Nervous System Regulation and the Stages of Burnout with Garrett Wood
Hey Team!
Burnout is one of those terms we throw around a lot in the neurodivergent community, but often we don't realize we're in it until we've hit a wall. Today, I’m talking with Garrett Wood, a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and founder of Gnosis Therapy. Garrett specializes in working with high-achieving professionals—which is often code for high-masking folks—helping them navigate executive well-being and nervous system regulation.
In our conversation, we dive into the nuances of burnout, specifically how it differs from just being tired, and we walk through the five stages of burnout so you can actually spot where you are on the map. We also get into some heavy but important stuff regarding self-worth and how we often subconsciously drive ourselves into the ground just to prove we’re enough.
If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/267
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
William Curb: All right, well, it's a pleasure to have you here to get started. Can you just tell me a little bit about what you do and then we can kind of jump off from there?
Garrett Wood: Yeah, in 2018, I opened a clinic that we call NOSIS Therapy and it helps people that are burned out. So mostly working with high achieving, high masking professionals. They're typically in a leadership role, but not always.
Sometimes they're a small business owner or an entrepreneur. But most of the time, they have some executive functioning differences than, you know, what the book, the seven habits of highly effective people would lead you to believe is the Coley Grail of executive functioning. Yeah.
William Curb: And I mean, man, burnout is such a thing that it's so built into how being neurodivergent is at this point, where it always feels like we need to be doing more. And that's so often the exact opposite of what we need, but just what we feel versus what we need is often vastly different.
Garrett Wood: Yeah, what your own unique nervous system needs are versus the environment. And then sometimes people try to get out of that burnout state by doing more things and then you're like, makes it even worse and intensifies some of it. So it's really interesting trying to figure out how to support best support someone with their own unique needs and then what seems to be triggering the intensity of it and then how to bridge that gap between what they need and like what their environment is in like a really practical way. It's a fun part of the job.
William Curb: One of the things I find too about burnout is also not about like taking a vacation or anything and not just doing less either, because that often doesn't help the situation because you're like, you're in that state because things are too intense, finding the right things to be doing.
Garrett Wood: And the hard part is, it's not, you can just like pull those off the shelf. You know, there's very few times where I've gone in and been like, oh, that looks good on the mannequin. Put it on me and it looks as good as better.
That's never happened. So it's the same kind of thing trying to figure out, okay, well, what is this? Does this fit me or not? How do I know? And that is a process. And it's really hard to do that when you're in a state of burnout to begin with.
William Curb: How would someone like know that they're actually in burnout versus just they need, you know, to start getting some more sleep or something?
Garrett Wood: Well, I bet you we all need more sleep to be fair. That's a safe bet. But if you're even getting full eight hours of sleep and you're still waking up exhausted, that is a sign that you're probably, you know, out of the ones you're five stages, you're probably closer to that two or three right there. But I think sometimes the easiest way to recognize it is like a lack of tolerance for frustration is like more more intense for whatever your normal is. Everyone's got that range, but whatever your normal is, usually if you're like, can't calm down after that guy kind of cuts you off in traffic and normally you can, that's a pretty good sign that you're in that first stage of burnout. If you're feeling like cynical, like you're always feel like you're emotionally rolling your eyes at everything that's shown up, that's probably a sign you're closer to that stage two burnout.
William Curb: So how about we walk through these stages of burnout too? Because I'm sure people would be kind of interested in like what that means to be in each stage. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: So the first, the fourth stage is what we would consider like classical burnout that most people are feeling like they're, it doesn't feel like what I do is enough to make a difference. It doesn't feel like there's a way out and it doesn't feel like I have the energy I need to be okay. That's stage four, right? Stage five is you've been hanging out there for so long that it's hard for you to remember or recall a time in your adult life where you haven't felt a version of that. So that's kind of like that learned helplessness state as more common with depression at that point. And then stage three is you're still doing all the things. It just feels terrible to be you while you're doing it. I don't want to be in this relationship, in this work, in this environment, whatever it may be that's triggering that intensity. Yeah.
