Samantha Pruitt: 0:23

Hey superstars, welcome back Paula here and Sam. What’s up? Beautiful humans.

Polly Mertens: 0:27

Hey you guys. It’s a new episode and, Miss Pruitt, what are we talking about today?

Samantha Pruitt: 0:34

Wow, one of my favorite things to do.

Polly Mertens: 0:39

Clear the decks. We both did a little bit of this. That’s why I was like we need to do an episode on this. So we’re calling this the seven signs of burnout and breakdown – cleaning house, cleaning your plate all the things all the seven signs when it’s time to clear the decks.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:54

People.

Polly Mertens: 0:55

Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, what’s funny is we’re doing this. I, you know it’s going to come out here soon. But as I was telling people about what you’re doing and I’m doing, you know, leading up to this, I’m just hearing all my friends doing it. They’re like, oh yeah, clean the shed, we clean this out. And you know just, people are doing it left and right. So I don’t know if it’s a spring thing or what, but it’s. I think people have just accumulated too much. You know, sort of like post holidays. You know, people come into the January and they’re like, oh, like, enough, right, like they just took on too much.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:24

And I think, energetically, environmentally, you know, commitment wise, we’ve just have, our plates are too full right, yeah, I think a lot of things compounded during the pandemic because people shifted into a different lifestyle to accommodate all of the insanity that was going on and that was prolonged, prolonged, prolonged. So a lot of buildup from that stuff emotional, a change in process procedures, daily operational stuff for people, a lot of family drama. So a lot of piling up of stuff, things physically, emotionally, just sucking the life out of people. Right, so they finally, a lot of people have come out the other side, very slowly but nonetheless hallelujah, and are ready to make changes and that’s where we come in.

Polly Mertens: 2:11

Yeah, yeah, and really we want to. You know, if you’re, if you clicked on this and you’re listening to this, you’re probably like knowing what we’re going to. You’re going to hit like one, or you’re going to be like check, check, check. So I’m going to, we’re going to talk about them. These are seven, there’s probably a hundred, you know, I mean, but we’re going to talk about some of the ones that are like burning for us, or we’ve seen recently, so one of the seven signs of burnout. I find it shows up for me as frustration.

Polly Mertens: 2:38

Right so like short fuse. You’re just like easily agitated. It’s like damn it. You find yourself, you know, kind of can’t get this done, can’t get that done, or somebody like changes the timing of something. You’re like right, so that that short fuse of frustration, yeah, right.

Polly Mertens: 2:56

And then, uh, I would say next, this one is a big umbrella, just the feeling of overwhelm in our life, right, yeah, overwhelm, drowning, right, right, so too many demands.

Polly Mertens: 3:10

Or you know so, some of what we’re going to talk about towards the end is we help you with not only the seven signs of it, but it’s like okay, what can I do about this? Like some proactive action, mini steps, micro steps, massive steps for some people, that it’s it’s time, you know, depending on how big the burnout or the breakdown is for you, is a signal to you of what kind of, what level of response you need, right, or you ought to need. You know, and some people maybe don’t need a wake up call and this could be it for them. You know that that overwhelm can be. I call it like like internal or physical, like you just feel, feel the weight of things, the complexity of things, the intake your body is taking in so much, either information or demands, if you will, the physical. And then there’s also external right. How it shows up in our world is there’s an overwhelm of, you know, paperwork.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:06

The first one shows up a lot for me as anxiety. You know, all of that overwhelmed drowning, can’t think straight, like oh my gosh. You know, can’t make decisions. All that stuff, the stuff piling up. We all know those people. We’ve been seeing that in the business space with some of our clients and in the one-on-one life coaching with some of our clients too. So we’ve talked about that quite a bit. You know what that signifies. Oh, it’s another sign, polly. All right.

Polly Mertens: 4:39

So, you know, I was talking with a friend and she was, you know, doing the clearing the decks in her life and a lot of that looked physical. And as I was asking her, I was talking with a friend and she was doing the clearing the decks in her life and a lot of that looked physical. And as I was asking her, I was like so why are you doing all this? Why are you cleaning the garage? Why are you clearing out the shed, why are you giving stuff away? Why are you, you know, et cetera.

Polly Mertens: 4:51

And it prompted me to think about my own and she’s like I just can’t get to the things that I want to do, like there’s so many things of me doing on a daily basis, you know or for me it was I find that it takes my energy away. I’ve studied Feng Shui and whatnot and things we don’t always recognize it, but physical things have energy, right. They like like I look in this, we’re recording this and I can actually you and I can see each other on zoom and in your room you have this row of beautiful metals right and they’re color-coded and it’s like that feels energizing, like those metals are the expression and the experience of you doing those things, and they’re colors also.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:35

You know like when you and I when we interact.

Polly Mertens: 5:38

Yeah, when we interact with things like colorful things or rainbow things. And you know, when you walk into a dull, dingy, dirty house or office or space, right Like you just feel your energy dip right. Or I know I find this a lot of like nice hotels, fine hotels you walk in and things are fresh and there’s lots of light, or you know they’ve got beautiful plants everywhere. It just uplifts you, right, and so the things that are around us. When she said, you know I can’t get to the things or it slows me down, I look at it too Like I had this area of my closet where every time I opened up the closet and I opened it up it was like a daily closet, not some closet that you know.

