S2E1: How To Show Up When Your Brain Says You Can’t
S2E1 – How to Show Up When Your Brain Says You Can’t
Transcript
Speaker: Liora Natania
Hello my friend and welcome back to another season of the Colorful Futures Podcast. My name's Liora Natania, the host of the show, and we're really excited to be back again after a few months hiatus, for season two.
Something that I think is kind of cool is the first episode of season one I recorded around this time last year. It was a New Moon in Leo and we're recording today and it's another New Moon in Leo. I just think that's kind of cool for my astrology freaks.
This season on the Colorful Futures Podcast, on the CF pod, we're gonna be talking more about things like executive functioning. And managing ADHD, AuDHD, and we'll talk about careers. We'll talk about job search stuff, but we'll be talking more about just the day-to-day things that we all go through as neurodivergent folks, especially people with ADHD and AuDHD, because it's all connected.
And as I like to say, even when I'm career coaching, it's all through the lens of executive functioning. Season two, like this iteration of the podcast, has been on our team's minds for probably all of this year so far. So at least like six months. And in all honesty, the hope was that we would start recording this like, months ago.
But that didn't happen, and we're here today and it's all good. I was going through a lot of burnout. A lot of burnout in work, in life, creative burnout, and a lot of executive dysfunction, which is like, status quo for me as a AuDHDer, but it was really not so fun.
Season two of the CF pod was something that I was really excited for. Our team had so many ideas, different conversations about it, and it's been in the works for a while. I probably could have started recording a few months ago, but my nervous system just wouldn't let me.
And that happens sometimes, right? Like we have projects, we have goals that we really want to work on, that we want to achieve, but our brain and our nervous system isn't letting that happen no matter how much our heart wants it. Like they're not communicating, they're not on the same page.
And when that happens, like I know for me, that can almost make things feel even worse. Like I'm already going through burnout. Already going through like, depression, anxiety, feelings of imposter syndrome, executive dysfunction. And so knowing that I have this project that I care so much about, and I, I want to work on, I want to get it started. But no matter how much I want that, it feels near impossible.
Like there's so much resistance, whether it's how I'm feeling mentally or my nervous system is shot, or my capacity's low, my spoons are low. But there's a part of me that just really wants to do it. And then the thoughts of like shame and blame and guilt and all of that stuff start coming up, which just adds to like the really fucked up emotional soup that's happening.
But life happens, right? Shit happens. And I think especially for neurodivergent folks. For people like myself, autistic ADHDers, we're always kind of dancing with burnout, whether that's because things in our life change or our medication changes, there are so many different factors that can lead to feeling burnt out. It's kind of always there a little bit, and it's just a matter of like, how severe it is.
I don't know if that's true for everyone, but that's true for me. Like one thing can kind of just like, push me further along on that path. So this has been a plan for a while, this season of the podcast. And, you know, my, my executive dysfunction, my burnout was preventing me from moving forward with it. But obviously we're here today recording, which is amazing.
So what changed? Honestly, I'm still going through burnout. Like I'm not on the other side of it. I'm still navigating it right now. And actually I'm kind of, a few steps back because I'm finally back on my ADHD meds, and that has been a transition that sort of came out of nowhere, was hoping that it would be like a flipped switch of like, oh, everything's fine now.
But it wasn't like that. It was more like whiplash and it's, it's a big adjustment. So that's brought in a whole other set of changes. So all of that to say there are a lot of things that can trigger feelings of burnout, overwhelm, things that can be a drain on your capacity.
That can be stuff in life. Like for me, I was growing my business last year. I was going through a divorce. I was going through schedule and routine changes. I'm in another period of growth in my business now. And also with inconsistent medication.
Hi Bennie. I don't know if the mic picked that up. He's probably gonna hang out with us for, for a bit. Okay. So my son Bennie is gonna join us. Do you have anything you wanna add? [Bennie purring]. That's a good point.
I've been dancing with burnout for a while, probably even longer than I think, but definitely for at least the last year and a half. Some periods have been worse than others, especially in these past six months or so. I have become a lot more aware of the things that have helped me move through that burnout.