William Curb: I know when I've been like heading that direction in the past and have not been in good mental states, it's been like, been driving in a mid like, man, it'd be great if I was in a car accident. It's not my fault if I can't do this to anything right now. I'm thankful in those times that I've been like, that's a really dangerous thought. Let's not keep going down that road. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: And so part of you is really tired of whatever they're going through. And the other part of you is like, okay, that's not everything though. So like, let's, let's balance this out here.
William Curb: Yeah. When you're in that state, it feels like there's no way to step back. I think that's why the like car accident fantasy is like, Oh, will it be forced to there? I'd no one could blame me for this.
Garrett Wood: That piece right there, the blame shame, guilt of stepping down to care for what your unique needs are and not feeling like you have permission from whoever yourself and society at large to be able to do that, I think is exactly where that fantasy comes from where it's like, Oh, I can get what I need, what I actually need.
And I wouldn't have to think about anybody wouldn't be like, Oh, you must can't cut it. You're not enough. You're not good.
You don't do these things well. You're feel like all those thoughts and feelings sometimes if part of ourselves believes that we do a lot of these actions to try to create evidence to prove those beliefs inaccurate. And so sometimes people get stuck in a burnout cycle because they're afraid to slow down because then that would give themselves evidence that all those insecurities are true. And so then we get stuck in this like back and forth boom and bust cycle of burnout, which is really challenging. Yeah.
William Curb: And I think it's something that a lot of narrative or individuals suffer with because we do have this weight of feeling like we're not enough.
Garrett Wood: And there's been a lot of experiences where it's felt that way. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that have been easy to point that out. But we have this like very strange, you know, back before we had computers and like software, if you put like ink on paper, it was a big deal if you made a mistake, because you had to like go back, pull it out, white it out and then type over it. And it looks kind of like crummy. Now we live in an era where you can just like highlight, delete, start over. Now we live in an era where you don't have to do that.
You just talk into something or even better yet, you can be like, Hey, can you write me something about this? Right? It's a very different time. But I think some of the standards that we created for society was this race to like, what's the best perfect thing that will fit everybody.
And I think when we're talking about nuts and bolts for airplanes, that works. But when we're talking about people and their experiences, that is such a narrow box that like, if you're underneath the bell curve and you're designing for that middle of the bell curve, you're literally intentionally ostracizing every single person, which ends up being a majority of the people. Because most people fall either on either side of the bell curve, they're not right in the center. And so, if that societal expectation is you need to be here in the center and you're not, you're going to have that experience of not being enough. But it's not you, it's that system that's around you.
William Curb: So with this in mind, what can people start doing to like start working on healing from burnout?
Garrett Wood: The easiest, quickest thing that's like really general advice is like, what was the thing that made yesterday easier for me? Can I do more of that safely? Right? And so that's like, okay, let's can I, can I slow down a little bit? Can I care for myself in a way that I'm already doing in a way that I do just a little bit more, it'll be better.
Once we have a little bit of that wiggle room, then it starts easier to like use more of that to kind of do some bigger level things. In the work I do, there's so many things that can help people. It's really challenging to be like, okay, well, what does this unique individual need? And so there's this framework that I've put together, assess and then accommodate those needs and then align how they're working with what they need to work their best. But those assessments are really interesting. Some of it's like, what are your unique nervous system needs as far as like sensory thresholds go? Some people, if you put them in a library, they're like, finally, I can focus. Some people, they put them in that they're like, I am going insane.
This is terrible. And so if your work environment doesn't match your needs, it's, it's a really big deal. A lot of people think that like executive function and like grit and mind over matter is like an innate quality. And like your specific skills might be more than someone else's. But if our sensory needs aren't met and we're trying to operate in an environment where it does not align with us, we don't get to use any of them.
No matter what axis we have, it just like tunes that way the heck down. And so it's amazing, you know, if you know what your nervous system needs are, as far as that sensory threshold goes and you accommodate them, all of a sudden you might get a 20% boost in your ability just to perform mundane tasks without all the like rigmarole of having to yell at yourself to get started.
William Curb: Yeah, I can imagine because even just as much as like having the right lighting in a room can make a huge difference.
