December 16, 2024 • 41 mins
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Ep #78 - Merry Xmas!! This episode drops on Christmas Day—a gift for you. Let’s reset and enter 2025 healthy and restored, together. 🎁
Burnout isn’t a trophy to win or a test to pass—it’s a warning sign we need to take seriously. In a society that glorifies overwork and exhaustion, too many of us are running on empty, especially nosotras childfree Latinas.
Raised in cultures steeped in resilience, sacrifice, and people-pleasing, we’re often expected to give more simply because we can. Add to that the scrutiny we face as triple minorities—women, Latinas, and childfree—and the weight can feel unbearable.
2024 has been a year of relentless challenges and uncertainty, especially for women and marginalized communities. This re-release is one small way to help you close out the year by choosing yourself.
Join Karenna Soto and me as we tackle hustle culture head-on and reclaim our well-being.
In this episode, we’ll explore:
🌟 How to spot burnout’s early warning signs—physically, emotionally, and mentally.
🌟 Practical strategies for setting boundaries and protecting your energy.
🌟 Why honoring your health and capacity is the key to building a thriving, sustainable life.
Let’s leave burnout behind and enter 2025 with balance, strength, and clarity.
To get the full show notes, and an episode transcript, go to PauletteErato.com/shownotes. This is episode 78.
About Karenna:
Meet Karenna, a seasoned expert in communication, relationship cultivation, and anxiety management. With a passion for facilitating personal evolution, Karenna thrives on guiding individuals through the complexities of interpersonal dynamics. As a keynote speaker on burnout, host of "The Fully Expressed Podcast," and a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, she brings a holistic approach to her work.
Karenna specializes in empowering high-achieving women to honor and optimize their capacities, speak their truth, and navigate difficult conversations with confidence. This empowerment enables them to fully engage in both their personal and professional spheres. Through her teachings, she champions authenticity and encourages women to embrace their fullest expression in life and business. Karenna's mission is clear: to foster a community where women can flourish and thrive, embodying their true selves without reservation.
Check her out on https://thefullyexpressedpodcast.com/
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Buen día, mi gente, and welcometo La Vida Más Chévere de
Childfree Latinas, the onlySpanglish podcast for childfree
Latinas y Latines, helping usliberate ourselves from the
toxic cultural brainwashing weall grew up with so that we can
design our best lives instead.
I'm your host andresident childfree
Latina, Paulette Erato.
(00:24):
So it's the endof 2024, finally!
A year that I don't evenhave the words to describe.
There were highs, there werelows, and the end is kind
of a bitter note, I feel.
And we're still trying tomake sense of all of it.
There's a lot of uncertaintyabout our future as a
(00:45):
nation, but also our worriesfor each other, about each
other, and for ourselves.
And because we tend tocollectively crash at the
end of every year, some of usharder than others, I figured
this is a good time to remindyou and me to take care of
yourselves, mis amigues.
So here's a re release from theburnout episode with Karenna
(01:07):
Soto from earlier this year.
Enjoy, take care ofyourself, and I'll catch
you back here in the newyear with the plan for 2025.
Happy New Year, and I toastyou and your vida más chevere.
Remember how last episodeI teased you that this was
going to be about burnout?
(01:28):
The reason I told you the storyabout me getting sick and having
a whole life pivot was becausemy guest Karenna and I are going
to use that as an example ofhow to handle burnout today.
If you haven't caught up withthat episode, I highly recommend
you listen to it first.
It's number 64 called TheLoneliest Year, a Health
Scare, a Lost Circle, andThe Power of Rebuilding.
(01:51):
As Karenna will explain,burnout is a toxic cultural
tendency that we'venormalized as inevitable.
But what if I told youthat's just not true?
It's a lie!You don't have to sacrifice
your health to be a betterworker or a better partner
or even a better person.
In fact, that's exactlybackwards thinking, because
(02:13):
there's no nobility insacrificing your health,
which is actually yourwealth, for what I call
the Exhaustion Olympics.
You're not going to wina gold medal for that.
Part of designing your bestlife, tu vida mas chevere, is
learning what you have controlover and releasing the rest.
(02:34):
And while we may notbe able to control our
circumstances, we still getto make choices within them.
I did a search on burnoutover on TikTok recently,
and it was full of videoson burnout recovery.
But what about prevention?
What if I told you, you don'thave to experience burnout?
Yup, the toxic cultural normwe're liberating ourselves
(02:56):
from today is the beliefthat burnout is inevitable.
And if you don't believe thatyet, then I hope that by the
end of the episode you will.
Because what we're going to dois give you the exact steps you
need in order to keep burnoutfrom ever entering your life.
Now you're probablylistening to this and
thinking, Paulette, I'vealready experienced burnout.
(03:17):
Now what?
Okay, I'm with you.
So, what can we do toprevent it from happening
again, from continuingthese same patterns again?
This episode is going tohave a lot of the same themes
you've heard of before.
In fact, I've done twoepisodes on burnout already.
They were numberseven and eight.
Both of those were about howto avoid creative burnout.
(03:40):
There's more, like how inepisode 17, Jessenia Ziennker
called her childfree lifea gift, something you'll
hear Karenna repeat here,even though Karenna herself,
not necessarily childfree.
Or how in episode 55, MonicaRivera talked about taking two
steps forward when you feellike you're backed up against
a wall, and how that givesyou a brand new perspective.
(04:02):
Karenna is going to talkabout exactly how to
take those two steps.
Let me give you herbio, and then we'll
jump into the episode.
Meet Karenna, a seasonedexpert in communication,
relationship cultivation,and anxiety management.
With a passion for facilitatingpersonal evolution, Karenna
thrives on guiding individualsthrough the complexities
(04:23):
of interpersonal dynamics.
As a keynote speaker on burnout,the host of The Fully Expressed
podcast and a trauma informedsomatic practitioner, she brings
a holistic approach to her work.
Karenna specializes inempowering high achieving
women to honor and optimizetheir capacities, speak their
truth, and navigate difficultconversations with confidence.
(04:48):
This empowerment enablesthem to fully engage in
both their personal andprofessional spheres.
Through her teachings, shechampions authenticity.
And encourages women to embracetheir fullest expression
in life and business.
Karenna's mission is clear,to foster a community where
women can flourish andthrive embodying their true
(05:09):
selves without reservation.
Sounds like ourmissions are aligned.
So let's get to it.
One last note, we raninto some tech issues when
we were recording this.
So the audio may not be ascrisp as you're used to.
The content I thinkis still pretty good.
So I hope you'll hang in there.
And if you got somethingto say, you can always text
me, link in the show notes.
(05:30):
Karenna talks about burnout.
It's kind of almost likewe're expected to experience
this, especially as Latinas.
So Karenna, let's just dive in.
How is it you becamean expert on burnout?
Going through burnout?
Well, besides me going throughburnout, you know, I think I
didn't realize I was burning outor that I was over stretching my
(05:54):
capacity to hold until I got mytrauma informed certification.
So I'm a trauma informedsomatic practitioner.
And throughout that eightmonths of deep diving into
learning about trauma,learning about the nervous
system and going through thepractices myself, I was like,
Oh my gosh, I was operatingin go, go, go all the time.
(06:17):
Not really being in mybody, not really honoring my
body and just overdoing it.
And my mind wanted to,because that's what it
felt comfortable in.
But my body waslike, no, slow down.
But during that certification, Ialready knew that I had, burnout
tendencies because of my peoplepleasing tendencies, because
of the way that I show up forwork and this whole idea of
(06:38):
like badass culture and hustlingand like really wanted to step
into that power as a woman.
I knew I had those highachieving tendencies, probably
a better word for it, but tothe extent of, I don't want to
use the word harm, but how itwas doing my body a disservice.
It really wasn't until I gotmy certification back in 2022.
(06:59):
And then after going throughthat certification and
then really living it, Iwas like, wow, I'm really
overdoing it for myself.
And I went through like areally deep journey from 2022
all the way till the end of2023, kind of just recalibrated
my capacity, creating awhole new relationship to,
to show up for the worldand asking myself questions.
(07:20):
Well, I'm clearly exhausted,but how do I still show up
for my responsibilities?
And it was a questionthat I sat on for like
a year, year and a half.
It's like, okay, I'mclearly exhausted.
I don't have a lot ofcapacity, but I have a
lot of responsibilities.
I have my business, I have mypassions, I have my partner,
I have my friendships.
(07:40):
I have to take care of myself.
Like all of thosethings take energy.
And so how do I make that work?
And that's where I gotstarted with this and
it became my thing.
The other thing I will saytoo, I don't know if anyone
here, any Latina knows this,but in human design, do you
know what your human design is?
I don't.
Okay, so human design isan energetic blueprint,
(08:01):
and it's similar toastrology, but it just put
this all together for me.
So I'm a projector in humandesign, and there's like four
or five different energy types,and through human design, as a
projector, I actually have theleast amount of energy compared
to all the other profiles.
