Back in 2016 I had a complete breakdown.

My business was doing great, but I was utterly stressed out. I didn’t want to do it anymore.

In fact, I didn’t want to do anything anymore. It was a very dark place for me. I’d hit burnout, and it wasn’t the first time I’d hit burnout in my business.

With the pandemic and everything we’ve all been through in the past couple of years, more and more of us are experiencing burnout. A lot of our Accelerator members are feeling burnout, or are nearing it.

It’s a serious topic, so I want to dedicate this entire episode to the topic of burnout. I want to take a look at it from a scientific perspective.

I’ve invited Helena Lucia on the program to talk about burnout and how it affects us. Helena is a creative, she’s a teacher, she’s a speaker, and she’s a coach. She has a wealth of knowledge about this subject, and I know you’re going to learn a lot.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The science behind burnout
• How to recognize the early warning signs of burnout
• Is the “Hustle” culture toxic to our mental and physical health?
• What to do with feelings of anxiety
• The power of daily visualization to improve productivity
• How long it typically takes to change our subconscious feelings
• What drives people to work harder, and ultimately burnout faster

Links & Resources:

• Annie grace: The Alcohol Experiment: Expanded Edition
• Club Soda
• BetterHelp
• Calendly
• Deb Dana: Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered Practices
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips
• The Art of Online Business website
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program
• Send me an email

Helena Lucia’s Links:

• Helena Lucia’s LinkedIn
• SISU Journey’s website
• The Burnout Audit

Got A Question You Want Answered On the Podcast?

Ask your questions or let me know if there is a topic or guest you’d like to hear from in the comments below or click here to visit my contact page and submit your question there for a chance to be featured on one of my upcoming Q&A episodes.

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Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:

Are You Creating Your Business Around Your Life?

What’s NOT Working Right Now: Hustle

COVID Crashed His Business, Now He’s Thriving w/ Kwadwo from Elementary Chinese

[00:00:00] Helena:
That’s one thing people say, “Oh, it’s just stress,” as if stress is this head game that you’re playing with yourself. Stress in the nervous system—that regulates all of the organs in your body, including your skin, including your gut health, including everything—that stuff takes up residence in your body. From having your nervous system dysregulated, from having high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in your system, and produces very real physical manifestations and all types of physical things.

[00:00:59] Rick:
Back in early-ish to mid 2016, I remember very, very clearly. I sat on the couch. We had moved to San Diego, my wife and I, Amy. I remember sitting on the couch, and I just completely broke down. Amy came over and she’s like, “Are you okay?”

So, just quick background, I have asthma. I’ve had asthma my entire life. With asthma oftentimes comes eczema. So I’ve always had problems with eczema on my skin, and it tends to be exacerbated by stress and not getting enough sleep, et cetera, et cetera.

I remember sitting on the couch in 2016, I started my business in January, 2014. I was just completely broken out. I was stressed out beyond belief, and I just hit rock bottom. I was so stressed out for my business that I didn’t want to do it anymore. When I say I didn’t want to do it anymore, I didn’t want to do anything. I was questioning whether I should even be here.

It was a really, really dark place. I’d hit burnout. The business was doing really, really well in just a few years, but I’d hit burnout. It wasn’t the first time that I would hit burnout in my business. A lot of Accelerator, our coaching members in Accelerator, when they join Accelerator a lot of them are either in burnout right now, or they’re just about there.

Because of this, especially with the pandemic and everything that we’ve been experiencing the past couple of years, this is a very, very, serious topic. Especially when it comes to entrepreneurial burnout.

So, I want to do a whole episode on it, and I want to do it from a scientific perspective. I want to dive deep on burnout and really the science behind burnout. So, joining me to share her expertise is Helena Lucia. If trauma therapy were a university program, Helena would hold at least one doctorate.

However, she was at least a decade in before she truly invited her body to participate in the healing journey, or even begin to understand what that meant. Helena believes dysregulated nervous system states like. Take root in early childhood when we’re taught to override and ignore the innate wisdom of the body, her programs weave together multiple focus areas, including poly vagal, focused nervous system work, subconscious reprogramming, energetics, and sematic embodiment, Helena, a founded SISU journey in the midst of the pandemic.

To help heal a wounded collective, as she says, and she hosts the SIS you journey podcast, which is a container for folks from diverse perspectives to share their stories of resilience. Now, Helena is a creative, she’s a teacher, she’s a speaker, she’s a coach. She’s a mother, she’s a partner and she’s a friend.

And I just love having Helena on the show here today. And we go to. We go deep, my friends, on the topic of burnout and how you can be avoiding burnout in your business, how you can be banishing it from as a business owner and in your life. So without further ado, let’s go dive deep into how to banish burnout with Helena Lucia.

Helena I, right before I hit record, I was literally rubbing my hands together because I’m so excited to be talking to you today. about this topic, I think is so important now. I mean, actually to be honest, it’s, it’s late to be having this conversation. I think like this is a conversation we should have been having months ago, and that is completely on me.

Not on you. I have personal experience. With burnout. I know a lot of people who have gone through it are going through it. I’ve had several of our Accelerator coaching members as they join Accelerator. They’re literally going through burnout right there, or like just on the edge. So I want to break down basically how, like, what burnout is the science behind it?

How do we get rid of it?

All that? What, what leads to it, all that stuff. But let’s start with, what you do and your business, what your expertise is, and sort of how you got to where you are today.

[00:06:03] Helena:
Yeah. yeah, I had a unique opportunity myself to experience the result of childhood trauma and the result of, long-term kind of nervous system dysregulation and going through burnout and having it show up differently in different times in my life. And as we were going into the pandemic, I was actually going through a whole process of self evaluation.

I had been in therapy for over a decade and it really wasn’t hitting on some of the. You know, nervous system dysregulation, some of the anxiety, some of the depression, some of the insomnia and all of these things that I was going through. And I feel like we have a really unique opportunity as a collective right now, because normally what happens with folks is that they go through these traumas asynchronously.

And so when they experienced burnout, we can kind of put it on that person. Right. And we can say, well that they just, you know, weren’t tough enough to power through or whatever, but now we’re having this aggregate collective trauma and we’re seeing burnout happen as a result of that. And we’re. Gosh, we have to do something now or, you know, the whole place is going to burn down.

And so, as I was kind of working through this nervous system stuff, the subconscious reprogramming and doing a lot of different tools and we’ll get to the, what the tools are later. But, I was also watching and I was like, whoa, the second wave of this pandemic is going to be a mental health crisis and we have to get ready.

Our healthcare system is not ready. It’s very, you know, overly taxed. We don’t have enough therapists. and we don’t have enough trained people to understand like how to. Go through these different approaches, which is, you know, in my mind, healing, the subconscious, the nervous system regulation. And then after that period, I also focus with folks on energetics and embodiment as kind of part of a comprehensive strategy to, to access burnout and start working on recovery, which is really about getting into the physical body and understanding the cues of your body and, and your unique body.