Garrett Wood: I used to work in a corporate office and I would get in early because all the lights would be off and I'd run my like heavy reports that I needed to like do a bunch of, you know, math on and I'd be sitting in there and people start showing up for the day with their coffee and they'd be like, why are all the lights off?
How long have you been here? You didn't turn the lights on? I'm like, oh no, the lights are on. Okay, I'm done. All right, I'm done for this day. Hopefully I got enough to report done.
William Curb: Yeah, I know so many people that are like, big light bad. Gotta have the nice ambience feel. But I imagine for a lot of people it's hard to even identify these sensory needs, how their nervous system is working. Is there a place they can start to figure out how is it just, you know, kind of like slowing down or is it looking or what is it? What would that process look like?
Garrett Wood: If anybody's listening and they want to tech check this out, there's a book called Sensory Intelligence. It's by Anna Marie Lombard. She's an occupational, Doctor of Occupational Therapy out of South Africa. And she's been doing research on this for like the last, I don't know, 40 years. She goes out and speaks about it.
She's been talking about it so much that she's like tired of talking about it at this point. But originally she would look at these sensory profiles of people and then she would look at their occupation. And she would look at the environment and how much overlapped and how much gap there was. And then she would make predictions based upon that about how long someone would be able to withstand that before they left.
And it was a pretty decent predictive model. You can go on her website and take a look, Sensory Intelligence. And there's a quick little like quick and dirty assessment you can do.
That'll kind of give you a jumping off point. She talks about some people are out there being leaves. Some people are trunk, some people are roots. And so it's kind of their different sensory threshold for experience.
You know, the leaves are out there for the rain, the cold, the wind, the roots are down there trying to mitigate all of that changes. But she tracks it across the seven senses. So interception, vestibular stuff, visual taste, oil factory, because you can be really low on oil factory and really desire a lot of stimulus. So if you're in an environment where it's like pretty neutral smells, but you love the smell and you need that to feel normal, how do you accommodate that? And so some people will take like a little handkerchief with like some nice aroma therapy essential oils on there. And they're like sniffing and they're like, okay, I feel a little different. And other people walk by a lush and they have to cross the street or like a bath and body works because they're like, I'm going to have a headache for three days. No.
William Curb: So what my wife is like will be the ball and it's just like, oh my God, that's just, she's like, I couldn't even enter that store if I wanted to.
Garrett Wood: Yeah, those big department stores when I walk through the makeup or fume setter, right? I take a deep breath and I walk through and I don't and I exhale and I'm like, I feel like I'm Tom Cruz in his movies where he's trying to hold his breath to get through to them, whatever.
William Curb: Yeah, what I love about those things too is it does really highlight to me how different people are because some people are like, yeah, I cannot handle this for a second and other people are like, can't handle what there's nothing going on here. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: And I always think about like, you know, how we see birds as feathers versus how they see each other. They have a different spectrum of light that their eyes respond to. And so they're seeing a complete different thing than what we're seeing. And it's not right or wrong. It's just different because they're different. Now, you know, we're all people, but there's a large spectrum of like what that feels appropriate for people.
And some of that's great. Like if you're going to be a perfumist, you want to have a very high desire for sensory, oral factory sensory stimulation. And you want to have a very low threshold so you can smell all the subtle differences and you like it.
Then it's like, oh, cool. That's a great job for you. You know, you can design specialty sense because you can spell the difference. Same thing with auditory for music.
Not everybody has that. You know, some people are, I can't carry tune. I can't tell if I'm in tune. People are like, that's not the note. I'm like, it's not. I can't hear it, right? So everyone's got their differences there.
William Curb: Yeah, I remember I had a friend in high school and the teacher was like going around, like asking everyone their favorite music to listen to like for studying and he's like, silence. And everyone's like, what? And he's like, silence. I don't like music. And it's just like, okay.
Garrett Wood: And you'll see those studies when people talk about like, oh, the best music to study to and you're like, cool, but there's like so many outliers in those studies. If you like look at the data. And so it's not the best music to study to it's the best for the most amount of people that they sampled. You're like, always have to qualify it, right?
