back into a new rhythm. And it will be a new rhythm and it's bringing new revelations, as does any situation, circumstance in our life that jars us, that causes us to take a real serious look at how we're living. I've been here before, but this is new. This is my heart, as I have said to you, and you don't mess around with your heart. So let's just take a moment, put our hand over our heart, hush it shh and invite this conversation to begin.

Speaker 1: 5:31

The Nagoski sisters, emily and Amelia, wrote a book called Burnout the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. I listened to them on Dr Brene Brown's podcast. I'll put the link in for you because I think this is most critical for us to understand. I don't know why we haven't talked about it yet, but you know, life just brings us the teachers when we're really ready to hear and we're ready to make changes. I thought I was and I have been. But here I am again holding an invitation from God, my Father, who loves me so much, and I love him, with this invitation to take an assessment of my heart on a physical level, an emotional, relational, spiritual and mental level.

Speaker 1: 6:35

The Nagoski sisters write the stress itself will kill you faster than the stressor will, unless you do something to complete the stress response cycle. While you're managing the day's stressors, your body is managing the day's stress. It's absolutely essential to your well-being that you give your body the resources it needs to complete the stress response cycles that have been activated. For your convenience, I'm going to put quite a few of our past episodes in the show notes so that you can go back and do your own deep dive into the subject of stress. Rest, taking care of your heart. My second book, overcoming Hurtful Words, is a primer on Proverbs 4.23, take care of your heart, for out of it flow all the issues of your life. And then my third book, stronger Every Day.

Speaker 1: 7:54

I wrote these for you. Well, really honestly, I wrote them for myself and my clients, but want to give you access to understanding nine strategic mental and emotional health tools that will help activate your wholeheartedness, far quicker than if you went through years and years of therapy. They're just there for you to go. Oh, that's what that means. Ah, attachment disorder, attachment orders, attachment systems Ah, I get it. What is memory? Consolidation, reconsolidation? What is the brain anyway? What is the amygdala and the hippocampus and the limbic system? What is that? What does it mean to be emotionally regulated? What does it mean to be in my window of tolerance? This entire podcast and my body of work is all about educating, inspiring, bringing to you all of the necessary tools to have a very healthy sense of self, healthy behavior patterns and healthy communication skills.

Speaker 1: 9:05

When we are moving in that triad of health, we will live, really live, be alive and awake to life. That's what I want for myself, my family, my children, my grandchildren, my peers and my clients and you. So we have to make sure, say the Nagoski sisters, that we know what it means to complete a stress cycle. I like to call it the self-feeding stress cycle. It's also been called that by Stanford University. I'm reading from an incredible article called Stress Cycles what they are and how to manage them.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Stress is more than a feeling or a single time occurrence. Rather, it's a cycle with several steps. Here's where you're going to grab your pen, you're going to lean in and you're going to write these down so you know them, so you possess them, starting with an external event that removes us from the resting or ground state. An ending with a feeling of security stemming from the fact that we have faced the dangerous thing and are now safe. At least that's how it's supposed to end. Okay, so it is a cycle. It should have a beginning, a middle and an end. Should is the operative word there.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Medical researcher AZ Resnick demarcates the stress cycle as follows Resting ground state. Tension and strain phase. Response phase, which can be passive and or active. Relief phase, which is both physiological and psychological. I'll repeat them Resting ground state state, I would add, to make it four R's, reacting state, which would be the tension and the strain phase where we're prone initially to react. The response phase, which can be passive and or active, and then the relief phase, which is both psychological and physiological phase, which is both psychological and physiological. Since it's a cycle with a beginning, a middle and an end, it ends again with the resting ground state if and that's a big if the cycle has successfully been completed. They give an article for a more thorough breakout of the steps. I'm putting all of this into your self-learning show notes.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Not completing the stress cycle with beneficial coping mechanisms can prime the body for additional stresses later on, which heartlifters can lead to a breakdown. If the stress cycle isn't completed, it means that we are still experiencing that stress. We haven't given ourselves the chance to recover. Yeah, you know, we haven't given ourselves the chance to recover from it or to tell ourselves that the danger is past. Thus, we are still living in that hyper-aware state. There's our window of tolerance hyper-aware state. There's our window of tolerance, putting us in the hyper-vigilant state that stress puts us through, which can lead to increased sensitivity to any additional stressors that we may encounter during this time. It's a self-feeding circle. So if you know me, if you've been a client or you're a friend or in my family, you know that one of the very first things I might say if you're in a really tough situation is what is your feedback loop? What's going through your thought pattern?

