Avery – 00:00

Hey, hi Achiever.

Today, my guest has a story I think that a lot of us can relate to, especially if we’ve received a diagnosis that we’ve struggled with.

Jeanne was diagnosed with panic disorder in 2015, which forced her to reconsider a lot of things about her life path and also her views on mental illness, which is something that I know I can relate to because when I was given my diagnosis, I really had to reevaluate How I saw people that lived with

that diagnosis because it was a really challenging one for me to accept that that’s what I had.

And so she focused on really finding the way out of this health and soul crisis and had to make some difficult choices.

And in this episode we’re going to talk about what that really looked like for her, how it felt in that burnout experience, That followed her diagnosis of panic disorder and how she managed to find peace moving forward.

Hi, I’m Avery Thatcher, a former ICU nurse, and this is not your standard stress management podcast where we just focus on those band-aid solutions like the benefits of meditation, mindfulness, and self-care.

Avery – 01:18

You already know that you need some kind of recovery strategy to deal with your stressful life.

But what you may not know are all of the sneaky ways that society, our upbringing and our high achieving nature and so many other factors contribute to our risk of burnout.

That, my friend, is what we talk about here on this podcast because you can’t do something about a situation that you’re not aware of, right?

So if you’re ready to get out of the pattern of burning out, feeling better, only to burn out again, it’s time for us to shut the light on the truth about burnout.

All right, friends, I’m so excited to introduce you to Jeanne.

So, Jeanne, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Avery – 02:02

I’m really excited to be here.

I love that you’re excited about it because it can be a lot to talk about our burnout experiences and to share that and be vulnerable, but It’s such a powerful thing because then we realize that we’re not alone when we can relate to somebody else’s story.

And I know that I can relate to some of the things in your story as well.

Plus today we’re going to be talking about a little burnout relapse, which we often don’t talk about here.

And I think it’s so important because it’s not like burnout’s a one and done thing.

There are some patterns that are like, keep it coming back if we’re not careful.

So, Yeah, tell me a little bit about you and your journey as a high achiever.

Jeanne – 02:48

Oh gosh, uh, I think I actually came to a new realization of that.

Maybe in the last two days I’ve been doing a lot of reflection.

I just celebrated my 38th birthday on Wednesday.

Avery – 03:01

Happy birthday.

Jeanne – 03:02

Oh, thank you.

So I like to just kind of look back at my year and look forward and understand where am I at and kind of what has changed.

And it’s only recently that I’ve been in a space where I can maybe be a little kinder to myself and thank myself for the things that I have done because we always feel like we need to do more or we haven’t done enough or we’re not good enough or we’re not skilled enough.

So my journey was really in human rights and my PhD is an international criminal in human rights law.

So I founded a human rights consultancy which is still running and it’s been running for almost 15 years.

But I was dealing with a lot of childhood trauma.

That I hadn’t dealt with well and I jumped into this human rights career working with a lot of issues that was very similar to what I went through and I felt like I was fine because I was fixing it for somebody else but I wasn’t fixing it for me and I just ignored it for too long and I was diagnosed

Jeanne – 04:15

with a panic disorder in 2015 and I had to make really hard decisions about what I was going to do now and next.

And it was a difficult time because we had immigrated from South Africa to Portugal.

And we moved our businesses here.

My husband’s worked out fine because he already had everything set up, mine not so much.

So I lost my identity, who I thought I was, everything I worked to achieve.

Looking back at it now, it was a blessing in disguise, but at that point it was the most horrible time of my life and my panic disorder just And I had to do something different and that’s how Figgy was born, which is where I am now.

Avery – 05:11

Yes.

And I can’t wait to get into that because it’s such a neat movement that you’re creating.

So we’re definitely going to talk about Figgy.

But I just, I love that you really highlighted that, especially as a high achiever, it’s very easy for us to wrap up our identity in what we do.

Rather than wrapping up our identity and actually just who we are.

So where did you start to realize that your identity was actually truly wrapped up in your work?

Jeanne – 05:44

You know, like, I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, like vanity or it’s not that at all.

I just think that we all have our perspective on who we think we are and what that looks like.

And when I talk about losing kind of my identity, I had come from a space where I was referred to as Dr. Jeanne-Mari Retief and I was the one deciding if elections are free and fair and standing at the president’s inauguration podium and things like that to being here in this foreign country where

the transition of bringing that to Europe didn’t work and all of a sudden I was just Jean, Hof’s wife.

And it was a really hard transition to make because you feel like you’ve worked so hard and you’ve offered up so much of yourself.

And I think I was feeling it even more because that had already been after my first burnout and when I was diagnosed with panic disorder.

So I think I had also a lot of kind of anger and resentment towards that because like, I made myself do this and I caused myself to go through this because I was building this identity and this was who I was and this is what I was putting all my time in for nothing.

