Why High Performers Burn Out and How to Fix It - Marina on Breathwork & Resilience

This is the beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Ross, Marina, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. Thanks for taking some time out of your busy day to hang out with me for a few minutes. I know that you and I met at the great Summit at Sea a few, I guess, a few months back now, goodness gracious, it seemed like it was a few days ago, then it was a few weeks ago, now it's a few months from now. But first timer for me, you and I kept running into each other on the ship. For those of you listening, Summit at sea is a four day gathering of 2000 incredible human beings. Very conscious thinking individuals, very successful founders, business owners, and just all around great humans. I found out about it, signed up about two weeks beforehand, connected with you in the WhatsApp group. Prior to, I remembered Austin, I remembered Breathwork. And then I saw you and I was like, hey, we connected on WhatsApp. And you're like, okay, weirdo. And you're like, oh, that's right, podcast. Yeah. And then we continued to run each other multiple times every single day for the remainder of the cruise and, well, here we are recording a podcast episode. Here we are. It's great. So happy to be here. Loved your energy, loved how passionate you are about what you do. So you gotta be. When you, when you find your gift, you gotta really lean into it and make sure that you're showing up for that as much as possible. And when, when you discover your gift, it doesn't feel like work. When it doesn't feel like work, well, you naturally just want to talk about all the time, you know, I love that. So you're based in Austin, Texas. You work with women founders and breath work, becoming more conscious, getting more out of life, etc. And I want to talk about all those things in, in, in for context for our listeners. I always like to go back to the beginning of story a little bit to help our listeners better understand where this all started. What, what, what shifted? What day did you wake up and go, wait a second, I want to do that? Or maybe I just kind of fell into it, whatever it looked like. But the beginning's different for everyone. So you decide where the beginning is for you. But bring us back for a minute where this all started and then walk us through exactly what brought you to present day and what you're doing. Of course, we'll dive into what you actually do to help these women founders. Yeah, so my story starts with Severe anxiety, burnout, chronic stress. And it's actually interesting that you're asking me this question right now, because I've always had this origin story and the specific moment, a specific work trip that I was on in 2015, when I was still working in the corporate world. I was an HR consultant. And that was a very vivid moment that I'll share in just a bit. But I actually think my story starts even before that. But I'll start there, because on that trip, I was the only consultant at a client site. This was winter in Minneapolis. I did not want to be there. And I'm in a boardroom of executives, 27 people of a Fortune 50 company, and just me. I was 26 at the time, so I was given huge assignments. I was well respected. I had a lot going for me in that career. But that trip really showed me how my body was just completely disconnected and everything that was going on as far as my sleep. Heart palpitations. Heart palpitations were a huge sign for me back then that something was off. Just feeling, like, lightheaded when I stand up from the desk from speaking in front of the audience, and multiple times, I was just feeling like I wasn't gonna make it. I was just gonna, like, pass out. So all of those physical symptoms really came to a head there. Of course, it was a long buildup and a journey to get there because I've been working in the space for a while. I was, you know, traveling a lot and given all of these assignments. But after that trip, I really realized how important it is for me to start to connect with how do I take care of myself better? Up until that point, I was just running on caffeine and carbs and sugar. I was coping through alcohol on the weekends. There was just a lot that was going on underneath the surface of this, like, perceived success that was, you know, being shown to other people. And after that, I really started to make changes. I started to dive into holistic health, yoga, mindfulness, and just layering on all of these tools so that I finally had the courage to leave my corporate job in 2020 to start my coaching business. So supporting female leaders, whether in corporate or entrepreneurs, and of course, breath work became this really big focal point for me. But what's interesting now is the additional layer on top of my business that's been kind of a long time coming is my podcast. I'm so passionate about that, and it's. It's really expanding beyond just breath work and nervous system health to cover women's health as a Whole. So hormonal health, cardiovascular health, brain health in women. I'm so passionate about really helping women understand how our bodies work, because we're not built the same way men. Men are. And help them understand. No, no, we're not small men. Can you believe it? So I'm super