Speaker 1: 13:49

We all typically tend to have a default inside of our brain that we go to in a stress situation If we have unresolved childhood trauma or trauma or complex PTSD, or if we have any trauma at all, which most of us do. We're going to have a trauma. Then we're going to have a default if we haven't made meaning, if we haven't consolidated our trauma, if we haven't made peace with it. Remember the heart lift method that I implement in my own life you can read about it in my work is we go back into our past long enough to bring it into the present, to make meaning of it in order to make peace with it so that we can move into our God-ordained future freedom. We don't want to live in the past. We don't want to stay in the past to live in the past. We don't want to stay in the past. We want to go back into our past long enough to just do an assessment. What have I not made peace with? What doesn't make sense to me? Perhaps there's some muscle memory work, which is what we talked about with Katie Schnack. Perhaps there's some intrinsic memories just embedded in my body, in my core memory, that I don't even know is there and I'm just going to my default behaviors. That takes a bit of time and sometimes it might need some help a helper, a good friend, a trained trauma therapist or counselor or coach. It might just need some real significant time aside, like I am living in right now.

Speaker 1: 15:44

I'm in my seven weeks of this atrial fibrillation. It has been a calling aside. Some people call it sitting on the bench. Some people call it sitting on the bench being on the shelf a time in the wilderness of reflection. I've been working on a Bible study for years that I've not finished, where Elijah is called to the brook Kareth 1, kings, 16, 17, for a long period of time Some scholars say one to three years where he's called to lay by a brook, a bubbling brook, and be fed by the raven and drink from the brook for a very, very long time. It doesn't tell us why. I have some strong assumptions and I'm working on them. But little did I know that my father, god, would call me beside my own Brooke Carruth, for a long, extended period of time to do some assessment in my life. He does that. It feels it can feel like a punishment, if I'm honest, like a what did I do so wrong? But actually I feel more prone to say it's an act of his love. I know it is for me it is an act of his love. He is calling me to his heart and realigning my heartbeat with his heartbeat, so that we beat in sync with each other so that I can truly experience a meaningful life. Does that resonate with you? This beautiful article? Stress Cycles continues While you may not be able to control everything that happens in the world.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Oh, we can't, can we? I am being honest that even before this horrible murder of this lovely young 31-year-old man, I didn't know who he was. I confess that to you. But I am knowing who he is now and it is bringing a great affect into the lives of millions of people to figure out what is going on in this world. While you may not be able to control everything that happens in the world or eradicate the external stressors you face ie school assignments that seem relentless, this isa Stanford University article being written to their students so that's what they're talking about what might seem relevant to you right now? What external stressors are you facing? You know I'm facing this calamity, this medical calamity. What are you facing right now? Maybe stop and write some things down. I have actually been able to finish a journal that I started two years ago and have begun a new journal since. I feel like I am waiting for a new heart rhythm and a new revelation about what I will be doing in this next phase of my life trying to align my heart rhythm with God's and with my family's, with my husband, with those people that matter deeply in my life, and trying to align my vocational calling. And so I've been writing a lot, reading some significantly powerful books Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, healthy Calling by Dr Ariana Malloy, who we will be having on the show. From Toxic Burnout to Sustainable Work goodness.

Speaker 1: 20:01

I am reading Consolations 2 by David White and studying his essay on rest and burnout. So while we may not be able to control these things, one thing we can control is our response to them. So I wanted to take a pause here and just read I cannot read the whole essay without permission from poet David White, but he writes these initial words about his essay Rest. Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is the essence of giving and receiving, an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually, but also psychologically and physically. I love that. He says it is a natural exchange. The essence of rest is giving, receiving. It's a conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. It's the sense that there's something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right. To rest is to fall back, literally or figuratively, from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner, static, bullseye and imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange. What I love about his words?

Speaker 1: 21:46

Here poets get down to the essence of what something means. It is a conversation, an exchange, giving, taking, giving, receiving. What do I love to do and how do I love to be? I think we're really good at talking about what we love to do, our passions, but we're not so good at how we love to be. How do I want to be in my life? For me, this awakening of atrial fibrillation in my heart has been a very sobering, serious matter. Many, many people are like oh, I've got AFib. A million people have AFib. It's no big deal. It's not a big deal. Why did the doctor tell you to rest? I was even asked why are you so different? All I can say is this is a serious awakening in my life to the condition of my heart, physically, psychologically, mentally, relationally, in all kinds of ways.

