Evan Dumas  

You’re listening to Group Practice Tech, a podcast by Person Centered Tech where we help mental health group practice owners ethically and effectively leverage tech to improve their practices. I’m your co host, Evan Dumas,

 

Liath Dalton  

and I’m Liath Dalton and we are Person Centered Tech. This episode is brought to you by TherapyNotes. TherapyNotes is a robust online practice management and electronic health record system to support you in growing your thriving practice. TherapyNotes is a complete practice management system with all the functionality you need to manage client records, meet with clients remotely, create rich documentation, schedule appointments and bill insurance all right at your fingertips to get two free months of TherapyNotes as a new TherapyNotes user go to therapynotes.com and use promo code PCT.

 

Evan Dumas  

Hello and welcome to Episode 528: Burnout, Perfectionism, and the Myth of Doing It All.

 

Liath Dalton  

It is such an important topic, and we realize that we’ve really been diving into some intense topics lately related to legal, ethical compliance, risk management considerations. So we wanted to flip the script a little bit and lean into the person centered component of things and talk about something that’s a little softer but no less important, yeah, which is burnout, perfectionism, how we take care of ourselves, especially when we’re the ones holding it all together. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Liath Dalton  

So for this episode, Evan’s really going to be taking the lead, because he’s someone who’s worked deeply in this space, and Evan your clinical focus and just kind of a human passion of yours is in this this area, so we’re bringing that lens to this conversation. And I’m excited for it, because I know humans in general, right now, in our sort of climate, current climate and context, are running on fumes, maybe, and that’s particularly true for the helpers. So let’s get into it. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah! 

 

Liath Dalton  

Before I start asking you some some questions to guide this conversation, is there anything you want to sort of share to set the frame or container for this conversation?

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, yeah, definitely on how looking at this topic can create a big itch to sort of solve the problem, fix the problem, like the classic relationship dynamic, when someone comes to you with a feeling they want heard, and you, out of your compassion or whatnot, says, okay, let’s fix this right away. And they’re like, no, no, I’m in the vulnerability stages. So as we look at burnout, and maybe our own burnout, or the burnout of the people that work for us or just around us, I want us to, at all times, hold on to curiosity first, just a little wondering why, or wondering, not quite even how it could be different, but just like being a little curious about it, I think that’ll serve us the best at you know, when it does come time to dealing with or whatnot, but just curious, curiosity about ourselves, our culture, our values, and hold that first. Because, yeah, yeah, you may want a ton of answers and a ton of “now, I can do this to make myself feel better!” but let’s, let’s just start with a little curiosity and compassion first.

 

Liath Dalton  

And like following that, one thing you and I’ve talked about has been also being as part of that sort of curiosity first approach, also being willing to sit with the kind of discomfort, 

 

Evan Dumas  

oh yeah 

 

Liath Dalton  

that gets generated by not being able to just fix stuff.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, that’s the best. Yeah, totally. Oh man, yeah. There’s gonna be a lot of discomfort, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of oh, but I had my head in the sand. I don’t want to pull my head out of the sand. Like, oh, I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to look at the laundry pile before you start folding it. So yeah.

 

Liath Dalton  

That’s a great analogy. Okay, so related to that, then what? What do you wish that more practice owners and therapists in general understood about burnout risk for themselves, their teams and and clients too, because I think oftentimes people are relating, or it’s maybe easier to identify things in clients or in others than than in yourself. So

 

Evan Dumas  

yeah, oh my gosh, that burnout is totally a cultural problem. And when I say cultural, I both mean the macro and the micro. So burnout is incredibly an American value, an American problem, but also it can be a problem of the organizations we’re in, the family cultures we’re raised in, our sort of little cultural values of any size. And in general, people don’t have the power to change these cultural values. You kind of just have to swim in it, play by those rules and get by. But if you are in any position of leadership, be it even just a team lead or an organizational lead or department chair, you have the power to shift that culture for at least a subset of people, and by having that power privilege, you can create cultural shifts which will reduce burnout. But so know also that this isn’t on you, like the burnout sure is your responsibility to deal with when you feel it, but you didn’t create these values. You probably, probably just inherited them. And so know that it’s cultural, and so you’re going to have to take a different approach at it.