Polly Mertens: 6:15

Often the yonders of your house that you never go into, those are. Those can be take your energy as well too. But this was one I went into daily and I opened it up and just it had some files and some papers and old sweaters and you know it was just sort of like got very combobulated because the containers weren’t containing the things, the things that were there. There was too many of them, stuff like that. So we can often be overwhelmed because we can’t do the things we want to do or the things are just clunky and in the way.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:46

Well, I would add to that I’m speaking about myself now, but I’ve also bear witness, of course, to this on a regular basis with other humans is it can be something as simple as the mail that is unopened or the bills. Slash mail, slash paperwork, slash junk mail that’s sitting on the counter, and every day the human goes to the mailbox puts more right. This thing happens, there’s an action that goes there, but then nothing happens beyond that and it sits and it. This is one of my neuroses. I cannot tolerate this. It makes me insane because what that junk mail or those bills, or that propaganda or whatever unopened stuff, what it represents mentally, emotionally, you know, energetically is not good emotionally, you know, energetically is not good. Yeah, very, it’s not a love letter, okay, and you didn’t win the lottery. No one’s on like you’d open that, right. So it’s the energy that comes with that sitting there and then walking by it every day.

Polly Mertens: 7:56

Yeah, yeah, you know and sometimes there’s, I would say, the one caveat to this that we didn’t address this in the beginning, but like there are definitely temporary periods in our life that we go through.

Polly Mertens: 8:08

Yeah, that it’s like, okay, it could be, you know, a two week period, it could be a six month period, you know whatever. But it’s a period. It has a beginning and an end. It’s not your normal. It’s not how you’re running your life. You’re not operating under this environment. You know, by choice and condition, forever.

Polly Mertens: 8:25

It’s like you know what for these. You know like, oh, somebody had to move it. You know, you move the kids in, or something like that. It’s like, yeah, you know we’re going to see the kids stop a little bit, but they’re going. You know, like, they have an exit date, an expiration date. We’ll see you later.

Polly Mertens: 8:39

So that’s one of the caveats to this is yeah, so that’s one of the caveats to this is, yeah, okay, there might be a period, maybe it’s a week, where, oh, I can’t get to the mail. But then you get to the mail, you know. But what you’re pointing out, I think too, is something yeah, when we look at feng shui, there’s a lot of what they talk about in the papers and the piles, you know. And, yeah, not good, and this isn’t what we’re here to talk about is not how to feng shui your life, how to declutter. We’re not going to go into the finer details. This is like the surface level, houston. We have a problem. The human is not doing well in their life. Yes, exactly, there’s a warning sign. These are the warning signs. It’s time to pay attention, pay more attention to self right.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:22

You know it’s. When we say clear the decks, what we mean is removing the noise and the unnecessary things that are in your everyday world, holding you back, so you can think clearly and operate with time, space, energy towards the things that do matter. So these are distractions that are holding you back from your greatest life. I mean they look minor, but if you start piling them up it’s a tidal wave. Yeah Right.

Polly Mertens: 9:56

And then it feels bigger than you and then you feel powerless, right? So one of the some of the results of these signs if you will you know these are some symptoms if you will is, I mean, the worst is hopeless and helpless, right, or resigned, right, like, yeah, can’t do anything about it. You know that closet is bigger than me, or I’ll never get to it, or my calendar is just like this. You know, I just have to live like this. It’s like, oh, wait a minute, let’s not so okay, let me just knock off a couple of.

Polly Mertens: 10:26

So we had frustration, overwhelm, can’t get to things, things are slowing you down, getting in your way, if you will, procrastinating and avoiding. You know, like you talked about, like, if you start to see too much procrastinating or avoiding things that are draining your energy, it’s, you know, it’s time for that reset, that personal intervention and this is a big one. It has a lot of little fingers on it, but anxious or stressed, right, there’s a lot that feeds into that. Depending on the level of that, how big is your burnout. You know how big is your breakdown, and we talked a little bit about this. So stuck energy. So stuck energy can look like just feeling indecisive, not creative.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:10

You know, these are some of yours that lackluster you know, just like feeling indecisive and confused and not able to make decisions about sometimes really basic things like what are we having for dinner, and other times it’s really big things. But that’s a huge warning sign. When that starts happening repeatedly to you, or where you feel that sensation of like I just don’t feel empowered to make a decision, you know your brain and really your connection to your own personal truth is clouded over foggy, however you want to describe it right. You need to sort that out.

Polly Mertens: 11:50

Yeah, I would say some of that like what you were saying, that it’s like when you get to that indecisive where it’s like I don’t care, you just decide, you know, you just like turn it over to somebody else because you’re just, you’re so.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:01

You give up your power.

Polly Mertens: 12:03

Exactly You’re like I don’t have the energy for it, right, I don’t have the energy to make another decision or to do another thing. That’s a sign like okay, wait a minute.

Polly Mertens: 12:14

You know, you want energy in your life. You want the decisions that you’re making to be empowering you and inspiring you. And you know, yeah, we’ve got. You know, not great things Like, oh, we got a flood. And you know, yeah, we’ve got. You know, not great things like, oh, we got a flood, okay, you got to, like, decide on the contractor, and things like that. But you know, the day to day in your life, you want to be empowered to choose things that make you feel good, because when you’re not right, you start to load up the overwhelm of not good things, like you make poor choices or you lead to, you know, unhealthy habits and behaviors.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:43

right or resentment because you gave up your power to somebody else. By the way, this happens a lot in the workspace. We’ve seen it quite a bit with teams and corporations, organizations who are trying to do big, epic things right In some kind of team environment, and you’ll sense some of the players on the team don’t have the same energy as others. Right, it’s normal and you know things need to be addressed and resolved.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:06

But you’ll sometimes often see one or two team players that just has resigned to no longer having an opinion or having a creative input or having, you know, energy to bring to the mission. Huge problem, huge problem. And no one wants to show up like that on the team, right? You know they don’t. People don’t want to. It’s so depleting and demoralizing and you know it doesn’t feel good to be that person on the team who’s just not able to deliver, and that could be coming from the workspace or the home space or the personal health and wellness space.