And I was like, what?
And so it was so validatingthat I was already experiencing
(08:24):
that I don't have thecapacity to show up and then
noticing that other peoplehave different capacities
and that I was putting on somuch expectation for me to
show up like everyone else.
And I had to come back tohonoring my unique capacity.
So human design is basedon your birth time, right?
Yes.
And since we're recordingthis, the week of my birthday,
(08:45):
Are you going to do it?
Let's go find out what I am.
Yeah.
Do you know whattime you were born?
Okay, perfect.
Let's go figure that outwhile you're on there.
As you're looking it up, Ican kind of cover what it is.
So yeah, it's anenergetic blueprint.
There's projector, there's amani gen, there's a generator,
and then there's a reflector.
Those are the differenthuman design charts.
As you look at your humandesign charts, let's say
a reflector for example,they tend to reflect off
(09:09):
other people's energies.
As a man gen, their energiesare a little bit more like high
and low, so they'll have highpitches of creativity, and then
low pitches then need a lot ofrest, and they'll bounce back up
to like high creativity, energy.
And then as a generator, youactually have the most energy.
So they're the ones that Ican go, go, go, be busy bees.
(09:30):
They feel really good in that.
And then as a projector,I actually have the least
amount of energy, but I meantto be more of that, like,
Visionary CEO, kind of highlevel, not the doer doer.
And so a lot of people talkabout this from a way of like
business and like teams, likeif you could have every human
profile on your team, because inorder to achieve the things we
(09:52):
actually need all the differentpeople to work together
or profiles work together.
There's so much moreto human design.
You can go all the way intothe different openings in your
chart, which are the differentchakras across your system.
I don't know if you're seeingthat already because you
probably have your chartright in front of you.
So the different, if it'sdefined or not defined, if it's
a defined on your chart, thatmeans your energy is protected.
(10:14):
But if it's open, that meansthose places in your chakra
system are actually absorbingthe energy through those places.
I am not a human designreader by all, but I highly
recommend getting a professionalto actually look at it.
But the most free versionsgive you at least a high level
overview of what your chart is.
So what are you?
I am a projector, the seer.
(10:36):
I can tell you a lot aboutyou about projectors because
I'm a projector as well.
Oh, okay.
Let's do that.
So as a projector, likeI said, you have very
visionary overlooking.
So a lot of people thatare coaches or CEOs, think
of Obama, as a projector.
They can see things above.
They say a lot of projectorscan see above your life, will
see ahead of what's going on.
(10:57):
So you have forward thinking,visionary, futuristic
thoughts as a projector.
I already mentioned as aprojector, you're actually
meant to rest a lot.
Rest is like your biggest thing.
The other thing as a projector,it's important for us to be
invited into opportunities.
And so there's a lot ofsurrendering into what
it looks like to attractdifferent opportunities
(11:18):
our lives, whether they'reprofessional or personal.
Being invited and seen is soimportant for a projector.
That was my first forayinto human design.
Up to this point, I knewless than zero about it.
Because this kind of fascinatedme, but also confused me,
I sought out a human designperson who's also a childfree
(11:38):
Latina, and she'll be onthe show in the future.
We've already recorded thatinterview as I'm editing this.
So, if you're also a bitconfused by human design,
or if you're intrigued, oreven if you're skeptical
of it, stay tuned.
That's coming up soon.
But now we're going tomove on to learning how to
recognize your own capacityso you don't burn out, again.
(12:00):
Or don't burn out ever if you'venever yet experienced burnout.
I've done several episodeson burnout, but that was
coming from a creative place.
What you do is you talk aboutit from a business perspective,
burning out at work.
How do we even recognize thatwe're experiencing burnout?
Give us the warning signsand how you can stop before
(12:22):
you get to that end point.
I like to think about it asa battery life, and maybe
you've heard this before.
I talk about everyone's uniquecapacities in definition is the
ability to hold or to be with.
And so from a trauma informedsomatic perspective, or
from like the nervous systemperspective, our nervous
system has an ability tohold and be with, right?
(12:43):
We are expanding our capacityto be with really heavy
emotions, to be with stress.
And when our capacity isvery small, or we don't
have the capacity to dothose things, that's when
we're like easily triggered.
If someone gives you a taskor you have an opportunity,
you go, Oh my God, how amI going to take that on?
Like, it just feelsso overwhelming.
The idea of addingmore onto your plate.
(13:06):
Maybe you disassociatethroughout your days and you're
finding yourself procrastinatingbecause you need the space.
Your body's automaticallysaying, I need time.
I cannot work on theseprojects because I'm exhausted.
Just feeling exhausted, tired,overwhelmed, emotionally
reactive is a really good one.
It's basically differentsigns that your system is
completely dysregulated andin a dysregulated space,
(13:29):
everything that causes stressto the body feels like a
lot, feels very intense.
Those are the thingsI would look for.
And so when you look at thisas your battery life, I always
ask people, well, we'll getto this part about how to
actually determine what yourcapacity is, but most of us
need to figure out what weare from zero to a hundred.
And the way that I thinkabout zero, zero means that.
(13:52):
It is so hard to get outof bed in the morning.
I mean, that's where peopleare living in, right?
Like, it's dreadful to getout of bed in the morning.
It is difficult to evencomprehend the idea of
looking at your day.
Your day feels like you havethis marathon of the day.
Every single week feels like thesame week over and over again.
You're completely, like I said,exhausted, drained physically,
(14:15):
emotionally, and spiritually.
So maybe there's also a senseof not feeling connected to
yourself and not a sense offaith or hope and just viewing
the world through very negativeperspectives, just saying
like, this is how life is.
That's zero.
A hundred would be I'm excited.
(14:35):
I'm regulated.
I can show up for everything.
If people ask me to do somethingfrom a business perspective,
I'm like, sure, tackle it on.
I could do that.
You are in this placeand you're also grounded
and you feel very stable.
You feel hopeful.
You're connected to your faith.
You're connected to joy.
You're connected tofeeling regulated and
(14:57):
you're in your body.
That is what a hundredpercent battery life is.
Basically, your tank is full.
You can go do lifeand feel really good.
Most of people in ourday to day, you know, we
think this is our normal.
We're kind of living inthis place of like, well,
it's normal to be exhausted.
What do you mean, Karenna?
Well, what if it wasn't normal?
And where we have to startis starting to see, well,
(15:19):
where are we on that batterylife from zero to a hundred?
Some, most of us are living at60, 50, 30 percent battery life.
And if you're at zero, I'm sureyou're showing up some days and
like negative 10, negative 20,like barely having anything.
The part that truly gets us isthe pressure and the expectation
(15:42):
to operate like we have ahundred percent battery life.
When we really have60 or 50 or 30 or 20.
Thinking back onmy own experiences.
And I've had burnout sobad, I made myself sick
and had to stop working.
So it was a careerending type of burnout.
(16:03):
It created a whole life pivot.
So what I'm remembering fromthat time, this is about
seven and a half years ago,is that it became so gradual.
My new normal just becamemore and more depressive.
And I thought I wassuffering from depression.
I didn't realize it was burnout.
And then one daysuddenly I'm in the ER.
(16:25):
So how do you figure outwhat your capacity is?
And as you're feeling likea, a frog being boiled,
it's all so gradual.
If we catch ourselves somewherebetween 40 and 60 percent before
we're so far down, you know,20 percent is when our phones
go into low power mode, right?
(16:45):
If we can stop beforethen, what are some tools?
What are some preventionmethods or hacks that a person
can employ where you're like,wait, this is not normal.
This doesn't haveto be my new normal.
So how are we figuringout our capacity?
Yeah.
The very first step to thisis actually determining
where your capacity is.
(17:06):
And so most of the times I'mguiding people into their
bodies and getting the answersdirectly within their body.
So if anyone's listening tothis, I would say, close your
eyes for me and just checkin and see where you're at
physically, emotionally.
And how much energydo you really have?
And being really honest withyourself, like am I tired?
Am I exhausted?
(17:27):
And so first getting a reallygood clear awareness of what
that looks like in your body andwhat that actually feels like.
If your body feels anxious,overwhelmed, can't sit
still, completely activated,that to me is a sign of,
oh, I'm dysregulated, soI don't really have that.
I think that's the partthat's hard for us to be
(17:48):
aware of in the moment.
But if you practice thisevery day, and I really do
tell people, practice thisevery morning, start asking
yourself the questions of,where is my battery life at?
And the more awareness that youbring to that first thing in
the morning, you know, you'relike, oh, okay, I'm at 50 today.
Okay, that feels like 50.
(18:08):
And that feels like 40.
And I would invite you towrite that down, like write
it in your journal and say,50 percent feels like this
to me, 30 percent feelslike this to me, 10 percent
feels like this to me.
Because every person has aunique, different capacity.
And this is so important for youto get into what your capacity
is versus what my capacity is.
(18:29):
So you start that practicefirst thing in the morning
and you're going to startto become aware of like,
I really don't have a lot.