 

Liath Dalton  

Love that. And first thing that came to mind as you were talking about that, Evan, was, yeah, we kind of have to swim in it, just like capitalism.

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh yeah, yeah. You are a part of a system that is not your fault, but ultimately up to you to slowly change and cope with.

 

Liath Dalton  

Yes. So when you talk about making making those shifts, what are some some ways to to do that? Or is that jumping jumping ahead? Am I doing the thing right now? 

 

Evan Dumas  

Of course, no, oh man. It’s just so hard to look at a broken system, to become aware of our own roles and, to some extent, culpability for perpetuating it without wanting to change it right away, because it’s going to be really uncomfortable. Like for me. I am a white, relatively cis male being like, Oh man, I perpetuated a bunch of stuff. Oh no. And before I start like, switching and changing it and getting rah rah about it. So yeah, first the discomfort of going, Oh crap. In what ways have I been the person who stayed later and worked really hard not knowing this, you know it’s not what you do, it’s what you say. So like, just like kids, they’re gonna do I don’t have them, but I know that they do what you do, not what you say. And employees even more so, because, sure, in your manual, you could write how people take breaks, and we value a culture of vacations and there’s unlimited time off and blah, blah, blah. But if you’re constantly staying late, overworking, texting people late at night, sending odd requests, creating this culture of like emergency and always working, you better believe your employees are or your workforce are going to follow you down that path. Because you’ve you’ve set the bar, and you’ve set it in an unsustainable way. Now I want to talk later on as to why that bar is set where it is, and why it makes a lot of sense, and how to have some grace for it. But you got to take a look at where that bar is first.

 

Liath Dalton  

So can you kind of describe for us some of the ways that that shows up. You’ve already provided some great examples. But can you flesh that out even even further, so that we can all kind of do a good stock taking just like where, where and how is this showing up? 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, and it shows up all over the place. And I’m gonna start first by saying, okay, forgive yourself, because it’s all probably very well meaning, you might be overworking yourself because, well, okay, I’m already jumping ahead of like, the why, but it probably shows up in ways you already know. And I’m just gonna say it to remind you, but in the back of your head, you probably know, and are probably feeling a little guilty, a little shame, and that’s okay. We’ll address that in a second, because that shame and guilt is going to get in the way of getting better. But it is answering emails outside of work hours. It is shifting your work hours so that you don’t have a lunch or that you like, maybe even change your self care needs, so that, oh, your bio breaks are very few and far between, or that you just crash on the weekends but still try to get in a few emails, or that maybe you shift your diet so that it’s one of convenience and not of good eating, that it’s like, oh, am I leaning towards protein bars and shakes instead of an actual sandwich or an actual meal? Or like, is your work the focus of your life, and your life is not the focus of your life? How is it like taken away from you? And maybe feel proud of that, and maybe you’re like, Look at me. I’m such a good worker. And you’re like, who were you before this? Have you lost sight of that? There’s so many ways this shows up, but generally it’s, um, you know, focusing on your work more than yourself. And, you know, maybe looking at other people in the same lens. Are you judging others by how little they work, how lazy they are? You know, maybe not verbally, but maybe in the back of your head, all the while coming up with reasons why this is, you know, perfectly normal and good and sustainable when it might not be.

 

Liath Dalton  

Great; so when there’s a sort of dominant thread of working to live, or living to, living to work exactly instead of working to live, and where that striver part is dominant.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, yeah, when you start denying your humanity and your basic needs in pursuit of, I don’t know, being a better worker identity or whatever that title is, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton  

Okay, so then, how, how do people start loosening the grip of the perfectionism? Because I think it really, it’s the perfectionism, right, that is linked to, like, inextricably linked to burnout, and like self disclosure here, that is very much what feeds my own burnout is that strong, strong perfectionism, which, Evan, I know you’re well aware. You provide gentle nudges to me on a regular basis.

 

Evan Dumas  

You’re not alone Liath. You’re not alone at all.

