Episode 370: The Real Reason You're Burnt Out (Hint: It's Not Doing Too Much)
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
What if your burnout is not because you're doing too much, but because you're not doing enough of the stuff that lights you up and makes you feel alive?
In this energizing solo episode, Erin is reframing burnout through the lens of disconnection: from your creativity, your joy, and your unique voltage.
If you’re a high-achieving practitioner feeling the weight of 1:1 work and wondering how to scale your impact without losing the soul of what you do, this episode introduces the power of group programs. There’s no better way to give more people access to you and your inner genius.
And Erin is hosting a special 90 minute masterclass on August 14th to help you package up your protocols, insights, and client wins into your next creation, with no fluff. This is a jam-packed session for anyone ready to teach, lead, and create from a place of alignment. Sign up here!
In this episode:
Why traditional burnout advice misses the mark, and what your energy body has to do with healing
The critical difference between empathy and compassion (one quietly leads to emotional depletion!)
How Erin scaled her business by following her inner voltage rather than just tactics
The signs that you’re running on someone else’s power source instead of your own
Why group programs should NEVER be created using AI tools like ChatGPT, and how your energy impacts the experience
PLUS, thoughtful journal prompts to reconnect to yourself
Resources mentioned:
Join Erin’s Masterclass on August 14th for just $77! How to Turn 1:1 Client Wins into a Scalable Group Program
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
OneSkin (Use code FUNK for 15% off your first purchase)
Qualia Senolytic (get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Bon Charge (Use code FUNK to save 15%)
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Erin Holt:
When you align with your unique gifts, life responds to you. But when we're disconnected from that, when we're saying yes to things out of obligation, when we're trying to fit into a mold or meet someone else's expectations, when we're trying to do what we think we should be doing, that's when everything starts to shut down.
Welcome to the Functional Nutrition Podcast, spelled with a K, because we do things a little differently around here. I'm your host, Erin Holt, and I've got 15 years of clinical experience as a functional nutritionist and mindset coach, creating a new model that I call Intuitive Functional Medicine, where we combine root cause medicine with the innate intelligence of your body. This is where science meets self trust. Your body already knows how to heal, and this show is going to show you how. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, be sure to follow and share with a friend, because you never know whose life you might change.
Hello, my friends.
I hope you have enjoyed the bulk of your July. Today's episode is one that I think many of us need to hear. Whether you're on your own healing journey or you're a practitioner helping people on theirs. And if you're anything like me, it's probably a message that you have to be reminded of from time to time. I know I certainly do. Today we're going to talk about burnout, but maybe not in the way you've heard it framed before or even here on the show, because we've certainly addressed burnout a lot. Today I'm going to float this idea out to you. What if your burnout is not because you're doing too much, but because you're not doing enough of the stuff that lights you up and makes you feel alive? Like I said, this is a lesson or a message or medicine I've had to receive time and time and time again, again.
And this past year in particular, actually kind of starting last July. So this is cool timing that I get to record this right now, but today's not going to be about me and my story. It's going to be about you and yours. Now, I think this is one of those episodes where you're going to want to take me on a walk with you. This is the type of conversation that is going to, like, percolate some stuff. And I always do my best percolation when I'm on a walk. Stay till the end because I'm going to give you a list of questions that I want you to think about. So maybe at the End of this episode, you're still walk in and you give yourself a little bit of space to sit with some of these reflective questions and potentially even journal about them.
And if you're a practitioner, I do have a very exclusive offer for you. We're teaching a masterclass in a couple of weeks, so I'm going to invite you into that. So make sure you stay till the end because you're going to want to hear this. Okay? So back to burnout. I know a lot of women, and most women I know, we're high capacity people. We can do a lot, we can carry a lot, we show up for a lot, we like to show up for a lot. We can multitask, we can do multiple things at once and we like to do it. So I don't think it's the a lot that always burns us out.
That's kind of the message that we hear. We're burnt out because we're doing too much. But I don't always think it's the load that burns us out. I think it's when the load doesn't make space for us, when the a lot doesn't include us, when we're doing everything for everyone, but none of it is connected to our own genius, our own joy, our creativity, our own purpose. That is what actually drains us. It's not just the load we're carrying, it's when the load feels completely disconnected from what actually sparks something inside of us. Burnout is more than just feeling tired all the time. Feeling tired all the time is real.
It is actually the number one reason people come and work with us. So in our one to one practice, we are looking for the physiological drivers of exhaustion, fatigue. Here's an example of recent labs that I saw in a client. It was a complete depletion picture. So she had deficiency dysbiosis. So her beneficial species in her gut, completely low, low secretory iga, low estrogens, low progesterones, low androgens, low cortisol. Like everything was low, everything was depleted. Now when every system in your body is depleted, it is bigger than the physical body.