I don't have as much energyas I did yesterday, or I don't
have as much energy as I did theday before, or today I actually
do have a lot of energy.
And we just want tocreate that habit and
awareness within ourselves.
That's the very first step.
(18:50):
And then the next step isactually going throughout
your day and asking yourself,okay, how can I apply my 50
percent battery life to my day?
One is getting really clearon what the priorities are.
So from your business, let'ssay you have five tasks that
are going to move the needle.
Okay.
I'm going to take part ofthat 50 percent and apply
(19:11):
that to my five tasks.
Maybe that day it's reallyimportant to you for you
to maintain a relationship,with your partner, a
friend or a businesspartner, whatever that is.
That also takes time.
The other thing that takes timeis taking care of ourselves.
And so what tasks areyou doing for yourself?
So now you're basicallydispersing or sharing that
50 percent value on what'sthe priority in your life.
(19:34):
Cause I think sometimesthat we want to be able to
do it all, but the truth iswe have to start honoring
that we can't do it all.
We can't just tackle everything.
But what are the thingsin your life that are
going to move the needleprofessionally or personally
or maintain where you're atpersonally and professionally?
I think that's really keywhere you said that our
(19:57):
capacities are individual.
Because we live in a hustleculture, we live in a culture
that's very much about grindinguntil the day you die and
producing until the day you die.
God forbid you takeyour full eight hours
of sleep, you lazy bum.
And that's this capitalistmindset that most of
us are operating under.
(20:19):
I like to say we'reindoctrinated to it
from a young age becauseyou got to be the best.
Totally.
And it's ancestral.
I mean, it's a partof our culture here.
You know, my parents and theparents before them, like
they were known to work hard.
I think, especially if youcome, whether it is from a
Latina background or you'rea second generation or third
generation here and likeworking is the way to do and
(20:40):
it's a part of our ancestry.
So it's, it's literallyencoded into our biology
in a lot of ways.
Dr.
Peter Levine is the masterto somatic experiencing.
He is the doctor that taughta lot of this work and I
got a chance to hear himspeak over the weekend.
And he talks about howthe same patterns that our
mothers, our grandmothersand our great mothers
(21:02):
experience, we also inheritthat into our lives today.
And that is exactly whatyou're talking to is like
in this capitalistic work,work, work mentality, produce
more, make more money, keepgoing harder is a part of
our self worth, but I alsothink it's because our parents
might have felt that too.
And now we're feeling that evendoubling down now when we're
(21:24):
actually living in the world.
There's good and there's bad.
My mother actuallytalks about this.
Men and women, all people,all genders, we're all
born of a womb, right?
We're all carried in a womb.
So it's not just thematrilineal side.
Everybody gets toexperience these things
(21:44):
that are held in the womb.
The memories, the curses,the traumas, the rewards as
well, the good and the bad.
So don't think that just becauseyou don't identify as a woman,
you get to not experience this.
It's in, it's in your DNA too.
Like Karenna was saying,your DNA is encoded with it.
It's part of our ancestral DNA.
(22:07):
So let's say I could haveavoided getting sick in
this scenario in 2016.
I knew I wasn't operatingat a hundred percent.
But it also felt like my backwas against the wall and I
didn't have a choice, butto continue to operate at
what my full capacity was,even if it was only 20%.
(22:29):
What could I have shifted?
Or how could I have reconfiguredmyself or my life or my
corporate work to not feelso overwhelmed, to not feel
like I didn't have choices.
This is the next stage inrecalibrating the capacity
that you're talking to,because there is this internal
(22:50):
conversation that we haveto have with ourselves.
One, I want to remind anyonethat's listening to this is
that we always have a choice,and we're still making choices.
What ends up happening to oursystem when we're trying to do
something different and we feellike our back is against the
wall, a lot of the times that isour, our ego or the parts within
(23:11):
us that want to keep us safefrom the idea of dropping the
ball or from messing up, right?
Or leaving things behind orbeing up against the wall
and being like, I'd haveto operate in this way.
The question is moreasking yourself, how can
I create space for myself?
And the next step is where can Istart to make different choices?
(23:35):
I would say start small.
Like if you're in this spaceright now and you do feel
like your back is against thewall and you can barely get
your head above water everysingle day, you're trying
to just catch your breath.
Almost like you're drowning,you know, and you catch your
breath for a second, you justwant to hold on to your breath
a little bit longer beforeyou get put back down under.
I understand thosemoments are intense.
I've been there too.
(23:55):
I also got sick too, whatyou were talking about.
What is the smallest shiftthat you can make to be able
to give back to yourself first?
Because all of that stuffis still going to be there.
There's always going tobe more asks, more tasks,
more things to do, morefire drills, more urgency.
I come from a corporate worldtoo, like I understand that
(24:16):
everyone wants something now.
I also understand that there'sthis cultural expectation
to do more with less, andI understand that, and what
I'm saying is that I'm tryingto empower those listening
to feel like, where's thesmallest shift I can do for me?
This is where we get to thepoint of optimizing your
capacity is introducingpractices that fill your cup
(24:40):
up, that refill your battery.
In short, what's going toregulate your nervous system.
So is it that thirty minutewalk in the morning by yourself.
Is it drinking water?
Is it eating food?
If you asked me back in theday, I would do 20 meetings
in a week, 20 to 30 minutemeetings in a week, back to
back at these conferences,wake up at five in the morning.
(25:04):
Work out and live on coffee.
I was already doing myselfa disservice, not by just
everything that I had toshow up for, but the lack
of boundaries I had justfor my own nourishment.
And so that is alsoa part of this.
Like, yes, there is thisinternal conversation that we
have to go through in orderto make sure the parts of
us that are scared show updifferently because we feel
(25:25):
like in some way, someone mightthink differently of me if I'm
not showing up for everythingthat I have to show up for.
Or someone might judge me orthey might view me differently.
We all have these other fears.
We've got to make sure thatthose fears feel safe again.
Remind them that they'regoing to be okay.
There's a much deeperprocess to this, but in
short, reminding your partsthat get scared of changing
(25:48):
or making the shifts, thatyou're okay, that you're safe.
And then the next stepis really starting to set
yourself up and externallyhonoring your capacity.
Really getting intentional ofsetting up the structure to
support your nourishment andregulating your system to a
place where you can start tofeel like you can have more
than one breath above the water.
(26:10):
You can actually takeyour back off the wall and
just relax for a second.
I get tears in my eyesbecause that is the kind of
breath that we all deserve.
It's our birthright.
We're, we're here to breathe.
We're here to live, notfeeling we're holding
our breath all day long.
Yeah.
As you're talking, I'm kind ofreliving that time in my life.
(26:34):
And with the, the, the advantageof having all this time that's
passed and all the thingsI've learned in the last seven
years, they say hindsight's 20,20, to be able to look back.
I realized I was ignoringthe signals in my body,
you know, the stomachaches, the tight chest.
These are red flags that my ownbody was shooting up as kind
(26:58):
of a warning signal, right?
So it should have been nosurprise that things ended
the way they did becauseI ignored those signals.
Our bodies are alwaysspeaking to us.
You'll hear this a lot todayabout being in your body.
We've talked about it inpast episodes too, but I know
it can sound a little woowoo and for that reason you
might not take it seriously.
(27:19):
But all it means ispaying attention to how
and what you're feeling.
Yeah, you have to getout your head and stop
intellectualizing to do this.
It's about the feelings,which can be hard to
quantify sometimes.
We're also taught to ignoreour feelings, especially
when they're negative.
And that is a terrible practice.
(27:40):
You're human.
You're sometimes going tohave negative feelings.
That's normal.
Not allowing yourself todeal with them, that's
abnormal, not normal.
It's toxic.
Literally, it can makeyou sick to ignore the
signs and sensations yourbody wants you to feel.
(28:01):
It's what happened to me whenI suffered my burnout and
subsequent autoimmune disorder.
So, the next time you encountera negative feeling, instead of
reacting, because that's justyour brain talking and that's
not what we want right now, seewhere in your body you feel it.
Does it bring a sensation,like your stomach hurts or
(28:21):
your shoulders get tense?
These are signals to watchout for, especially if they
happen when you're not activelyfeeling something negative.
That's your centralnervous system activating
and trying to warn you.
Pay attention.
So you've mentioned regulationand dysregulation a few times.
Could you define thatclearly for us so that
(28:43):
everybody's on the same page?
Yeah, so a regulated nervoussystem feels like grounded,
stable, has capacity, youcan be with triggers, so
like if you're emotionallytriggered, it doesn't completely
take out your day, right?
Like you are stillregulated in those seasons.
A dysregulated nervous systemfeels anxious, activated,
(29:04):
emotionally reactive, likeyou don't have your feet on
the ground, like you don'thave stability or balance.
Like you can't catch yourselfif life throws a curve
ball at you or if there's achallenge that comes up, right?
Because we all live in aday of challenges, like
things come up all the time.