 

Liath Dalton  

So how do you help people start to loosen that grip of perfectionism without feeling like you’re lowering the bar or like compromising, being less than we’re capable of or less than is needed. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, okay, first start with some compassion and a full disclosure that remedying perfectionism and changing our values around self worth or whatnot is a lifelong task, like you don’t do it once at a weekend retreat, and then, boom, you’re fine. You are going to be swimming against the river, and you’re going to have to be working on those muscles, because you’re going to first start by saying, oh, man, I’m barely making a dent against this river. I’m being constantly pushed to be perfectionistic. And, yeah, it’s going to be a slow build, totally. So some things to think about. One, there is no bar. There is no level at which you are regarded as valuable or worthy of love and attention. That bar was set by probably other people, set by ourselves. But there is no bar. There is like, it’s crazy to think in that way, but there is none. It’s perfectionism. Also in the research, if you look it is incredibly treatment resistant, because we, you know, you live in a culture of never enough. It kind of drives capitalism. But talking, talking to that is beyond the scope of this podcast, so that’s why maybe apply a little curiosity of who’s this perfectionism serving? Is it the people who are profiting off of us, or is it ourselves? But okay, I gotta get off that soapbox. So perfectionism is not serving you holistically. Sure? Yeah, you push through to you know, if you’re doing a marathon, and you’re in the final stretch, and you have to decide, should I stop now because I’m tired or I’m going to push through? Sure, you push through. But I would say we’re not always living in crisis. We’re not always living in a marathon that you have to push through also. Okay, so if trying to change yourselves is hard, try to look from the perspective of others. Would others? Do you need perfectionism from others? Do you want people in your life to be perfect before you care for them and unconditionally love them and other things? Probably not. Do people in your life need you to be perfect in order to get their love and attention? And if so, how quickly can you ditch them, right? That’s bad. And if you’re like, Yep, that’s true, they need me to be you’re like, you got to drop that like, it’s hot, because that’s bad. Like, you know that little itch you get from winning whatever you tell yourself that is, is super addictive. That’s um, kind of the same that you get from accomplishments, its dopamine. That’s why meth is really strong, because it unlocks a shit ton of dopamine in your body. Dopamine, addiction is really hard, and it’s everywhere, but that perfectionism, man that is a lifelong practice to fight against it. Start with curiosity. Have a little compassion. See if you’re setting other people to standards you wouldn’t apply yourself, but, um, you know you gotta crawl your way out of that real slow. But it’s gonna be daily practice, and it’s gonna be awesome and worth it when you realize you can unconditionally love yourself and you don’t need to do anything.

 

Liath Dalton  

Yeah like there’s, there’s a lot of work to be done there right? 

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Liath Dalton  

One, one thing you and I’ve talked about and that you, I appreciate you calling me out on as well. Like, is the not practicing what you preach, right, and how often I mean, and like to give a look inside PCT and our culture and the ways I’m trying to shift that, or be cognizant of what’s what’s going on with it. You know, I will give encouragement to the team to take care and not feel urgency around everything, and to rest and take breaks and so on, and then you’ll be like but Liath, are you doing that yourself? And you made a really interesting comment last week with regards to this sort of theme that we see as present in PCT clients and practice leaders, and honestly, in therapists in general. Of it’s very easy to, you know, apply that compassion and these values when you’re looking at others and encouraging others to then not do it  yourself. And what was your–I’ll let you say it.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, yeah. Well, because we all know kind of the wounded healer myth, of like, we go to help others from our own wounds. But I almost want to, like, maybe do the research, try the phrase, almost like the sinful preacher myth, where people who talk really loudly about what they care about do so because they know they struggle with it themselves. They know it’s their own thing, and so, you know, maybe they scratch that itch of improving by telling other people not to do what they’re doing, when, in reality, they could just not do it themselves. But speak like, thank you for calling me out on calling you out because I one I really struggle with authority, so I’m, I’m the number one person to raise their hand and like, call on the teacher for something so they’re doing something wrong. So I recommend any group practice leader listening to that have at least one workforce member who feels comfortable calling you out like you’re in a position of power. You need people to you know, acknowledge your humanity is how I’m going to phrase it, and feel comfortable saying, hey, you’re not doing that thing you said we should do. Hey, we should at least be level in this in this way.