passionate about helping women understand how our bodies work, because those are the tools that I didn't have back then in the corporate career. But now, really, as I'm speaking and interviewing all these amazing guests and women's health experts on the show, I'm realizing that I think I started this whole entire journey, including the podcast, including speaking, because 12 years ago, my mom went through a breast cancer journey. And so that I actually think has been one of the most impactful things that have stayed with me this whole time. Yes, there were things with my own health that I went through in the corporate world and kind of unraveling burnout and chronic stress did take a while, and it took a lot of skills, but really now what I want to become is a megaphone for women's health. And, yeah, just helping women understand what we can do to support ourselves through the different cycles and seasons of life, whether that's, you know, someone who's new in their corporate career and they're pushing and working and have a lot of goals to someone who then wants to become a mother. How do we preserve fertility? How do we be healthy and regulated through that journey? And then, of course, postpartum and also in our later years, so perimenopause and menopause and onwards. That's something I'm super passionate about. Love it. Well, it seems like you're out there, just as I often like to say, living in your purpose on purpose. And when we're able to do that, I think that we show up differently. I think we operate at a different frequency, and our passion for what we're doing transfers over to the people that we're working with. I had somebody tell me several years ago, sebastian, what you do has very little to do with podcasting, Everything to do with life. And I'm like, I'm sorry, come again. Because never in a million years that I think that my healing journey of becoming and stepping into the best version of myself so far would. Would. Would turn into me bringing that back to podcasting, helping people start a podcast. Oh, that's right. We got to work through the inner critic. Oh, that. We do have to work through that belief system. We do need to work through that fear. We do need to re. Rewire that Conversation so that we can show up and actually talk and do something. So just wild how it all works out, isn't it? I love that. No, it's great. It's you totally living your purpose with how energized you are by it all. And it's so true, right? We have to help people uncover their message and their. Their core truth, and that's what you help people with. But most people are not willing to, as cliche as it is, dare I say, take your mess and turn it into a message. And I believe that that is what we are all here to do, because it's. It. It's messy out here in this human experience, but we all have gifts and talents, and if we're bold and brave enough to step into a completely different version of ourselves, anything's possible, but only 100% of the time. So more people need to know that. It's. It's scary going through it. I've gone through so many of these, I call them threshold moments, right, where you're someone totally different after you walk through it. But it's always worth it in hindsight. Somebody asked me a question 10 years ago, and of course, that I was taken. They said, are you willing to give up who you've become to be who you are? And I said, I'm sorry, can you say that again? And now I. Now I ask in my talks, too, and people look at me like I got 10 heads and boogers. But I repeat it again so people can understand. Are you willing to give up who you've become? So to up until now, to be who you are? Who's that? I don't know. But we get to find out. We get to figure it out. What's the best part about the work you do? What a great question. For me, personally, honestly, starting my business has been the most scary thing. It allows me to tackle my fears every single day. And now it's become this muscle. Even thinking about, you know, this latest threshold moment of me starting the podcast, I was saying that I would do it for nine years, and granted, I was doing a lot in the interim. I'm very proud of the work that I've done. Speaking, workshops, you know, coaching. I've worked with hundreds of people, but this was like, this one thing that was locked away for me that I was unwilling to really put out and step into that identity. And now I've done it. And on the other side of it, it feels so liberating. So, like, for me personally, it's this constant up, leveling and liberating new parts of myself and just like being more in ownership of who I am as a whole person and a whole woman. And then course, I mean, the obvious answer for those that I work with is seeing women be healthier and know that they don't have to sacrifice their health as they're building something that they care about. That's. I think one of the biggest things that women have been told is we really have to choose one thing or the other. And of course, something like motherhood, right. And, you know, raising a family. It does take certain sacrifices, but I really stand for the fact that maybe we can't have it all all at once, but women can have it all. And having a woman realize that, like the way we've been operating, it doesn't have to continue in the same way. Whether