Transcript
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What is the dark night of the soul?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So the dark night of the soul, I mean, it's this concept that most like spiritually enlightened ones.
Speaker: So the enlightened ones of our generation have went through a period where it was extremely difficult, very painful.
Speaker: Like it's a moment that brings them to their knees.
Speaker: And because of that,
Speaker: they're able to grow from it and become better.
Speaker: Like Buddha talks about his dark night of the soul.
Speaker: Like, of course we know Jesus Christ, the Christ story and the dark night of Jesus Christ.
Speaker: And Muhammad talks about the dark night of his soul.
Speaker: And we can even track it to MLK and we can track it to like mother Teresa.
Speaker: And we can track it to all of these people who live in our ethos for enlightenment.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: They talk about what it means for them, like the hardest moments of their life and how it taught them to be who they are.
Speaker: And so I think that everybody has, you know, a Buddha moment where they're out in the wilderness and they're trying to figure out, like, who am I?
Speaker: And I would just love for us to take a second and like talk through what was your dark night of the soul, right?
Speaker: Already not a lot to talk.
Speaker: What was that moment where you were like, ooh, I literally, I cannot do this anymore.
Speaker: It's too much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I never heard of that term, Dark Knight of the Soul.
Speaker: And it definitely makes me think about the Batman movie, The Dark Knight.
Speaker: So I've got to come back out of that in my brain.
Speaker: But I have, you know, read a nice deal about like these different stories and the Buddha.
Speaker: I know I remember the story very distinctly about how it was like,
Speaker: all these like very scary things happening to him and he just had to like sit calmly and sit with it.
Speaker: And it's like an analogy for how when you are going through uncomfortable things, you just bring it along with you.
Speaker: If you're scared about something like, okay, fear, okay, anxiety, okay, like you are, I recognize you here, but you're not about to move me.
Speaker: But my dark night of the soul,
Speaker: was my journey to motherhood.
Speaker: I experienced infertility.
Speaker: I did IVF three times and it was unsuccessful.
Speaker: And then I pursued adoption and my daughter was placed for adoption with us.
Speaker: So my daughter is adopted.
Speaker: And that process, all of those years were just
Speaker: excruciatingly difficult for me.
Speaker: They were emotionally, financially, physically painful for me in like every way.
Speaker: And it was just, I had never experienced something coming at me from every level like that.
Speaker: Like my emotions, my physical self was actually hurting from the procedures and things that I was doing.
Speaker: I was emotionally hurt and
Speaker: Financially killing my pockets.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But, you know, I just had to continue moving.
Speaker: I grappled with whether I wanted to even be a mother or not.
Speaker: Like I could just give up and not do this.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But, you know, I really listened to myself and decided that I should continue to pursue this thing that I wanted.
Speaker: And so I just moved through it.
Speaker: And in hindsight,
Speaker: I can see all the tools that I use to get me through it.
Speaker: And I can see so many lessons that I learned about what I'm not in control of and how I have to just exist despite the circumstances and like finding the things that I can control, which is not much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That taught me so much about life, that experience and fertility, trying to become a mom and
Speaker: something that is really easy and not a thought for some people.
Speaker: That was the dark night of myself.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Obviously, I was there with you, right?
Speaker: So we experienced that together.
Speaker: And it was interesting because when Rini was going through her fertility journey, I was deciding to do a career change.
Speaker: And so I had spent over a decade in leadership at Morehouse School of Medicine.
Speaker: I was definitely on track to be a dean in graduate medical education, which is the
Speaker: step after medical school before you become a licensed clinician, before you become a licensed physician.
Speaker: And I realized that not only was I burning out at a high level, but the providers were burning out.
Speaker: The docs didn't have a sustainable way to care for themselves.
Speaker: And when you spend
Speaker: decade of your life in one place, you begin to have personal relationships with these people.
Speaker: So when Rini was going through her fertility journey, I was in school deciding that I was going to the type A personality that I am in leadership, go back to school to get an advanced degree in a field that would help me to provide support differently than I had before.
Speaker: And that's what
Speaker: took me to the clinical therapy space.
Speaker: But I was also learning what it meant to connect with people on a human level, on a heart level.
Speaker: And that's what the therapeutic journey is.
Speaker: It is capacity building.
Speaker: It teaches you how to sit with the most difficult emotions
Speaker: without it taking you out.
Speaker: And the fertility journey for Rini was difficult.
Speaker: But it's so interesting, though, because you would consider that your dark night of the soul.
Speaker: I can remember the turning point for you, like the fucking moment for you when you were like, no more.
