Are you feeling like life is one big juggling act with your business in one hand, your family in another, and somehow you're the one getting crushed in the middle? If you're a mompreneur who's feeling like that, I'm sure that burnout can feel like it's just around the corner waiting for you to drop one of those balls. But what if I told you that the key to preventing burnout isn't about juggling better? It's about processing the emotions that come with the weight of it all. In today's episode, we're going to dive into the lost art of emotional processing and how reclaiming it can transform not only your business, but your entire life. Let's dive in.
Welcome to the Inhale Exhale Success Podcast, where we help women entrepreneurs create a life they love, feel confident in their body and build a business without burning out by equipping them with the best tools, strategies, and my proven formula. Every business woman must have my name is Dee Medina. Let's get started and be successful together.
Hola, hola, and welcome back to another episode. I am so excited to have you here today because I just have so much to so much to share with you. I've been making so many changes in both my personal life and business lately. There's just been many transitions happening and some are good, some are not so good , but some have been very great. At the end of the day, I couldn't be more grateful for it all because I have a vision for what I want my life and business to look like, and I recognize that this is the process of making that vision in reality. This is my journey and this is me manifesting it, as some of us would say, but our manifestations happen when we take actions on the ideas we have. So I've been putting in the effort needed for those ideas to make sense for me in the long run. The ideas that require delayed gratification, but give me what I love now, which is patience and love for the process of growth. Most importantly, I'm enjoying my life as it is. Isn't that the best part of making something come true? The journey towards the vision. And part of my vision is to have a small, trustworthy, dependable, and ambitious team that is eager to belong to a community like mine. Here to help serve thousands of mamas out there, achieve the success that they want, whatever that looks like for them. Whether that's staying home with their kiddos, playing board games, or going out consistently with their friends, or traveling the world with loved ones, all while their business is making money. Or maybe you're the type who likes to be totally hands on in your business, overseeing everything from designing your website to writing copy and just being in the creative process. If that's what success looks like for you, then that's valid. Whatever you imagine success to be, even if it doesn't fit into societal standards or goes with the trends, just know that it's okay. It's okay to want the type of success you see for yourself because success is subjective. We all get to decide what that looks like for each of us, right? And I'd like to say that I'm experiencing success right now because I'm simply doing the things that fill my heart. Being there for my kids, being there for my friends, being there for my community, being there for my clients and just strengthening the foundation that will help my business become what I want it to be in the next, let's say three to five years to go from a 100K to creating a multi million dollar coaching business that helps other mompreneurs like me scale to multiple four to six figure months is part of my vision and for them and me to do it without burning out because we are all going to learn how to have an amazing support system around us. That's the cherry on top. Every time I say that I get more excited because as I approach my third year in business as a life coach, I reflect on where I was just a couple of years ago I don't think I would be where I am today, able to manage a growing coaching business, still handling all my responsibilities, if I were still the same person that I was three years ago. Now I want to take you back to a couple years ago when I lived in a constant state of overwhelm, stress, and anxiety. I used to work a 9 5 desk job, which was more like a 6- 6. I know some of you are OT girlies out there and know how hard it can be to work those 50, 60, 80 hour weeks sometimes and I was working like that all while being a single mom of five kids, three of my kids who have special needs. That meant multiple doctor's appointments, therapies like speech, occupational and emotional therapy, and so many more things. And on top of that, I had just filed for my second divorce, ending an eight year marriage. And I was just dealing with a lot of other challenges as well. To say I was burning out is an understatement. I was barely holding it together. And eventually I hit a wall. Remember the day that I finally quit my job. It was a spur of the moment decision. It was born out of pure exhaustion, but also a mix of reflection of what I really wanted to do with my life. And to be honest, I had no plan or no idea what was next for me. I just knew that I couldn't keep going the way that I was. And looking back, I realized that burnout didn't just come from the workload. It came from not having the tools to manage the emotional toll of everything that I was going through. I was constantly the lifesaver of my entire family, and I just wasn't implementing the tools myself to save my own. So after quitting, I gave myself permission to take a step back and really dive into what was happening inside of me. I started therapy. I worked with a number of coaches and I just immersed myself in self development and I've been doing so , And let me tell you the breakthroughs that I’ve had experienced have been life changing. I learned that emotional processing isn’t just important, It's essential if you want to transform your life. It's what allows us to manage everything we're juggling without dropping the ball. And what that looked like for me was within three months of quitting my job, I had completely turned things around. I started a business while simultaneously writing a book titled, What Am I Missing? Using the tools you were born with to become the new empowered version of