William Curb: Yeah, I love looking at studies and being like, well, that your data, where you get your data makes a big difference on how that that you're going to interpret these samples.
Garrett Wood: Absolutely. And like even your context, right? So it's really interesting. Yeah, it's always fun to play around and see where the gaps are.
William Curb: Guess I'm hearing a lot that we need to be paying more attention to our body. And this is something that can be definitely hard for people to do if they they're not in the practice of doing it. Absolutely.
Garrett Wood: I mean, there's very few times where we've like attuned to our bodies. It's much easier to tune to something else, you know, we use them and we don't think about them. And that's a good thing. And if I had to think about every single function that my body did, I would be insane.
So like, yay. But when things aren't working, we yeah, we got to figure that out. And so some of that we talk about like bio budgets. So how much movement and what type of movement your body needs to feel comfy in its own self, sleep is very different for people. And like how much they need, because some people can be a bed for 10 hours, they're only getting six hours of sleep. So they need to be a bed for 11 to get that same difference.
Some people are like, no, I was six hours and I got, you know, seven and a half hours, because they got a ton of deep sleep or something. If we aren't paying attention to that stuff, it shows up in our inability to handle frustration and distress. Like if we're not well fed, we'll not well rested. If we don't feel comfy, we're not as resilient as we could be. You know, if we think about how people do advanced interrogation techniques, they don't feed them very well, they don't let them sleep. And they usually put them in a sensory distressing environment and then make threats. I wonder how many of us are doing a version of that to ourselves.
William Curb: Oh, I never thought about it that way. But that is truly awful. Yeah. Because you throw someone off center, they're going to be off what they want to do. Yep.
Garrett Wood: Absolutely. They become more pliable, they become more susceptible. And so do we to all the experiences that are out there? And our minds are always looking for that anyway. So it's like really like a turns into a vicious cycle really quickly for people.
William Curb: Yeah. And I know I've had plenty of times where like my kids are being very grumpy and I'm just like, Oh, do you guys need a snack? And they're like, I'm like, well, when was the last time you wait? It's like, yeah, I think they really need a snack right now.
Garrett Wood: I remember the first time I was like writing something, I don't know if it was for school or work. And I was like, Oh, this is good. I like this. Cool. This is fun.
Right. And then I got to the end and I was like, man, this is terrible. I should delete this whole thing. This isn't, oh, such a waste of time. I'm such, how did I ever think this was good?
I was so wrong five minutes ago. And then I looked down and I'm like, Oh, it's been four hours. The coffee's out of my system. My blood sugar is probably crashing.
I go grab a snack, come back, read it. I'm like, it's not good. It's not bad. It's fine. This is fine. Right.
And then all of a sudden your ability to discern the difference between what's good and bad changes because it's an extension of how you're actually feeling in your own body, which is wild to think about. Yeah.
William Curb: It's a C stuff of people are like, Oh, the mind body connection. And I'm like, no, it's just one thing. It's, there is no connection.
Garrett Wood: It is the mind body. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
William Curb: That's the connection between my hand and my wrist. I mean, there's a connection there, but it's the same action. Yeah. It's the same thing.
Garrett Wood: Yeah. It's Doctor of Neuro psychology, Lisa Fildman Baird, I think is her name now. And she does a lot of research on emotions and she's kind of challenging some traditional models of emotions. And in her work, she often talks about how your brain is essentially just trying to predict what your experience is going to become soon.
And so it's always trying to begin initiating programs to help support you as you step into that new environment. Right. And so based upon its past learning, based upon its current state and how well resourced it is, sleep, food, love, affection, all those things. And that changes how that experience feels to you. So she doesn't think emotions are innate that they're constructed most of all in past experience, current state, and then expectations. It's pretty interesting work because we're talking about the mind body connection. Heather is no separation. She would say like emotions are just an expression of that experience.
William Curb: Yeah. And I definitely can see that. And with just how hard it is to try and tease out the different versions of myself where I'm like, oh, yeah, this is me, you know, angry or happy. And it feels very different. And yet often it's hard to tease out why. Yep.