Polly Mertens: 13:44

But yeah, it might just be business specific, but it could be coming from the workspace or the home space or the personal health and wellness space. But yeah, it might just be business specific, but it could be coming from the house and then they just don’t have energy to deliver in the business. I got it Totally. So we said stuck energy. The other one is just not enough energy, as you were talking about Right. So you know, I think there’s two symptoms that you could look at with.

Polly Mertens: 14:07

This is just in the day-to-day not having enough energy to go about your day, just tired all the time, or like Physical energy Trudging through it, or if you look at a pattern, your energy load is declining over time. So over the last three months, six months or something, you feel less energized about your life, about the things that you’re getting up to. Somehow you’re just seeing a trend and not and you know it might be in the day to day. Day in, day out you have no energy, but the trend is also going down. Those are two signs.

Polly Mertens: 14:30

Like you mean the people that live for Friday or can like barely get up for you know, yeah, by the time Thursday night hits.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:39

They’re like I’m going to pretend I’m going to work tomorrow. I’ll you know, I’ll physically like show up, but don’t ask me to do anything.

Polly Mertens: 14:48

No productivity.

Polly Mertens: 14:50

That’s a problem, totally so. That’s like deflated, dejected, you just can’t get up and go in your life, right. So something’s holding you back, right, and it could be a combo of things, but that’s, you know, one of the signs. And next one you know you’re big on this because of your story and where you came from which is all the physical. I mean, some energy is a physical sign, but things like weight gain, or you can’t lose weight, brain fog, sleep, tired, things like that. So what are some of the other maybe physical symptoms that you see or you you know are common, that we hear about?

Samantha Pruitt: 15:25

Fatigue for sure. Mine was physical and mental, emotional, so kind of a compound of all those things. Yes, I was having some physical challenges, but I was compounding it by poor lifestyle choices, overstress, overworked, all of the things you know. I was creating this really nice cocktail for myself and the warning signs were there for a really long time for me, but I chose to ignore them and put other priorities before my own physical and mental wellbeing. So, you know, hard lesson learned, but you do get to a point where the body does keep score and you will be educated at some point that this was the wrong path. You know. I just really want to caution people, to take these mild warning signs we’re talking about and don’t let it all come crumbling down like it did with me.

Polly Mertens: 16:17

Well, and you know what you talked about in the story of how you did, that was exactly why these things get out of balance, right, you know why? Because I was making the choices I was making, I was getting the results that I was getting. I wasn’t either, in the moment, making empowered choices, wasn’t thinking it through. You know, sometimes there’s scenarios that we find ourselves in, you know, reliving trauma from childhood like, oh, people pleasing, oh, everybody else’s needs first, right, or overgiving, or, you know, not feeling worthy, different things that create these choices that we make, choices that we make day in and day out. Where we’re last place, we’re the last person on our own to-do list, our own give a shit list, right? Yeah, that leads to things getting off the rail.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:09

Sometimes it’s a real disconnection from your physical body. I mean, I definitely experienced that and I know a lot of people whether there’s trauma or not trauma, but have had a disconnection from their physical body for whatever reason at some junction, whether it was out of you know, protective measures or whatever happened there. Right, but then not really paying attention to when things feel good, when they don’t feel good, when they don’t feel good, what might be the root of that. You know, like I wasn’t raised, educated in a way or in a family or cultural environment that we were taught these things. I didn’t even know this was a thing, and the irony is my mother died of cancer and my dad died of a heart attack very young.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:52

Disease and illness physical and mental run in the family line, so you think we all would have been having these conversations going. Wow, you know, but we weren’t, and so I wasn’t raised that way and it took me into my adulthood to learn these lessons. I’m grateful that I finally did. But that process of just numbing your feedback loops, whether they’re physical, emotional or otherwise, is pretty common in society. So just big sort of wake up call to people is you can bring that back and reconnect. All of those things and this is what we’re talking about too is sometimes it takes clearing the deck, creating space, time, breath in between, to really get reconnected with yourself, that really deep place, you know.

Polly Mertens: 18:46

So true, you know. You know we’re children of the what? 70s, 80s, you know, kind of generation, if you will, and the things we talk about on this show, like nobody told, nobody talked to us about these things or I don’t remember hearing about it. Maybe there’s some fringe, which I love. You know the fringe things that we’re being talked about.

Polly Mertens: 19:05

Now it’s getting more mainstream, now it’s coming greater and greater into the awareness is, oh, this like temple, this body, this thing actually, like I don’t treat it like a trash can, it needs like decent amount of sleep, I can’t run it like a factory, like oh, what the hell Right? Like oh, and these emotional things, oh, these are chemicals, oh, the hormone. You know just the understanding that we have and we still don’t have a total understanding. I don’t think in our lifetime we ever will All the depths of like how is a baby, you know, created and how does his brain work and stuff. But we’re a lot more aware and as we take that awareness to ourself and reprioritizing right, I think you and I were probably grow up in that generation where it was like the elders were the priority, like you know, I mean, and if we go back to the generation before by golly.