Because just like our fingerprints are special, we are each individual. And so the real problem is that we’ve been trained to override the cues of our body and do what everybody else is taught to do from a very young age. You know, we have this nice little window that you have with your child right now being three of from zero to seven is when your subconscious is really being programmed and. culturally, we’re taught to teach our kids to kind of override that programming, not by fault of our own, but just because, you know, they’re like, oh, she’s tired, they’re hungry. You know, go, go give your grandfather hug. We’re teaching kids to override the messages of their body with their conscious mind. And as you know, the conscious mind.

Is just the tip of the iceberg. and we have this period of time between zero and seven, like I said, where your brainwaves are really slow. many of those brainwave patterns will never happen again in life. And that is when the subconscious is just effectively being programmed.

And the role of the subconscious, as I’m sure you know, is to let you know what your reality is. we’re getting millions of bytes of information every second. And we need to filter that down to hundreds for your conscious mind to understand. And the role of the subconscious is to really filter that down and it creates your reality.

So that’s why when you get a new car. You start seeing, you know, and my case blue Prius’s everywhere, right? Because your subconscious let, letting that information through. And so what happens is when we start getting burned out, we start only seeing those cues of danger that really kind of go into our nervous system.

We start to really start filtering out negativity. In fact, I think negativity and cynicism is one of the earliest warning signs that we can see that someone’s getting burned out

[00:10:07] Rick:
Hmm. Why, why do you think that’s the case?

[00:10:11] Helena:
Because when you’re so, let’s do a little nervous system, 1 0 1 for your, for your listeners.

[00:10:17] Rick:
And for me,

[00:10:19] Helena:
And for you. So you, your nervous system is what monitors and lets you know, whether you’re in danger, whether you’re in safety, whether you’re in connection and possibility and potential and creativity or whether you need to.

You know, geared up for something bad to happen. And when we lose context, choice and connection, which are the three things that our nervous system needs to really feel safe, we go into a dysregulated nervous system state. So there’s like three zones of your nervous system. And the two of the zones can either be dysregulated or regulated.

And one of them is only available in a regulated state. So the first one, which is the oldest evolutionarily is the one that innovates our gut health. And so that’s like the dorsal vagal state. And that you can think of as like a tortoise, it kind of peaks out. And if everything’s safe, it’s kind of relaxed in your, your gut is in good health.

But if it’s in danger, it just kind of like pulls in and closes. And that’s when you’re, you know, you’re kind of hiding, right? You get into that freest state. So the next one is your sympathetic nervous system and that’s your fight or flight nervous system. And that is your also your activate for energy, sexuality, creativity, right?

So when it’s regulated, you, you you’re mobilized for play. You have access to, you know, higher order thinking because your blood is flowing to your brain and you have access to creativity. But when it’s dysregulated that your blood flow goes out to your extremities, you, you, it’s not going to your brain anymore.

It’s not going to your internal organs. And you’re like activated for fight or flight for running now a dysregulated dorsal vagal system where we’re in collapsed and we’re laying in bed and we can’t do anything. That is not socially acceptable in our culture, but a dysregulated sympathetic nervous system where you’re in fight or flight.

You’re on high availability. You’re answering slack calls at 10:00 PM. That is a very, very rewarded, which is very much like what you talk about in your, in your podcast with hustle culture, right?

But the third state, which is the one that we want to activate, which is what I call a home state is your ventral vagal.

And that is up here in your heart space that manages your, your heartbeat, your heart rate variability, which is an excellent metric. People can learn to use to see the health of the nervous system state that’s where connection and possibility and flow and, and being present. That’s where you at when you access that right.

So a rigid nervous system, which leads to burnout is when you vacillate between these two dysregulated states of sympathetic nervous system, overdrive and dorsal Vega collapse. And eventually you kind of get stuck in one of them. That’s why burnout can look like just sitting at your computer and crying for hours and not being able to get started, or it can look like you not being able to do anything and just walking around.

Cause those it’s just somewhere along that continuum of those two dysregulated states, and what happens is that we have socially accepted two drugs that keep us stuck between those, those two states was our caffeine and alcohol. And so right now what’s happening in the pandemic is people are reaching for those drugs more and more, and the caffeine is lifting them up and alcohol’s going down and they’re never getting into that ventral vagal state.

And so they’re kind of getting into this loss state and I tell people. What happens if you’re lost? Like, if you were, if you were, you know, trying to find your way home and you called your, your significant other, and you’re like, Hey, I’m lost. What would they ask you? They would ask you, where are you? What do you see around you?

And so really the first part about getting into this is figuring out where the heck you are and how, what kind of tools you can use to get home into a regulated, nervous system state.

[00:14:14] Rick:
So I want it, there’s so much there to unpack. And one thing that just popped, I didn’t want to interrupt you, but like pop for me, it was when you said, like people sitting in front of their monitor, like, crying or like, you know, like walking around, not being able to do anything, but wait, Helena, no one talks about that It’s not like you said, it’s not acceptable.

[00:14:37] Helena:
Right,

[00:14:39] Rick:
But this is reality.

[00:14:40] Helena:
Yes.

[00:14:41] Rick:
And I think it should be talked about more because so many people are going through it.

[00:14:44] Helena:
This is absolutely what’s happening. And the thing is that, you know, when we reward parts of dysregulated nervous system states, like I said, people who are highly available, people who are pushing code in at midnight, people who are doing all this stuff, people who are like, Hey, I got through my dad’s death by working more.

I actually had someone tell me that recently, which you know, that is something, but that person is very highly rewarded in their career. And other folks who are, like you said, just sitting there in a frozen state, they’re kind of being, you know, not rewarded for those things.

[00:15:18] Rick:
Is it coming from a place of, you mentioned, we know early trauma in some form for people, is it a case of. I’m trying to understand, is that the only place that burnout will come from for someone who has experienced some form of trauma or I’m a guessing? No, like

[00:15:41] Helena:
No, absolutely not. I think with those of us who do have early trauma, we have the advantage of having had to get some tools and some ability to learn, how to be in our own body, which is really, I think the, the common thread we have never been taught. And that’s why the title of my talk is banishing burnout.

What they forgot to teach us, because we have never been taught that our body holds the answers, our intuition, our innate wisdom is how we can figure out what we should be doing in this world. You know, we have, this nervous system that is just amazing. And I love talking about it. The 80% of the messages are coming from body to brain.

20% of the messages are going from brain to body. We have glorified the conscious mind as if it’s some kind of, you know, answer to all of our problems. When if we try to override the messages of the body with our conscious mind, we are just fighting upstream. And then we’ve, we’ve learned that all of our wisdom can come from, comes from outside of us. And so even as an online business owner, you know, you’ve got this eight secrets to building your business through Facebook groups or whatever. And you’re like, oh gosh, I hate Facebook, but maybe that’s the way I need to build my business. And then someone else says, Hey, you need to do a five day challenge.

That’s the way to do it. And so now you’re all of a sudden doing your business And you’re not checking in with your nervous system. You know, even when I had the opportunity to come on this show, And all reasons, logically this would be a great opportunity, but I still ran it through my nervous system.

And I said, is this aligned with what I want to do in my business?

And is this a good opportunity? And does it feel juicy in my body and the answers were yes. And so here we are.