Garrett Wood: Why? Yeah. Is it the experience itself that's different? Is it how I'm feeling that's different? Is it, you know, how well-bressed I was last night? Yeah.
William Curb: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this morning I was procrastinating reading some stuff on the internet and like, man, this is really grinding my gears today to read what these people are talking about.
And yeah, it was like, it would be upsetting to read anyway. So I was just like, man, something going this morning and I'm like, oh, I need to maybe do a little bit of reset before I continue on with my day.
Garrett Wood: And that's the perfect. You're like, this isn't my normal. This is a different intensity. Okay. So I need to pay attention here. I need to listen in a little closer, get curious. That's 100% that message, right? It's great. Yeah.
William Curb: And I think it's a lot of, you know, trying to figure out, yeah, what those base needs are and, you know, trying to get beyond just like coping with the feelings to be like, okay, how am I going to make a difference in my day now? Absolutely.
Garrett Wood: Yeah. What do I do to get back into like that window of time, that neutral zone so I can just be a person and then I can go do something after that, right? But yeah, we skip that step. We get in trouble. Yeah.
William Curb: And it's something I always want to make sure that I'm paying attention to because I don't want to be, I want to be who I want to be. And I don't want to be, you know, the other guy that's, you know, being mad at my kids or, you know, snapping at someone because they asked a question that I thought should be obvious or something. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: I always joke that my dog, I have a cute little dog, right? And little black lap. She's always cute, but she's not always cute. Her behavior is exactly the same every single day, all the time, and it has been for years now. But how it feels to me is different and that has nothing to do with her, right? So, yeah. Yeah.
William Curb: Now, my, I have a Chowini and she's like a rescue dog. So she's incredibly like food motivated and stuff. And so like, whenever I go to feed her, she just runs up next to me and it's just jumping straight up in the air to be like, express how excited she is. And on days where I'm doing fine, it's cute and it's fine. And days where I'm kind of grumpy, I'm like, you need to stop dog. I'm gonna feed you. I feed you every day. Like, it is...
Garrett Wood: Behavior is the same. Your reaction is the difference, right? Yeah. Yeah.
William Curb: And it's funny how that in the moment, it doesn't feel that way at all. Right.
Garrett Wood: It doesn't. Yes. In her book, she talks about judges and whether they grant perils or not. And the ratio of yeses to noes changes the closer it gets to lunchtime. And these are supposed to be things like peregons of rationality and reason and just the facts and, you know, no emotions. And they're obviously emotionally motivated, also just like you're a Chowini by food. We all are, to some degree. Oh yeah. It's a...
William Curb: If you've ever gone without for a while, it's become so clear how motivated by food we are.
Garrett Wood: Yeah, absolutely. Food's one of the like tasty things and it's often it's healthy too. So it's like one of those things that makes it like innately stimulating, which is it.
William Curb: Yeah. And it's meeting with the... how good some of the unhealthy food can taste and then how badly that can make me feel.
Garrett Wood: The taste and then the feeling afterwards don't align, right? Yeah.
William Curb: Yeah. I was like, why did I do that to myself? I knew this was going to happen.
Garrett Wood: Yeah. I always like that first slice of pizza, but the seventh one just doesn't hit the same way, you know? Yeah.
William Curb: And then I'll be like, man, I did not like that. But there's still one more left. Yeah. Yep. I know a 20-year-old me would definitely still be eating it. A 40-year-old me probably might be able to not. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: To be like, hmm, it might be tasty tomorrow too. Pussies. We'll see.
William Curb: So I kind of want to circle back to what we were talking about burnout. And one of the things that's been percolating in my mind is we were talking about the burnout can stem a lot from this idea of not feeling like you're enough. And that, I feel, is also just a very much tied into self-worth. Like, it's something where we might not realize that we're dealing with these confidence and self-worth issues and just think, I need to do more, but not tied into some of these are like underlying, oh yeah, I'm not viewing myself in a very positive light here. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: And I've, there's subconscious beliefs, right? So they're not our conscious awareness. We're not thinking, walking around, oh, I'm not enough. We are feeling what it feels like to experience the world as if you're a person who is not enough.