As I said before, I'm not really on the other side of it. I definitely wouldn't say that I'm completely recovered, whatever that means. For me, burnout means that I have a really hard time making decisions and I have a really hard time being creative. So what that looks like in practice is executive functioning is like the first thing to go.
So executive functioning includes things like decision making, time management, emotional regulation. Pretty much most things we need to function in any given day relies on executive functioning. So if I'm trying to decide what to eat for a meal, that's a decision that is impossible. So I tend to rely on my safe foods, which luckily as an autistic person, I have things I can rely on.
But even things like managing my day, prioritizing a to-do list, like all of that feels like an insurmountable task. So the majority of my day, whether it's initiating a task, like getting out of bed, or anticipating multi-step processes like showering or cooking a meal, or getting my work done for the day, all of that feels 20, 30, 50 times harder than typical.
I also experience a lot of creative blocks, which is frustrating when much of the work that I do relies on my creativity. I can still show up and coach people and help them work through something, but I find it very difficult to show up and create content, which unfortunately in 2025, creating content is necessary for owning and, and marketing a business.
The creativity is often the first thing to go when I feel burnt out. I will struggle with decisions and I'll struggle to manage my time, but the most noticeable thing is that I don't feel creative at all. I don't feel inspired by anything. I don't feel motivated by anything. It's very hard for me to create.
And create could be making content for marketing, writing an email, doing a craft that's like, just for fun. Like I just don't have it in me to do it no matter how much I want to, and when I'm burnt out, I feel exhausted. Not even physically. Yeah, physically, but mostly just mentally exhausted.
And it's from the burnout itself, from worrying myself down, but it's also from all the other thoughts that come up, like feeling shame about it or feeling guilt or questioning like, well, how do I make myself feel better? And then like all the different parts come up, like the internal scripts of like, telling myself how I should feel or what I should do to make myself feel better. And it's this whole mess of things that start overlapping and none of it's really helpful.
The first thing that I found really helpful when you're managing burnout and you're experiencing it is to just first be patient with yourself and compassionate with yourself as much as you can. Try to find the voice inside you, the one part inside you that can give you that compassion and pass them the mic.
Give them the chance to tell you that it's okay to meet yourself where you are, that it's okay to feel how you feel and that you don't need to perform to some made up standard that society tells us we need to do, force ourselves to do something because that's what, like capitalism has trained us to do.
We don't need to overwork ourselves. We just need to meet ourselves where we are right now, and if right now how we're feeling is that every option is too much and every decision feels like it's impossible to make a decision on, then that's okay. We don't need to fix it. We don't need to find a coping mechanism. We can literally just say, that's how we feel. Then feel how you feel.
Expressing and feeling my emotions does not come naturally. I am 1000% an intellectualizer,, so I can tell you what I think about how I feel. I can tell you what I think it all means, and I can lead with my brain and my thoughts. I have to often be reminded to check in with my body and feel the emotion.
I literally had to learn in my thirties what it means to feel your feelings. Like when someone, like my therapist says, how are you feeling? Like, what do you feel? The response should not start with, I think. That was a recent lesson for me. So as I navigate burnout, it's felt very important to check in with my body and identify what is happening there.
Because as I've navigated burnout, that's like the first thing to go. This actually came up in my therapy session literally today, is that the disconnect between my brain and my body is the first thing to go. So checking in with your body, feeling your feelings, accepting where you are, being compassionate with yourself, being patient with yourself.
For me, what helped with burnout is a few different things. The first for me was I have access to therapy and I have an incredible therapist. I've been seeing her for three years and I feel very lucky to not only have access to therapy, but have a, a therapist that truly meets my needs in terms of that therapy relationship.
So therapy and parts work, IFS Google it, look it up. That's been a game changer for me to navigate all the different thoughts, conflicting feelings and everything that has come up throughout life, but especially navigating burnout.
The other thing that's been really helpful is journaling, like brain dump, stream of consciousness style. Kind of like morning pages from the Artist's Way, which basically instructs you to write three pages. Just like whatever comes to mind and it doesn't have to make sense.
It doesn't even have to be full sentences. But I didn't realize that for a long time when I would journal, like that's the style of journaling I would do. And it does really help, especially if you find you’re like ruminating on thoughts. But I really like the way that the Artist's Way does it, where it tells you to do three full pages.