Speaker: You were on your way to, I don't know if you feel comfortable disclosing jobs, so I won't, but you were on your way to your last job
Speaker: where they loved you and you were doing a great job and you were having a panic attack and you had to pull over on the side of the road because you literally could not physically make it to the job anymore.
Speaker: And I remember like us talking it down and walking it down.
Speaker: And at that time I was a licensed therapist.
Speaker: And so I understood panic and anxiety differently.
Speaker: I understood that dysfunctional anxiety is your body trying to tell you that there's a threat
Speaker: And you have to protect yourself from that threat.
Speaker: And so bringing you back to safety and anchoring you in your right now and the present was what we had to do.
Speaker: But after that, something changed.
Speaker: Like, it was like, you were like, uh-uh.
Speaker: Like, I cannot keep doing this.
Speaker: Like, this is not okay for me anymore.
Speaker: And that was such an awakening moment for me because it was very unapologetic.
Speaker: Like, and yeah, you had to have a panic attack to get to that point.
Speaker: But after that, it was...
Speaker: Something that said like, nope, I'm not doing it anymore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I was still, I mean, what you said there about sitting with difficult things and moving through them.
Speaker: I think the infertility journey helped me understand that.
Speaker: Like just because something is painful doesn't mean I get to retreat, you know?
Speaker: And then I moved on to this position and I was experiencing pain.
Speaker: like workplace burnout in addition to being a new mom.
Speaker: So yeah, I was experiencing workplace burnout and I was a new mom now and that shit was exhausting for me too.
Speaker: But the beautiful gift of motherhood was exhausting.
Speaker: And I was still pushing through, pushing through, pushing through.
Speaker: I was using my coping mechanisms from the last battle
Speaker: But it wasn't working the same because it was some systematic things.
Speaker: It was an unsupportive work culture.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It was a toxic work culture.
Speaker: And that part was, you know, it's out of my control.
Speaker: And I tried to, I tried as much as I could.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: Yeah, I was having a panic attack for something that was a normal task for me.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And that was what really alarmed me.
Speaker: I was going to do an aspect of the job that I don't mind, that I enjoy the most, that I've done forever.
Speaker: But my body was having this reaction.
Speaker: And I remember like asking God to like,
Speaker: just guide me.
Speaker: And it's something said, pull over.
Speaker: And so I pulled over and relied on my network of you and my husband, Chris, and you know, y'all were like, come on.
Speaker: Actually, I had kind of had like a little mini panic attack before I left the house and Chris was like, don't go.
Speaker: But that's still not the dark night of my soul, I guess, because I was able to
Speaker: I feel so grateful that I was just able to move away from that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's not the support of husbands who say, come on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And my support system.
Speaker: I mean, that's what I feel grateful for is I already had a support system that was like, this is not worth it.
Speaker: But I had to grapple with like how much my worth was intertwined with my working position, like my professional life.
Speaker: And once I unraveled that... Let's stay there for a minute, Rumi.
Speaker: Because one of the things that I learned in this work, and I support high-performing professionals, I support leaders, I support creatives and entrepreneurs, one thing, especially Black women, one thing that I've learned is that our...
Speaker: we don't see burnout the same way that others might because our entire existence has been pushing through.
Speaker: So for as long as I've been on this earth, I was in the highest reading group pushing through.
Speaker: Like if it was a spelling bee, I was trying to win the spelling bee.
Speaker: I was like, had my flashcards out, like reviewing the words insistently and making certain that I didn't get it wrong.
Speaker: Like this is the only thing that we know.
Speaker: And so eventually what I just heard you say is your body said in
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, I was doing all the things to push through.
Speaker: Like I bought a new coffee machine and like I had the baby organized and it's like, I was like, I can do this.
Speaker: I'm going to be a working mom.
Speaker: Just like in the movies.
Speaker: And my body said no.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, that is another thing I do want to shine a light on because what all I could see around me were other moms who were doing it and who were,
Speaker: doing it well and who were doing it without a complaint.
Speaker: And so for me, I was just, and that's why I want to open this up because when I really peel back the layers and talk to every mom, they're like, no, I'm burnt out.
Speaker: This is a struggle.
Speaker: This is hard.
Speaker: And, you know, we hadn't been talking about it and I'm like,
Speaker: We're all experiencing this.
Speaker: It's not just me, right?
Speaker: And one of the things that depression tries to convince you is that you're alone in it.
Speaker: Like depression tries to tell you to isolate because you're the only person experiencing it.
Speaker: And one thing that I also want to highlight is that 80% of information is received through the body.
Speaker: So if we can take a moment and just listen to what our body is trying to tell us, like be online and present, then we'll learn more about how the experience is affecting us.
Speaker: And
Speaker: One last thing that I do, I just want to shout these husbands out and we'll talk about what support looks like if you don't have a husband, because who knows what your support looks like.