[00:17:32] Rick:
I love you to say it. Does it feel juicy my body because like a, what does that feeling like? I’m just curious. I know it’s obviously individual for everybody, but like what is somebody sort of looking for? what does that sort of feeling that they’re looking for? Can that be described

[00:17:46] Helena:
I think it can, one of the, one of the things that I ask people is does the energy, feel infinite or does it feel. Like, it’s going to, tap you what does it feel like in your body? Because when you, when something is aligned with who you are, and that’s what I love about your, your message about hustle culture, when something Is aligned with who you are actually gives you energy, it gives you juice.

You don’t have to, You don’t have to, like, at the end of the day, now I will say some of us are introverts and we lose energy talking with people and that’s part of our business and we need to recover that energy. And that’s one of the things that I do when I talk about energetics. but yeah, I mean, for the most part is going live on Instagram.

Is that something that you, once you’ve done it you really enjoy and are feel vibrant or do you, feel completely tapped out? and like, that was on the way outside of your zone of possibility. And if it is outside of that, don’t. I don’t care if you pay to coach a million dollars and they’re telling you, you need to do it, don’t do it because that puts you in that dysregulated nervous system state that tells your nerve, it tells your body that you’re not listening to it and your body will then start putting on the brakes way back here.

It’s like, when your brakes start failing on your car, if you try to override your body and override your body, it starts, putting on the brakes way back here. And pretty soon you’re you can’t do anything without being dysregulated.

[00:19:16] Rick:
Yeah, I’m still glad you bring that up because you know, for our Accelerator coaching program, a lot of people have said in the past are like, Rick, I wished you taught one system, like from start to finish, you know, and my response is always, and that’s not what we do. Like we have a framework, but it’s not based on one thing to do.

It’s, you know, it’s about increasing your profit, increasing your impact with less hustle, but there’s not one way to do that. I’ve I’ve always thought, like, I’m doing you a disservice. If somebody comes in to Accelerator and I’m like, all right, you have to do this thing. And they’re like, wait, I don’t love to talk.

I don’t want to do a podcast you know what I mean?

And so I’m so glad you’re bringing it up is like so many times we hear like, just like you just said, like, oh, I got to do a challenge. Oh, I gotta do this. Gotta be an Instagram every day or whatever it is. And we’re like, no, I don’t want to do that.

But then I do it and I feel like, ah, I feel awful afterwards.

[00:20:17] Helena:
Yes. I’ve also had the same frustration with my program. I had someone tell me, I just want you to tell me what to do. And I’m like, well, there is no one size fits all, so I can give you my framework again. And then I can give you, I can tell you what tools work for, what things like, for example, if you’re in a dorsal vagal collapse, which is what I was talking about, where you’re like, laying in bed or watching Netflix for 14 hours, instead of doing what, there are some tools that you can do that, and you need to actually be activate your nervous system.

Whereas if you’re in sympathetic nervous system overdrive, you need to decelerate your nervous system. And so there are tools that are important for each, each state. And that’s what again, why I say you need to know where you are, so you know, which tools to use and often in the wellbeing program, there’s that saying?

Where. when you have a hammer, everything you see as a nail. And so a lot of times people will try one thing, like for example, meditation, and then all of a sudden meditation becomes the tool for everyone. Well, it turns out that people who have a really strong inner critic meditation can actually be devastating for them unless you started with self-compassion because they get quiet and that voice gets real loud.

So we, people need to understand where they are and which tools are the right tools for the job. And so I, part of my, methodology I guess, my framework and, and we can go over that if you’d like kind of my framework for getting back in your body, but is accessing your assistance.

And when I work with folks, I make lists of the tools so that when they are in that dysregulated state, they don’t have to think, oh, what do I do now? Or like taking a bath might help. Right? They’ll have a list of some simple things that they can do to make their nervous system feel supported.

[00:22:00] Rick:
So, yeah, I definitely want to get into breaking that down as far as from a tools perspective and getting it back in your body and figuring out, you know, one thing that. as you’ve been saying, we talk a lot about the toxicity of hustle culture on the podcast here a lot now in the online space and in society in general, it’s glorified to be working all the time and you’re not going to be successful if you’re not working 14, 16 hours a day.

It’s not possible. I had somebody recently in a, I forget when it was, it was a call that they were saying, and I was talking about building a very successful business grant. Granted, success is different for everybody, but the point I was making with them was like, you can absolutely build a successful business.

Your definition of success in what we teach in Accelerator is 25 hours a week or less

[00:22:57] Helena:
Absolutely.

[00:22:58] Rick:
Absolutely possible. I’m an example of that. I have countless other examples. I have plenty of friends, et cetera, et cetera. And then there’s also plenty of examples of people working, you know, all the hours who don’t have any kind of, you know, growth in their business for success in their business.

And so they were like, is that really possible? There’s this, this pounding, if you will, of, You got to work super long, got to work super hard. you got to work your face off and all this other stuff in order to do it, but what’s not being talked about is exactly what we are talking about here.

You mentioned some of the earliest signs of burnout, like negativity and pessimism.

Are there any other signs that we should absolutely be looking out for when we’re heading in this direction?

[00:23:47] Helena:
Absolutely. yes, and, I, and I would even take It one step further and say that the way that you’re teaching is actually one of the only ways to make sure that you are really doing it in a way that’s aligned with your body and balanced in your life. If you are working 12 to 14 hour days, I will guarantee you you’re working on a lot of things that aren’t aligned for you that are based on messaging that you’ve heard and, and they may be successful.

They may not be successful. It depends on your definition of success. But my definition of success means that when I get there, I am happy. I’m content. I have good relationships with all of the people around me and that’s, that’s really not possible if you’re hustling like that. You know, I tell people what makes you think if right now you can’t have peace and connection and relax in your life, that you’ll be able to find that when you’re sick, And you’re retired or whatever you won’t, because your nervous system is not used to that.

It does not feel safe. It will seek its comfort. So building in these tools will help you be at peace, be connected and all of these things now, which is

[00:25:02] Rick:
Yup.

Yeah, I’m so glad because a lot of this brings up my own thoughts about my own experience. And so I, and I’ve shared on the podcast here quite a bit, that I’ve struggled with anxiety for. I can pin it back as long as our, as far back as like seventh grade where, you know, I struggle with not being good enough.

Whatever I, I do is not. Good enough, and shame around that. and so which leads me, and, and then that has led in the past few years, past five years or so, more to depression and stuff like that much better now because I have a lot more tools and so forth. And I’ll share more about that in a second on my my side, but like what that, the whole not good enough feeling for me leads me to, or has led me to.

And occasionally if I’m being honest, that same thing, actually, this came up for me last night, the day I’m re we’re recording this exactly what you just mentioned, Helena, like, like, oh, I need to, my brain says, oh wait, you forgot to check in with so-and-so today.

You need to go do that even though it’s nine 30 at night, right?

[00:26:16] Helena:
That is one of the early warning signs. Right? So shame and in the messaging of, of not being good enough, that is a job for subconscious reprogramming. I mean, that is one of the, one of the best kind of use cases for that early warning signs, like. not being able to relax and be in the moment you’re playing with your kids.