And you're filtering your experiences to match that feeling. And so it's really insidious that way, where it's like below the surface. You don't know it's there, but it's consistently present for people that have that belief. And anytime you encounter an experience that intensifies that belief, it builds up. But then we also create these avoidance to not have to experience it as much.
And so there's becomes this resistance internally to actually even noticing the belief in the first place, because it feels like we call attention to it, we're actually bringing it, making it bigger. And so it's like, ah, that's like the can of worms or Pandora's box or whatever. But what's really interesting is if you do decide to do some of that, it gets more malleable. It gets like, you can play with it a little bit, especially if you're like in a relaxed body. If you're really anxious, don't do that work, because you're just going to make it more intense moving forward. But if you can find a relaxed nervous system being that zone, that window of tolerance, and then begin to do some of that analytical, supportive, caring kind of work in like a curious, compassionate way, it can be really impactful.
William Curb: Yeah. And I imagine, yeah, it's what I'm hearing my head to is like, I know I heard so many people being go, I think I could still do it, even if I am not relaxed. And because I'm like, that's exactly how I would have been at so many points where it's just like, oh, I'm special. I have low self-worth, but I am special and I can do whatever I need to.
Garrett Wood: Yeah, absolutely. There's this idea of memory reconciliation. So when we remember something, the reason why it's so infallible in the court of law is because we're value on Coralina is because we're not actually remembering reality.
We're recalling our memory. And so every time we open that program, we inadvertently update the program with our own current beliefs, feelings, and our actual feeling in that moment. So if it's a day where you're frustrated of the dog because they're jumping for their food, and you go back and open that program, you're bringing that frustration into them. And so then when you put that memory back, when your body's operating consciously, automatically, that subconscious belief has now changed a little bit. And so you might be ramping the dial up on some of the intensity of some of those feelings versus turning it down. And that's valuable that our system operates that way. Like, I think it's like almost miraculous that it does that, because if you're in an environment where that belief serves you, and then you're ramping it up, it's going to serve you even more if you're in that environment.
But there's very few of us that are still in that environment where it's actually serving us. My favorite toys and clothes and shoes that I wore when I was 10, I still have a fond memory of them, but they don't serve me now. I can't put on my shoes from when I was 10.
Even if I had them, they wouldn't fit, right? And so we do naturally update those beliefs, and we can intensify them and make them bigger, or we can make them come fear to experience and recall that that's something that used to happen, that may not be true now as I move forward in life.
William Curb: Yeah, because we've developed these strategies that were very helpful at the time. Yeah, like, it got me through bad time in middle school or something. But middle school, me, doesn't need to still be coming out. His strategies don't work for 40-year-old me. Hopefully not, right?
Garrett Wood: Hopefully you're in a different thing when you were in middle school. Everyone grows and changes. We want that, right? And so our beliefs have to, about ourselves, the world and others have to update as we grow, and the world changes with us. We have to be able to lean into that adoption a little bit.
William Curb: Yeah, and I think it's important to, yeah, acknowledge, like, yeah, it was okay for middle school will to be acting that way and use these strategies to protect himself, even if they weren't the best strategies at the time.
But, you know, that's, he got through it. And so, and then being like, yeah, because if I just view it in a purely negative light and like something that's, it's like, oh, I'm now adding things that are wrong with me.
Garrett Wood: Yep, you're making it worse. You're like adding, creating evidence to intensify your own insecurities or worse beliefs about yourself, right? Yeah. But it's interesting because you're like, okay, it did serve a purpose.
What did it do for me? Okay, cool. Is that the only way I could have got that need met or got that solution I needed? Probably not.
Okay, well, if I can be compassionate and curious about it. Maybe there could have been a different way then. Okay, but maybe that's true now. So, okay, let's get creative.
Let's get curious. But to your point, it has to start with compassion. Like we have to be like understanding and caring. Otherwise, we end up blaming and shaming ourselves and wrapping those beliefs up even more.