Speaker: But when it was time for me to make a major shift from my safety net job that helped me to support my family,
Speaker: consistently well for a decade.
Speaker: And I told my husband I wanted to do something else.
Speaker: He said, let's do something else.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so being able to have somebody in your circle, in your circle of support, in your community, in your network that says, I'm going to anchor you through this difficult time.
Speaker: And I'm going to pick up the heavier share of the load while you do this thing.
Speaker: Like it matters.
Speaker: It's a big deal.
Speaker: It is a big deal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that would be one of the key takeaways is
Speaker: You know, for both of these like dark night of the soul moments for me, it was community that got me through.
Speaker: It was my support system.
Speaker: It was you and Chris, because I've really honed in on YouTube being the people who I can just really come to and be like bawling and.
Speaker: really be like my most vulnerable with, but I also have a large network of people in my life that I can drive five minutes to and get to someone's house to be like, Hey, so that's the key takeaway is like build that community and listen to your body.
Speaker: I was so overwhelmed and
Speaker: that I was not even having the moments within the day to listen to my body.
Speaker: And that wasn't working for me.
Speaker: Some people can work at that pace and I have worked at that pace,
Speaker: in the past, but it wasn't working for me now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You worked for years.
Speaker: We haven't been working at that pace since we were 15 years old, right?
Speaker: And so it makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker: It's a reasonable response for the body to say enough 20 years later, right?
Speaker: Like this is not the first job where you were full speed ahead doing all of the things at the highest level.
Speaker: This is the only way you've ever worked.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's always been like high stress jobs, but I will, I was just telling somebody this, but the big difference is I will be able to come home in the evening and on the weekends and decompress.
Speaker: And you can't do that with a toddler.
Speaker: They don't let you.
Speaker: Like kids are like,
Speaker: Get out of here.
Speaker: I need all of the attention right now.
Speaker: Give it to me.
Speaker: My little introverted personality is like, oh, I am drained.
Speaker: I've seen people too many days this week.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: OK, you know what I also want to note, too?
Speaker: Everybody doesn't have to be able to walk away from a job as a privilege.
Speaker: I want to know.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I want to highlight that it's not something that everyone can do.
Speaker: And so when we're talking about capacity building, creating space for having multiple ways to manage stress, one of the really quick tools that you can reach into your regulation toolkit and find for yourself in moments where it feels overwhelming is self-compassion.
Speaker: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever forget that being kind to yourself is what
Speaker: relieves your mind and your heart from feeling overwhelmed in the moment.
Speaker: And so you can ask yourself first, what does being kind to myself mean?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like, so if you've lived your, the majority of your adult life or your, your lived experience as just pushing through, perhaps we don't even know what kindness to self means.
Speaker: So you want to stop and ask yourself, like, what does being kind to myself mean?
Speaker: And then how can I integrate that into my world?
Speaker: What's a small,
Speaker: kindness, what does grace look like?
Speaker: What does joy look like?
Speaker: What does happiness look like?
Speaker: And how do I do that now?
Speaker: Like, what can I do immediately to offer kindness to myself, right?
Speaker: You can't leave your job.
Speaker: You can't leave your husband.
Speaker: You can't put your kids out, but you can offer a small amount of grace and kindness to yourself every day.
Speaker: And what does that look like?
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I have a song that I'm just thinking of.
Speaker: I'm gonna put it in the show notes.
Speaker: I'm going to put a little playlist in here for you all just to go with the vibe of self-compassion.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That is a whole thing as well.
Speaker: I had to really spend time relearning how to love myself like I love my loved ones.
Speaker: What was your dark night of the soul moment?
Speaker: Ugh.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I've been really... Or happy having me.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So I nerd out on stuff like this.
Speaker: So I like sit within and I'm like sitting with my emotions because you know I live in this stuff.
Speaker: And I'm like, what is your dark night of it?
Speaker: So I think that... I think that...
Speaker: living my truth has been my dark night of the soul, right?
Speaker: It's very difficult for me.
Speaker: Like even thinking about it literally makes me emotional because like some people will see my personality as a lie, you know, or the way that I love can be so all encompassing.
Speaker: that it feels disingenuous, right?
Speaker: And so I have had to kind of like figure that out over the years.
Speaker: Like, what does it mean to be who I am and unapologetically be who I am?
Speaker: And thankfully, I'm in a profession where I can show up for people without it feeling like I'm giving all of myself, right?
Speaker: Whereas people are saying, Janae, you're doing the most.
Speaker: No, I can do the most as a therapist.
Speaker: Like I can show up one-to-one
Speaker: with my clients in that experience and just be there for them.