And you’re like, oh, I should have sent this email and I didn’t do this. And whatever, like these, you know, you can obviously develop systems for keeping track of your thing and you should, you know make sure that you have systems for your lists and your calendar and all of that to keep that clutter out of your head.

But if you can’t move that clutter, and then the other thing is really starting to lose touch with who you are. A lot of times when people are in burnout, they don’t know what their favorite color is. They don’t know what they want to eat off a menu. They don’t know what they want to do tonight. They don’t know because you’re losing touch with that body.

So you’re becoming number and number. And so you’re going in through. You know, really disconnected and disjointed. And that I think is probably, maybe even the strongest early warning sign of burnout is just, you know, you’re, you’re not really feeling passionate. You’re kind of starting to feel a little numb, a little dead around the edges.

[00:27:30] Rick:
Worst case scenario here. If we let this go on too long.

[00:27:34] Helena:
Well I mean, I think having a lot of people in a mental health crisis, right. we already are seeing that happening. I predict that it will happen. I, you know, I find it as part of my mission to get information out to folks as quickly as possible. I think we’re seeing a huge increase in, alcohol use disorder, drug use. other ways to you, you know, numb your nervous system. That’s one of the things that I went through as well is just using alcohol to regulate my nervous system and having a lot of shame around that. And I, I found some tools online. There’s a wonderful woman named Annie grace, who does this 30 day experiment called the alcohol experiment it’s free.

And it just kind of helps you interrogate what your relationship with alcohol is and, and how you’re using it, and really how it works in your body. And it was really instrumental for me for getting that turned around. So I think that people don’t realize that there are other ways besides, you know, like the typical ways to kind of change your relationship with alcohol.

But there’s a lot of organizations like club soda is one that teaches you how to mindfully drink I think that, that we’re going to see a continued increase in alcohol use disorder. Now I’m not, you know, I don’t have, a crystal ball. I’m not sure. you know, some type of futurist or anything like that, but I definitely know that we’re seeing higher levels of suicide, suicidal ideation.

I mean, all these things we need to start talking about and getting out there, there’s a lot of tools, like better help that people are going to online, but they don’t take folks who are in suicidal ideation. So there’s a lot of people who don’t have, resources to find answers to what they’re going through.

And I think, you know, we’re just in, in that in-between state right now.

[00:29:18] Rick:
Yeah, I think that, you know, I can honestly say that from a burnout perspective. And so January 20, 22 will be eight years. I’ve been in business. I would say a solid three times over that time. I’ve experienced, burnout one. And I’ve talked about it here on the podcast before, especially when I had my wife on, when she interviewed me, Three two and a half years into the business.

I think. So this was back in 20. When was it? 2016? I think it was, we’d recently moved to San Diego and, I was like, just going, it was that hustle, you know, like, cause that’s all I knew and I was working non-stop evenings and I’ve talked about a lot. I was affecting my relationships, affecting my health and I will never forget, like I sat down and I have eczema.

I was born with, I, you know, I have asthma and eczema. So my skin, you know, it gets very much effected through stress and stuff like that. And I’ll never forget one day I was like, I sat down on the couch and I just like burst out crying. Cause I was so frustrated. My skin was just driving me nuts and I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore.

And I mean, I don’t want to do life anymore. And it was a wake-up call for my, for my wife, Amy and. We obviously worked through it, but it’s, this is real. And I hear it from so many students coming into Accelerator. For example, they’re like, I’m doing, you know, we’re going nonstop and, you know, everything’s affected in their, in their life, their relationships with their families, their kids, their partners, their business obviously, is affected.

And I like you have been in therapy for pretty much since my dad passed away, my dad passed away when I was 25. So a long time, different, different therapists. And I will say, and I think we, we talked about this before. I have found the greatest benefit actually this year, the latter part of this year in Reiki.

So I work with a Reiki master here in San Diego, and she’s freaking amazing. And I actually. I don’t know if you would agree with this, but like, I stopped seeing my therapy. I love the guy. I love my therapist, but I was getting way more benefit from Reiki and what I was feeling and working through past stuff and all this other stuff, like it’s brought me back in, as you say, back into my body, like, I actually just had a session last night when we’re recording this. And like today I’m feeling content feeling great, you

[00:31:55] Helena:
Yeah. How do I feel about you doing what work is working inside of your body? Absolutely. Two thumbs

[00:32:01] Rick:
Do more of that. Yeah.

[00:32:03] Helena:
I do more of that.

[00:32:04] Rick:
So with that said, so let’s get into some of the tools. So as people start feeling this, what are some of the things that people can start

[00:32:13] Helena:
Yeah, so real quick, I just wanted to touch up back on what you said about the eczema, because that’s one thing people say, oh, it’s just stress as if stress is like this head game that you’re playing with yourself, but stress and the nervous system health that regulates all of the organs in your body, including your skin, including your gut health, including everything.

And so that stuff takes up residence in your body and produces very real physical manifestations. And as we now know now through the ACEs study that can result in death can result in cancer can result in auto immune disorders can result in a lot of things from having your nervous system dysregulated from having high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in your system, all of these things over time lead to.

You know, strokes and heart attacks and all types of physical things. So when you’re saying stress, you know, had a physical result, sometimes people think, oh, that’s just in your head. No, that is a very real physical thing. That is an outcome of that stress. And so when you ask if, what first case, worst case scenario, what is the, what is the outcome that, I mean, the worst case scenario is early death loss, you know, losing our lives through suicide or through, you know, the manifestations of the stress in your body.

[00:33:31] Rick:
Well, I’m glad you bring that up. Cause like, if I’m being honest, like that’s something that I’ve been concerned about the past past few years, because I had somebody, I had a coach tell me a few years ago and when they said it to me, I was like, oh, you’re absolutely right. And they said, you operate on a daily basis.

You have an underlying sort of fight or flight going on throughout like every day. And, you know, being a natural worrier since like, and I was like, oh no, like Yeah. I was like, I don’t want that. Which like, it just makes it worse. Cause I’m like, oh man, I gotta, like, I gotta like, correct things right away.

And so, yeah, that’s definitely been on my mind and that’s why I do so much work. And you know, what’s why we focus so much both in the podcast and in our Accelerator program about mindset and all this stuff that we’re talking about here. So with that, to all this terrible, terrible stuff over here, what can we do about it?

[00:34:31] Helena:
Right. So my framework, I have, I use a, an acronym space, which is a balanced acronym because the first word in it is space. So, so you start out, how do you start listening to your body? Well, the first thing you do is you create more space in your, in your life. And so I think of it like, you know, when you get.

Cords all tangled up or, or your Christmas lights all tangled up. The first thing you do is just kind of shake it out to see if you can, you know, what’s there, does this even work anymore? Do I need this? You know, what even is this a USB to what? Like, you know, you just start creating this space. And so there’s many different ways and I’m creating a micro course.

That’ll be available on my website by the time this releases so that folks can remember this as it’ll take $25, you can go on and you goes through each of these, steps. But how you create the space is just you look at your schedule. You know, I usually, when I work with folks, I actually have them pull up their calendar.