you're feeling disconnected in your career or you are feeling signs and symptoms of burnout, maybe you're feeling like if you keep pushing or building your company, then you're going to have to forego having a family and be a wife and a mother. All of those things, I think are shifting. Right. We're such. In such an exciting time, both with health and longevity, with AI taking so much off of our plat, like so much is becoming available to us. So I think the most rewarding thing with the work that I do with others is seeing them really get that, like that expansion and that it's possible to have what you want without making some of those huge, massive sacrifices that I think if I think about the women in my lineage, my family, right. My mom's life, my grandmother's life looks so different than mine and I so grateful for that. So, yeah, I think getting more women to live the life that they love, the women that you get the opportunity to work with, are they always just gun ho and ready to rock and wo. Walk and whoa, rock and roll. Or does it take. I don't want to use the word convincing because we should never have to convince anybody to work with us, but we also need to help people better understand what they don't know that they don't know. So when you meet a potential client that you're like, I could totally work with this person and we can get some really awesome results. Is it. There's gotta be some level of skepticism. Not skepticism like, ah, maybe it's not for me, but sometimes there's like, oh my God, I totally need you. So that we have several different, like several different potential clients or characteristics of potential clients that show up on your What. What do you experience? Does fear show up? Does a level of excitement show up? Is it a hybrid of both? What. What does that look like? Because I know for. For what? In the world of podcasting, people are either like, I need you, let's go, or, I didn't know that I need you, but after our conversation, I now that I knew that I need you. And then there's that third one of, I know that I need you, but I. I am a professional procrastinator, so that's just how I roll. What does that look like for you? Yeah, I think with what I do. So the core of my one on one work does have breath work at the core, right? So even when I'm coaching someone, we're always going to be rotating breathwork sessions. And the work that I do is pretty deep. It's got potential to uncover certain things that maybe have been tucked away for years or decades for a lot of people. Sometimes we make connections that we weren't even aware of, like to something that's happening today, a pattern in a relationship or in work that might be tied to something that happened 20 years later or in childhood. And so the nature of my work, I would say, is pretty confronting. And so the two main things that I usually tackle upfront is people have fear or skepticism around working in this capacity. Right. This kind of transformational nature of coaching and stepping into this new identity and shedding those layers and beliefs. So I think a lot of people, I wish it wasn't the case. For a couple years of my business, I was really trying to focus on how do I reach the women who are not yet burnt out, who are not yet at that place where something, like, really needs to change. Now they're noticing some of those symptoms. Right. Again, thinking about me and heart palpitations or one symptom that a lot of women will experience is hair loss. Right? Chronic stress has been going on for so long now we're losing hair. Now we're actually noticing this symptom that our body is asking us to pay attention to. So for a while, I was like, well, does that have to be the case? And can I reach people before that happens? It turns out, at least in my work, in my world, I find that there does have to be a certain moment where the person realizes, like, okay, I can't actually go on longer living the way I've been living. Right? And that causes them to turn around. So I think for me, I do have a lot of women who maybe have already started to notice some of those symptoms. Maybe they. This is a common thing that I notice with a lot of ambitious women, especially corporate women, is maybe they've thought about having a family later on, and then they get to that point, and then they actually find out that they have diminished ovarian reserve or they have certain fertility issues that have developed as a result of the chronic stress. Right. So I think it's just human nature that few of us will take action before, like that moment or something goes wrong happens, and it's okay. You know, I've kind of surrendered that. And I think it's also about why I want to have the podcast is to educate more women, why they should care about some of these issues. Right. Even thinking about something like cardiovascular health, let's not get to that point where you're starting to get symptoms. Let's start to take care of that as you go along. Same in men and women. Right. There's all sorts of issues that chronic stress will cause men to experience as well. I'm just trying to find ways with the podcast, with speaking with social media, of how to get ahead of that, of those symptoms happening ahead of something going wrong. I think a lot of that is just a knowledge