But a good symptom orindicator that if you're
(29:25):
dysregulated, it's like iflife gives you something hard
and it completely takes youout, that means that you are
dysregulated in that moment.
Helpful?
Yes.
So I'm thinking how we live inthis contemporary environment
where inflation is beingfelt all around, right?
We're all being asked to do morewith less, as you mentioned.
(29:46):
Things are costing a lot more.
Everybody's feeling like theirdollar just doesn't stretch.
So our entertainmentoptions are more limited.
Our going out optionsare more limited.
So collectively, Ifeel like we're all
undergoing these stresses.
So, now it seems normal.
This seems like this ishow we're going to operate.
(30:08):
We've got climatesto worry about.
We've got wars to worry about.
You're carrying all thisand God forbid you have an
accident on the way home.
You're already stretchedso thin and then this big
thing happens that probablywasn't even your fault.
You know, what if you'relike rear ended at a light?
And that forces you toshift your priorities.
(30:28):
So how do we get to the pointwhere we look at shifting
our priorities withouthaving the car accident?
I think a lot of peoplelistening to this are
feeling the strain of lifeas it is at the moment.
And what you're sayingis that we need to
check in with ourselves.
So we want to feel grounded.
We want to feel likewe're in control.
(30:50):
I think part of feelingdysregulated, it's funny, I'm
looking at my own language.
When I start feeling unmoored,like I'm untethered and I'm
just kind of floating anddon't have a path, don't
have anything anchoring me.
That's, you know, lookat your language too.
See, it's through theseconversations that these
(31:12):
revelations become so obvious.
I'm like, I'm feeling unmoored.
What can I do about that?
And the truth is thatthese societal pressures
aren't going away.
So we have to recalibrateourselves within
these limitations.
One thing I'll add to that is,for us, like, this is our norm
and to our ego, so this is likepsychological, we will stay
(31:36):
in familiar pain because we'recomfortable versus changing
now is more uncomfortablebecause it's something
that we don't know, right?
It's a new walk to path.
And you were talking alot to like, how do we
prevent that from happening?
I think we have to logicallyunderstand this, but there's
a body element to this work.
(31:56):
Is like, logically understandthat we will continue to show up
in the world in these stressesbecause, like you said, these
stresses collectively are here.
Our relationship to itwill stay the same unless
we want to change it.
Now, I also don't want totake away from like, wanting
to change it is scary.
It's showing updifferently in the world.
(32:18):
There's so much thatcomes with that, right?
When you start changing andyou start shifting and setting
more boundaries and speakingyour truth and saying no to
things, people are going torespond in a certain way.
How do you respond to that?
The way that people have arelationship to you, to the
relationship you have to life,is how they're comfortable.
(32:39):
And so when you start tomake uncomfortable shifts in
your life, it's going to getuncomfortable for other people
in your life, whether it'sprofessionally or personally.
And, I think we have tohold on to the vision.
The vision of not wanting to getsick, the vision of not putting
ourselves last every singleday for the benefit of our
(33:01):
cultural norms or the benefitof someone else's safety.
Our safety is so true.
Every single person thathas listened to this, you're
worthy of feeling good.
It is meant to feel good.
And so I share thatwith like, how do we
get ourselves on board?
Well, one is just decidingfor yourself that you want
to feel good in this world.
(33:22):
That you don't want tofeel stretched, that you
want to sleep good, thatyou want to be healthy.
One thing I learnedafter my health episodes,
whether it was like my guthealth, my hormone health,
everything just went to shit.
I realized that thathealth is wealthy.
Having my health is somuch more beneficial than
(33:43):
overstretching myself.
Like I ten times rather feelgood in my day than feel
exhausted, but I had to gothrough the pain of feeling what
it felt like to be really sick.
And now I know how wealthy I amnow that I have my health back.
I didn't know that before.
Now that I've been through myown process and I've worked
with so many clients and I'vetalked to so many people, we
always wait until it's that timewhere we're forced to shift.
(34:06):
And I understand that we thinkthat we're strong enough and
resilient to handle it all.
I get that.
What if you use that strengthand that resilience to start
making the shifts so you canenjoy the strengths of your
resiliency in a different way?
There are so manykeywords you just said.
Resilient, strong, all of thesethings that we are taught from
(34:32):
a very young age to strive for.
And too often, we are theproducts of sacrifice.
And that is the only waythat those around us know
how to get those things.
But there's a different way.
You don't have to sacrificeyour health in order to be
resilient, to be strong.
(34:52):
Case in point, I go to thegym and I lift weights.
What I'm trying to do whenI'm fighting gravity is
to make sure that 10, 15,30 years from now, I'm not
suffering from osteoporosis.
So that's me trying to makesure that future Paulette has
better capacity than expected.
That's why I'mbuilding strength.
That's why I'mbuilding resiliency.
(35:14):
And that's on purpose.
That's proactive, not reactive.
How can I take that mindsetand those actions and apply
them to other areas of my life?
That's the question thatI have to ask in order to
determine my own capacity,in order to set my life path.
And that's not going to bethe same for you, Karenna, and
it's not going to be the samefor whomever is listening.
(35:36):
But that is a great exercise,and lifting weights is
also a great exercise.
So the weights that you'relifting at the gym, these are
the kinds of weights that we'relifting in our life, right?
Are we going to lift weightsthat are going to do us harm,
or are you going to lift theweights and do the hard in a
different way that's going tosupport us to feeling stronger
and more resilient and increasecapacity in the long run?
(35:58):
I don't want to take away fromif you are showing up every day.
I understand it's hard.
It's, you are strong.
You are resilient, right?
And how can we bring thatinto this way, just doing hard
things in a different way.
And it's doing that proactivelyto your point, to set us
(36:19):
up for successful, healthy,grounded, fulfilling life.
Which, to use like you said,like your body's getting
stronger so you couldbe here in 20 years and
feel strong in your body.
This is the same way as startingto take the task that I did
at the beginning, like tappinginto your capacity every day.
Start showing up in commitmentto that and start lifting and
(36:42):
building a new muscle that'sgoing to set you up for a
more regulated, fulfilled andhealthy life, even if it's
difficult and it's different.
It's a new room.
It's a room you haven't been to.
It's a different partof the gym, right?
It's like, it's the part ofthe gym that maybe you haven't
gone to because you're like,I don't know how to do that.
(37:02):
But it's time to step into thatroom so that you have the life
that you're really craving.
I think we're all strivingfor the thing, but we don't
have to feel exhausted anddepleted and sick to get there.
All too often, being busy, beingtired, I call it the Exhaustion
Olympics, is a badge of honor.
Exactly.
(37:23):
What kind of marketing havewe swallowed that we sacrifice
our own health in search ofthe of more money and success?
Financial success, becausesuccess can be measured
many, many different ways.
But we have determinedas a society that is the
only metric of success.
Keeping up with the Joneses, nomatter how ragged you're running
(37:45):
yourself, is the ultimate goal.
And that's just marketingthat we all accepted and we
don't have to live that life.
We can choose our own paths.
We can live outsideof that life script.
When I was starting to breakthis down for myself, you
know, something that blewmy mind is that, like, in
business, it says busy ness.
And I was like, We are literallybeing wired to be busy.
(38:09):
And in a lot of ways, we'recelebrated for being busy.
We're encouraged and empoweredto be busy and there is
this, like you said, thismedal that we're all having
because I'm running themillion miles an hour here
and I'm doing all this andI've checked off all the boxes
and I've done my to do list.
I'm running some business and dodo do do do do do do do do do!
(38:30):
I'm so successful.
Okay, that's the externalview, but like, how do you
really feel on the inside?
This has all beenreally wonderful.
I'm really hoping that theaudience is able to really
grasp what we're saying here.
Which is that you need totake a very good look at
your life and determinewhere the shifts can be made.
(38:50):
Especially if you feel likeyour back is against the wall
and you don't have choices.
But sometimes taking thatdeep breath and getting
some clarity shows you that,yeah, there's some out of
the box solutions that youhadn't considered before.
Is there anything elsethat you would like
to tell the listeners?
I think reminding yourselfthat this is for you.
(39:11):
You know, I think we live ourworlds so often for everyone
else in a lot of ways, for thebusiness partner, for our jobs,
for these things, and if thisis the one thing that you can
implement into your life today,what is the smallest shift?
It's the smallest shifts thatmake such a big difference,
and we can start there.
(39:33):
There's a small shift andI think that's the sweetest
invitation because we don'twant to wait for the day that
a huge shift is required of us.
Because that is lifechanging versus we can start
changing our lives withthe smallest shifts now.
And instead of feeling likeyou're a frog being boiled
alive, you are ascending tonew levels and creating a
(39:55):
larger comfort zone aroundyourself that you can grow
into as opposed to reactingto the changes that come your
way without your permissionor without your say so.
Well, thank you so muchfor coming by, Karenna.
Why don't you tell uswhere we can find you and
the name of your podcast?
