Exploring Burnout Recovery and the Role of Psychedelics with Dr. Eliza Collins

Dr.  Eliza

 44:34

SPEAKERS

Dr. Eliza Collins, Marlena, Jamie, Christy, Daizy

Christy  

Welcome back to this week's episode of a witch, a mystic and a feminist. Today we are joined by Dr. Eliza Collins, aka the burnout, which we talk a little bit about burnout, how to define it, how to prevent it. We talk a lot about psychedelics and a little bit about healing in community. All right, Eliza, welcome to the show. We are so very happy to have you here. And you get the I don't know the honor of having all of us here at the same time. So a lot today.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

But I know I love it. I get the full court press. It's awesome. Thank you for having me.

Jamie  

No pressure.

Christy  

This hasn't happened before.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

I immediately I just started sweating. No, I'm kidding. Excitement?

Christy  

Well, yes. Well, we're very excited to have you and you know, like, I don't know, researching reading up on you. You are just a dynamic human being. You've got a lot going. And I'm just hoping that you can kind of introduce yourself a little bit and to our listeners. Give us a little background.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, absolutely. So I am Eliza Collins, Dr. Eliza Collins, and I'm professionally known as the burnout witch. And I got into burnout recovery after burning out myself in the process of building an integrative wellness practice. So I got a bachelor's degree in chemistry a million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth. And I kind of just like puttered around as the sort of, you know, wayward millennial in my 20s, kind of figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I actually got a Tarot reading. In the midst of doing this, I was working as an emergency medical technician, and I really liked working in the medical field, but emergency medicine was a little too stressful for me. So I was like, Okay, do I want to be a doctor? Do I want to do something else. And the more time that I spent in kind of the industrial medical complex, the less I wanted to be in it, because I felt like I wasn't going to be able to really connect with my patients. There's a lot that's wrong with our medical system that has nothing to do with the providers providing care. But I really didn't want to be a part of that structure. So I went to this tarot reader that a friend of mine recommended and I got this reading and I said, Okay, I'd like to stay in healthcare, but I don't know where so she pulled like six or seven cards, and it was like, okay, chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, cranial sacral, therapy, aromatherapy, you know, this whole thing, she flipped them all over, she goes, acupuncture is where the money's, that's, that's where you're going to be on like a path that's, that's really like big and meaningful. was like, okay, cool. That's super out there. So I went home and I just Googled acupuncture. And a school an hour away from where I lived in the middle of nowhere in Western New York, where you would not anticipate an acupuncture school you would think of that in like California or Seattle or New York, like the places that we sort of know is as centers of holistic wellness. Yeah, it was an hour away from my house. So I went interviewed got in and like a month of the path was like, super clear, became an acupuncturist moved to Rhode Island and started a business where I didn't know anybody, which is not what people do. Nobody wiki leaked that to me. I just assumed that if you wanted to, like move someplace and start a business people did this all the time. And I so many people I talk to you, they were like, What are you? I was like, oh, oh, so much of my life has been? Can I curse on you? Absolutely. Oh, please. So much of my life has accidentally been around and find out up to this point. Like people just like told me stuff after they're like, oh, people don't do that. I was like, and now it's more like purposeful fuck around and find out which was a nice transition. But I started my business and because I was wearing all of the hats. I was the acupuncturist. I was the biller, I was the receptionist, I was, you know, doing all of this stuff. And I had impostor syndrome, because acupuncture is like, you know, Chinese medicine, Eastern medicine is over 5000 years old. And I'd been doing it for a year. I was like, I don't I don't know enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't have enough information. So I was doing all of this continuing education. So Christie, when you said you're really dynamic. I was like, thanks. It's brought to you by you. I ended up really burning out by about 2019 and company that I was contracting with as an independent contractor who referred a lot of my client base restructured internally. So there, we're like, you're not doing anything wrong. But we're just kind of shifting how we do things. And it gutted my practice overnight, it took about half of my clients. So I contacted a friend of mine who had started very successful acupuncture businesses from scratch in Europe, where she lives in countries where she didn't speak the language at the time. And I was like, how did you do that? She goes, oh, like burned out, I burned out. And you're burnt out. And I'm going to help you with that. And so I worked with her for about a year to recover from burnout and in the process of doing that You know, having the background in functional medicine having the background in hypnosis. She said you have this really dynamic skill set that I think could be really useful in the burnout community, would you be interested in that? And I was like, hell yeah, I'd be interested in that. So that's how I got into burnout, recovery and coaching. And I got into psychedelics because I had done a lot of therapy and self work and burnout, recovery. And I felt stuck. I felt really stuck. I had some pre verbal trauma from my childhood. My biological mother passed away when I was 13 months old. You don't have words for that. And I felt like it couldn't get to that. Like I knew everything about it. And I understood it from an intellectual perspective, but I wasn't able to heal myself somatically I wasn't able able to connect my brain in my body. So we ended up utilizing psychedelic mushrooms, psilocybin mushrooms, and it completely transformed my life and took me into a whole new direction. And that is the person that sits in front of you today. So that's my five minute elevator speech.