you. Because the tools and the strategies that I discovered during that time were so simple yet so powerful that I knew I had to share them with other moms who were going through similar emotional chaos that I had experienced just a couple months prior to that. And that's how my book came to be because life is not just about avoiding burnout. It's about creating the life and the business that truly align with who you are. So I kept it straightforward and practical because let's face it, as moms, we don't have time for the fluff. I most certainly don't. So the book dives into the importance of the tools that are helpful for emotional processing and it gives you actionable steps so you can start incorporating them into your life. And to be frank and 100 percent honest with you, those tools saved my life. And I will forever share them. And if you want your copy of my book, the link will be in my show notes. But enough about the book. Let's talk about why this matters so much as mompreneurs. You are often caught in the cycle of doing, doing, doing, you're running your business, taking care of your family. And if you're lucky, you squeeze in a little bit of me time, but you rarely stop to process how you're actually feeling. And those unprocessed emotions, they don't just go away. They pile up and that's when burnout starts to creep in. And I don't know if you see it like I do, but this is not a world in which our brains were developed, right? Our brains evolved for a particular kind of lifestyle And I think what we're actually seeing is that humanity has progressed a lot. And we lost sight of certain things that we used to rely on to get control of our lives, especially emotional processing. So let me just tell you a story real quick. I started working with a mom who works in the corporate world and she came with a concern that she was going to get fired first for no reason at all. And then because she wanted to also start her own business, And when she came up to me, she said, Dee, I am really anxious. And I asked, okay, what are you anxious about? And she responded, I'm paranoid I'm gonna get fired. After I dove into it a little bit, I found out that her anxiety was just turning into a vicious cycle. She said that she was constantly afraid she was going to get fired. That meant that the moments that she was presenting to her companies Clients or the staff or the partners about deals that they were working on those became more anxious and the more anxious She became the more she stumbled over her words thinking. Oh my god I can't fuck this up. And since her mind wasn't focused on the presentation, but rather Not wanting to screw up she inevitably did screw up her presentations became unclear and she became even more terrified. So she had to get control of her anxiety. So she asked me, can you help me with my anxiety? And during our time together, we've talked about a lot of interesting stuff. What ended up happening was that, as I spoke with her, I noticed things seemed to be getting a little harder for people in general. Because I've talked to so many people and women and it seems like life is squeezing more and more and more out of everyone. Whether they're in their teenage years, in their twenties, in their thirties, life just seems to be getting tougher for . Everyone. And to be honest, I've been talking to women who are also on the dating scene. And even there is clear that people are going through life, just trying to take as little damage as possible. Every time something goes wrong, it feels like they just lose a piece of themselves. I hear things like I went on another date. I dug real deep. I matched with a thousand people. Then went on a date with five of them and it didn't work out. Now I'm gonna be alone forever. It's like that saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But when I talk to people, it seems like they're just getting cut through life, more and more patched up but not fully recovering from things like they used to. It made me think. Wondering if things are actually getting worse. And the more I think about this, I start wondering if things are actually getting worse because on the surface it seems like humanity is advancing. We have incredible technology, we have flights to space now, we have cell phones, we have video games, VR technology, vaccines are getting developed within two years, and then cancer treatments are improving. So if you look around, it seems like things are getting better, right? But if you talk to people, it feels like they're just going through worse and worse experiences. It almost feels like we start life with a certain amount of happiness and each negative experience takes some of it away. Never again to be regained. It's as if happiness is a limited resource that people are depleting as they go through life. We use terms like burnout to describe this and it's clear that in our modern life, we're constantly thinking about what food to eat or how to entertain ourselves. Everything we need is in our fingertips, work, entertainment, all of it. But despite all the convenience, things seem to be getting harder for people. And one key reason might be that we've lost the ability to process our emotions because society used to have built in ways with dealing with emotions, things that we took for granted, but now that those are gone, we're confused about what we've lost because we didn't even realize it was important. Emotional processing was so natural that we didn't even see it as a skill. Now we have therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, but the fact that so many people are struggling with emotional processing, it just shows that something has changed. And I want to share an interesting perspective from evolutionary psychology about how the brain processes emotions. Because once I understood this, I could see how society changed, how we've lost the ability to process emotions and what we can do differently. In the past, human beings lived in communal societies with limited amount of conflict. You lived with a small group of people and there were only so many people you could have disagreements with, But today you can post something on social media and people who strongly disagree with you from all across the globe