Uh, you can find me onInstagram @IamKarennaSoto.
(40:17):
I have a podcast called TheFully Expressed Podcast.
It's truly to invite peopleinto their fully expressed
selves and life andrelationships and business.
One of the foundations tothat is honoring capacity so
you can live this life thatwe've been given, this gift.
It is literally a gift thatwe get to live this life.
And I, I really want to seeevery human being living
(40:41):
that to the fullest as theyevolve on their journey.
So thank you somuch for having me.
And that's a burrito!Hey, mira, if this
episode made you feelsome kind of way, dígame.
DM me on Instagram,or send me a text.
You can do that rightfrom your phone.
If you want to be a gueston the show and put your
(41:01):
story out there too, checkout the guest form on my
website at pauletterato.
com slash guest.
Yep, just my name, pauletterato.
com slash guest.
Y no se te olvide quehay más perks when you
join the newsletter.
Todos estos links estánen los show notes.
Muchísimas gracias for yoursupport y hasta la próxima vez.
(41:23):
Cuídate bien.
Buen día, mi gente, and welcometo La Vida Más Chévere de
Childfree Latinas, the onlySpanglish podcast for childfree
Latinas y Latines, helping usliberate ourselves from the
toxic cultural brainwashing weall grew up with so that we can
design our best lives instead.
I'm your host andresident childfree
Latina, Paulette Erato.
(00:24):
So it's the endof 2024, finally!
A year that I don't evenhave the words to describe.
There were highs, there werelows, and the end is kind
of a bitter note, I feel.
And we're still trying tomake sense of all of it.
There's a lot of uncertaintyabout our future as a
(00:45):
nation, but also our worriesfor each other, about each
other, and for ourselves.
And because we tend tocollectively crash at the
end of every year, some of usharder than others, I figured
this is a good time to remindyou and me to take care of
yourselves, mis amigues.
So here's a re release from theburnout episode with Karenna
(01:07):
Soto from earlier this year.
Enjoy, take care ofyourself, and I'll catch
you back here in the newyear with the plan for 2025.
Happy New Year, and I toastyou and your vida más chevere.
Remember how last episodeI teased you that this was
going to be about burnout?
(01:28):
The reason I told you the storyabout me getting sick and having
a whole life pivot was becausemy guest Karenna and I are going
to use that as an example ofhow to handle burnout today.
If you haven't caught up withthat episode, I highly recommend
you listen to it first.
It's number 64 called TheLoneliest Year, a Health
Scare, a Lost Circle, andThe Power of Rebuilding.
(01:51):
As Karenna will explain,burnout is a toxic cultural
tendency that we'venormalized as inevitable.
But what if I told youthat's just not true?
It's a lie!You don't have to sacrifice
your health to be a betterworker or a better partner
or even a better person.
In fact, that's exactlybackwards thinking, because
(02:13):
there's no nobility insacrificing your health,
which is actually yourwealth, for what I call
the Exhaustion Olympics.
You're not going to wina gold medal for that.
Part of designing your bestlife, tu vida mas chevere, is
learning what you have controlover and releasing the rest.
(02:34):
And while we may notbe able to control our
circumstances, we still getto make choices within them.
I did a search on burnoutover on TikTok recently,
and it was full of videoson burnout recovery.
But what about prevention?
What if I told you, you don'thave to experience burnout?
Yup, the toxic cultural normwe're liberating ourselves
(02:56):
from today is the beliefthat burnout is inevitable.
And if you don't believe thatyet, then I hope that by the
end of the episode you will.
Because what we're going to dois give you the exact steps you
need in order to keep burnoutfrom ever entering your life.
Now you're probablylistening to this and
thinking, Paulette, I'vealready experienced burnout.
(03:17):
Now what?
Okay, I'm with you.
So, what can we do toprevent it from happening
again, from continuingthese same patterns again?
This episode is going tohave a lot of the same themes
you've heard of before.
In fact, I've done twoepisodes on burnout already.
They were numberseven and eight.
Both of those were about howto avoid creative burnout.
(03:40):
There's more, like how inepisode 17, Jessenia Ziennker
called her childfree lifea gift, something you'll
hear Karenna repeat here,even though Karenna herself,
not necessarily childfree.
Or how in episode 55, MonicaRivera talked about taking two
steps forward when you feellike you're backed up against
a wall, and how that givesyou a brand new perspective.
(04:02):
Karenna is going to talkabout exactly how to
take those two steps.
Let me give you herbio, and then we'll
jump into the episode.
Meet Karenna, a seasonedexpert in communication,
relationship cultivation,and anxiety management.
With a passion for facilitatingpersonal evolution, Karenna
thrives on guiding individualsthrough the complexities
(04:23):
of interpersonal dynamics.
As a keynote speaker on burnout,the host of The Fully Expressed
podcast and a trauma informedsomatic practitioner, she brings
a holistic approach to her work.
Karenna specializes inempowering high achieving
women to honor and optimizetheir capacities, speak their
truth, and navigate difficultconversations with confidence.
(04:48):
This empowerment enablesthem to fully engage in
both their personal andprofessional spheres.
Through her teachings, shechampions authenticity.
And encourages women to embracetheir fullest expression
in life and business.
Karenna's mission is clear,to foster a community where
women can flourish andthrive embodying their true
(05:09):
selves without reservation.
Sounds like ourmissions are aligned.
So let's get to it.
One last note, we raninto some tech issues when
we were recording this.
So the audio may not be ascrisp as you're used to.
The content I thinkis still pretty good.
So I hope you'll hang in there.
And if you got somethingto say, you can always text
me, link in the show notes.
(05:30):
Karenna talks about burnout.
It's kind of almost likewe're expected to experience
this, especially as Latinas.
So Karenna, let's just dive in.
How is it you becamean expert on burnout?
Going through burnout?
Well, besides me going throughburnout, you know, I think I
didn't realize I was burning outor that I was over stretching my
(05:54):
capacity to hold until I got mytrauma informed certification.
So I'm a trauma informedsomatic practitioner.
And throughout that eightmonths of deep diving into
learning about trauma,learning about the nervous
system and going through thepractices myself, I was like,
Oh my gosh, I was operatingin go, go, go all the time.
(06:17):
Not really being in mybody, not really honoring my
body and just overdoing it.
And my mind wanted to,because that's what it
felt comfortable in.
But my body waslike, no, slow down.
But during that certification, Ialready knew that I had, burnout
tendencies because of my peoplepleasing tendencies, because
of the way that I show up forwork and this whole idea of
(06:38):
like badass culture and hustlingand like really wanted to step
into that power as a woman.
I knew I had those highachieving tendencies, probably
a better word for it, but tothe extent of, I don't want to
use the word harm, but how itwas doing my body a disservice.
It really wasn't until I gotmy certification back in 2022.
(06:59):
And then after going throughthat certification and
then really living it, Iwas like, wow, I'm really
overdoing it for myself.
And I went through like areally deep journey from 2022
all the way till the end of2023, kind of just recalibrated
my capacity, creating awhole new relationship to,
to show up for the worldand asking myself questions.
(07:20):
Well, I'm clearly exhausted,but how do I still show up
for my responsibilities?
And it was a questionthat I sat on for like
a year, year and a half.
It's like, okay, I'mclearly exhausted.
I don't have a lot ofcapacity, but I have a
lot of responsibilities.
I have my business, I have mypassions, I have my partner,
I have my friendships.
(07:40):
I have to take care of myself.
Like all of thosethings take energy.
And so how do I make that work?
And that's where I gotstarted with this and
it became my thing.
The other thing I will saytoo, I don't know if anyone
here, any Latina knows this,but in human design, do you
know what your human design is?
I don't.
Okay, so human design isan energetic blueprint,
(08:01):
and it's similar toastrology, but it just put
this all together for me.
So I'm a projector in humandesign, and there's like four
or five different energy types,and through human design, as a
projector, I actually have theleast amount of energy compared
to all the other profiles.
And I was like, what?
And so it was so validatingthat I was already experiencing
(08:24):
that I don't have thecapacity to show up and then
noticing that other peoplehave different capacities
and that I was putting on somuch expectation for me to
show up like everyone else.
And I had to come back tohonoring my unique capacity.
So human design is basedon your birth time, right?
Yes.
And since we're recordingthis, the week of my birthday,
(08:45):
Are you going to do it?
Let's go find out what I am.
Yeah.
Do you know whattime you were born?
Okay, perfect.
Let's go figure that outwhile you're on there.
As you're looking it up, Ican kind of cover what it is.
So yeah, it's anenergetic blueprint.
There's projector, there's amani gen, there's a generator,
and then there's a reflector.
Those are the differenthuman design charts.
As you look at your humandesign charts, let's say
a reflector for example,they tend to reflect off
(09:09):
other people's energies.
As a man gen, their energiesare a little bit more like high
and low, so they'll have highpitches of creativity, and then
low pitches then need a lot ofrest, and they'll bounce back up
to like high creativity, energy.