Christy  

So that brought you to the burnout, which Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Jamie  

I just love that there's a community that I didn't know, that's all about burnout. Because Can I join? I'd like to join that community, please.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yes, you can actually my coach who's also a friend and colleague of mine, Kate Donovan, runs a podcast called fried the burnout podcast, and she has a Facebook group. So if you would like to be a part of that 100% will get you the links. It's a really, really great supportive community.

Jamie  

Nice.

Daizy  

I have a question. What do you define burnout as so that people if they are in it, they would know?

Dr. Eliza Collins  

That's a really great question. And that's something that we talk a lot about, because it's not a diagnosis. It's not a medical diagnosis. It's not like you can go to the doctor and say, I have this type of headache. And they run a couple of tests. And they're like, cool, those are migraines. Burnout, the way that we've learned to understand it is and the the best definition, working life that we've got so far is that it's a state of sustained chronic stress that over time, reduces your ability to handle day to day stressors with ease. So when I was in the height of my burnout, at one point, I was trying to get into my house, I had come home from work and was trying to get into my house. And my key wouldn't work for like too long for like 3045 seconds. And I realized that the reason that it wasn't working was because I was trying to open my house door with the key fob button on my car key. And when I realized that I dropped my keys, and I burst into tears. And I was like having the out of body experience. If you've ever been like so stressed out and you start screaming at your kids or your partner or a co worker or the dog. And you're just looking down on the situation going even I think this is excessive. Yeah. Wow, that is one of the markers of burnout. One of the symptoms of burnout that we look for is that like, you just you snap with really basic stressors.

Marlena  

Yeah, been there.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

I think we all have, especially post pandemic, like, you know, yeah, mid and post pandemic, burnout got a whole lot worse for a lot of people.

Marlena  

Yeah, I mean, for me, I think that I realized I was burnt out during the pandemic, when we were able to pause, because I worked excessively. And so I feel like I'm still in that burnout recovery. And it's been about a year since I or a little over a year since I left my job that I was working just huge amount of hours and constantly stressed. I mean, you know, so

Dr. Eliza Collins  

yeah, yeah. And one of the questions that we get a lot of times with people in burnin is they're like, how long does it take to recover. And I wish I could tell you it was like six weeks. But usually, it's this combo platter of coping mechanisms that we developed when we were children that were useful at the time, but don't serve us later. And underlying patterns of things like people pleasing, or perfectionism, like this is stuff that's really hardwired in that takes time to unwind. So usually, we tell people that if you're working with a professional, whether it's a therapist or a burnout coach like myself or something along those lines 12 to 18 months on the short end of that if you don't also have a lot of external factors that are making that harder for you to to five years, if you're not working with somebody and you're just trying to hack this yourself, which a lot of us tried to do because particularly in Western society, we have this idea of like, just do it yourself, get the books, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, I hate that right. Healing happens in community. And so that's unfortunately the way the cookie crumbles long time.