Speaker 1: 23:06

He writes the template of rest is the natural exchange of the body breathing, the autonomic giving and receiving that forms the basis and measure of life itself. He writes we are rested when we are a living exchange between what lies inside and what lies outside, when we are an intriguing conversation between the potential that lies in our imagination and the possibilities for making the internal image real in the world. We are rested when we let things alone and let ourselves alone to do what we do best Breathe as the body intended us to breathe. Do you hear that? Breathe as the body intended us to breathe, to walk as we were meant to walk, to live with the rhythm of a house and a home. Giving and taking through cooking and cleaning, when we give and take in an easy, foundational way, we are closest to the authentic self, and closest to that authentic self when we are most rested. To rest is not self-indulgent. Rested To rest is not self-indulgent. To rest is to prepare to give the best of ourselves and to, perhaps most importantly, arrive at a place where we are able to understand what we have already been given. Oh, my goodness gracious. The most important takeaway from this for me is, he writes rested, we are ready for the world, but not held hostage by it, rested. We care again for the right things and the right people in the right way. Wow, in rest, we reestablish the goals that make us more generous, more courageous. More of an invitation someone we want to remember and someone others would want to remember too. Rested, rested. We care again for the right things and the right people in the right way. We are ready for the world.

Speaker 1: 25:59

I'm going in the urgent care prior to my ambulance ride and when I got to the ER, their questions were the same what made you wait so long? Why did you wait, janelle, to come in for this? We don't understand. You are in full-blown textbook atrial fibrillation. Why would you not have come sooner? Like the website, no time to wait, no time to wait. And I said to them well and bear with me if I'm repeating myself the only difference that I felt in my body these last few days was the intensity of my heart beating out of my chest. I felt it beating out of my chest and the anxiety that I felt in my body, out of my body, through my body, was something I'd never felt before.

Speaker 1: 27:10

But all the other symptoms I have esophageal spasms, because I have achalasia, a rare esophageal disease that mimics the esophageal spasms, mimic heart attack, spasms in women, the breathlessness I have felt for years, and then the chronic fatigue and the overwhelming sense of numbness in my body. I have felt this way for quite a few years and they went wow. And what would you attribute that to? Well, not to bore you, but there are many, many things, as I have said many times good stress and bad stress. Your body feels it the same. So just lots of things that have been going on in my life have produced in me this deep sense of overwhelm, and primarily the work that I have been involved in for 13 years at least, but several other stressors as well, which are not important to this conversation. What is important is that I did not listen to my own teaching, to my own books and podcast. I just kept pushing through the fatigue, pushing, and my daughter, my oldest daughter, asked me a few weeks ago so, mom, why do you keep doing something that is harmful to you? And I had no answer. But I have one now and we'll talk about that in the future.

Speaker 1: 29:10

But primarily it was as Dr Ariana Malloy writes in her book Healthy Calling. In the introduction she says burnout starts with deception. Burnout starts with deception. It's non-obvious. It's like the frog in the water, the boiling water right. It just heats up very slowly and, before you know it, you are in a state. You're in a state and my heart was gracious to me and said hey, listen, we got to change some things. So completing the stress cycle is today's some things.

Speaker 1: 29:59

So completing the stress cycle is today's vital information for us, and I want to close here. So what are some ways to make sure we're completing our stress cycles? We can do this. We've talked about this. I talked about it last year, the year before, with forest bathing and nature. Oh, we can do this, heartlifters, by creating places and spaces in our lives where we feel safe and can assure ourselves that the stressful thing has passed. This doesn't mean completely forgetting the experience, because that's not realistic. Rather, it means reframing what has happened and stepping back from the bright, glittery awareness of uncomfortable or bad things.