Look to see what, what am I doing that doesn’t serve me? You know, we all have these things where it’s like, oh, I haven’t seen this friend for two months and I know I’m going to come home and they’re not going to have asked me anything about my life. And I’m just going to feel like crap afterwards, just get rid of that stuff like this.

If the pandemics tell us anything clear, clear out the noise, you don’t need to be doing all these things. If there’s something on your calendar, like lunch with your mom that you know is going to drain your energy, but you’re committed to doing it anyway, schedule out two hours after that to restore your energy, do something for yourself, pile on the self-compassion, you know, do so do these things.

Don’t do back to back meetings. You know, if you have something like Calendly where that’s managing your meetings, you can just build in a buffer because often what we’ll do is we’ll have four hour meetings. Our first meeting of the day will trigger that, you know, narcissism alarm that we have from our childhood that, you know, goes in where the, with our dad telling us, you know, we weren’t good enough or whatever.

And. We won’t even recognize that until four hours later, because we’ve been in back-to-back meetings and by then we’re, you know, crispy, crackling crunch and we’re not good for anyone for the rest of the day. Right? So adding in figuring out where you can space out your meetings.

And then I like to say your sacred space is your first hour and your last hour of every day. And the reason for that, again, going back to brainwave patterns is that is when your brainwave is slow, brain winds are slow in your subconscious as accessible. And when your subconscious is accessible, you don’t want to put anything in that’s outside of your control.

That’s going to confirm and validate. Deeply held beliefs that you’re not good enough that your boss is going to fire you, that whatever those things, you know, you often will pop on the news, which has meant to activate your fear and your anxiety and all of that stuff. You’ll you’ll look, did anything happen overnight?

Next thing you do go to your email and you get a message from your boss and, you know, immediately you’re, validating the negative messaging of your subconscious. And I’m going to talk later about how you can start to interrupt and actually push that and reprogram that message essence space.

Do you have any questions on that part?

[00:37:43] Rick:
Are you going to talk more about like what to do in that first hour? In the last

[00:37:46] Helena:
Yes, I am.

[00:37:48] Rick:
Okay, good. Because I’m like,

[00:37:50] Helena:
Yeah.

[00:37:50] Rick:
Coming.

[00:37:51] Helena:
So the P and space is pay attention. And that is when you get to become an investigative journalist of your own body, your body is going to be telling you all of these things and you’re going to be listening. And you’re like, oh my goodness. I didn’t realize that when I am in sympathetic nervous system overdrive, I interrupt my kids and I do this stuff.

So you basically are going to keep a notebook or a journal or whatever. And every time when you like, now you’ve created a buffer between your meetings. Maybe you add a little check into your calendar and it says, Hey, right now I am feeling, I feel a knot in the pit of my stomach. I just talked to Jeff. I don’t know what that’s about, but maybe I’ll connect it together later.

Right. So that’s when you start really, like I said, marking down those areas of the landscape of your nervous system. I actually have people. collect photographs, that kind of exhibit, this is what it looks like for me and dorsal vagal. I have a picture of myself, of a little girl curled up in a fetal position under, you know, under a desk or something.

And so that’s kind of like, that’s that exhibits, like, that’s my feeling of what that part of my nervous system landscape looks like, feels like acts like. And so there are many ways there are excellent books. one is called poly bagel exercises for safety and connection that you can really start figuring out what those areas of your nervous system are and what the, what it looks like when you’re there.

What it feels like when you’re there, what that feels like in your body, you know, all of that stuff. So paying attention is critical Yes.

[00:39:26] Rick:
Are you saying, so this is an example after this interview’s done, I record the intro and outro right after this. So once I finished that, is that a case of like, okay, how did, like, do I feel like right now, what am I feeling? Sort of thing. Okay. Okay.

[00:39:45] Helena:
Yeah. And are you feeling like, are you feeling uplifted? Are you feeling kind of worn down from this interaction? Did I take your energy? Right? When we were talking about energetics, there’s a lot of people who are energy vampires that just look, you know, you want to, you want to know because you want to, protect your energy from those people

[00:40:04] Rick:
Yeah. No, the answer is no, by the way.

[00:40:08] Helena:
So far, so good. You never know what’s going to happen.

[00:40:11] Rick:
Okay. So we got create more space in your life.

[00:40:14] Helena:
Yeah.

Pay attention. So now you have the space, paying attention and now is when you access your assistant. And that are, those are your tools. So that is when I have people make a list of, okay. And they’re in, you want them to be as short, as accessible as possible.

Like for example, when I’m in dorsal Vega collapse, I do 10 jumping jacks that kind of activates my nervous system. Does that mean you’ll get out of dorsal vagal collapse? No, because you’re not telling your body what to do. You’re saying, I believe in honor you, I understand what your limitations are right now, and I’m providing this as a support for you.

So, that’s when we, you know, we talk about tools like meditation and energy work and, Sound healing. I’ve been getting a lot of benefit right now from sound healing and this part of my life. I just, I really love it and we really enjoy it. You know, I’m working with my coaches, but even things like taking a hot bath or taking a sonar or taking a quick walk, those can be used for different things.

So if people want to understand more about that, I’m not recommending anything like you. I, I don’t have a set prescription for anybody, but if they want to take my little micro workshop, there’ll be a list of a lot of different tools and a lot of ways to access those. And if, for example, Their subconscious is what they’re really struggling with.

I would encourage finding some good hypnotherapy and some good sound healing on YouTube and plugging that in your head. When you wake up, if you wake up dysregulated, that’s a, that’s a good sign that your subconscious has got some things it’s working through and it needs to get those messages of safety.

So that’s accessing the assistance. And then the other part of accessing assistance are people human. Co-regulation talking to people and being vulnerable about the state. You’re in most of the time, when we’re in a dysregulated nervous system state, we’ve been able to effectively surround ourselves with real unsafe people.

So this is not about telling them anything. It’s about figuring out who in your community, maybe you thought was a little boring before, but now you realize it’s just because their nervous system is regulated and they’re on top of this stuff. And like starting to open up with them about what’s going on.

[00:42:27] Rick:
That’s where I’ve had a challenge. I have a, I have a hard time opening up to people. One thing that I’ve experienced very recently. So for those people who are listening, Helena, I’m not sure if you know, pat Flynn from smart, passive income, pat is a really good friend of mine. We’re basically neighbors.

He lives like a mile down the road. I should say. I live a mile down the road for him. He was here first. not while we moved here, but anyway, like during the pandemic, I mean he lives a mile down the road. I, we moved up here where we are in San Diego right now. January of 2020, we literally didn’t see he and his family cause we’re, my wife is friends with his wife as well until just a few months ago.

And we have finally started getting back into, hanging out and where we meet for coffee once a week. And I remember. At the time recording is probably a week and a half ago, or so maybe two weeks ago. I remember leaving coffee with him feeling super energized because number one, I’m allowing myself to be more open and share and stuff like that.

And he’s doing the same and it’s that sort of connection and interaction that is growing that I was like super energized from that. I was like, wow, I didn’t realize how big, how much had been missing that.