Marlena  

Is there a way of telling beforehand with regards to burnout or is it just one of those things? Because like, I know for me, it was once I was like deep in it and just ready to give up that I realized that I was burnout. Is there a way to figure that out or or prior to basically.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

So one of the things that I love to differentiate Between is tools for burnout, recovery and tools for burnout prevention. So usually when we hear about burnout, and we read things on like, medium or thrive, global or whatever, both of which I have contributed to as a writer. For this reason to clarify these things, tools that we talked about for burnout are usually like meditation, better sleep, exercise, hydrating or changing your diet, when you're burnt out, your brain actually shrinks, which sounds really scary, but it can grow back. But your brain doesn't have the resources to be able to engage with those tools. So that's why people who are burnt out really struggled to meditate is because the connections in your brain that require that kind of energy and focus and attention have literally broken down. So if you feel like maybe you're burnt out, and you're trying to engage with some of these tools, like better sleep routines, or better exercise, or like you're finding yourself getting injured, or not being able to recover, you know, exercise doesn't give you the energy that it used to, it actually drains you and makes things worse, those are some indications that you might already be in burnout.

Daizy  

So when you utilize psilocybin is that to kind of help grow back the the pathways and, you know, one of the process there.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

So this is has been a really interesting kind of multifaceted approach, psilocybin is actually not the first thing that I go to with somebody who's burned out, because it does a lot to your brain. And when you don't have self regulation, or self soothing resources, which a lot of us in burnout, again, have a really hard time accessing. The last thing that you want to do is throw a psychedelic into the mix. So usually what I'll do is I'll work with people and I'll teach them some skills for self regulation, like breathing exercises, and very gentle movement. Again, I have a Chinese medicine background. So I will teach people Chi Gong, which is similar to like Tai Chi, Yin, yoga, yoga, Nidra, these are types of things that we'll utilize to start getting people back into a place where they're safely embodied, where they can kind of sit in some discomfort, because the thing about psychedelics is whether we like it or not, it dredges shit up stuff that you were like, oh, yeah, like I dealt with that years ago, it'll come back to the surface and be like, did you even on micro dosing, Jamie's like, hi, I feel I feel attacked. So when those types of things come up, when we start working with things like coping mechanisms, or setting boundaries, we want to have some decent structure and some recovery in place first. So I always tell people, I don't have to be the person that holds your hand through that entire journey. You know, if you feel like you want to work with psychedelics, but you're not quite ready, go work with this somatic therapist, I'll be here, I do my work online, I can work with people whenever. So having some of those self regulatory tools can be really useful. And I find that for people who have already gained some awareness of and done some work around any background of trauma, or burnout or things like that, that can be useful before you utilize psychedelics, because we do want to do that really, really mindfully and really consciously.

Jamie  

Yeah, and I feel like recently, psychedelics have really made a comeback. In, in treatment, not just, you know, let's go trip out and run in the forest naked.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

So I feel like we can't do where I am, because I'm in New England and like the Center for Lyme disease. Yeah, no, oh, no, no, we'll just, there's deer ticks everywhere. The last thing I want to do is run naked in the woods. It sounds lovely. But But yeah, yeah, no, it actually

Christy  

California.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

You guys can run naked everywhere in the streets. No, yeah, psychedelics are definitely making a kind of medical Renaissance, which is really nice. And I think the really exciting thing is that there's a lot of push around decriminalization for people to be able to legally cultivate it in their own home and have access to it. Right. And that's actually how I ended up getting into psychedelics. It was partially for my own growth. But for maybe three or four years before that, I worked with the veteran population in my acupuncture practice, a lot of my clients are veterans. And it's been getting a lot of traction for PTSD. Yes. So I had some people coming to me, veterans and non veterans alike saying like, I want to do this, how do I have access to this and they know my background in chemistry and herbal medicine and they were like, I trust you. You seem like a smart person to be able to sort of tease this stuff out. And I was like, Okay, I actually feel a responsibility to learn about this. So I had been on the journey of learning about psychedelics and how to help people with it for a few years before I decided to utilize it for my own growth. And then that of course, you know, blew my mind and I was like, this is the best shit. And, again, responsibly utilized, it can be really amazing. So, so yeah, we're we're really, really excited. or what we see both from a medical perspective and just kind of like a day to day anxiety management tool?