 

Liath Dalton  

Great. And I appreciate the that connection to the people will do what you do, not what you say. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Liath Dalton  

And that if we’re really looking at creating a workplace culture that um does not actively contribute to burnout or set perfectionism as the bar or standard that people are expected to meet or, or at least, like performatively demonstrate that they are trying to meet, etc, that it’s not, it’s not going to be reflected, right, if we just say those things, but then, don’t do them. Don’t model them ourselves. We haven’t really created a culture,  just like the sound bite that makes you, you feel better, honestly, of like, well, I say all these things!

 

Evan Dumas  

Exactly, I must be doing it, right? And then you go off and you don’t do them. Yeah, totally, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton  

Well, that’s it, to kind of connect this to another conversation that we’ve had about practice culture and leadership teams, and actually, Maureen Werrbach Accountability Equation, part, part of what you need as a practice leader is to have someone who also holds you accountable in in that way, and to really curate that safe space and that relational trust for someone to call you on your bullshit. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you setting a culture where people can be human? Or are you setting a culture that has, you know, the bar is too high for people to reach, or are you respecting everyone’s different level of capacity and accessibility? Or are you saying, be like me, or actually do like this, but don’t, which then you’re just setting a culture of lying. You’re just setting a culture of speaking disservice to things and not actually doing it.

 

Liath Dalton  

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and this kind of connects then to another aspect of how burnout gets managed, which is in community and connection. So what role does that community or connection play in burnout, recovery and or prevention? 

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh it’s so good. So community is, is kind of one of the best sources–of course, you know, some people want to go hide in a cave when they’re totally burned out, and I understand that, but to prevent it, you know, telling people to take breaks, or having peers say, hey, we got your back. You rest. Don’t worry, we will carry and handle the load. Because all of us have different levels of capacity, and that level of capacity is going to shift and move around. In fact, I’m feeling a cold coming on because my wife’s got one, and I may need to take a nap at some point today, but I know like Liath will have my back. I know other people will, and so more, the more you can tell your community that you value their health and they value yours, you can shift that load and shift that burden. Same when someone’s totally burned out, they need to go on hiatus. Heck, they maybe even need to go to intensive outpatient or inpatient treatment. Know that it’s done out of compassion. They’re like, yeah, you take care of yourself. We got ourselves. Don’t even think about us. You gotta, you gotta take care. So like, you’re not alone. That’s why it’s really hard if you’re a solo practitioner, if you don’t have a set of peers to handle your client load during times of crisis, that just makes the crisis even worse. So having peers who have somewhat of a same focus, who can handle like extra clients in a time of crisis, or you as a group leader saying, Okay, if someone had to leave, how can you shift this? Heck, if I had to leave, do I have the policies and procedures for someone to handle onboarding when gone? Or does someone handle other things? Is there steps documented? Because the last thing you want is for someone’s huge silo of information to suddenly go AWOL, to be unrecoverable, to be gone. You’re like, that’s, I mean, it could be as simple as having a password manager. It could be as simple as, like, having a little written hey, please do this like, this is why community can be so supportive in both preventing burnout and recovering from it.

 

Liath Dalton  

That’s so, so helpful. And like I thinking one way that we kind of manage that internally at PCT is the practice of making Looms, 

 

Evan Dumas  

oh, yeah, like videos, right? 

 

Liath Dalton  

Each of us have these sort of silos or our domains where we are responsible for certain things, and we are kind of the holders of particular knowledge set, and obviously we don’t want there to be a single point of failure, meaning that only one person has that knowledge, and there’s no way except through that person to get the knowledge to another person. So recording  Looms as we’re going about just our regular tasks, you know, so that we don’t have to go do the task in order to make the Loom, but just like while we’re doing it anyway, make a Loom, so that we’re kind of contributing to a knowledge repository, so that in the event that we need, one of us needed to step away, someone else would be able to, you know, perform that function, fill that role easily.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, yeah. And you can use Google vids. Loom is just a way to record screen capture of an activity. So we all push a lot of different buttons in our jobs, everybody pushes a lot of different buttons, and you can’t hold in your head all the different buttons to push for everyone’s job, you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t even have to write it down, because writing down what button to push doesn’t translate so well. So use GoogleVids. Use loom with a BAA if you have to have client info, hopefully not GoogleVids with BAA is fine, but record yourself pushing your buttons so that if someone has to push those buttons when you’re gone, they’ll know what buttons to push.