Jeanne – 07:02

It didn’t feel very good.

So when I was in that space and I needed to recognize, okay, well, what am I going to do now?

Because I can either keep mourning this thing and dragging it with me that’s not working out.

It was still a wonderful success in Africa, but I cannot be traveling to Africa every two weeks.

I have to find worth some other way in a way that makes sense to me.

And that was so wrapped up in my health crisis at that moment.

The only way I knew how to do it was to just change everything and take it on head on, look it in the face and just think about how I’m going to make this better and detach myself from these things that I don’t think was bringing me the worth that I was craving.

Avery – 08:02

Thank you so much for sharing all of that.

That was so powerful and so relatable.

I know that everyone that’s listening right now as a high achiever, there’s that little bit of fear of like, what if something like this happens to me?

And I know when I had my burnout and my identity and my job was taken from me because of my health, There was so much resentment and mourning and I completely agree with what you said.

Like you don’t want it to sound vain, but you were kind of a big deal, Jeanne.

Oh, thank you.

You really were.

Avery – 08:42

And there’s so much that we put into the impact that we can have.

So absolutely there’s a lot of mourning that goes along with that.

So how would you describe that pivotal moment when you realized, okay, I have to grieve the loss of that and I have to figure out a way forward?

What really cued you into that thought pattern?

Jeanne – 09:11

You know, it was really just, I call it the breaking, this culmination of things.

I wasn’t functioning.

I was being rushed to the emergency room a lot.

I was going through MRI scans.

They’re always thinking I was having a stroke.

It was really scary.

I have a five-year-old daughter, I have a husband, they’re going through this with me.

Jeanne – 09:38

And it’s not just that experience, it’s the hangover afterwards, the tired body, the fatigue, the nausea, the self-guilt and self-loathing about why this happened.

So it was all, it was all of these things together and it really was just one more morning where I thought to myself, like, no, I actually said it out loud to my husband.

I just never want to get up.

I just want to stay here under the blankets.

I never want to open the door.

I just, I just want to stay here.

And he said, he was not judgmental about it.

Jeanne – 10:16

He just said, you know what, you, um, Take this time to figure it out.

You went to work.

And when you left, I just had this feeling of this is not who I want to be.

Like I worked so hard to be here and to do what I want to do.

We worked so hard to be able to immigrate and give our family a better life.

This is not how I see it ending.

So there has to be a different way.

Jeanne – 10:45

I need to make something different for myself.

And when I made that decision, Is when everything kind of started rolling forward and I was able to see things in a different light because all of a sudden I could for example see that this that I’ve done in the past is not a waste because One of my biggest frustrations with it was I was really good

at writing the programs and implementing it and making sure there’s like a practical difference being to these people’s lives but I was always barred by the politics and the bureaucracy and the diplomacy and this budget and that budget and this person doesn’t want to say that or be seen as doing

that and now I can take all of that away.

And I can just do what I know works with my own money and my own time free from all of this politics and red tape and just move it forward and that was such an amazing realization for me.

Avery – 11:53

That sounds so exciting and so powerful.

So tell me where you took that.

Where did it go from there?

Jeanne – 12:02

You know, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do because I knew I was dealing with this trauma and this panic disorder that I somehow had to get grips over.

And a huge part of, I think, why I struggled with it so much is the shame and the guilt and the hiding of it.

Because an anxiety disorder did not fit into my previous profession, okay?

Are either on the bus or you’re off the bus, like there’s no in between.

So you’re less than, you’re somebody that can’t handle stress well.

Um, so I remember when I was diagnosed with it for the first time, I told my husband, nobody can know, like everything can be wrong with me except this.

Like we cannot tell people this because I was also doing a lot of motivational speaking and mentoring.

Jeanne – 12:56

Like how I felt like such an imposter, how can I be doing this?

If I myself am suffering from this, this is like the worst conundrum in the world.

So I recognize that whatever I do going forward has to be from a place of truth and I have to let go of this fear I have about speaking about what happened to me and speaking about my truth.

And I thought about Figgy and I thought about creating this community of women where it’s okay to not be okay.

Where it’s okay not to have all the self-help advice and not to feel like you’re always positive because I know there’s such a huge community of us.

And putting my panic disorder on the forefront of that.

It was really difficult because I’m a very private person.

Jeanne – 13:47

So to share these things, it’s still a challenge to me, but it’s also so And I think that applies regardless of what you’ve got in your health bucket.

That I’m going to do it different than you’re going to do it.