Samantha Pruitt: 19:53

You know, my parents was like you were, seen, not heard, kind of generation A hundred percent, a hundred percent, yeah, and it was definitely also the generation of, like you know, chasing the American dream survival of the fittest, grind, grind, grind.

Samantha Pruitt: 20:08

All the things like hey, you know that pressure and this is happening again in society, but it looks very different now, right, um, but we’re just saying this as part of our wake up call to audience is like when we say clear the deck, sometimes it’s literally clean your shit up, okay, do the dishes and pay the bills and clean your closets. And other times we’re saying this physical body is showing you signs, clear indications that you are stuck in negative patterns. It can be negative habits that are repetitive, it can be addictive behaviors that are really detrimental to your body and brain. It can show up in so many places. Body and brain it can show up in so many places. So we say it sort of having fun with it. But really there’s a very serious nature to this conversation in that those little pokes and prods and discomforts, those signs of anxiety and overwhelmed, are leading you to something else at some point if it gets unchecked.

Polly Mertens: 21:15

I just really love what you’re saying there and it’s like, if you get nothing else from this, like the tuning into your body, your needs, your emotional, you know I I say we have four bodies. You know your emotional, spiritual, physical, mental, body. It’s like in those bodies, when you have resistance, when you have signal something’s not right for me, um, something’s dysregulated, um, I’m, I’m not energized by this thing or this person. You know, you, you want to lean away from that thing, you don’t want to lean into it. Like you just find yourself going uh, I don’t want to go there, I don’t, I don’t want to eat that thing or I don’t want to be around that person, and then you do it anyway, right, or should ought to. What’s wrong with me?

Samantha Pruitt: 22:02

You know, the mind steps in as, like you know here hear me now it’s like don’t be a baby, don’t be a complainer, don’t this, don’t that. Shooting on yourself is the worst.

Polly Mertens: 22:12

Yeah, so yeah, I think really what we’re giving space to in this conversation is bringing the body, the whole self, back into your awareness of where you’re making decisions from, not just the mind you know not just logic what everybody else is doing societal, environmental shooting.

Polly Mertens: 22:31

You know expectations of others, but what do you have capacity for? What lights you up? What is your environment that you up? What are your? What is your environment that you thrive in? Or the people that you work well with? Right and saying no. So let’s, let’s go into how I I, you know I brought to the table.

Polly Mertens: 22:49

Let’s, let’s try this into two, and this is probably going to get blurry, if you will, but I was like I think there’s an internal idea, so these are invitations that we have, things that we’ve done, or things that we just want to invite you to Absolutely. What we just said, though, is you check in with you If you find any of these symptoms that we were talking about. The seven signs are you’ve checked more one than one, or two or three, or you’ve got all seven.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:14

Anything we said resonated. Yeah, you’re in start taking notes now and you say an invitation and I’m going to say it’s your to-do list.

Polly Mertens: 23:23

Write this down. I’m coming for you and these are ones for you to choose from, right? So one one of the things we said off air was like um, well, I’ll say it. Well, maybe I’ll. Just I was, I’ll start with the bottom, so this is going to be one of my last. Ones is nature. So this is an external change, right? So we’ll get to internal and external. So external is time in nature, nature to nurture the self, and in that, that’s all I’m saying, and the rest is for that human being who’s listening to this for you to decide. What the fuck does nature to nurture look like for you. Is that? You know what? I want to go sit on my lawn. I want to sit on my porch and look at the flowers. I want to go to the ocean and look at the beach. I want to go on a long walk or, like you, I want to go backpacking for three days. You know like?

Samantha Pruitt: 24:09

So what we’re telling them now is basically some ways that they can go about clearing the decks. Yeah Right, here are some simple, everyday opportunities with the Everyday Awesome Project to clear thy decks. Human beings so out in nature, just being in the space, no need to do anything radical, just be out there breathing the air, connected with the environment.

Polly Mertens: 24:34

Yeah, and maybe we’ll start back from the top, because I that just felt like the next logical thing to say after what we were talking about is, like, time and nature can look different. So, with all of these that we’re going to talk about, um, it’s for you to explore with you, not, not? Oh, like Santa Polly said, I should do these six things Like, oh, like, these are invitations, these are ideas to get your, your imagination, your re, your ability to recreate. You know, you might need to lean on some of these because, like you, got nothing right. But so the first one, though, we said like an internal, is um, and this I’ve seen you do this so well so many times is like clearing literally the calendar, like saying no to commitment, like gotta go, gotta go. Nope, not doing that.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:18

I love crossing shit out with a black sharpie. You’ve seen my calendar. You’re like why is there so many colors? What’s? Going on over there and then what are all these black like sharpie things? That’s right stuff.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:29

I said no I give myself that opportunity weekly, but even daily, because you and I are planners and organized you type of individuals in the world. But and there’s a reason for that Um, sometimes I’m just not feeling it and I really like to listen to what my body and brain are telling me. I really like to give some time and space about assessing you know, I call it taking inventory Like what are the things that are must do’s, what are the optional things? Like kind of evaluating what’s on my plate, slash calendar at any time.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:07

Um, I have a couple of good friends right now who are recently in cancer treatment, you know, and I want to be available for them to support them in whatever capacity. That means I need more availability on my schedule and also emotionally, like I need to be capable of being of service and being open to their experience. Right, that means I need to create some more space for that. I don’t just add that onto my plate. I make that a higher priority than maybe this week. I was going to do X, Y, Z or have lunch with Sally or whatever the thing was, but I’m like, no, my priorities have shifted. So I love giving myself the opportunity weekly, and sometimes even daily, to reevaluate and again clear the depths.