[00:43:49] Helena:
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I will say if, this is a struggle for you, dip your toe in and figure out where you’re comfortable, you know, a lot of these things, we feel like we have to go from zero to 60, but really it’s about figuring out where your nervous system feels safe and continuing to work in that area.

Because once you start honoring your nervousness, Then you really are getting comfortable being in these situations becoming more vulnerable slowly and, you know, building up your nervous system to feel safe. I mean, that is one of the things that can allow you to be in these opportunities. I mean, a lot of times people that get rich or famous overnight, their nervous system, hasn’t had time to catch up the, the results are devastating.

So a lot of these tools are just to kind of get you a little, moving a little bit at a time, building up that window of capacity, where you can just, you know, get larger and larger. And pretty soon you feel comfortable talking to a group of a thousand people, 5,000 people, 10,000 people, because you’ve built it up.

You’ve, you’ve used these tools and you’ve honored your nervous system. Yeah. So, so I appreciate you sharing that story.

[00:45:05] Rick:
Yeah. And it’s funny, you say, of course. And you said earlier about like being an introvert I’m very much introverted it’s. And so if I talk to, like, for example, like Monday for me as a calls day, if you will. So I have lots of meetings and coaching and stuff like that. And by the end of the day I am spent, right.

I’m just like, I just want to like curl up on the couch and, but with a three-year-old daughter can’t do that. but anyway, but like you mentioned. This podcast, we have hundreds of thousands of listeners every single month, you know, people listening to the show. And then also put me up on stage in front of a thousand people.

I love that. Like that energizes me. Like I just, it just brings a ton of energy, which is, I don’t know, I, for me is Connor.

And like, I don’t quite understand it because I am an introvert. Now, when I get home from that event, I need to like, not talk to anybody. Like,

[00:46:05] Helena:
Right.

[00:46:06] Rick:
I’m just done, but it is so important to find that

[00:46:11] Helena:
And that’s what happens when we like, when we’re looking at an individual versus we’re looking at categories, right. Introvert and extrovert, very binary, right. Everyone that falls in that category doesn’t look the same. And I’m the same as you is that if I’m talking to a bunch of people, I get energy.

If I’m talking one-on-one, that can be very taxing.

[00:46:31] Rick:
Yeah,

[00:46:31] Helena:
Depending on the person and what the, what the feedback loop is.

[00:46:36] Rick:
Totally. So, yeah. So we had create more space paying attention, accessing your assistance, both like in tools, like, you know, meditation exercise, et cetera, and also connection with other people. So we’re on

[00:46:51] Helena:
We’re on C and this is where we are. So this is where you create your own identity. So a lot of people have been, like I said, using a subconscious programming that’s based on your past. And that’s what you allow in through your filter into your life. So what I like to use a tool called the integral map, it’s just a four-quadrant thing that basically covers from your self internally to your external body, to your, community who, the types of people that you’re around to your career finance, all that stuff. So it’s just kind of a holistic picture to look at your life and what I do.

Encourage people to think of. I am statements. So present tense, focus statements based on your higher self and what your higher self desires. So a lot of times when people are going through burnout, they don’t even know what they want. So I asked them to look at who they’re envious of. You know, if you’re envious of someone, who’s out there doing a bunch of speaking, maybe that’s a dimension that your higher self wants you to be speaking.

And you have told yourself, no, that you can’t do that for whatever reason. That’s not for you. That’s not your life. So maybe in your quadrant is I am an excellent speaker who creates engaging content, right? So you build some, I am statements in that four quadrant thing, and these tools will obviously be a part of that micro workshop I mentioned. and that’s what you read to yourself. In that morning state. So you do this, I am you check in with your higher self. You read these, I am statements. I am the type of person who looks for opportunities to move my body and push myself. Right? So you have these statements and that is how you’re starting to get your nervous system comfortable with this new reality.

That’s based on your future and not based on your past. That’s how you get your subconscious to start filtering through evidence. that, that is true. Instead of that, you’re not, you know, the other things that you’ve been programmed to believe, and it’s just a beautiful way and then I also encourage them to do a visualization. you know, you can do an average perfect day visualization where you think about your, your dream identity and what, day in the life looks like. And you do that visualization. I have visual. Doing this interview with you. I have visualized doing talks. I have visualized screwing up on talks and recovering, right?

Cause then that way, when it does happen, it’s not the first time I, you know, I’ve done it before. so, that’s, that’s the way that you start creating this new identity and then you can start transitioning your life that you have now into what is coming later.

[00:49:39] Rick:
Is this the whole, because your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between thoughts, like visualizations of what you’re talking about. An actual.

[00:49:49] Helena:
Right. Yeah. So, Dr. Dispenza always uses this example of like, piano players that were playing the chords and the other people who were visualizing and how their brains created the same neural pathways just through the visualization as in reality. But there’s a ton of research that shows that yeah, your brain does not know the difference between something that’s actually happened and, you know, a memory that you’ve created.

And so if you can use visualization and activate this, you know, New. Identity, you can change on the identity level. And what I like to see is like, if you embody the identity of an athlete, you don’t have to work out every day to feel like an athlete. But if you instead change your behavior or your environment, which is such a common thing, like if you’re D you know, I am, I run every day.

All of a sudden you go, you don’t run for two weeks and, and you’ve lost all of that traction, right? And that’s why it’s so easy to fall off of those kinds of patterns when you’re changing your behavior environment. When you change on a purpose and identity level, when you really drill into what your values are and who you are inside, that’s when your behavior and everything just kind of goes with it.

That’s why I focus on Subconscious and nervous system work instead of mindset, right? Because the mindset will come. You, change your subconscious, you change your nervous system, you change your energetics and you start embodying who you are. You don’t have to worry about mindset.

Mindset is going to be a moot point.

[00:51:25] Rick:
So when it comes to like, this is, you know, we’ve talked about a little bit here in the podcast in the past, but this is so important. It’s fascinating. Right. because they often talk about, you know, from the, through the lens of mindset, because I am not in any way, an expert of what you’re talking about in the way that you are like, you know what people, if, if the way that I talk about is like, if people don’t have the right mindset, they can be running all of the sexy stuff, the funnels and the ads and the, whatever that sales calls, whatever they might be.

Yeah. They’ll have some success, but they’re going to reach a point where it’s going to sort of stop or, you know, level out.

[00:52:08] Helena:
Absolutely.

[00:52:08] Rick:
With the, with the mindset

[00:52:10] Helena:
Yes, absolutely. And this is not to say that mindset is not important.

[00:52:13] Rick:
No. Sure, sure. Yeah, no, I’m, I’m glad you bring up the distinction between like, it starts with the subconscious mind and the mindset comes as a result of it.

So I know people are listening And I’m wondering right now, because we hear so many different, you know, numbers and all this other stuff. Is there like, is, can we put a sort of a time on it Like how long does it take to change our subconscious mind around something?

[00:52:41] Helena:
You know, I intentionally don’t use numbers. I hear a lot of people using numbers. And when I really poke in, I’m a very science focused. And so I’m like, I need to know the research behind that. And I start kind of digging into it. And that’s why I didn’t use the numbers like 249 million inputs per second.