And I think embracing that difference

Avery – 14:25

is so powerful and it’s just like you said like I’m also or I used to be I used to be a very private person and like nobody would have known what I was going through and even my partner we’d been married for like three months when I got incredibly sick and we’d been together for like eight years but

He could drive me to the appointments eventually but first of all he knew that I was having an appointment sometime this week and it was like slowly letting those people in and so the fact that I can even talk about these kinds of things now it’s a huge win and I think you can see it also in your

work, Jeanne, that by sharing these stories we’re actually doing the work that we wanted to do Faster because people can connect to us as a human.

Jeanne – 15:22

I really believe that and I really hope that to be the truth for the Figge community as well because I’m trying to Be as honest and truthful as I can.

I mean, even the skincare we have is based on my panic disorder.

It’s a symptom of that is sensitive skin, the podcast, the blog, everything is related to this.

But I don’t know, maybe you have some advice for me, but I think that has also been my conundrum with my relapse this year because it is so personal.

And the personal story is Figge and Figge is the personal story and you lose sight of what is work and what is life and where does the one start and the other one end.

With my previous life it was easier because I mean You have these meetings to go to, you have these things to fill out, and these documents to send, and these are the achievements for the year.

But with this, it’s like my workday consists out of delving into all of these things every day, sharing more and more and more of myself.

Jeanne – 16:42

And yeah, it gets cloudy.

Avery – 16:46

That’s a perfect term for it, absolutely.

So do you feel like that was it the emotional burnout that was kind of the second this relapse for you the second experience of burnout or was it fulfillment was it physical mental all of the above?

Jeanne – 17:03

I think for me One thing that I’ve learned to do a lot better since my first burnout and my diagnosis was to really work to understand myself better and listen to that inner voice and be in touch with your body.

But what happened this time was that one of the most important key pillars was missing and that was my support network.

And it wasn’t because somebody wasn’t there for me, it’s just life.

I don’t know, I know everybody hates speaking about COVID and everybody is so over it, but I feel like for a lot of business owners this financial year is like the first year things are kind of normal, you know, like everything’s flowing and going and the meetings are happening and the expos and

everything and So we just kind of jumped into that state of go, go.

Okay, everything is going.

And, you know, before you recognize it, it’s been like two weeks since you’ve spoken to somebody and then it’s been a month since you’ve reached out for help.

Jeanne – 18:14

And you also kind of get complacent in your self-care because you think, Oh, I’m meditating, I’m exercising, I’m reading a book before bed, I’m having like a good bedtime routine, but that in itself became stressful for me because then I was starting to think, oh, I have to meditate tonight, I have

to read a book, like I have to have an hour’s bedtime routine.

So one of the key things about that was, yeah, the support network.

But you also, with this, I’ve learned you have to keep your finger on the pulse all the time.

It’s not, it’s like having a knee injury or a shoulder injury.

Like you can go back to exercising, but you always have to be careful.

Like you have to wear your little protective band.

Jeanne – 19:02

You have to know what exercises you can and you can’t do.

Just because it’s a mental thing doesn’t make a difference.

It just makes that you can’t see it.

So that happened and the other thing for me was because I was such a personal and private person and I had been dealing before this journey with a lot of self-loathing and self-hate and a lot of problems with self-acceptance and self-love which I felt I overcame in a really good and beautiful way.

It started sneaking back up on me with these social media things, you know, you have to post some stories and reels and stuff if you want to build this product based business and there’s an algorithm to it and it works a certain way and you don’t realize it, but One day you kind of wake up and

you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m spending 40 to 50 minutes before I’m posting a story because I’m so afraid this one mark on my face looks bad or my clothes don’t match.

And then you all of a sudden think, but this wasn’t me.

Jeanne – 20:11

This wasn’t me a couple of months ago.

And all of a sudden these small things are creeping back up on me and I’m not paying attention to them because I’m moving too fast.

And that’s what happened.

Yeah.

Avery – 20:25

Yes, so it looks like the high achiever kind of like squeaked back in and was moving into maybe more on the sabotaging side of the serving and sabotaging scale.

And yes, so this is something that we talk about, especially in the Recover and the Optimize programs.

And I’ve mentioned this on a previous episode as well, to always start every single day with an energy check-in.

So you’re checking in with your physical, your mental, your emotional, and your fulfillment energy and seeing like, what do I actually have to give today?

Because even though I have all of these expectations for myself, is that feasible for my body today?

And by doing that, then you’re starting to work through some of the other components of it, like your burnout red flag systems.

That way you can start to notice, okay, when my, Normal self-care things that make me feel better are now just like one more thing on my to-do list.

Avery – 21:24

What should my next step be?

Because when you’re in that moment, as I’m sure you can relate to, Jeanne, figuring out what to do next, like your brain doesn’t have the capacity for that.

So that’s why when we have that plan already in place and you can recognize the red flag, yeah, my self-care is starting to feel like work.

Then you can come back to your already done plan which you created in a nice calm space and you can be like, okay, so my next step is to reassess my to-do list, reassess my expectations and reprioritize based on a system that I know works for me.