Polly Mertens: 26:53

I think that’s important to hone in on something that you’re touching upon, which is giving yourself that permission and I want to say not only to, like you said how I kind of saw it when you held up your hands was like have to and get to right. And I would even encourage you to evaluate and deeply question the have to, because there might be hidden within some of that some old stories, some old expectations that you’re holding on to that. If you examined it right, examine, you know, what is that? Do I really need to still do that? Do I really? You know?

Polly Mertens: 27:29

So I find this with my family, you know, is like do I have an obligation to that? And some of it is like a hell, yes. Like, yes, I want to. Like I make my trips to visit my aunt and uncle. I do that twice a year. It’s like, oh yeah, that’s, that’s a get, that’s a get to and a have to. Like I feel like I have to for me, it serves me, but there’s other family members that I step back because it’s like I don’t have to do that. I’ve reevaluated what that looks like for me, right.

Polly Mertens: 27:58

And you know and people. I think I’ll just. Maybe this is a time for a little story, or influenced by societal, commercial paradigms, whatever you want to call it. Hand-me-down, generational. This is what it needs to look like and maybe some of it’s instinctual, I don’t know.

Polly Mertens: 28:33

In the last couple of years, with some health problems that my mom’s had and challenges with her being in the hospital and whatnot, and her need for me more and different things to evaluate At times, it’s like there was times where it was a lot of demand you talk about, you know, clearing the decks and stuff. It’s like you know, okay, I’m not doing anything this week by going and caring for her. You know she’s in the hospital, she’s coming out of the hospital, those types of things. And some of these were not super. They were hospital, but not like, you know, like a scare. It was more like mom being mom and all of a sudden she ends up in the hospital. But it’s not. Anyway, there’s a lot of drama, let’s say, behind that, so we won’t go too much.

Polly Mertens: 29:15

But my sense of self and my identity was good daughter, right, and what does a good daughter do? And it was only when I examined why am I doing this, do I need to do this to this level and how much do I need to go up there? And does she really need? You know, and it was, it was all in my mind, right, um, and maybe there was some, you know, influence from her or you know, maybe some feedback, yeah, but, but you know, maybe some things that I, yeah, but, but it all existed in my paradigm that I was saying what a good daughter was and I just, you know, much like I’ve, I’ve shifted my paradigm of good relationship, partner, uh, good health, vitality, what is a healthy body? You know, I had a very twisted body scenario when I was in my twenties and and 30s, you know, and how that was supposed to look, completely tore that apart, rewrote that, you know and so good daughter, I’ve done the same thing Took that out of the closet, went.

Polly Mertens: 30:08

You know who wrote all these. It needs to look like this and I was like scratch, scratch, scratch, black Sharpie, black Sharpie. Yeah, clearing the deck on those expectations. So what I’m saying in a long way of saying it, is those things that you think are need to just take them out and examine them also, because sometimes, when we shine the light of where you are, in your life.

Polly Mertens: 30:27

Some things have changed. What’s real for you? What’s true for your body? Like do I have the capacity for that anymore kind of thing or desire as well.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:37

I’ve done this a lot in the work and professional space and we work with a lot of people who are in the work and professional space and it you know the high performers. You and I have also historically been high performers in our work world.

Polly Mertens: 30:51

Thank you very much, yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:52

Whatever that was, yeah, but for me, I will just say and I’ve shared this with you very candidly after 50, I definitely rewrote that story for myself also. So I’m going on my ninth business that I’ve owned and operated over my lifetime, which is insane. Plus, I’ve worked for a lot of people and I’ve done a lot of different things professionally, and so I’m generally, over my lifetime, a hard charging high performer in the workspace. Sometimes that’s been amazing and it served me incredibly. I wouldn’t change any of it, but many times it did not serve me.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:25

It really created a cycle of this repeated story. I told myself of having to continue to perform above and beyond, above and beyond, above and beyond, until I was burying myself literally in work, in work schedule, in accommodating the needs of, you know, my higher ups or my team or whatever, to my own detriment. So that is no longer what I consider a high performing leader to look like. But that’s what I knew and that’s how I initially evolved. But you know, again, I got schooled many times and ultimately schooled myself to rewrite that story, and now I just do it differently. It doesn’t mean that I don’t still perform at a high level when I choose to and when the environment is something that I want to be really contributing at that level to, but I don’t have to do it all the time and we see, in the workspace you’ll get one or two triple type A’s not just a type A or an A team player, but a triple type A and they’ll continue to just like push, push, push, push, push until they break and as leaders or teammates, recognizing that and helping them recognize that they don’t need to every day be at 110%. It’s not possible, it’s not sustainable.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:46

And you know, we really want to see a well-rounded human showing up and all the team contributing, right, we don’t want to see two people who are the 110% and we don’t want to see the 50%ers, you know right. So, like, these work environments need to change their model and we need to think about ourselves. If you’re one of those people, like I was, what am I trying to prove? What is this about? And why am I sacrificing my health or my relationships or other things I care deeply about? Because I’m not a workhorse, you know. Like, come on, I have other things. Why would I be sacrificing all of that?

Polly Mertens: 33:22

Yeah, rewriting what high performance can look like.