You know, all this stuff, because I don’t know where the science is behind that. And it really depends on how your subconscious is programmed. Like a lot of people have had, you know, what they call good enough parents who have tried to give them everything. And maybe, you know, of course there’s going to be some things that they didn’t give them.

And then there are other people who had really, really hideous childhoods. I am on the continuum of that. I know that there are people who have. Much worse things happen that I’ve had happened in my life. So I’m aware of, you know, where I, you know, and where I’m born, where I live in the world, you know, the privilege that I have just from being, you know, a lighter skinned, human being, you know, all of these things, some people are living in a constant state of fear just based on, on who they are.

And, and, and that becomes a lot more challenging to, to, bring the subconscious up into that, to do this nervous system work, you know, so it really depends. and there’s not, I don’t really think there’s an answer, although I will say for myself, I started working on this word. In 2020 in the beginning of 2020.

And I did some plant medicine work? with it. So psychedelics. Yes. And that is a very, very effective way to get into the subconscious pretty fricking quickly. So if you have a good tool and resources and it’s legal in your area and all that, stuff, highly recommend that as a way to get in. And reparent those places that didn’t have didn’t have good, good messaging.

[00:54:38] Rick:
Gotcha. And so what I’m taking from that is like, it all depends on our past. You’ve mentioned trauma and stuff like that.

[00:54:47] Helena:
Right. How hard are you willing to work? I mean, that is one. of the things like going through this. It’s not, it’s not, you know, a bundle of joy all the time. You know, there’s a lot of tears involved. There’s a lot of, a lot of getting, you know, really down and dirty and grieving and mourning what you lost and connecting with your inner child and figuring out where you, you know, where all the dominoes fell.

[00:55:11] Rick:
So we are at E now in

[00:55:14] Helena:
He is the juicy one. He is embodying.

[00:55:20] Rick:
That that wasn’t juicy.

[00:55:22] Helena:
Well, it’s all juicy. It’s all exciting to me. I don’t know, I don’t know. For some reason people just don’t find the nervous system as exciting as I do, but I think it’s great.

[00:55:32] Rick:
So would you say embodiment.

[00:55:34] Helena:
He is. embodying this new identity. So the way to start with embodying the new identity, make a list of three things that you can do that day, even small things that are like, you know, really kind of put that, put that, identity into practice.

Maybe it’s, you know, going for a quick hike and just enjoying the outdoors. Maybe it’s standing outside barefoot And just reveling in nature, whatever that new identity is. And then you know, embodying it also is finding your edge. So doing something that makes you a little bit uncomfortable. In that new identity, but not so uncomfortable that your nervous system doesn’t feel safe.

Right? So you’re sending cues to your nervous system. This is okay. I am on Instagram live right now. And this is okay because this is what I’m embodying this new identity. Not because someone told me I should, but because I’m embodying this new identity, I’m trying this out. I’m going to do it for five minutes.

And I’m going to be done. And I’m going to give myself a ton of kudos after the fact. And I’m going to push myself to the edge, right? That the E part is where lifestyle change happens. And this will result in lifestyle change because as you start listening to your body, you’re going to remove some people from your life that you don’t need.

You’re going to add some people into your life that are now serving you in a different way. You’re going to add some things in. You’re going to probably slow your life down a little bit. You’re going to spend more time doing some things. You’re going to spend less time doing some things, and you might not go to your family’s house for Thanksgiving.

You know, this is, this is how this kind of, you start embodying this new identity. And you realize that you don’t have time to mess around with these people who are going to take a lot of your energy from you because time and energy are your biggest resource and it’s not linear. They’re not linear resources.

So we need to really. Start reclaiming that.

[00:57:29] Rick:
So, so good. I have a couple more questions. I would just wanna recap space. So creating more space in your life, paying attention,

Accessing your assistance, both in forms of tools that you can use and connection with other people, creating your identity, doing things like I am, statements, visualizations, et cetera. and then

Embodying this new identity. And one of the quickest things that you can do is three things you can do today to put that identity in practice and take yourself maybe a little bit just to the edge, as you said of your comfort level in this new identity.

[00:58:05] Helena:
And don’t have those three things that you would do take up your whole day have tried to you know, I look at incremental change is so powerful because you know, we have a culture of extremes and I have been so guilty of in my life, I’d be like, I’m going to start running. I’m going to run a marathon. And I start training for a marathon, right. Zero to 60. just have little things, little tiny things. Like I’m going to return that email. That’s going to be me embodying this new identity, this email that I’ve been avoiding returning because it’s a little bit on the edge for me. Right. I’m going to just return that email and I’m going to give myself a treat after it’s done, I’m going to give myself, I’m going to reward myself.

I’m going to dump a bunch of love on myself and I’m going to be like, you are doing it good for you.

[00:58:54] Rick:
Yeah, little thing, but yet in the right direction.

[00:58:58] Helena:
Exactly.

[00:58:59] Rick:
So one of the things that came up for me during all this. What do we need to, so, and, and I’m speaking from my experience, and I know a lot of other people as well.

Also, I know a lot of other very successful in their definition of success. There’s a fear that it’s all gonna go away.

That which then drives, okay, I’m going to work harder.

[00:59:24] Helena:
Right,

[00:59:25] Rick:
Obviously that leads to burnout because they’re just working nonstop.

[00:59:30] Helena:
Right.

[00:59:31] Rick:
What do we need to start believing in order to stop that, cycle?

[00:59:37] Helena:
Right. So that, that’s like, this was, if this was a one-on-one class, that’s going to be at least 303, right? So this is, this is when we start looking at this, in terms of our relationship with money, in terms of the money stories that we’re telling ourselves like that it’s all going to evaporate that we’re not good with money.

All of these stories that we’re telling ourselves, and that we need to go through this entire process. Of reconciling that with our nervous system, because a lot of these things around money mindset are just talking again about conscious mind, but your relationship with your money is, is part of your ancestral lineage.

It’s in your cells. It’s the stories that you’ve heard, you know, when your subconscious was being formed, what your parents, how your parents reacted with money, the things that you told yourself over the years, like it is, it is a package that needs to be unwrapped. And that’s a workshop that I intend on doing at some point in the future.

But yes, that is also part of this mind, body connection that scarcity and abundance are all part of that, that loop.

[01:00:47] Rick:
Can we still go through the space methodology? When things are like that are coming up because I went through that, you know, it was like, well, this is all like, this could all go away, even though it’s been very successful, this call go away. And so that if I’m being completely honest, that’s what drove a lot of the fight or flight on a daily

[01:01:14] Helena:
Absolutely.

[01:01:15] Rick:
Led to the burnout that I

[01:01:17] Helena:
Yeah. Yeah. This, this kind of framework, the reason why I built it was because I was trying to quantify, how do we deal with these? You know, so this could be about that. You could focus this whole thing on that. You know, that’s the bottom quadrant is your money finance career. You can really focus on whatever that is.

I like to think of that nervous system quadrant as like a heat map. And so what I do with folks when I, you know, like some parts of it are red, and one of those parts that are red is often our relationship with around money. And we start to think, well, well, if I had $50,000 in the bank, I wouldn’t have that.