Speaker: So it's like literally the perfect profession for me because it's who I am naturally.
Speaker: But most importantly, I lead with love.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: I have learned to be very unapologetic in that space.
Speaker: What I have also learned is everyone doesn't deserve to have access to me in that way.
Speaker: So I have learned Karina shout out to Karina Coleman for introducing boundaries before I was a therapist and letting me know that it's okay for me to say no.
Speaker: And if saying no means that a person is not going to fuck with me no more than obviously they shouldn't have been fucking with me in the beginning.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Karina is,
Speaker: is the first person that gave me space to say that.
Speaker: My husband is very boundary friendly too.
Speaker: He is like a boundary king.
Speaker: And I'm not because I'm a recovering people pleaser.
Speaker: I am a person that wants everybody to get the most out of the experience.
Speaker: And so what I've learned is I can be that.
Speaker: I can show up and be a servant of people and give light and love to people.
Speaker: It just can't be to my detriment.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm always trying to find that balance.
Speaker: Like, yes, I can show up for you, but it can't be to my detriment.
Speaker: It can't be now I have nothing left and I'm 100 percent depleted because I've given all of myself to you.
Speaker: And that has been a lifelong journey for me.
Speaker: And so living in my truth every day, no matter what, and being unapologetic, that has been my dark night of the soul.
Speaker: I want to tell you how my dark night of the soul shows up, though.
Speaker: I think that's the bigger takeaway.
Speaker: I gain weight.
Speaker: So you can always see where I am in my life depending on my weight.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I have never, I've been a mom my entire life.
Speaker: I've been married since I was 20 years old.
Speaker: So like sitting stuff out, like, no, I have to show up.
Speaker: But-
Speaker: When I am more, when I'm giving myself more grace, then my weight is healthier.
Speaker: When I am all in to my detriment, then more often than not, I am not at a healthier weight.
Speaker: And so I can see where my dark night has ebbed and flow because I can look at pictures of myself and be like, oh, I remember that period.
Speaker: Oh, I remember that time.
Speaker: And so, yeah.
Speaker: allowing like loving myself like loving my vital organs like feeding myself what is going to offer my vital organs what it needs shout out to shahida who we are going to have on this show she is one of the co-founders of boss mom nation she talks about this a lot like feeding your vital organs instead of having disorganized eating or um
Speaker: disordered eating, like being able to just do what's best for your body, like learning that as a way of caring for myself and offering kindness to myself.
Speaker: That has been a journey for me too, because my darkness shows up differently because I've never really given myself permission to have the moment of just, I'm falling to my knees.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: I didn't know a lot of that about you.
Speaker: I wouldn't have, I didn't know that your weight fluctuated in that, in like proportionately with how much of a struggle you might be going through internally to just be, you know, so that's really interesting.
Speaker: And we have to really, really, really think about how we, um,
Speaker: nourish our bodies.
Speaker: But the thing that makes me angry about this is that it's all super simple.
Speaker: Like these concepts feel so simple to me.
Speaker: Like, listen to yourself, be nice to yourself.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Why are we 40 and just being able to dish this out?
Speaker: That's what makes me so upset, but I just try.
Speaker: I have to grapple with my anger.
Speaker: I'm an angry person.
Speaker: But you know, I live in anger, though.
Speaker: Like, that's the therapist in me.
Speaker: Anger gets a bad rap.
Speaker: Anger says, oh, a boundary is being crossed.
Speaker: Anger says, I don't like the way you showing up.
Speaker: I don't like the way that happened.
Speaker: And of course, you know that I am, I'm an origin story person.
Speaker: So I'm always looking at our behavior patterns through the lens of our family system.
Speaker: And so if we want to understand ourselves differently, I would say, let's sit with ourself and see when we first experienced this anger, we first experienced being silenced.
Speaker: We first experienced food as a way to comfort us through a hard time.
Speaker: Like you, if you really sat with it, you would be able to track it and then give yourself grace because whatever you've done,
Speaker: To protect yourself up to this point is exactly what needed to be done.
Speaker: What we're asking ourselves over and over again is do we still have to make the same agreement?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: And that is the answer.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if this type of, you know, conversation around burnout, infertility, moving through the professional world, marriage, kids, and vulnerability,
Speaker: is a conversation and you want to keep listening to the future is Zen.
Speaker: This was a sneak peek at our episodes and we will have many more for you with lots of special guests in the coming weeks.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Janae, you want to add any final thoughts or takeaways?
Speaker: You have to close us out every time, Rini.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So remember y'all, find your light, send in your truth.
Speaker: The future.
Speaker: The future.
Speaker: We're going to get it together.
Speaker: We're going to get that.