And that is true for burnout. Real burnout is often more than just physical exhaustion. It's a state of emotional exhaustion. You're feeling drained, overwhelmed, deplet of emotional energy. It's mental, so you have difficulty concentrating, making decisions. You can feel hopeless, you can feel cynical, you can see a more negative attitude or outlook on life or even on yourself. So you can start to see yourself in a more negative light. So burnout isn't just physical, it's energetic, it's spiritual.
It's that moment where you're like, what am I even doing anymore? And so when something is more than just physical, we want to take more than a physical approach. So this is why just drinking more caffeine or trying to get more sleep, or taking some adaptogens and supplements usually doesn't work for true burnout. What I've seen for myself and for others is that we need to tap into an energy source, almost like a battery pack that's bigger than just our adrenals. And this is when I start to think about the energy body. So our energy anatomy, our chakra system. I've talked about the chakras before here on the show. I've talked about the solar plexus in particular. The solar plexus is our third chakra and it's really our own personal energy center.
This is the seat of our personal power. This is who we are. This is how we show up and interact with the world. It's how we want to show up. It's how we want to be witnessed, it's how we want to be seen. It can help direct our path, our purpose. It can guide us to our own inspiration. And we have to be so locked in with this.
And when we are, it's like a self charging battery. When I'm doing what lights me up from the inside out, I can be really high capacity. I can show up a lot in a lot of places and spaces. I can do a lot without burning out. Honestly, part of the way that I got healthy is that I had to put things on my to do list that were for me. That lit me up, that made me feel excited, that made me come home alive. That was part of the antidote to the burnout that I was experiencing. Last year I was on Instagram, as I do, and this video of Tupac came up.
So obviously I stopped and watched it because it was Tupac and he was describing something that I've never heard him talk about before. And it's something that I've tried to articulate a lot. And he did it in such a eloquent way. And I'll summarize here. And essentially what he said is, God gives you a voltage. Now, of course, you can sub out any word you want for the word God, you know, life, universe, source, creator, whatever. But essentially God gives you a voltage, gives us all a voltage. That is a gift that is unique to us.
And we repay that gift by sharing it with other people. We repay that blessing by shining this voltage, this unique frequency that only we have. And when we can truly own this, when we can truly embody this, it activates something called coherence. Where the gut, the heart, the brain, they're all synced up with each other. A coherent state is a healthy state. And a coherent state strengthens the power of our electromagnetic field, the field that surrounds our physical body. And other people can sense into that and feel that too. Other people can actually co regulate with that.
It's like magnetic energy. It feels good to other people. So not only do you being in your power, locked in, clicked in, not only does that benefit you, but it benefits those around you as well. And when you tap into this voltage, it's like you become your own charging station. When I'm doing what I love, when I'm teaching, coaching, creating something that lights me up, I can go and go and go and go like Energizer Bunny style. Not because I'm pushing through, not because I'm hustling harder, not because I'm grinding, but because I'm plugged into something bigger. When you align with your unique gifts, life responds to you. But when we're disconnected from that, when we're saying yes to things out of obligation, when we're trying to fit into a mold or meet someone else's expectations, when we're trying to do what we think we should be doing, that's when everything starts to shut down.
When we're constantly seeking validation, approval, acknowledgement, good job outside of ourselves, when we're letting others dictate what we do, how we show up, how we move through the world, that can lead to burnout. Because rather than recharging ourselves with our own battery pack, we are waiting for an external power source to come and plug into us. And I do think that that is part of the burnout epidemic. So again, like I said before, state of end of the show, because I'm going to give you some questions that I really want you to carefully consider and to think about. And these questions are going to plug you back into that battery pack. They're going to allow you to connect to that voltage and own that voltage for yourself.
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Now before we get there, I want to speak directly to my practitioner listeners for a minute because everything I just talked about in terms of burnout happens for us too. Practitioner burnout rate can be really, really high.
Obviously I'm talking to practitioners all the time. I mentor a lot of you guys in fna, the Functional Nutrition Academy, and I want to speak into that for just a moment because practitioner burnout can be real and it can be for a number of different reasons. One of the big ones that I see is that one to one work can be deeply emotional work. The holding space for somebody's health transformation is big work. One of the things that I lecture about in FNA is that there's a big difference between compassion and empathy. And most people don't understand this. So let's talk about it here for a moment. And even if you're not a practitioner, listen.