Jamie  

Yes, I actually have several friends who have talked about their micro dosing with psilocybin and different things. But one of the documentaries I watched not long ago on Netflix actually brought up. I don't know, I'm trying to remember the name, but it was

Dr. Eliza Collins  

How to change your mind. Michael Pollan. Yes,

Jamie  

Yes, that was it. Thank you, it was, it was amazing. And it's, I love how they're bringing in other forms and things of therapy. Veterans really came to mind, people who have suffered trauma in their childhood, because, as you mentioned, losing your mom at such a young age, how do you how do you cope with that it's more of a stuffing mechanism, because I don't even know at 13 months old how to deal with that kind of a death. So it's amazing to see what's going on with like ayahuasca and M D M A. All of it is just is fascinating. But again, like you said, controlled situation controlled doses, not just like on a whim, just let's go have a few mushrooms. But and having someone there with you. That's trusting that's going to I don't want to say babysit you but watch you watch it.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Like that's what they call them. They call them trip sitters. It is 100%.

Jamie  

On your on your page, it was trip sitters. Yeah. I love the idea that this can mentally help you so much, but do it responsibly, and it needs to be done with someone who you trust that's going to be there to help you.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I, when I was kind of dipping my toes into this, I was like, do I want to help people prepare for a large dose do I want to do micro dosing, and I am a fairly adventurous person. But I was never into drugs. As a kid, I'd like I didn't smoke pot until I was 30. I didn't try psychedelics until I was 40, which a friend of mine who got into psychedelics, when he was very young was like, Oh my God, you got to have that experience at 40 When you were like resourced and knew how to handle it. And I was like, yeah, he was like, that's beautiful. Like, I'm so glad you have this in your life, because you didn't scramble your brain at 13. And he's very, like, he's, you know, he's banging on all cylinders. It's not like he fried his brain. He's incredibly, incredibly smart. But yeah, like having, having the ability to be able to calm myself through that, because particularly with a large dose, anxiety is a piece of that, like, you kind of have to go through this feeling of just like, Oh, my God, you know, like, how far does the rabbit hole go, you know, and I'm, I don't do well with that type of thing. I had a really amazing experience on my first trip. But I had the benefit of ignorance of not knowing what was going to happen entirely. And now that I because I am an anxious person, and I have a background and an anxiety, that's not a feeling I want to sign up for. So when I went to do my second sort of, quote, unquote, large dose was still which was still probably about half of what my first dose had been, um, I have a very, very low tolerance. And so I don't need a whole lot to get the work done. I had a panic attack, right before I was supposed to, like, sit down and take this stuff. And that is the last state that you want to be in weighing into your head going into something like that. We talked about what's called set and setting. So what's your mindset and what's your physical setting, and I had learned things about my physical setting, like I don't want it to be too dark. And, you know, the first time that I did it, it was a fairly dark room, I had the curtains drawn and stuff like that. And they're still 0.276% of my brain that's like late and Catholicism just kicking around back here, like the walls are going to open up and demons are gonna pour out. It's like, Thanks, brain. why don't why can't Can I just have nice things.

Jamie  

I'm shooting out of the dark walls. Come on,

Dr. Eliza Collins  

seriously. So I had this panic attack. And I was like, Okay, I can't, I can't do the experience that I thought I was going to do today. So I called my partner who was a pharmacist, he and I actually met in acupuncture school. So he's a big old science nerd, too. And he said, How did you prepare it, and I had prepared it in a tea and I knew how much liquid I had and how much was in the liquid. And he said, So titrate up, and I went, Oh, right, I can just take a little bit at a time and see how I feel, and then take a little bit more. And then when I get to a point where I'm like, I'm kind of not loving this, I'll just stop. And so that's what I ended up doing. And as I decided to utilize psilocybin moving forward, I want to make a relationship with this, this mushroom, this plant, because that's what it is. It's a living organism, it's helping me it's doing something to me. And so I needed to treat it with more respect than I was, and I was already treating it with a healthy amount of respect. So part of that journey, as I started to play around with micro dosing is taking enough to get to that point where I start to feel that anxiety, not so much that I'm gonna hallucinate or the walls are gonna open up or anything like that, but just that somatic feeling of like, Oh, something in my body is different right now and then just sitting in that. So that's one of the things that I also encourage people to do when they're finding their microdose and that's why I wanted to help people with my For dosing is because a lot of people in burnout already deal with anxiety and don't do well with big changes. And so the opportunity to walk up to the edge and peek over versus pitching yourself over and hoping that you will land someplace comfortable and soft, is a much better way to go about it with burnout recovery. And if you've never had a psychedelic in your system things