Samantha Pruitt: 33:25

Yeah, like I’m going to be high performance in every aspect of my life, every aspect of who I am as a human, and my work and professional life or my business, is one piece of who I am in the world. But I have so much more impact to contribute and I want my legacy to be bigger and broader and wider than that.

Polly Mertens: 33:47

So I think you know if all we think about sorry is the, let’s say, the performance or the output right.

Polly Mertens: 33:55

Meaning numbers on the board or something like that, because you and I I mean you more than anyone I know the word culture like you’re deep, deep, deep in culture and the humans and what I have seen over the trajectory of my life in my 20s. You know that hard charge, you know like get to the top. You know, and just, unfortunately, how I thought to do it in the beginning, I learned earlier on, thankfully, then later. You don’t grind your vendors and your people and stuff to the ground to get the best performance, to get the best performance, to get the best overall results, to get the sustainable growth. Things like that no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right, you don’t send the racehorse out to run you across the country. It’s like, no, that racehorse will get you around the track a few times.

Polly Mertens: 34:45

And then you switch, it’s a relay race and then boom, yeah. But if you want to get on a horse or if you want to get on a team that’s going to go the distance, right, you have to take into the needs of that horse, that body, those people, the culture your own included that has, yeah, more needs than just perform, perform, perform right and if you’re the leader, you’re setting an example for that.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:08

Yeah, I mean, you’re the role model, whether it’s your family, your. And if you’re the leader, you’re setting an example for that. Yeah, I mean, you’re the role model, whether it’s your family, your community, your business. You’re the role model for that. And if they see you grinding yourself into hamburger and turning into another, you know what in the world?

Polly Mertens: 35:21

Totally yeah. And and that leads to all these other symptoms. You know, they’re anxious all the time, they’re, they’re easily frustrated, they feel overwhelmed, like you know those people. You walk in their office and you’re just like you can’t give them another thing to do, you know, or you can’t have a viable, healthy conversation because they’re just gonna, you know, go off whatever. So, yeah, we, we, okay. So first one, from an internal perspective, is what do you need to say no to? What do you need to double down and check in with yourself that maybe you have as a commitment? That isn’t a commitment anymore, you know clear the calendar, clear your space. And my next one this is some of my woo-woo-woo, but I wanted to weave it in here and I’d love for you to, you know, add another one to it. But mine is and I’ve been doing this more so lately just somewhat. Some projects have, you know, finished up. So it’s like saying yes to slow, saying yes to still, saying yes to space, meaning nothingness, right, like, like, and then saying yes to silence.

Polly Mertens: 36:20

So slow, still space and silence, and it’s amazing what’s there, right, because I just I look, you know, from the inside out, you might say because I’m not, you know, you’re not in the places that we were, as we talked about in our life, where it was the hard charging and stuff, and we look back out at what that looks like, whether it’s family members or friends or colleagues or our clients, and we see the amount of fullness that they pack every minute in and it’s it just leads to overwhelm for the nervous system, the whole body, if you will totally.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:58

I have been guilty of this, so you know. An example is I’m training for an iron man in five months or whenever this is going to air, but four or five months.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:11

And that’s a part-time job, as you just experienced because you just finished doing your own half Ironman. It is a part-time job taking on a big race like that, and lots of people have these kind of lifestyles, and so you know there is an adaptation that has to happen. But, to be clear, these kind of lifestyles, and so you know there is an adaptation that has to happen, but, to be clear, you have to shift some things. You have to clear the decks to make space for this new thing, this great goal, wonderful, love it, all about it. But, like, it takes up space, it takes up time, it takes up energy, it definitely requires bandwidth and capacity and you can’t just pile that on top of all the other things and think that the walls won’t come crashing down or the plate won’t topple over, right? So I had to really make some choices. Okay, now I’ve got to change this, or maybe I’m going to go to that for a while, or I move these things around like I had to be, you know, thoughtful about it.

Polly Mertens: 38:07

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:08

And consciously make some choices, what you’re experiencing so I was piling more on and what I love about the yin and the yang of who we are in the universe you’re taking a moment to. You took a big project off and, instead of putting something in its place, allowing the space to be and breathing into it and creating time, energy, space for nothing or for quiet or for you know, stillness, that’s so incredibly powerful. Like there’s so many different ways to do, this is really what we’re saying to people is like ways to do.

Polly Mertens: 38:49

this is really what we’re saying to people is like, whatever needs to be for you, right, exactly.

Polly Mertens: 38:57

And you know, if you had said these things to me, 10 years ago you know, or 15, I’ve been like you know, right, um, I would say, just as you were saying that, you know, I, this is new for me. This is this is new for me. I’m just saying I haven’t always been still and silent and, you know, created space and slow all my life. But I’m adapting. I’m adapting and I’m evolving. That’s part of you know, two of my words this year expand and elevate. And I’m expanding into creating more space for nothing.

Polly Mertens: 39:30

Space for nothing Like it’s so it feels so radical to have like, oh yeah, it’s not. You know, and I would say at other times in my life, so you know, if somebody is looking at this and going, ain’t got time, you know, totally maxed out. You know that there’s no more. I can’t have space or stillness or slowness or whatever. You know, when I did my RV trips, you know, or when I’ve done my RV trips, those can be periods or blocks, right, so can you create periods or blocks that aren’t filled with more stuff? You know, like we get these amazing looking vacations or places people think they need to go and they just fill that all up. Right, it’s like, can you not fill it up? Can you resist the temptation for more fullness and instead, you know I just did a cleanse, so there’s a lot of emptying out.