So having that written down is so powerful in that moment.

Jeanne – 22:06

Yeah, for sure.

And also for me, it’s so true what you’re saying, because you have to understand and recognize when it’s starting to feel like work for you.

Because when you’re into this habit of self-care, it’s very, especially when you’re in that go, go mode, survive, it’s very easy to just Handle it like a checklist, like, oh, I did check in with my energy this morning.

I did meditate, I did.

But you start to lose sight of what you’re getting from that and what your body is really, really telling you.

Yeah, and then before, you know, it’s, and I mean, looking back on it now, of course you can say, oh, I saw the triggers.

I wasn’t sleeping.

Jeanne – 22:52

I wasn’t eating well.

I wasn’t, um, you know, which leads into the whole self-loathing and guilt and everything after.

But then on the other hand, you know, this is one of the biggest steps I took in my journey and accepting my panic disorder is like, Just because a relapse happened doesn’t mean I’m worthless now.

It just means it happened and it’s life and it was a bad day, a bad day or a bad experience.

Just, you know, tomorrow will be better.

Let’s try again.

Avery – 23:25

That is such a powerful message to end and wrap things up on because I think It’s so easy for us to feel that failure and especially as high achievers which have like perfectionism and people pleasing and all the wonderful things sort of laced into that for us to be like oh like I don’t even know

where to go from here but that thing that you said is like it happened and where do I go from here one of the things that we talk about often And like you were mentioning, like looking back on it now, hindsight being an asshole, you can look back and see all the red flags and you’re just like, well,

shoot.

But really being able to see it in that space of learning.

Okay, so what led to this full relapse?

What can I do to make sure that I can catch these things sooner?

Because That’s the whole point of life is to learn and to notice new things and to work on making our lives better and sometimes that means that things have to get a little crunchy before we can find a way to smooth it out.

Jeanne – 24:35

Yeah, so true, so true.

Avery – 24:39

So tell me a little bit about Figgy and your podcast and your skincare line which, friends, is beautiful.

It is so lovely.

Both the podcast and the skincare.

The skincare smells delightful.

Jeanne – 24:53

Thank you so much.

Yeah, the skincare is really, it’s just for dry and sensitive skin.

That was what it was made for.

I don’t purport to, you know, market it as anything else.

And it was made because of my panic disorder because I have such sensitive skin.

So it’s just to bring the luxury experience back to skincare for sensitive souls.

And it’s made with my favorite South African ingredient, Rooibos extract or Rooibos tea.

Jeanne – 25:20

I don’t know if you’ve ever had Rooibos tea.

Avery – 25:23

Oh my gosh, it’s in my tea mug right now.

I’m holding it up to the camera so she can see my massive thing of rooibos chai.

Jeanne – 25:32

It’s so good for you.

There’s so much scientific evidence and why it’s so great for sensitive skin.

It’s an anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial.

So it’s in all of our products.

All our products are fragrance-free, vegan, cruelty-free, essential oil-free.

Gluten-free, free of artificial colorants.

It’s really that beautiful experience to bring the glow and the brightness back to your skin, restore moisture, hydrate, protect you.

Jeanne – 25:57

And it’s a minimalist approach.

It’s a double cleanse and two moisturizers.

Avery – 26:04

And if this was a video podcast, you would be able to see Jeanne’s beautiful glowing skin.

Thank you.

When I tried, cause you were generous and sent me a couple samples and it is so divine.

Like it’s just so luxurious.

Like you said, it just feels really lovely and I’m still working through them.

They really last quite a while and yeah, they just smell so like, Naturally clean, I guess.

Jeanne – 26:38

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s because there are no funky, funky business.

It’s got no funky business.

Avery – 26:44

Business is how I love my skincare because my skin is not like any kind of anything.

You’ve really avoided all of those main triggers.

So yeah, it’s wonderful.

So tell me a little bit about where people can find you if they want to look into your podcast, which Isn’t just about skincare, friends.

There’s a lot of things that you chat about on our podcast, but yeah, so tell us about your podcast, your website, where can people connect with you?

Jeanne – 27:11

Uh, you can find me on FigiLife, F I G I life.com.

Uh, if you want to look at the podcast or the blog, it will link you to the shop.

If you want to go directly to the shop, you can go at figi.eu.

That is the US shop.

And you can find me on Instagram at Jeanne underscore FigiLife.

Avery – 27:29

That’s perfect.

We’re going to link to all of those things in the show notes here.

Thank you.

So, Jeanne, I just want to thank you so much for all of your vulnerability and all of the powerful lessons that you shared.

I know it’s hard to really go that deep, but you sounded so natural and so confident and it’s just so beautiful to hear such a vulnerable story.

Jeanne – 27:53

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Avery – 27:57

Hold it right there.

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