 

Liath Dalton  

Exactly, and it’s way less time consuming to just be able to narrate as you’re pushing. Oh, yeah, then to write it out and try and describe it.

 

Evan Dumas  

No one–no one can describe that. Yeah, no, go here and click left. No, no. The other one, the one next to this. Let me do a screenshot, put it in here. We’ve all seen those documents. They look horrible. They It’s what you’ve had to work on. But like, a little, like DIY, personable, little recorded video for somebody that’s in times of crisis, that’s what you want to see.

 

Liath Dalton  

Yeah, absolutely so kind of distilling all that down: Create intentional community, right? Create a container of community. And think of the how to just build in, like the scaffolding of contingency plans where you are putting information and systems in place that support the ability for needs to continue to be met when someone needs to either step away entirely for a period of time or pass on tasks to someone else so that they can recover and recuperate, right? 

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Liath Dalton  

So then that that kind of leads me to the functioning, but fried state. That I think a lot of folks operate from.

 

Evan Dumas  

Totally, totally yeah. 

 

Liath Dalton  

And and so Evan, what is your guidance for people who are in that functioning but fried state who are showing up, doing the work but feeling super depleted.

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh yeah, the getting by state totally. And I love this, because I used to give burnout talks for like, my job, my profession, and it was all like on preventing burnout, because no one wanted to hire a guy to come in to talk to people who were burnt out. But then most of the people in the audience, you’re like, yeah, what if you do if you’re in it, you’ve been in it for years, okay, so, yeah, getting by, ideally should only be used in times of crisis, when you’re just like, bare minimum, etc. But the more you do it, the more it becomes the norm, the more it becomes the oh, the day in, day out. This is how I function. Because we humans love our ruts. We make them. We live in them. We were like, oh, just makes life easier. And you know, I could tell you what to do, but instead, I’m going to tell you why you don’t do it. Because, you know you need to take breaks. You know you need a vacation, to eat better food, to exercise, yoga, whatever, yogurt, whatever. But here’s why it is so hard to take a break, and this is what you need to look at, acknowledge, accept, and then move past and give yourself some grace on otherwise it’s going to keep on happening. So there’s so many different reasons why. One is that we are all addicted to accomplishment. You may be like, I just need to do that next thing. Oh, that feels so good. I’m going to hunt for that. Like, how many times have you finished a project not celebrated it went on to the next project because you felt awkward because you’re not doing things? Like, you need a more diverse diet in your life than accomplishment. Like you’ve been living off that for a long time. Yeah, your brain needs way more than just dopamine. Like, look at a cloud like, like, come on. You need to practice being alone with your thoughts that, yes, there’s millions of podcasts, but how about you just try to live with silence for a little bit. Another is this sort of sense of duty or sacrifice. You know, it comes out of the sort of like, but, but if I do do my job, other people will suffer. Oh, and yes, you’re like, oh, you’re using the argument of my compassion for others, is why I suffer. Sacrifice ain’t a long term strategy. Yeah, you can give blood, but the people at the blood bank aren’t going to take all of your blood. They’re gonna say you’ve given enough. Go home, have a cookie so you can’t–

 