But then pretty soon you have $50,000 in the bank and guess what is still there. Right. And so then

[01:02:04] Rick:
Right. Yeah.

[01:02:05] Helena:
It’s not about the amount of money. It is something inside of my nervous system. And my subconscious mind.

[01:02:14] Rick:
And doing this kind of work can help begin to, so are you, I actually didn’t even, I don’t know, This is money mindset, part of the work that you do.

[01:02:24] Helena:
It absolutely is. Yeah. I’ve learned a lot about, how, the stories that we tell ourselves based on which part of the, you know, the financial continuum we are part of, especially in the capitalist culture. So if we’ve been raised in poverty, we know how to do some things really, really well that no one else knows how to, do Right. I don’t know, how to repair my car. I don’t know how to, you know, there’s a lot of things, there’s a lot of tools that folks have that were raised in poverty, but they’re also, don’t have these unwritten rules and language to, to navigate spaces when people do have, you know, even in, in middle-class spaces comfortably.

And so I do a lot, I’ve done a lot of research on that, and that is a topic that I, that I dive into with folks in workshops. And one-on-ones.

[01:03:11] Rick:
Okay. So if after this, when we finish up here in just a minute, you are feeling energized and good about this interview. I’m going to reach out to you and see if you’re up for coming back on the show and talking all about money mindset,

[01:03:27] Helena:
I am connected to my nervous system enough to tell you that. Yes. Two thumbs up. Let’s do it.

[01:03:32] Rick:
Okay. Awesome. Awesome. I would love to have you back on the show to talk about that, because that is a topic. I mean, she’s like, we, I’ve covered a little bit here on the show, but I want to cover so much more of it because not only have I had huge challenges with it and done a lot of work on it, but I see it in my students

[01:03:52] Helena:
Right.

And so there’s another piece of it too, that your listeners might also be interested in that I do with folks. So we talk about your relationship with money and we really talk about it in a way of like, what is your give and take? What are you dating money? Like how, what do you, what kind of things are you telling money?

What kind of things do you, are you projecting that money is telling you kind of relationship. And then also I work with people around the messaging of their business. A lot of times when people have that, and it’s the same thing, it’s like, what are you projecting on your business? How are you putting your business down?

A lot of the people that I work with that are going into burnout are actually saying some pretty mean things to their business and expecting their business to come back and bring them abundance and energy in life. Right. And that’s not how any of this works. So,

[01:04:41] Rick:
What’s an example of what somebody would say to their business, because I’m probably going to check that box.

[01:04:46] Helena:
I don’t want to call anyone out, but there are some, you know, just like, well, I’m not changing the world. I just do as, you know, I had one client who, does production manufacturing. I just make things, you know, and so as if like producing art is somehow inferior to you know, doing some other type of business, people who, tell themselves that they don’t have anything unique and special about, there’s nothing unique and special about their business. you know, maybe they have a yoga studio or something like that So really asking them to invite their business.

Into a conversation and make it juicy. You know, you did this, this is what you chose to build this, like making this relationship vibrant and juicy and really honoring that business. You know, it’s a part of you, but it’s also.

Kind of a unique dynamic entity. And so that’s, you know, that’s, that’s, I find that working with, especially with online business owners or, you know, businesses, small business owners really is that ends up, they project that, the messaging that, you know, the kind of blame and guilt that they had as a small child on their inner child, they kind of project that same thing to their business cause it’s like their baby.

Right. And so that can be really, really potent to examine, like, what is your relationship with your business and how can you make it be this vibrant relationship? And

[01:06:12] Rick:

[01:06:13] Helena:
Very similar to their relationship with money. Usually it’s on that same thread.

[01:06:18] Rick:
Juicy topics for another episode. I love That Love it. I want to make sure that people can connect with you. And you mentioned you’re going to come out with the, you called it a micro class or something

[01:06:31] Helena:
Yeah.

[01:06:32] Rick:
A lot of things that we talked about here today. Where can people find out more about you?

Get your products, get your teaching, just continue to learn.

[01:06:40] Helena:
Yeah. So my business is called CC journey.com. CCO is a finished word. That means resilience in the face of extreme adversity and journey because we’re all on a journey and we’re guides, not gurus. We’re just all on different parts of the journey. We can see different things. And so it’s C Sioux journey.com.

The workshop will be up there. They can sign up for, you know, a free call with me and we can chat about what kind of offerings I’m doing. An another offering called the burnout audit, which is like a four hour intensive, that where we build out a kind of a customized version of the space modality, and really look at your past And your present and your future and connecting with your inner child and your, your higher self to figure out what. Own personalized. We’re not recovery plan is I’ll be offering that on my website as well. And then I also have a podcast that’s also called CC journey and it’s just about science and stories of resilience. So they can connect with that in anywhere they get their podcasts.

[01:07:37] Rick:
I love it. So CSU is SISU correct.

[01:07:40] Helena:
That’s right.

[01:07:41] Rick:
Co SISU journey.com. The podcast is SISU journey. Helena, thank you so much for coming on. I’m just like I’m energized because I feel like I just love talking about this stuff because it’s so important.

And so few people are actually talking about it and everyone that comes into quote unquote, my world from a student perspective is like craving this information because.

It’s so real. And so few people actually talk about it. So thank you for sharing your expertise. I super appreciate it.

[01:08:15] Helena:
And thank you. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege, and I’m, I’m always game for a counter-culture, you know, look at why we do things and how we do things. So I really appreciate your messaging and your business and your podcast

[01:08:26] Rick:
Awesome. Thank you. I’ll definitely have you back on to talk about what we’re just finishing up chatting about as far as money, and how we’re talking about our business, and so forth. So, already looking forward to that. Thank you, again.

[01:08:37] Helena:
Amazing. Thank you. Have a great one.

[01:08:39] Rick:
If you have more questions, if this episode brought up a lot of things that you’d like to understand better or more deeply when it comes to avoiding burnout, especially for us entrepreneurs, I’d love to hear from you, because I’m going to have Helena back on the show to talk more about this. This is such an important topic.

It’s really why one of the main pillars of our Accelerator coaching program, less hustle. Our Accelerator coaching program is all about helping established online course creators, membership creators, and online coaches create more profit, more impact with less hustle.

So, if you are an established online course creator, membership creator, or you’re an online coach—and by established, I mean, you’re already doing at least 100K a year in revenue from your online business—and you’re looking to scale, you’re looking to take things to the next level.

You’re looking to really have a bigger impact, create more revenue, create more profit. All with less hustle, working fewer hours, that’s exactly what we help our Accelerator coaching members do every single day inside of our program. If you want to learn more and apply, it’s application only, just go to RickMulready.com/Accelerator.

If you have more questions around this whole topic of burnout, please shoot me a DM on Instagram. I’m @RickMulready, or shoot us an email: support@theartofonlinebusiness.com. I’d love to gather all your questions, and when I have Helena back on the podcast we’ll answer them all. We’ll go right through it.

I really, really strongly, really want to crusade against burnout, because it is a very, very real thing. I’ve been through it multiple times in my business over the past eight years.

Thank you so much, as always, for listening to the show today, my friend. Be well, and I’ll talk to you soon.