This is important stuff. Compassion is a distinct response to suffering that includes the desire to relieve it. So you see the suffering in somebody else and the compassion in you. Says I want to Alleviate that for that person. I want that to be resolved for that person. And empathy, on the other hand, it's usually unintentional and automatic. So it's just happening. There's not necessarily a conscious choice, a conscious thought involved.
And it's more about sharing emotions. It's more of a vicarious experience. It's feeling physical sensations in the body. It's saying, that person is suffering. I'm going to take that suffering on for them. I'm going to feel that suffering in my own body as though it's happening to me. And from a brain perspective, they are completely different. With empathy, trauma neural networks recognizes the emotion in the other person.
It recognizes, oh, that's theirs, but it also experiences as though it's their own too. So it's like it's theirs and it's mine. And when people experience empathy, the brain regions associated with pain in negative emotions become active, whereas with compassion, brain regions are associated with positive emotions, feelings of connection, the ability to see from someone else's perspective. And so from a brain perspective, they are totally different. And empathy can actually give way to what is known as empathic distress, feeling overwhelmed by someone else's distress, emotional exhaustion, and, yes, burnout. Whereas we do not see that with compassion. There is no such thing as compassion fatigue or compassion burnout. So we always want to be compassionate practitioners.
We always want to hold space in a compassionate way. But we have to, we can and we must. We have to recognize when we're operating from empathy versus when we're operating from compassion. Especially because a lot of us who get into this healing work do tend to be more empathic by nature. And so that's why when I am mentoring in our monthly mentorship with fna, I'm often talking about boundaries. And not just boundaries, like, oh, I have to have a hard conversation, I have to sign a contract. But energy boundaries as well. Knowing where you end in somebody else begins.
So you're not doing that unintentional and automatic empathy thing that we have a tendency to do, which is feeling other people's feelings for them, because that will lead to burnout, or that can lead to burnout. And so just know this about yourself, particularly if you do a lot, a high volume of one to one work. The one to one model is beautiful and it's transformative and it's amazing, and that's why we offer it here in our company. But if you are a solopreneur, if you're responsible for everything in your company or a company of one, maybe You're a parent as well, and you have a tendency to be more empathic. Focusing solely on one on one can have its limitations. And you might be feeling that if you're a practitioner that is experiencing burnout. And so this is why a lot of practitioners are called to do group programs. And this is something I get asked a lot about.
This is something that I'm talking about all of the time. Obviously I've had success with group programs as well, but essentially there's a finite capacity on how many one on one clients you can see. But in a group program, you can scale your work, you can give more people access to your work, you can have a bigger impact, you can serve more people without sacrificing yourself in the process, especially if you're someone called to do more or to teach more. Now, at the start of the show, we were talking about the antidote to burnout is doing the things that light you up from the inside out. And the cool thing that I have found about group programs is that they can allow you to express your inner genius in a way that one to one work might not allow you to do just because of the nature of the container. Like, have you ever felt like you have this burning desire to teach something, to talk about something, but you just don't have the space to do it in a 45 or 60 minute one on one appointment? Right. Maybe you have this feeling of like, okay, this is really on my heart to talk about, to teach, to share, to create. I know people really need to hear this, and I think they need to hear it from me.
That's where I think group programs can really, really shine. That's where you can begin to reclaim your self. Charging battery, potentially. Honestly, this is exactly what I did and how I did it, because I realized that I was burning out. If I tried to scale only the one to one arm of my business, I was burning out. And so I opened myself up to doing more group programs and creating different offerings. And it's how I scaled my business from under six figures to over seven figures. How did I do this? It's really simple.
Not easy, really simple. But I created space in time to connect with myself, to connect with my center, to connect with my inner power source. I audited my energy in every single place in space. I showed up, I paid attention before, during and after I did anything. And I asked myself, and I got honest with myself what, what invigorates me, what reinvigorates me, what drains me. And I held myself accountable to those answers. And I realized that the more I create from the invigoration place, the more creativity I have, the more I recharge myself, the more I could keep going and going and going and growing and growing. I've been at this for 15 years, you guys.
15 years. And I have so much more to do and to create and share because I keep pulling myself back to center. Sometimes I get off my path. It happened this year and I got really, really burnt out because I was doing the things that I thought I should be doing rather than creating the space to listen to the messages come in and reconnecting with my own internal battery pack, my Internet, my own internal guidance, listening to the thing that says no, this is the thing that excites you. Do this. Who cares about what you should be doing? Do the thing that makes you come alive. Otherwise, what's the point? You're not going to feel good.
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So anyway, back to group programs. They're not just a revenue play. It's not just a get rich quick scheme, right? If only. But they can be a return to what actually lights you up. And that is the thing that's gasoline for growth without burnout. Now, I'm not here to say, look what I've done, look what I've built. I'm here to say, look what you can do, look what you can build. Because you have an inner genius, an inner intelligence, that unique voltage inside of you. We all do. We've all got it.