Liath Dalton  

I love that.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, they’re not gonna–You can’t like, martyrdom. It’s a one trick pony. You can only do it once, then you’re dead. So don’t. Don’t keep sacrificing and dutying yourself. Like, yeah, sure you care about your partners. Do you want your co workers to sacrifice themselves for you? If so, wow, that’s some treatment resistant personality disorder stuff going on. I can’t deal with that, but it isn’t a long term strategy at all like duty is so dehumanizing in gross amounts. Sure to some extent, yeah. Also one is this sense of fear of being lazy. You think if you take any break, you’re going to become a slob. Oh, it is not a switch. You don’t just go from workaholic to lazy jerk. You dial it down a little, and you discover the middle ground. And in fact, I say try to go overboard. Try to be the most slovenly person ever and people will probably look at you as a normal person. And you’re like, oh my god, I can take a nap? What? Like, yeah, this isn’t a slob. You’re like, I feel like one!  You’re like, yeah, because you’re contrasting yourself against a totally, hyperbole–the most worker. And you think, oh, okay. Also, if you’re seeing the world in black and white, you’re seeing it as lazy or workaholic. You’re seeing it as good or bad. This is a sign your brain does not have enough capacity to see tones of gray. Your limbic system that is the fight or flight mode is overwhelmed, thus you can only see black or white. It’s the most surest red flag of being overwhelmed is when you only see yes or no. Okay. Also stubbornness. I love this one because some people are like, Well, I just gotta do it. Yeah, I’m sorry. Stubbornness is the surest sign of needing to rest, because when people in your life start telling you to rest your brain–I’m thinking, this is my theory–interprets it as a task, interprets it as someone else trying to change what you’re doing, and you don’t have the capacity to shift gears, granted, the gear you’re shifting into is downshifting. It’s one of rest, but you’re seeing it as another thing you gotta do, when, in fact, it’s rest, it’s good. So the stubbornness kicking in is such a sure sign of, like, no, I don’t want to, like, imagine a toddler stomping their feet. I don’t want to take a nap! When they are so tired and cranky they’re going to need a nap. Perfectionism, we’ve gone over before too, but you kind of got to take a look at yourself, of why you’re kind of like, why you’re fighting back. And you kind of got to laugh at it and go, ah, crap. I’m in these things. And then you can rest. But you know, if I’m telling you to do something like take care of yourself, and you’re like, Screw you. I don’t want to do what you’re saying, even though you know what’s good for me, look at why you’re resisting that, why you’re resisting rest.

 

Liath Dalton  

Like, what is, what is your list of justification? Yeah, kind of excuses, for why you don’t need to rest why you can’t rest right now or “I’ll rest after I accomplish..”

 

Evan Dumas  

Yes. Just after that next one, just after that next one. And the more you one more hit what’s right, right, the more you use these strategies, the more they’ll become your day to day. And also give yourself a little grace. These weren’t yours. Someone gave you this. Someone said, this is how you work. We’ve all had jobs before where burnout is the thing, and they just like burn through employees. That’s why we have hierarchical workplaces and not flat ones. And these weren’t your ideas. You just internalized them so you can externalize them. You can say, Oh, maybe I don’t like this. It’s going to be a little hard, but maybe, maybe this isn’t serving me.

 

Liath Dalton  

Yeah, exactly. So then once we kind of recognize that list of excuses and justifications that we are are making from that functioning or attempting to function but fried state, then we need to lean into showing up imperfectly well. Right? So what does it mean to show up imperfectly well, and why is that worth aiming for?

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, man, and this is so great that we’re in the mental health field because we know wellness isn’t like a check box. It’s It’s gradients, it’s fluid, it’s fuzzy, it comes and goes, and thus we can embody that like what we want from our clients, granted, yeah, regular, continual improvement till they’re no longer in a state that needs therapy. Yes, every good therapist should be working to terminate their clients. I firmly believe there’s a place for long form, etc. Anyways, that’s outside the scope, showing up imperfectly. Well, showing up as a human should be the goal. I even you know our language is so dumb and sucks at accepting humanity because we have these terms like imperfection or success and winning and losing and all these things that are very black and white. They’re very you’re good if this, you’re bad if this, very judgy. And so to show up as your person, as your normal self, like don’t even think in terms of flaws. Like true vulnerability is living bravely humanly, embracing your feelings, not seeing yourself in a lens of flaws to be fixed, like here, here’s a big one. You can’t love yourself if you’re busy judging yourself and–you can’t! It’s impossible! You are comparing yourself to something else. You’re like, and here’s why I’m good, and here’s why I’m bad. You’re never gonna love yourself if you are judging and you’re not gonna heal. You’re not gonna feel better with without that love, that that unconditional, like, hey, I I really like myself for no good reason other than that I exist. And getting rid of that judgments, that’s gonna take all life, that’s gonna take a long time, but it’s gonna be the best work you’ll ever do. It’s gonna be the most like, rewarding, and so showing up as yourself being like, yeah, whatever. Throw things my way. Judge me for like, wearing two pairs of, like, mismatching socks or something like that. 

 

Liath Dalton  

Oh, shoot. 

 

Evan Dumas  

I know, right?