And then as a generator, youactually have the most energy.
So they're the ones that Ican go, go, go, be busy bees.
(09:30):
They feel really good in that.
And then as a projector,I actually have the least
amount of energy, but I meantto be more of that, like,
Visionary CEO, kind of highlevel, not the doer doer.
And so a lot of people talkabout this from a way of like
business and like teams, likeif you could have every human
profile on your team, because inorder to achieve the things we
(09:52):
actually need all the differentpeople to work together
or profiles work together.
There's so much moreto human design.
You can go all the way intothe different openings in your
chart, which are the differentchakras across your system.
I don't know if you're seeingthat already because you
probably have your chartright in front of you.
So the different, if it'sdefined or not defined, if it's
a defined on your chart, thatmeans your energy is protected.
(10:14):
But if it's open, that meansthose places in your chakra
system are actually absorbingthe energy through those places.
I am not a human designreader by all, but I highly
recommend getting a professionalto actually look at it.
But the most free versionsgive you at least a high level
overview of what your chart is.
So what are you?
I am a projector, the seer.
(10:36):
I can tell you a lot aboutyou about projectors because
I'm a projector as well.
Oh, okay.
Let's do that.
So as a projector, likeI said, you have very
visionary overlooking.
So a lot of people thatare coaches or CEOs, think
of Obama, as a projector.
They can see things above.
They say a lot of projectorscan see above your life, will
see ahead of what's going on.
(10:57):
So you have forward thinking,visionary, futuristic
thoughts as a projector.
I already mentioned as aprojector, you're actually
meant to rest a lot.
Rest is like your biggest thing.
The other thing as a projector,it's important for us to be
invited into opportunities.
And so there's a lot ofsurrendering into what
it looks like to attractdifferent opportunities
(11:18):
our lives, whether they'reprofessional or personal.
Being invited and seen is soimportant for a projector.
That was my first forayinto human design.
Up to this point, I knewless than zero about it.
Because this kind of fascinatedme, but also confused me,
I sought out a human designperson who's also a childfree
(11:38):
Latina, and she'll be onthe show in the future.
We've already recorded thatinterview as I'm editing this.
So, if you're also a bitconfused by human design,
or if you're intrigued, oreven if you're skeptical
of it, stay tuned.
That's coming up soon.
But now we're going tomove on to learning how to
recognize your own capacityso you don't burn out, again.
(12:00):
Or don't burn out ever if you'venever yet experienced burnout.
I've done several episodeson burnout, but that was
coming from a creative place.
What you do is you talk aboutit from a business perspective,
burning out at work.
How do we even recognize thatwe're experiencing burnout?
Give us the warning signsand how you can stop before
(12:22):
you get to that end point.
I like to think about it asa battery life, and maybe
you've heard this before.
I talk about everyone's uniquecapacities in definition is the
ability to hold or to be with.
And so from a trauma informedsomatic perspective, or
from like the nervous systemperspective, our nervous
system has an ability tohold and be with, right?
(12:43):
We are expanding our capacityto be with really heavy
emotions, to be with stress.
And when our capacity isvery small, or we don't
have the capacity to dothose things, that's when
we're like easily triggered.
If someone gives you a taskor you have an opportunity,
you go, Oh my God, how amI going to take that on?
Like, it just feelsso overwhelming.
The idea of addingmore onto your plate.
(13:06):
Maybe you disassociatethroughout your days and you're
finding yourself procrastinatingbecause you need the space.
Your body's automaticallysaying, I need time.
I cannot work on theseprojects because I'm exhausted.
Just feeling exhausted, tired,overwhelmed, emotionally
reactive is a really good one.
It's basically differentsigns that your system is
completely dysregulated andin a dysregulated space,
(13:29):
everything that causes stressto the body feels like a
lot, feels very intense.
Those are the thingsI would look for.
And so when you look at thisas your battery life, I always
ask people, well, we'll getto this part about how to
actually determine what yourcapacity is, but most of us
need to figure out what weare from zero to a hundred.
And the way that I thinkabout zero, zero means that.
(13:52):
It is so hard to get outof bed in the morning.
I mean, that's where peopleare living in, right?
Like, it's dreadful to getout of bed in the morning.
It is difficult to evencomprehend the idea of
looking at your day.
Your day feels like you havethis marathon of the day.
Every single week feels like thesame week over and over again.
You're completely, like I said,exhausted, drained physically,
(14:15):
emotionally, and spiritually.
So maybe there's also a senseof not feeling connected to
yourself and not a sense offaith or hope and just viewing
the world through very negativeperspectives, just saying
like, this is how life is.
That's zero.
A hundred would be I'm excited.
(14:35):
I'm regulated.
I can show up for everything.
If people ask me to do somethingfrom a business perspective,
I'm like, sure, tackle it on.
I could do that.
You are in this placeand you're also grounded
and you feel very stable.
You feel hopeful.
You're connected to your faith.
You're connected to joy.
You're connected tofeeling regulated and
(14:57):
you're in your body.
That is what a hundredpercent battery life is.
Basically, your tank is full.
You can go do lifeand feel really good.
Most of people in ourday to day, you know, we
think this is our normal.
We're kind of living inthis place of like, well,
it's normal to be exhausted.
What do you mean, Karenna?
Well, what if it wasn't normal?
And where we have to startis starting to see, well,
(15:19):
where are we on that batterylife from zero to a hundred?
Some, most of us are living at60, 50, 30 percent battery life.
And if you're at zero, I'm sureyou're showing up some days and
like negative 10, negative 20,like barely having anything.
The part that truly gets us isthe pressure and the expectation
(15:42):
to operate like we have ahundred percent battery life.
When we really have60 or 50 or 30 or 20.
Thinking back onmy own experiences.
And I've had burnout sobad, I made myself sick
and had to stop working.
So it was a careerending type of burnout.
(16:03):
It created a whole life pivot.
So what I'm remembering fromthat time, this is about
seven and a half years ago,is that it became so gradual.
My new normal just becamemore and more depressive.
And I thought I wassuffering from depression.
I didn't realize it was burnout.
And then one daysuddenly I'm in the ER.
(16:25):
So how do you figure outwhat your capacity is?
And as you're feeling likea, a frog being boiled,
it's all so gradual.
If we catch ourselves somewherebetween 40 and 60 percent before
we're so far down, you know,20 percent is when our phones
go into low power mode, right?
(16:45):
If we can stop beforethen, what are some tools?
What are some preventionmethods or hacks that a person
can employ where you're like,wait, this is not normal.
This doesn't haveto be my new normal.
So how are we figuringout our capacity?
Yeah.
The very first step to thisis actually determining
where your capacity is.
(17:06):
And so most of the times I'mguiding people into their
bodies and getting the answersdirectly within their body.
So if anyone's listening tothis, I would say, close your
eyes for me and just checkin and see where you're at
physically, emotionally.
And how much energydo you really have?
And being really honest withyourself, like am I tired?
Am I exhausted?
(17:27):
And so first getting a reallygood clear awareness of what
that looks like in your body andwhat that actually feels like.
If your body feels anxious,overwhelmed, can't sit
still, completely activated,that to me is a sign of,
oh, I'm dysregulated, soI don't really have that.
I think that's the partthat's hard for us to be
(17:48):
aware of in the moment.
But if you practice thisevery day, and I really do
tell people, practice thisevery morning, start asking
yourself the questions of,where is my battery life at?
And the more awareness that youbring to that first thing in
the morning, you know, you'relike, oh, okay, I'm at 50 today.
Okay, that feels like 50.
(18:08):
And that feels like 40.
And I would invite you towrite that down, like write
it in your journal and say,50 percent feels like this
to me, 30 percent feelslike this to me, 10 percent
feels like this to me.
Because every person has aunique, different capacity.
And this is so important for youto get into what your capacity
is versus what my capacity is.
(18:29):
So you start that practicefirst thing in the morning
and you're going to startto become aware of like,
I really don't have a lot.
I don't have as much energyas I did yesterday, or I don't
have as much energy as I did theday before, or today I actually
do have a lot of energy.
And we just want tocreate that habit and
awareness within ourselves.
That's the very first step.
(18:50):
And then the next step isactually going throughout
your day and asking yourself,okay, how can I apply my 50
percent battery life to my day?
One is getting really clearon what the priorities are.
So from your business, let'ssay you have five tasks that
are going to move the needle.
Okay.
I'm going to take part ofthat 50 percent and apply
(19:11):
that to my five tasks.
Maybe that day it's reallyimportant to you for you
to maintain a relationship,with your partner, a
friend or a businesspartner, whatever that is.
That also takes time.
The other thing that takes timeis taking care of ourselves.
And so what tasks areyou doing for yourself?
So now you're basicallydispersing or sharing that
50 percent value on what'sthe priority in your life.
(19:34):
Cause I think sometimesthat we want to be able to
do it all, but the truth iswe have to start honoring
that we can't do it all.