William Curb: Yeah, and it is very hard to get that self compassion when you don't have that self worth. But being like, I like to start at it with, okay, it's hard. But what if I tried to do it anyways? What if I maybe didn't even completely believe the words, but I still allowed myself to think them? Yeah.
Garrett Wood: And if you felt compassion for someone else, sometimes it's easier to transition an emotion once you're experiencing it. So if you're thinking about your dog and you're like, oh, it's a rescue dog, could I imagine how their life could have been had I not intervened in their life? I'm like, like, I'm so glad I have the opportunity to do that. Good for them.
Good for me. And like, that feels good. And like, I hope I'm giving them the best life that I can give.
And there's some compassion there. Okay, now, probably also feel that for your kids. Probably feel that for some siblings or some friends. Okay, maybe we can bring a bit image of, you know, younger you to yourself or even on your phone and be like, can I feel that thing that I felt for my dog for this version of myself? And maybe it's just a little bit easier to make that transition.
William Curb: Yeah. And I can imagine that while it is hard that it's just so valuable for people to like, yeah, it's okay to feel like I deserve things and I it's okay. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: That right there, that XO. It's okay. Like that. Yes. That's what we're open for with that, right?
William Curb: So I was just wondering, you know, thinking about these ideas of where should someone start with this? Because I imagine there's so many people that are like, we've had a ton of ideas and we had a lot of stuff to talk about. But like, if they wanted to get going, what should they start with?
Garrett Wood: Yeah. If they want to get going, they got to recognize that they're there in the first place, right? Like you're saying, oh, the dog is the dog. It's me. Got it. Okay. But then it's okay. I'm not doing okay. What's something I can do right now in this moment to just be a little bit better?
What does that look like? And that's different for everybody, right? So knowing enough and looking at what's helped before in the past that hasn't cost you that much that you can do now is a great place to start.
Like that is the place to start. And that's unique for everybody. So, you know, if you look back two days ago, the day before that, the day before that, was there something that made life a little easier?
Maybe it is the seven slice of pizza. Who cares in that moment, you need to be okay before we can work on any of this other stuff. But after that, once you have that wiggle room, now you can use that to kind of play with to start figuring out ways to accommodate your unique needs to bridge the gap between what you need and what your environment is.
And people often haven't ever been in an environment where they've been fully supported for what their nervous system needs. So it is like figuring that out for the first time. And it's worth the effort every single time. But it's challenging. Yeah, there's not a lot of people out there helping with it.
William Curb: So, I just had the funny thought of like, I wonder if it would feel stressful to be unfamiliar with that situation, which is then hilariously like, oh, being comfortable, but it's stressful for me.
Garrett Wood: And it is. Yeah, you're like, wait, I'm feeling good. I've never felt good before. What does that mean? Oh, no, I'm like right back in, right? Yeah.
William Curb: I've definitely done things like on vacation where I'm like, oh, I don't have anything I need to be doing. Oh, no, I don't have anything I need to be doing.
Garrett Wood: Yeah. Yep. And I feel like with ADHD specifically, that boredom can be just as like anxiety inducing as like anxiety can be. And so having something that feels good to you, like my serious example is like every time I like want to do something that I know is going to feel good, sure, I can open the door for someone else and I will do those and then go feels a little different. But I'll go and organize my books, I'll just rearrange them or dust them. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I'm not out there having to run 10 miles or, you know, do anything really crazy. But it's something for me that feels like soothing and calming. And I feel a little bit different when I'm doing it. And it's not like taxing. But also if I was just sitting there, I have nothing I need to do. That would feel distressing too. Right.
William Curb: I like going to puzzles and stuff where I'm like, oh, it feels like I've done something. But if I didn't complete it, it's there's no there's no consequence.
Garrett Wood: Yeah, there's no consequence. It's just there for you. And there's no downside. I love it.
William Curb: At the end, I'm like, Oh, I did this. I have a sense of accomplishment still.
Garrett Wood: Yeah, absolutely. When I think back about like making Legos and like putting it together, like the bigger the thing was, the more fun that was at the end. But then you and I would have these other little Lego projects where like, you'd be like, okay, I'm done on the big one. I need to switch the little ones so I can finish and get that feeling of accomplishment. And then I can come back later. Yeah. Yeah.