What I found was, and this is like, I interpret that as three full pages of like a normal, like 8 1⁄2 x 11 size paper, like a notebook size. I find that after the first page, page and a half, I start to feel like I've said everything there is to say, but in challenging myself to go further, that's where like, the deeper thoughts come out and by the time I'm done, it's a little weird, like how much better I feel when I'm able to like just dump everything out of my brain onto a sheet of paper. And I don't go back and read it. That's not really the point. It's just to get it out of your brain.
Another piece to I think what helped me, especially these last few months, is to follow my natural rhythm. When I'm experiencing burnout, I still have to work. Especially as someone who runs a company, owns a business like, that doesn't stop. And I have a team, I'm lucky enough to have a great team that I can delegate things to, that I can rely on, but it doesn't change that I still need to show up in some way.
What I found is that when I follow my natural rhythms, and I don't try to force myself into a schedule that I think I should follow or that, like, corporate companies say that we should have. It really helps because when I am overwhelmed, when I'm burnt out, the last thing that helps is forcing myself to do something.
What I found is that, you know, when I wake up, I like having a slower morning, front loading the dopamine. So that might mean I have breakfast and I sit for a while with my coffee, and I listen to a book and I play my phone games, and I just take my time. And then maybe I see what I feel inspired to do.
That might be a house chore, it might be like switching to a, a crafting activity, just like something else that gets me sort of in a different frame of mind or just like doing something different, but it's not necessarily work. What I don't recommend is staying on your phone and scrolling social media. I found that that very, very quickly leads me to feel frozen and stuck and then I end up just staying there and I don't feel good about it.
So I encourage you to like, find something that feels accessible that you enjoy. Like, for me, it's literally these like silly little iPhone games and an audiobook in my ears. Definitely fiction. I don't mess with nonfiction, especially when I'm going through burnout.
What that means for me is that when I follow my natural rhythms and I take the earlier parts of my day or the time during the day when I feel really resistant to working, I use that time to rest and almost more importantly, recharge. That might be take a nap, just take it easy. That could be resting. Napping could fall under recharging, but it also might be doing a craft or watching a movie or going for a walk and chatting with a friend. Just something that gets me into a different state that feels good to me.
So when I'm able to rest and recharge, load up that dopamine, then what I find is that, as I go through my day and I want something different, I often will naturally want that different thing to be work, but sometimes that's not until like after I ate dinner. And I could spend my time beating myself up over, like you didn't work all day and you waited till the last minute and blah, blah, blah, and all of these unhelpful thoughts.
But if I just accept like, okay, I took the time I needed to rest and recharge. I did things I enjoy and now I'm just gonna sit down and work. That feels so much better to me because then I'm not forcing it. I'm not sitting down for hours and hours like feeling even worse because I want to work, but I just can't initiate and get in that flow. There have been times I start work at 9:00 PM.
And then work for three or four hours and I get into a flow state and it just works. And then sometimes I don't really feel up to working at all, but I still have things to do. And when that happens, what I like to do is I'll go into it not with the intention of like, I'm gonna go in and like work for an unlimited amount of time, or like till the task is done, I'll just tell myself, okay, I'm gonna work for 30 minutes. And I'm just gonna see what I get done in that time.
What I find happens most often is that because I've made that sort of intention, more low pressure of like just 30 minutes, I go into it with a more open-minded, optimistic mentality and I feel more positive going into it. 'Cause I'm like, okay, it's 30 minutes. Like whatever. I'll just get started.
I'll put music on that I know kind of gets me in work mode. I have a folder of playlists called Work Mode, and it's a collection of different playlists. A lot of them are instrumental, and then one of them, there's a band called The Midnight that's kind of like eighties synth vibes, but for whatever reason, I really like it for working, and I've listened to it so much during my workday that now if I put it on, I'm like immediately in work mode.
So I'll put on a, a work type playlist, set a timer for 30 minutes, or I'll just tell myself 30 minutes and I won't set a timer. And I end up working for longer because I have allowed myself to just low pressure, good mood, get into that flow. And I always have the option of stopping at 30 minutes, but I usually end up working longer, which feels really good.