Polly Mertens: 40:17

Yeah yeah. Emptying out, cleaning out, like getting rid of letting go emotionally, toxicity, wise, things like that. It’s like can you take yourself on a little journey of letting go of emotional stuff? You’re holding on to time commitments, things like that. Go take some walks in nature, take some time to yourself, just don’t-.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:39

Maybe this is what the concept of a staycation was supposed to be.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:44

Okay Is like to be in your space, in your nest, whatever that looks like for you, and to elevate it, create more space within it. So clear out of things, right, Clear out of the energy, maybe, get quiet and clear things out in your body If that looks like a detox or whatever it might look like, you know, and really, from an energetic perspective, allowing that time and space for very little or nothingness besides elimination and limit, and then take that same time to review what’s on the calendar, what is currently on your plate, what your daily life, you know, bandwidth looking like, and make some very conscious choices to clear a lot of that off and create the space hours on the weekend or it can be a week long thing, but when you come out of it, you come out with a fresh vision and rejuvenated, re-energized for a new path forward. It’s really a catalyst for change. It’s like that moment of going from too much to nothing to what it’s really supposed to look like. Right. It’s that shift of vision, perspective and feeling.

Polly Mertens: 42:10

I think some of it comes from giving yourself. So a lot of what I hear in the nomenclature is I don’t have time, like, I don’t have time to slow down, I don’t have time for whatever. And it’s like is that true, you know? Is that really true? Right, because that phrase is a state of powerlessness. Because if you, if you really back that sentence up and you really get to the root of it, it’s a choice. You’re choosing to not feel like you have time. You’re choosing these other things over something else. Right, the language is disempowering language and it’s not even true, right, you say it accurately I’ve chosen to do all these things.

Polly Mertens: 42:55

I’ve chosen to reprior, I’ve chosen these things as my priority. Yes, you have, that’s how your life looks, and you’re being invited, by listening to this, to choose that again or not. Like, do you want to keep choosing that? Don’t say I don’t have time for. Say what am I making time for, cause I’m choosing those things. And what am I not making time for, cause I’m not choosing those things? And where would I like to be? Right, like, do a reset. Like, like, put yourself up against the wall and go yo. No, you do have time. You are in choice in this life, even the things, like I was talking about earlier, that you think you have to those you’ve chosen like you’ve self-identified with that.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:35

So well, we take people through this process this pivot progress you know it’s, it’s the pivot, right. So we’re talking about we always come back to the pivot, but, like this, clearing the decks is like a subtle pivot. It can be this really small thing. It can be. Of course, we love blowing things up and, you know, creating epic lives from through through the Phoenix rising through the ashes. But that invitation it’s what you’re talking about.

Samantha Pruitt: 44:08

Is people really feeling like they have a choice? Because they do I mean, we do have so many choices, right and people feeling like they have power, because we do. We have power over most of the decisions and we make thousands of decisions in the course of a day that build the body and life and brain that we have right. Sometimes you do need some assistance to go through the process and of course, we’re here to have those hard conversations and help you through it. Sometimes it’s pretty horrible and you can’t think straight and you are overwhelmed and all that. We’re not saying that this is easy, but I guess our takeaway today is that you’re worth it and maybe, to start small, what do you?

Polly Mertens: 44:52

think. What’s the takeaway? You know, I would say it depends on the size of the pain and the frustration, and you know, the size of the symptoms is going to dictate what reaction.

Polly Mertens: 45:02

You know counteraction needs to be taken. If you ask me, you know. So I would say, if nothing else, yes, start to take small steps. If nothing else, but evaluate the. You know what I have seen in my coaching, especially in the eating disorder world, those you know 10 years that I did that or more is the pain gets so great that the radical shift has. You know, because it’s a fucking addiction we’re talking about here you don’t just like, yeah, toe out of that. Usually like you don’t just go oh, I’m going to make a little change here. Usually it’s like you got to rebalance some things and things are out of whack, right. So the degree that you’re out of balance can often dictate you know what steps are going to help you get back into balance.

Samantha Pruitt: 45:46

So I want people to ask themselves this question. You know like a lot of people come to us and they want change in some place in their life. And the question is how can you implement change, sustainable real life change, if there’s no room in your life for the change and when I say no room, I mean no time, no energy, no resources to put towards the shift, the change and if that isn’t available to you because there’s so much on your plate, on the deck, so much burdening, yeah, it’s not going to happen. So if you come with a pain point and wherever that is, you want to make change within that pain point, like clear the freaking decks, yeah, yeah, and it starts with you know calling us, or you know finding a therapist.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:37

go to a retreat, whatever you need to do, but we’re fun Like an intervention.

Polly Mertens: 46:41

Usually, you know an external intervention If the pain or the discomfort is small. Yes, all these things that we’re talking about. You can gladly walk yourself down.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:49

Tell us anyway, though, because we want to know about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 46:52

Share share, share. So okay, well, I’m going to knock out some more of these and then we’ll wrap it up. So another internal is really that, like we talked about earlier, is that self-check-in. I would just want to say, like one of the ways to be clearing and be assessing is like a self check in with your body. Right, we talked about where all these things are living, all of this stuff is. You know, 99% of it’s going on below your neck, right? You know the tiredness, the brain fog. You know that’s up above whatever the anxiousness might be living up here, but you’re feeling it down in this body. Well, that body is your compass. You know, like what’s right for you, what’s not right for you should you, shouldn’t you? You know what to do here and there. So, like the self check in is like what brings you more energy and what brings you less energy, what takes energy away from you, and trusting that, tuning in or understanding from yourself.