But you have to turn it on. You have to listen to it. And when you do, magic happens. Like the floodgates open. Life responds to you. So when you own your own inner gifts, the way that your mind works, the way that your body works, the things that light you up, life responds to you. And this is exactly what I want to show you. And I want to help you channel your unique genius into your next creation.
So if you're a practitioner feeling the call to teach in a bigger way, but you just want to make sure you're doing it right, I am hosting a 90 minute workshop called how to turn one on one client wins into a scalable group program, where to start, what to teach and how to fill it. That is happening August 14th. It's only $77, which is actually like way underpriced for what I'm going to teach. This is not just fluff and stuff. We are packing this 90 minute to the gills. This isn't just theory. This is the exact path that I've walked. Honestly, building out group programs is kind of my zone of genius.
And I'm going to show you exactly how I build out multiple sold out group offers, all while staying rooted in clinical integrity and my personal genius. So this is for you. If you've ever considered building a group program, you just weren't really sure where to start. If you're worried that you don't have a signature method yet, that's totally fine. If you are worried about maintaining that deep personal connection and that deep clinical integrity in a group setting, I totally have got you there. We are going to cover all of that. I'm going to help you take your brain that is full of protocols and insights and client wins and package it up. This is exactly where to start.
If you want that, head to the show notes, grab your seat and we'll get together August 14th. And you know what? I hate to break it to you, but this is not something that ChatGPT is going to be able to do for you. I don't know if you guys are keeping up with some of the data and the research that's coming out in terms of the impact that AI and ChatGPT is having on our brains. But. But it's not great. It's kind of a big yikes. I know a lot of people are integrating that into their practices right now, and that's a. That is a story for another day.
But what I would suggest is not using ChatGPT to build out courses, to write out group programs. I do think that is a mistake. Here's why people are not looking for more information and more content, right? Content is not the thing people are searching for. There's enough content out there. There's enough information out there. So this isn't just mapping out content. It's about creating transformations and results. And quite honestly, the human to human connection.
It's a feeling. People want to feel your energy when they're in a group program or in a container with you. So a lot of good practitioners are really worrying about creating a group program because they don't want to lose the depth of their one to one work. And I get it. And this is what I'm going to teach you how to do when you're able to infuse your energy into your group program. That's how you avoid losing depth when you inject your genius, your magic into the program. That's how you do it. So I'm going to teach you exactly that.
Okay? And now before we close out, I promised you, I promised you I would give you a list of questions to think about, to chew on, to journal on. How do we reconnect to that battery pack that we have inside? Here's the questions that I want you to ask yourself:
if success, whatever success means to you, it looks different for all of us. But if success was inevitable, what would you do?
If you knew that success was coming, what would you create next?
If you knew it would work, if you knew if it was guaranteed to be a success, what would you actually build or create?
If success was inevitable, what would you say no to?
What would you take off of your plate? What would you say? Absolutely not. That can go. I can cut that.
Next up, I want you to think about or journal through the answers to these questions:
What fills me up?
What lights my soul on fire?
What are the things I could talk about for hours?
What are the things that I'm reading about or listening to in my free time?
Where do you naturally want to invest your free time? Where do you naturally gravitate toward?
What do you feel called to?
Where do you feel that you enter your flow states?
The flow state is like you can spend six hours doing something and it feels like six minutes. You put your head down, you look up, it's six hours later and you're like, what just happened? You are in the flow.
Maybe there's something on your heart. You're like, ah, I wish I could do this thing, but I wish I could create this thing, but this thing is on my heart, but what is that thing? And then I also want you to start doing this audit your own energy in every place and space. You show up before, during, and after. What reinvigorates you, what drains you. I'm just going to leave you with a quote here, a little reminder. The load that you're carrying might not be the problem. The disconnection from your genius is. So keep that in mind.
If this is hitting with you, if this is landing with you, if this is striking a chord with you, DM me, I would love to hear from you. I'm on a little bit of a vacation this week, but I can read your DMs from the dock overlooking the lake. It's a whole vibe. I would really love to hear from you. And if you are a practitioner, make sure you join that masterclass. It's not often that I offer these kind of trainings, especially for under $100. So we're making this really, really, really affordable because it brings me joy. It is my inner genius to help you figure out your inner genius.
So I really, really, really want to help you do this. So send this to a friend who would be interested and I really hope to see a lot of you guys. August 14th. Bye.
Thanks For joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is crazy, created for educational purposes only, and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you got something from today's show, don't forget, subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more.
Take care of you.