are going to attack you. So even though it's a tiny fraction of the world, it still feels overwhelming for a lot of people because we're just not equipped to handle that level of conflict. And back in the day, in those communal societies, after an emotional exchange or conflict, you do something physical like foraging, which required attention, but it allowed your mind to wander. It gave you idle time. And that idle time was crucial for processing those emotions. Because humans used to do a lot of labor that required physical activity, but left the mind relatively idle. Tasks like repairing baskets, making fires, and sharpening tools, and making cookware. All those activities allowed for the mind to process emotions and recover from conflict. And now, currently in modern life, we've lost that idle time, we're constantly engaged in listening to audiobooks and podcasts or music, even when we walk. And then after a conflict, we go and distract ourselves instead of allowing our minds to process the emotions. And as a result, negative experiences just accumulate without being dealt with. And it just feels like we're losing ourselves with each and every experience. And even in history, we have rituals like funerals where we processed our emotions collectively. And these rituals didn't require a lot of intellectual work because all we had to do was allow our minds to just process the grief naturally and together. But today, after a traumatic experience, we immediately turn to distractions like memes or video games only to suppress our emotions even further. I mean people will be posting videos and pictures day of the funeral. There's a constant need in society to be validated by others. However, that gets to be a lot because Many women, my clients, have all told me that they have needed to disconnect from social media in order to just process. So what do we do about this? How do we process our emotions and start to feel better about life? And one way is to create a certain amount of restricted time and space for deeper emotional work. And professionals like therapists, coaches, and spiritual guides can help you with this.
And for instance, the woman that I mentioned earlier that came to me for help with, um, anxiety ultimately. Through our work together we realized that it wasn't just about not getting fired. She needed to understand what she really wanted in life and so she found security within herself and ultimately quit her job because she was able to actually make decisions that were aligned with who she is. And most of us have lost sight of who we are because we're just so busy ourselves consuming information at all times that we forget how to do things. So if you're asking yourself, how do I emotionally process, like, The human beings used to do back in the day. I'd say a therapist is a really good idea for processing. If you're in one of those seasons where you're like, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I'm looking for direction or I'm looking to take this burden from my past off of my shoulders. So if your primary goal is to unburden yourself from the past, then definitely therapy. And if you're trying to figure out what you actually want from life, then I think coaching or spirituality will be the better fit for that so, know that journaling is just another tool that can help with emotional processing. It doesn't have to be perfect, just write about the experiences that are emotionally engaging for you. And this might mean things that made you feel good or bad, but the point of journaling is to give your mind time to process emotions rather than immediately start distracting yourself. And if you're going through life feeling more and more drained, then I strongly recommend looking at how you're processing your emotions, whether it's through journaling, meditation, therapy, or taking time to reflect it's important that you give yourself the space to heal and recover. It's about finding balance And not letting the distractions of modern life prevent you from doing this deeper emotional work necessary to live a fulfilling life.
So here's what I want you to do this week find one way to create some space for emotional processing in your life. Maybe it's setting aside 10 minutes at the end of every day to journal. Maybe it's taking a walk in the morning without your headphones, whatever it is, commit to it and see how it makes you feel., and in my book, I have a quote where it says, 30 minutes a day keeps insanity at bay because the things that I put into practice that are Your step by step guides in there are what actually have helped me do so much emotional processing. If you ever heard people that go into the wilderness for three months and just completely disconnect from life and they come back a totally different person, that's because they've spent that time emotionally processing. And I did that for myself for about the first two years since I completely disconnected from corporate, from just everything that I used to know in order for me to be able to find myself and see who I am now. And if you're ready to dive deeper, I'd love for you to check out my book, What Am I Missing? It's packed with the tools that helped me with my emotional processing that have literally transformed my and I know they can do the same for you. But if you're like me, and you feel like you also need that extra support along the way, and you're ready to take action in your life then book a call with me through the calendar link in the show notes and join me in my one on one coaching program. I'd love to support you on this journey and because I believe that together we can build a business and life that brings you joy and fulfillment without burning out.
Well, that does it for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining us on the inhale, exhale success podcast. If you enjoyed today's topic, I'd love for you to subscribe. So you don't miss out on other valuable discussions along with answering questions directly from busy women like you who are looking for ways to make life, business and weight loss easy. I look forward to having you here with us again next time. And remember my friend, success begins when you take a moment to breathe, find your balance, and believe in yourself.