William Curb: Last year, I got myself like a big, really big set that I was like, worked on for months. And because I was like, I couldn't work on it, like, start to finish and have it done. And I was just like, yeah, I need to do stuff in between because I can't just do this in one go. Yeah.
Garrett Wood: And I think a lot of times there's like that time blindness that shows up. And then there's also this like prioritization and then like this all or nothing kind of like experience that a lot of people have.
Yeah, I know myself. And so having like a big long-term one is great, except for we like if we're just on anxiety and like excitement and, you know, hyper focus and but it's going to take months to finish that project. That's a dangerous environment to put yourself in.
We got to have something else that's going to help support you as you continue that, right? Like, you know, with the big Lego project, you're like, I can't do this in one go. I'd have to not eat, not sleep. I'd have to quit work. I'd have to never see my kids.
William Curb: Yeah. And I wouldn't enjoy doing it that way. So yeah.
Garrett Wood: Yep. Exactly. Yeah.
William Curb: It was a good test in how to pace myself in certain things and being like, yeah, it's okay to put this away for weeks at a time if I have to. Yep.
Garrett Wood: And often that's what shows up with Burnout is like people care, they're passionate about the job. A lot of people say like, oh, if you're passionate about what you do, you never work in your day in your life. And I'm like, I think that's true for most people that are really passionate.
I think if they're passionate about they're going to always be at work, especially if they're only passionate about one or two things. Like that's actually dangerous because there's not, you know, they're going to hit a roadblock where like it's going to be a long project. And like if that's all they have to get them through, oh, that's, they're not going to be okay. They're going to burn out well before they arrive. Yeah.
William Curb: It's like enjoying what you do does not mean that it's not still work. Absolutely.
Garrett Wood: Yeah. Yep. And that it's not even, that it's not dangerous. It can be dangerous because you enjoy it. That's, you know, interesting too. Yeah.
William Curb: Especially with like ADHD hyper focus and you're like, oh yeah, I'm, you know, as you were doing your writing thing earlier, you're like four hours later, I hated it. And I was like, oh yeah, because I was used a lot of resources during that time and kind of needed to refill myself. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. All right. So I was wondering if you had any final thoughts you wanted to leave the audience with? Yeah.
Garrett Wood: So I always think it's interesting if we think about like this myth that we've here in the States, we've all been exposed to over and over again, that like success requires sacrifice. And if we choose to continue to believe that, right, we lean into it. If we imagine what our week looks like, our month, our year, the next decade, or if we imagine no sustainable success is actually built through your well-being, not at its expanse, what is next week, next month, next year, 10 years, 20 years feel like to you, to be you working through those things.
And so it's just kind of an interesting thought experiment, I think for people to kind of get to some of the heart of the myths that kind of drive burnout.
William Curb: And if people want to find out more about you and what you do, where should they go?
Garrett Wood: Yeah, if they're on the professional social media network, LinkedIn, they can find you there. If they want to be more personable, they can find me on Instagram. Or if they want to reach out, they can find my contact information through the website and all that's gnosis therapy.
William Curb: All right. And I'll keep that all in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I think people will get a lot of this one.
Garrett Wood: Yeah. Thanks for having me here. It was really fun to be able to share some of these stories and talk about our talks together.
This Episode's Top Tips
Understand that there are different levels of burnout. If you are getting a full eight hours of sleep but are still waking up exhausted, or if you find yourself unable to calm down after minor inconveniences (like getting cut off in traffic), you are likely already heading into Stage 1 or 2 of burnout.
Make sure to pay attention to your specific physiological needs rather than general advice. You might be someone who needs 10 hours in bed to get 8 hours of actual sleep (I mean I’m not someone who gets in bed and is instantly asleep, it takes sometime and I’m a bit restless). Your physiological needs are unique to you and what you “need”.
If trying to rest and doing "nothing" feels anxiety-inducing, find a low-stakes activity like organizing books or doing a puzzle. These kinds of low-stakes tasks can provide a sense of accomplishment and soothing without the consequences or pressure of a work project.