We can't just tackle everything.
But what are the thingsin your life that are
going to move the needleprofessionally or personally
or maintain where you're atpersonally and professionally?
I think that's really keywhere you said that our
(19:57):
capacities are individual.
Because we live in a hustleculture, we live in a culture
that's very much about grindinguntil the day you die and
producing until the day you die.
God forbid you takeyour full eight hours
of sleep, you lazy bum.
And that's this capitalistmindset that most of
us are operating under.
(20:19):
I like to say we'reindoctrinated to it
from a young age becauseyou got to be the best.
Totally.
And it's ancestral.
I mean, it's a partof our culture here.
You know, my parents and theparents before them, like
they were known to work hard.
I think, especially if youcome, whether it is from a
Latina background or you'rea second generation or third
generation here and likeworking is the way to do and
(20:40):
it's a part of our ancestry.
So it's, it's literallyencoded into our biology
in a lot of ways.
Dr.
Peter Levine is the masterto somatic experiencing.
He is the doctor that taughta lot of this work and I
got a chance to hear himspeak over the weekend.
And he talks about howthe same patterns that our
mothers, our grandmothersand our great mothers
(21:02):
experience, we also inheritthat into our lives today.
And that is exactly whatyou're talking to is like
in this capitalistic work,work, work mentality, produce
more, make more money, keepgoing harder is a part of
our self worth, but I alsothink it's because our parents
might have felt that too.
And now we're feeling that evendoubling down now when we're
(21:24):
actually living in the world.
There's good and there's bad.
My mother actuallytalks about this.
Men and women, all people,all genders, we're all
born of a womb, right?
We're all carried in a womb.
So it's not just thematrilineal side.
Everybody gets toexperience these things
(21:44):
that are held in the womb.
The memories, the curses,the traumas, the rewards as
well, the good and the bad.
So don't think that just becauseyou don't identify as a woman,
you get to not experience this.
It's in, it's in your DNA too.
Like Karenna was saying,your DNA is encoded with it.
It's part of our ancestral DNA.
(22:07):
So let's say I could haveavoided getting sick in
this scenario in 2016.
I knew I wasn't operatingat a hundred percent.
But it also felt like my backwas against the wall and I
didn't have a choice, butto continue to operate at
what my full capacity was,even if it was only 20%.
(22:29):
What could I have shifted?
Or how could I have reconfiguredmyself or my life or my
corporate work to not feelso overwhelmed, to not feel
like I didn't have choices.
This is the next stage inrecalibrating the capacity
that you're talking to,because there is this internal
(22:50):
conversation that we haveto have with ourselves.
One, I want to remind anyonethat's listening to this is
that we always have a choice,and we're still making choices.
What ends up happening to oursystem when we're trying to do
something different and we feellike our back is against the
wall, a lot of the times that isour, our ego or the parts within
(23:11):
us that want to keep us safefrom the idea of dropping the
ball or from messing up, right?
Or leaving things behind orbeing up against the wall
and being like, I'd haveto operate in this way.
The question is moreasking yourself, how can
I create space for myself?
And the next step is where can Istart to make different choices?
(23:35):
I would say start small.
Like if you're in this spaceright now and you do feel
like your back is against thewall and you can barely get
your head above water everysingle day, you're trying
to just catch your breath.
Almost like you're drowning,you know, and you catch your
breath for a second, you justwant to hold on to your breath
a little bit longer beforeyou get put back down under.
I understand thosemoments are intense.
I've been there too.
(23:55):
I also got sick too, whatyou were talking about.
What is the smallest shiftthat you can make to be able
to give back to yourself first?
Because all of that stuffis still going to be there.
There's always going tobe more asks, more tasks,
more things to do, morefire drills, more urgency.
I come from a corporate worldtoo, like I understand that
(24:16):
everyone wants something now.
I also understand that there'sthis cultural expectation
to do more with less, andI understand that, and what
I'm saying is that I'm tryingto empower those listening
to feel like, where's thesmallest shift I can do for me?
This is where we get to thepoint of optimizing your
capacity is introducingpractices that fill your cup
(24:40):
up, that refill your battery.
In short, what's going toregulate your nervous system.
So is it that thirty minutewalk in the morning by yourself.
Is it drinking water?
Is it eating food?
If you asked me back in theday, I would do 20 meetings
in a week, 20 to 30 minutemeetings in a week, back to
back at these conferences,wake up at five in the morning.
(25:04):
Work out and live on coffee.
I was already doing myselfa disservice, not by just
everything that I had toshow up for, but the lack
of boundaries I had justfor my own nourishment.
And so that is alsoa part of this.
Like, yes, there is thisinternal conversation that we
have to go through in orderto make sure the parts of
us that are scared show updifferently because we feel
(25:25):
like in some way, someone mightthink differently of me if I'm
not showing up for everythingthat I have to show up for.
Or someone might judge me orthey might view me differently.
We all have these other fears.
We've got to make sure thatthose fears feel safe again.
Remind them that they'regoing to be okay.
There's a much deeperprocess to this, but in
short, reminding your partsthat get scared of changing
(25:48):
or making the shifts, thatyou're okay, that you're safe.
And then the next stepis really starting to set
yourself up and externallyhonoring your capacity.
Really getting intentional ofsetting up the structure to
support your nourishment andregulating your system to a
place where you can start tofeel like you can have more
than one breath above the water.
(26:10):
You can actually takeyour back off the wall and
just relax for a second.
I get tears in my eyesbecause that is the kind of
breath that we all deserve.
It's our birthright.
We're, we're here to breathe.
We're here to live, notfeeling we're holding
our breath all day long.
Yeah.
As you're talking, I'm kind ofreliving that time in my life.
(26:34):
And with the, the, the advantageof having all this time that's
passed and all the thingsI've learned in the last seven
years, they say hindsight's 20,20, to be able to look back.
I realized I was ignoringthe signals in my body,
you know, the stomachaches, the tight chest.
These are red flags that my ownbody was shooting up as kind
(26:58):
of a warning signal, right?
So it should have been nosurprise that things ended
the way they did becauseI ignored those signals.
Our bodies are alwaysspeaking to us.
You'll hear this a lot todayabout being in your body.
We've talked about it inpast episodes too, but I know
it can sound a little woowoo and for that reason you
might not take it seriously.
(27:19):
But all it means ispaying attention to how
and what you're feeling.
Yeah, you have to getout your head and stop
intellectualizing to do this.
It's about the feelings,which can be hard to
quantify sometimes.
We're also taught to ignoreour feelings, especially
when they're negative.
And that is a terrible practice.
(27:40):
You're human.
You're sometimes going tohave negative feelings.
That's normal.
Not allowing yourself todeal with them, that's
abnormal, not normal.
It's toxic.
Literally, it can makeyou sick to ignore the
signs and sensations yourbody wants you to feel.
(28:01):
It's what happened to me whenI suffered my burnout and
subsequent autoimmune disorder.
So, the next time you encountera negative feeling, instead of
reacting, because that's justyour brain talking and that's
not what we want right now, seewhere in your body you feel it.
Does it bring a sensation,like your stomach hurts or
(28:21):
your shoulders get tense?
These are signals to watchout for, especially if they
happen when you're not activelyfeeling something negative.
That's your centralnervous system activating
and trying to warn you.
Pay attention.
So you've mentioned regulationand dysregulation a few times.
Could you define thatclearly for us so that
(28:43):
everybody's on the same page?
Yeah, so a regulated nervoussystem feels like grounded,
stable, has capacity, youcan be with triggers, so
like if you're emotionallytriggered, it doesn't completely
take out your day, right?
Like you are stillregulated in those seasons.
A dysregulated nervous systemfeels anxious, activated,
(29:04):
emotionally reactive, likeyou don't have your feet on
the ground, like you don'thave stability or balance.
Like you can't catch yourselfif life throws a curve
ball at you or if there's achallenge that comes up, right?
Because we all live in aday of challenges, like
things come up all the time.
But a good symptom orindicator that if you're
(29:25):
dysregulated, it's like iflife gives you something hard
and it completely takes youout, that means that you are
dysregulated in that moment.
Helpful?
Yes.
So I'm thinking how we live inthis contemporary environment
where inflation is beingfelt all around, right?
We're all being asked to do morewith less, as you mentioned.
(29:46):
Things are costing a lot more.
Everybody's feeling like theirdollar just doesn't stretch.
So our entertainmentoptions are more limited.
Our going out optionsare more limited.
So collectively, Ifeel like we're all
undergoing these stresses.
So, now it seems normal.
This seems like this ishow we're going to operate.
(30:08):
We've got climatesto worry about.
We've got wars to worry about.
You're carrying all thisand God forbid you have an
accident on the way home.
You're already stretchedso thin and then this big
thing happens that probablywasn't even your fault.
You know, what if you'relike rear ended at a light?
And that forces you toshift your priorities.
(30:28):
So how do we get to the pointwhere we look at shifting
our priorities withouthaving the car accident?