 

Liath Dalton  

That was me, this morning. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh dude, right. Yeah. No, I, I am very, like, um, very particular about a lot of things, but I’m getting less so when I realized, wait a minute, that doesn’t matter, and I can breathe a sigh of relief. I can lower my shoulders. I can challenge all those values of perfectionism, dopamine addiction, sacrifice, all that stuff doesn’t serve you, and maybe even get a little angry at whoever put those values who on the first place. I think it’s warranted. You wouldn’t want your clients to deny their humanity. You wouldn’t want your peers, your co workers, deny it. So why? Why deny yours

 

Liath Dalton  

Absolutely. And this is something that, um, I feel like has come up for me, and that I’ve seen come up a lot with, uh, practice leaders, oh yeah as well. Is in the like imperfectly well context, but also connected to that list of justifications or right is the framing of, I am going to rest or take a break or delegate or whatever, because, not just because I need it, but because doing so will then make me better at my job, or better, better able to show up and accomplish tasks like I went through this period of thinking, Okay, well, I need to take care of myself so that I can take care of work and so I can take care of people that depend on me. Not, not just a I need to take care of myself because I’m worthy of that. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, no, no, no, taking out worth, yeah, totally.

 

Liath Dalton  

Just, just like, the whole like, no, is a complete sentence, like, yeah, I need to do this because I need to do this for me. Not because it increases my capacity to do more, because that’s all part of the same narrative and reflecting the same values created this, this process in the first place.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, you’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, which is a step in the right direction, but you’re still doing it for the wrong reasons. And it’s, yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re almost there.

 

Liath Dalton  

Right. So, so let, let go of those justifications, and then that leads to giving yourself permission to do what you need to do, just for you, for yourself. And part of that, like death grip release, includes giving yourself permission to show up as a full human and at least engaging in conversation with that internalized voice of perfectionism. Right where, you have a dialog, and you’re like, wait a minute, I see–I see you. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, hang on a second.

 

Liath Dalton  

I’m not, I’m not just gonna follow in lockstep with this. I’m gonna challenge that and and do something different, and get my self permission to.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, but wait a minute, it’s really powerful, because you can interrupt it, because it’ll still pop up. Like, in our family, we talk about tapes like, are the old tapes playing? And you can recognize those tapes are playing maybe a little bit after they got started, but that, hey, wait a minute. That’s really powerful when you get there. And if you keep practicing it, you’ll be good at, like, catching it real quick.

 

Liath Dalton  

I love that. Is there one sort of takeaway or thing that you would encourage or invite folks to do, whether that be a conversation, a statement, a giving self permission of something or practice, like one takeaway. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah! Well, one celebrate that you’re already human, burning out, being terrible at this, being terrible at showing up, at being human, not knowing what values are yours, all of this is already human. You’re already totally showing up as your human self. So that’s great. So just, you know, rock it be like, All right, I’m, I’m, I am human. Oh, cool, wow, oh, crap.

 

Liath Dalton  

Right, and just sit within that spot.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, you already do it.

 

Liath Dalton  

Thank you, Evan, so much for bringing such a grounding and honest lens to this conversation. I appreciate you, as I know the community of helpers that we get to work with does, appreciate you as a colleague and and a human and and how you have brought these things to to me and to PCT, and I’m glad you’re getting to to share these really impactful insights with with our broader community, too.

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh, thanks, yeah, doing my part.

 

Liath Dalton  

Because, you know, burnout, perfectionism, the pressure to do it all, these are not side issues. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah they’re not going anywhere either. 

 

Liath Dalton  

They shape how we practice how we lead, how we show up. Oh yeah. So I hope for our listeners, that if today’s episode resonated with you, that it’s given you some permission to soften, reset, or at least feel a little less alone.

 

Evan Dumas  

Oh yeah, and let us know too, because I don’t know if what I’m saying is total nonsense. So please, please challenge me if, if what I’m saying doesn’t resonate, because I would, I would love to be like, Oh my gosh, you’re right. I totally don’t know what I’m talking about. Please.

 

Liath Dalton  

Yes, exactly. So there’s Evan being, being human until next time, be well and take good care. 

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah. Bye, everybody. 

 

Liath Dalton  

This has been Group Practice Tech. You can find us at PersonCenteredTech.com for more podcast episodes, you can go to personcenteredtech.com/podcast or click podcast on the menu bar.