Polly Mertens: 47:44

Okay, and then let’s jump over into external, right? So these are like external cues or ways to go about these changes is especially when it comes to like we talked about the stacks of paper or the closet or whatever is like assess the problem areas, like, okay, I got you know five problem areas, or two problem areas, or one really giant one. Or you like you know hot piles on the desk and like what’s the hotspot? Like what is really the most annoying, painful, drains your energy when you think about it, look at it, talk about it, whatever, start with that and like make a plan for that. Right, just just look at what’s the hottest spot, start there, do something and tackle it sooner than later. You know, like put it on the calendar. You know there’s all kinds of ways that you can tackle those things and recruit someone to help if you need.

Samantha Pruitt: 48:28

You know there’s all kinds of ways that you can tackle those things and recruit someone to help if you need recruit. Oh, like you and I, you do this a lot because you work in real estate and in that space of people’s homes and, yeah, you go into the space and you’re like okay, give me 48 hours. Like there are people who do this.

Polly Mertens: 48:45

Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, and some of them might be like an organizer, or cleaners or haulers or bring it out all sorts of things, movers. You know got to get the junk furniture out of here, you know you got to make the dump runs, whatever it is Right. So, and then I would say we talked about like spatially, but then like overload areas for yourself. So are you overloading your, your body, with toxins or food that is just not helpful for it? You know, like looking at the things that you’re consuming, looking at the energy things that you’re consuming the Internet, the social media, the music that you’re listening to, the news, the television, like the things that are coming in the sources of information.

Samantha Pruitt: 49:27

We have a podcast on that inputs and outputs and we we have a podcast on that Inputs and Outputs and we also have a podcast on boundaries Two of the big things we’ve talked about today. So go back and listen to those podcasts. We’ll drop a reference in the show notes about it. Yeah, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 49:40

Sweet, sweet. And then you know, the last one, which we actually talked about in the beginning, is that the nature component. Because you and I believe, like the, the self, we are human animals, we are part of nature. We get in these confines of society and brick and mortar and walls and lights and all this stuff, and we forget we’re a natural body, right? So what? What might that look like? What you know? Because for you like being in nature is like I’m going to go run for six hours.

Samantha Pruitt: 50:10

I mean, it’s my daily religion. Yeah, you know, people meditate, they chant, they do all these things. It’s all that’s all great and wonderful. For me, it is nature. There’s a great book on this called nature fix. I’ll also drop that in the show notes. Absolutely, it’s the science behind why this is actually a thing. Yeah, okay, yeah, I mean like if I’m not in nature every day, I literally am not the same person the next day, like that recalibration for me, that grounding, that openness, the space, the air, the sun, the energy, that’s even if I’m moving fast, moving slow, not moving at all doesn’t matter being in nature. For me, that’s my secret sauce, my secret weapon.

Polly Mertens: 50:55

And figure out what it is for you, right? So Samantha’s looks different, mine looks different, yours looks different. Just just an invitation to see what feels good for you, you know, like check in with your body. So so what would be the one thing that we want to leave our friendly folks with? That? What’s one thing if they listen to this whole episode and they just wanted to take what’s one takeaway? What do you think someone take away for them?

Samantha Pruitt: 51:21

Well, for me it’s more of a call to action and I guess it’s an awareness call to action for people to say yes to the fact there is something they want to be doing differently. It can be literally anything. Big or small is not even relevant. There is something they have been making excuses about changing or doing differently in their life and the question is we know you’ve got that thing, and some people have 10 things right, but whatever, the most important of those one things is if you don’t ask yourself the question, how will I make this happen in my life? How will I make this change or this goal happen in my life If I don’t make space for it? If you don’t make space, it will not happen. I mean, that’s just real. It won’t happen.

Polly Mertens: 52:14

You know, and the dream will never happen. Yeah, and the counter to that is what will happen if I don’t? What will my life look like? What will your life look like if you keep doing more of what you’ve done Right? Will it get more of the same or will it get worse?

Samantha Pruitt: 52:31

done right, will it get more of the same or?

Polly Mertens: 52:32

will it get worse? Right, it will get progressively worse, yeah, so this is a, a wake-up call. So I would say, you know, you and I as coaches, there’s always homework, right. So I I feel like this assignment is um, having heard of the signs and symptoms, if you have, you know that going on in your life, you’re raising your hand, you’re like, damn, oh God, they’re talking to me, okay, and you heard some of our ideas. You know what spoke to you, what jumped out at you, what do you already know? Oh, damn, I need to do that thing. And do it this week. Like do it in the next 48 hours. That’s even the better scenario is like do that thing, take one step in that direction in the next 48 hours. It doesn’t have to be massive. We’re not saying, like you know, throw the whole schedule like minor or massive, depending on the pain that you’re in, but do something in the next 48 hours a week at the latest, and take that action and let us know. Come share on social with us what you did.

Polly Mertens: 53:26

Tell us what you did, dm us whatever Like we’d love to hear about it.

Samantha Pruitt: 53:30

We need to hear about it. We’re all. High fives are waiting.

Polly Mertens: 53:35

Yeah, yes, all right, my dear. Well, this is super fun. So what do we want to remind our beautiful humans as we we sign off here?

Samantha Pruitt: 53:44

Well, this is really a drive home message for this episode, but how your life feels is more important than how it looks.

Polly Mertens: 53:50

Yes, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome. Yeah, all right, thanks, lady. Thank you, darling.