I think a lot of peoplelistening to this are
feeling the strain of lifeas it is at the moment.
And what you're sayingis that we need to
check in with ourselves.
So we want to feel grounded.
We want to feel likewe're in control.
(30:50):
I think part of feelingdysregulated, it's funny, I'm
looking at my own language.
When I start feeling unmoored,like I'm untethered and I'm
just kind of floating anddon't have a path, don't
have anything anchoring me.
That's, you know, lookat your language too.
See, it's through theseconversations that these
(31:12):
revelations become so obvious.
I'm like, I'm feeling unmoored.
What can I do about that?
And the truth is thatthese societal pressures
aren't going away.
So we have to recalibrateourselves within
these limitations.
One thing I'll add to that is,for us, like, this is our norm
and to our ego, so this is likepsychological, we will stay
(31:36):
in familiar pain because we'recomfortable versus changing
now is more uncomfortablebecause it's something
that we don't know, right?
It's a new walk to path.
And you were talking alot to like, how do we
prevent that from happening?
I think we have to logicallyunderstand this, but there's
a body element to this work.
(31:56):
Is like, logically understandthat we will continue to show up
in the world in these stressesbecause, like you said, these
stresses collectively are here.
Our relationship to itwill stay the same unless
we want to change it.
Now, I also don't want totake away from like, wanting
to change it is scary.
It's showing updifferently in the world.
(32:18):
There's so much thatcomes with that, right?
When you start changing andyou start shifting and setting
more boundaries and speakingyour truth and saying no to
things, people are going torespond in a certain way.
How do you respond to that?
The way that people have arelationship to you, to the
relationship you have to life,is how they're comfortable.
(32:39):
And so when you start tomake uncomfortable shifts in
your life, it's going to getuncomfortable for other people
in your life, whether it'sprofessionally or personally.
And, I think we have tohold on to the vision.
The vision of not wanting to getsick, the vision of not putting
ourselves last every singleday for the benefit of our
(33:01):
cultural norms or the benefitof someone else's safety.
Our safety is so true.
Every single person thathas listened to this, you're
worthy of feeling good.
It is meant to feel good.
And so I share thatwith like, how do we
get ourselves on board?
Well, one is just decidingfor yourself that you want
to feel good in this world.
(33:22):
That you don't want tofeel stretched, that you
want to sleep good, thatyou want to be healthy.
One thing I learnedafter my health episodes,
whether it was like my guthealth, my hormone health,
everything just went to shit.
I realized that thathealth is wealthy.
Having my health is somuch more beneficial than
(33:43):
overstretching myself.
Like I ten times rather feelgood in my day than feel
exhausted, but I had to gothrough the pain of feeling what
it felt like to be really sick.
And now I know how wealthy I amnow that I have my health back.
I didn't know that before.
Now that I've been through myown process and I've worked
with so many clients and I'vetalked to so many people, we
always wait until it's that timewhere we're forced to shift.
(34:06):
And I understand that we thinkthat we're strong enough and
resilient to handle it all.
I get that.
What if you use that strengthand that resilience to start
making the shifts so you canenjoy the strengths of your
resiliency in a different way?
There are so manykeywords you just said.
Resilient, strong, all of thesethings that we are taught from
(34:32):
a very young age to strive for.
And too often, we are theproducts of sacrifice.
And that is the only waythat those around us know
how to get those things.
But there's a different way.
You don't have to sacrificeyour health in order to be
resilient, to be strong.
(34:52):
Case in point, I go to thegym and I lift weights.
What I'm trying to do whenI'm fighting gravity is
to make sure that 10, 15,30 years from now, I'm not
suffering from osteoporosis.
So that's me trying to makesure that future Paulette has
better capacity than expected.
That's why I'mbuilding strength.
That's why I'mbuilding resiliency.
(35:14):
And that's on purpose.
That's proactive, not reactive.
How can I take that mindsetand those actions and apply
them to other areas of my life?
That's the question thatI have to ask in order to
determine my own capacity,in order to set my life path.
And that's not going to bethe same for you, Karenna, and
it's not going to be the samefor whomever is listening.
(35:36):
But that is a great exercise,and lifting weights is
also a great exercise.
So the weights that you'relifting at the gym, these are
the kinds of weights that we'relifting in our life, right?
Are we going to lift weightsthat are going to do us harm,
or are you going to lift theweights and do the hard in a
different way that's going tosupport us to feeling stronger
and more resilient and increasecapacity in the long run?
(35:58):
I don't want to take away fromif you are showing up every day.
I understand it's hard.
It's, you are strong.
You are resilient, right?
And how can we bring thatinto this way, just doing hard
things in a different way.
And it's doing that proactivelyto your point, to set us
(36:19):
up for successful, healthy,grounded, fulfilling life.
Which, to use like you said,like your body's getting
stronger so you couldbe here in 20 years and
feel strong in your body.
This is the same way as startingto take the task that I did
at the beginning, like tappinginto your capacity every day.
Start showing up in commitmentto that and start lifting and
(36:42):
building a new muscle that'sgoing to set you up for a
more regulated, fulfilled andhealthy life, even if it's
difficult and it's different.
It's a new room.
It's a room you haven't been to.
It's a different partof the gym, right?
It's like, it's the part ofthe gym that maybe you haven't
gone to because you're like,I don't know how to do that.
(37:02):
But it's time to step into thatroom so that you have the life
that you're really craving.
I think we're all strivingfor the thing, but we don't
have to feel exhausted anddepleted and sick to get there.
All too often, being busy, beingtired, I call it the Exhaustion
Olympics, is a badge of honor.
Exactly.
(37:23):
What kind of marketing havewe swallowed that we sacrifice
our own health in search ofthe of more money and success?
Financial success, becausesuccess can be measured
many, many different ways.
But we have determinedas a society that is the
only metric of success.
Keeping up with the Joneses, nomatter how ragged you're running
(37:45):
yourself, is the ultimate goal.
And that's just marketingthat we all accepted and we
don't have to live that life.
We can choose our own paths.
We can live outsideof that life script.
When I was starting to breakthis down for myself, you
know, something that blewmy mind is that, like, in
business, it says busy ness.
And I was like, We are literallybeing wired to be busy.
(38:09):
And in a lot of ways, we'recelebrated for being busy.
We're encouraged and empoweredto be busy and there is
this, like you said, thismedal that we're all having
because I'm running themillion miles an hour here
and I'm doing all this andI've checked off all the boxes
and I've done my to do list.
I'm running some business and dodo do do do do do do do do do!
(38:30):
I'm so successful.
Okay, that's the externalview, but like, how do you
really feel on the inside?
This has all beenreally wonderful.
I'm really hoping that theaudience is able to really
grasp what we're saying here.
Which is that you need totake a very good look at
your life and determinewhere the shifts can be made.
(38:50):
Especially if you feel likeyour back is against the wall
and you don't have choices.
But sometimes taking thatdeep breath and getting
some clarity shows you that,yeah, there's some out of
the box solutions that youhadn't considered before.
Is there anything elsethat you would like
to tell the listeners?
I think reminding yourselfthat this is for you.
(39:11):
You know, I think we live ourworlds so often for everyone
else in a lot of ways, for thebusiness partner, for our jobs,
for these things, and if thisis the one thing that you can
implement into your life today,what is the smallest shift?
It's the smallest shifts thatmake such a big difference,
and we can start there.
(39:33):
There's a small shift andI think that's the sweetest
invitation because we don'twant to wait for the day that
a huge shift is required of us.
Because that is lifechanging versus we can start
changing our lives withthe smallest shifts now.
And instead of feeling likeyou're a frog being boiled
alive, you are ascending tonew levels and creating a
(39:55):
larger comfort zone aroundyourself that you can grow
into as opposed to reactingto the changes that come your
way without your permissionor without your say so.
Well, thank you so muchfor coming by, Karenna.
Why don't you tell uswhere we can find you and
the name of your podcast?
Uh, you can find me onInstagram @IamKarennaSoto.
(40:17):
I have a podcast called TheFully Expressed Podcast.
It's truly to invite peopleinto their fully expressed
selves and life andrelationships and business.
One of the foundations tothat is honoring capacity so
you can live this life thatwe've been given, this gift.
It is literally a gift thatwe get to live this life.
And I, I really want to seeevery human being living
(40:41):
that to the fullest as theyevolve on their journey.
So thank you somuch for having me.
And that's a burrito!Hey, mira, if this
episode made you feelsome kind of way, dígame.
DM me on Instagram,or send me a text.
You can do that rightfrom your phone.
If you want to be a gueston the show and put your
(41:01):
story out there too, checkout the guest form on my
website at pauletterato.
com slash guest.
Yep, just my name, pauletterato.
com slash guest.
Y no se te olvide quehay más perks when you
join the newsletter.
Todos estos links estánen los show notes.
Muchísimas gracias for yoursupport y hasta la próxima vez.
(41:23):
Cuídate bien.
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