There's other rituals that I've implemented in my life that I think also really help support me when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Things like, I typically make the same thing for breakfast every day with some exception, but so far I haven't gotten tired of it. And when I do, I just like, switch up one part of it, like I'll make waffles instead of toast. I also, I mentioned the playlist, like having similar playlists that I use for work.
I don't really have the same wake up time or like sleep time. That kind of varies day to day. But my routine there always looks the same. As I get ready for bed, I'll like, stretch a little bit. I'll do my skincare, I'll listen to a book in bed, I'll like, turn the lights down really low, and that just really helps me get into sort of that state. I'll set a timer on my book so I'll like, stop at a certain time. But all of that just really helps me kind of have, I call them bookends like in the beginning and the end of your day. Just time for myself.
But if there's one thing you take from this, it's, in my opinion, the most important thing, which is just to be kind to yourself, give yourself compassion, give yourself some patience.
And like I said before, I'm not like, recovered from burnout. I'm still going through it. I am still navigating changes in my routine, in my mental health. Getting used to being back on ADHD meds. I don't know that there's really an end to it. There's so much pulling at us all the time, whether it's our personal lives, our work, our friends and family, health stuff, the state of the world. But if we can find these moments where we can really support ourselves.
Also, and I forgot to mention this, but I can very quickly isolate when I'm feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. But allowing myself to try to break away from all or nothing thinking is something that's always in progress for me, but like trying not to isolate myself from my friends and my community has also been really helpful. So even if it's just like a quick text or scheduling a phone call for like 30 minutes. Sometimes it, I resist it 'cause I don't feel like I have the energy, but I always feel better afterwards. So these are just the things that we can try.
Like I said, most importantly, it's just being kind to yourself, being patient, being compassionate, and just showing up in whatever way you can. Whether it's, you know, you, you skip a shower in favor of eating, or you do 30 minutes of work and let that be enough.
Something new we have for you this season is every week we’ll be sharing a tip that you can try, our quick tip of the week. This could be something that helps support you and your neurodivergent brain. Helps you educate, inspire, or teach you something about being queer. Or it could be a tip that could help you in your career, in your job search.
Our tip for this week can help you go from thinking that like, one moment of your day that didn't go to plan has like, ruined your whole day, to being able to move forward and turn your day around. And that is that instead of thinking of your day as one full, big chunk of time to start thinking of your day in parts.
So you have maybe the early morning, morning, the midday afternoon, early evening, and like nighttime. If you really wanna get specific with it, you could have like two hour chunks of time.
But what this helps with is, let's say you had an okay morning, but then in the middle of your day, just something happens that throws your day off. You had a tough conversation, or you spilled your coffee, broke your favorite mug, or you made a mistake. Like just these things that sometimes just completely throw us off.
Or maybe you just had a day that was like, kind of meh and you get to the end of your day and you're like, what even was today? Like, what was the point of today? You can decide to say, okay, well those parts, or that part of the day didn't go to plan. There's still these other parts of the day that can be different.
And so for me, for example, the other day, I had one of those days that was kind of like, meh, day didn't really feel good. I don't really feel recharged. I don't really feel rested. I just kind of feel like the day went by and I just was like here. And so I did something different.
I picked up my little diamond painting kit and changed the seat that I was sitting in. Um, instead of sitting on like, one part of the couch, I like, moved to my table and I just did a different activity and just got in a different state. And that was enough for me to be like, oh, wow, like this was a great day. Or I like played Sims for a couple hours which I hadn't done in a while.
And even though most of the day I was feeling kind of, eh, just acknowledging that that was in the past and I can move on, and even in the couple hours that I had left of my day before I went to bed, I could do something different and it makes all the difference. So that might help you, let me know if it does.
So that's our quick tip for you this week. I hope that as we go through the season, that you feel seen and heard and that you take something away from the episode, even if it's something little that you can try.
We're always here, so if you wanna DM us on Instagram or write a comment somewhere, send us an email, if you have a question, a thought, an idea, or just something that the podcast made you think of. Or if you tried anything that we shared with you, we would love to hear it.
That's all we have for you today, and we'll see you in the next one.