gap in education. So hopefully in the future I will have more people who are interested in more prevention, I'll say, or more of that education and like, the long kind of horizon, planning out. What do I need to be thinking of now for a decade from now? But, yeah, I think a little bit, you know, in the work of. Of transformation, even with the work that you do. Right. It's like with podcasting, well, someone has to maybe reach kind of that moment where they're like, okay, I'm really ready now. Um, so, yeah, that's what I see. Yeah. I think that I feel like we're living in a. In a world now with all this biohacking and AI and all this. We're living in very healthy society, in my opinion, of. It's getting healthier where things like preventive. I'm like, people, my. My. My buddies bust my chops because they're like, how many doctor's appointments do you go to? I'm like, listen, nothing's wrong. Okay? But I go once a year to make sure nothing's wrong. And everyone has their opinions about doctors, etcetera, on here. But at the same time, I just think that when we are proactive with our health, God rewards us with good health. And I just. That's just something I made up. And, you know, it's like dermatologist skin checks. You know, I tell everybody, go get a skin check. Okay, I just got something cut out of my face a month ago. You don't want to go do all that. Not to say that that's not going to happen for somebody, but, hey, an ounce of prevention, whatever that quote is on there. Just to be proactive as much as possible so that we can, I guess, lessen life surprises, you know, lessen the odds of life surprises, I guess. Even though that may not even, you know, be. Be a thing. Well, I. I love the. I love the work that you do, and I love that you are living in your purpose on purpose, and that you are deeply passionate about helping women better understand what's possible with stepping into a different version of themselves, with doing things different by being able to follow your lead. I love that you answered the call on your life to say, hey, you know what? I'm not going to be stuck behind a desk. There's more for me, and I'm going to go find it. I'm going to figure it out. Now you're showing up in full capacity, willing, able, and a lot of it. I know most days is probably a world of uncertainty. Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship. But I just want to give you your flowers real quick while we have the opportunity to be on this and have this conversation right now. It's just such a privilege to meet other stellar human beings, you know, like yourself. And even though I'm not in the whole women's world, I get it because I raised one and I got a lot of incredible women in my life that are doing great, great work. So just love what you're up to. And I'm so grateful for this conversation and you took some time out of your day to. To hang out with me for a few minutes. I know this is just the beginning of many things we're going to be able to do together. I know that I've got a to be determined date and several days in Austin. I'm just going to show up and see what happens, but I'm believing the best is yet to come. But thanks for. For taking some time and hanging out with me. Any final thoughts for our listeners? Yeah, and thank you. I love the work that you're doing. And like I said, you know, more people get to believe in themselves and put their work out into the world. Like, the expansion that I'm feeling now with the podcasting piece is so huge. I want more business owners to experience that as well. Like, there's so much there for us. So I love that. Thank you. And yeah, if anyone is curious about Breathwork or the work that I do, you can find more information@womenwhobreathe.com and you can also experience your very first breathwork practice. You don't actually even need me or to be live virtually together. You can just Download a quick 25 minute reset practice and you can experience the power of what breathwork can do for you just from your own home. I'll make sure to include all those links in the description of this podcast episode, the show notes, if you will, of this podcast episode and to follow up, the endorsement of Breathwork. Breathwork has radically changed my life since 2017. It's led me to do several different journeys and experiences from there to meet myself at a deeper level. I continue to use breath work as an ongoing maintenance. Every 90 to 120 days. You just get in there and just figure it the fuck out by going in. Because by the way, if you're listening to this and you didn't know this, the only way out is through. So yeah, huge Breathwork fan. So I'll include both of those links, her Instagram and her website on there. Take advantage of this. You're listening to this podcast episode for a reason. There are no mistakes. You're listening to this for a reason and you have no idea what's on the other side of just, well, breathing. You're like, why I breathe. Not like this. So be sure to check it out. Marina, keep doing what you're doing. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you so much. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the beyond the Story podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast launch lab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.