Speaker 1: 30:42

So the Nagoski sisters write in their book Burnout, the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, and they are well acquainted. They give these seven different ways to decompress and I'm going to list them today Rest, safety, running and some other form of physical escape from the danger. You want to exercise away the stressor Dance. Take a Zumba class, whatever class is available to you, but just dance around your house. Put on Shake it Off right by Swift or some other fun music, and just shake your body. Instagram is full of these incredible men and women who are showing us very simple ways to metabolize the stress in our bodies. Once you get into one, you'll have an algorithm and you'll find many. So just move, move, move, move your body. Give yourself a scheduled hour to do whatever you want and try not to scold yourself for not being productive. Oh, my goodness gracious, call someone who cares for you and talk with them. I just went over to a friend's house this morning for a few hours and just watched her make sourdough bread, kneading the bread every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and we just chatted and enjoyed being in each other's presence.

Speaker 1: 32:07

Take a nap. Okay, heartlifters, I'm not a napper, but I have taken at least two naps a day for the last seven weeks. Maybe it's just to lay down and relax and listen to a podcast for 20 minutes or a devotional or a meditation. Take a nap. But if you can't sleep, like I said, just take a few moments and watch a show you love that makes you relax, take up or continue a creative practice. I'm a journaler so I have taken that practice back up because you know what. It takes energy. It takes energy to knit. It takes energy to paint color. It takes energy to journal. It takes energy to create a dream board. I've had a dream board for two years. I finally finished it Because I am completing some stress cycles. I have had many uncompleted stress cycles inside of my body that finally caused me to go into AFib and, one by one, I'm closing them out.

Speaker 1: 33:16

Consider what a strong emotion like stress means to you and then try to capture it in a painting or tell a short story, whatever floats your boat, as they say, if you have five minutes or less. They recommend mimic the release of stress from exercise. Tense your whole body, hold and then release slowly, starting with the muscles in your toes and working your way up to your head. That's called a body scan. Try a short guided meditation or a visualization exercise. I have a whole Spotify playlist. I have a meditation list. It will be up on my website by the end of the week so you can just go when you see the little pop up and hit it and it will download that for you and you can just go through all of the audio meditations that I have created for you up to this time.

Speaker 1: 34:11

Set a timer and do a brain dump. Write out all your fears, worries, concerns upcoming meetings, assignments. I've been doing this. It is cathartic. Transfer these from your mind to the paper. Some people call this a morning page. Just take the time, do a brain dump. If you're living with another person with whom you feel safe, ask them for a hug 20 seconds. My husband and I did this the other day. I'm like, nope, we got a whole hug for 20 seconds or it won't have an effect. Find a way to remove the stress from your body.

Speaker 1: 34:49

I'm going to close with our beautiful friend AC Seiple, who we had on the show in her book the Sacred Art of Slowing Down. The very end of the book, she writes I like to think of the long-term care, of tending to the depths of our souls as tending to a garden or some other terrain. When we take care of a garden, we generally aren't only concerned with keeping the plants from withering, but we also want them to flourish. And before we carry on, I'm curious how the word flourishing sits with you. She asked the idea of not just being well, but of beautifully thriving. I remember noticing strong reactions inside me the first time I heard someone simply suggest the idea of flourishing in our spiritual formation. To be honest, years ago, something about the word flourishing provoked a concern inside. I wondered if it might be self-centered or greedy to long for or to press into flourishing. Old messages distorted how I heard this word in relation to spiritual formation, the shaping of a person created by God. But then I realized that we don't look at other things God created, like blossoms and trees, and think they're being selfish when they thrive. We don't judge a well-watered flowerbed for being self-consumed or vain, for bursting with glorious colors, and we don't blame a withering leaf for not taking care of itself. Instead, we understand that without enough sunlight, water or nutrients in the soil, growth and well-being will be hindered. We also understand that different environments, climates and weather patterns might influence the way we care for certain plants.

Speaker 1: 36:42

Heartlifters, this week I invite you to close out to complete a stress cycle. Perhaps really take this as an educational week to re-listen to the podcast and to pray through it and say to yourself okay, is there a stress cycle that hasn't been completed in my life. Just set some time aside, read through it again. What does this mean? What is a stress cycle and how do I complete it and then close that out and surrender and prayer. I'm here for you. I'll meet you over at Heart Lift Central, on Substack or on Instagram at JanelleRairdon, if you would be so kind. You can help support the podcast, help keep it ad-free, by being a subscriber on Heart Lift Central. There's a free subscription but also a paid subscription, and you can also donate through Heart Lift International if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation or just become a friend of the podcast. You can find the link right below in the show notes, and any donation of any size just keeps us spreading a heart-lifting message across the world. Until next time.