Marlena  

totally change and just jump famed. I'm like,

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, my brain is like, what are we doing? And I'm like, here's $20 make good choices. I totally got it. But, but this has been a really good experience in not doing that. And in sitting in the discomfort that comes with it, and giving myself the opportunity to experience the range of emotions that come around those types of changes. It's been really fascinating.

Daizy  

It sounds like you're helping them embody kind of and feel into their own somatic experience, so that they can also gauge where they're at with things. And again, this what you're talking about with burnout. It's like, how do we feel comfort and safety in our body?

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's part of the reason that I recommend that particularly with psychedelics, like I can do that with people with burnout, not utilizing psychedelics, but with psychedelics, because it is such a physical experience, the minute that stuff like that comes up, it can be really overwhelming. So having that foundation, and having done some of that work, is really, really important.

Jamie  

I was just going to ask, because I'm just so intrigued with this is, so once you've, you're in this experience, you're immersed, you're at that good level, you haven't gotten quite over the edge. But you're at that point where you're like, Okay, this is good. Is the practice then to I mean, what's coming out? Are you Are we journaling? Are we meditating? Are we whatever first comes to mind? Like, what what is it that you're hoping for in this experience? For the psychedelic to be beneficial? If that makes sense?

Dr. Eliza Collins  

That's a, that's a really great question. Because with microdosing, we actually don't feel a whole lot in our system, like when you're finding your microdose, usually, what I tell people is like, when you start to get to that point where you feel like you've had a glass of wine on an empty stomach, and you're starting to feel a little warm and fuzzy, that's probably your threshold. So you're not going to go past that, maybe drop that back by half. So like, if I were doing a micro dosing protocol, my lowest level, my starting level of microdose, would be 0.05 grams, and a full sort of psychedelic experience, dose starts at one gram. And for me, that would probably start at about 0.75 grams. So we're talking extraordinarily miniscule amounts of substance in your system. Usually, I just tell people to start observing, you know, when we go into this type of thing, it's like, what do you want to get out of it? What's your goal, and that can shift and change as you start to move through it, it doesn't have to be this static thing. But the way that psychedelics act on our brain is it helps our brain talk to itself more effectively. So our not every single part of our brain talks to other parts of our brain at the same time. The benefit of psychedelics is that the way that it lights it up means that parts of the brain that normally don't talk to each other, can now start talking to each other. That's why when people who are on a really high trip, they're like, I can taste colors. And it's like, yeah, you can, because the parts of your brain that normally don't overlap in that way, are now talking to each other. And it's really, really cool. Like, you can see music, that still happens on a micro dose, but at a level where you're not physically feeling those effects, right. So I usually start people off with like, Okay, what do you want to get out of this experience? What don't you like with your life? What do you want to change? How do you want to shift, because when we know the the framework of that of your desired outcome, then we can start playing around with how to get there. And the thing that I usually tell people with psilocybin is that it tends to turn the volume down on the level of emotional activation that we have. So for me, because I'm an anxious person, I'm less anxious, and it's easier for me to sit in discomfort and observe what's happening. So I was having a difficult conversation with my partner a couple nights ago. And normally, I would get that sort of like anxious feeling where it kind of feels like I'm vibrating. And I'm like, I don't like this. I don't want to be in this. I didn't have that. And I was able to sit there and say, Okay, what am I observing about my experience right now? Because he was like, What would help? And I was like, I don't know, can I have a minute? And he said, Yeah, and I was like, okay, cool. And I thought about it. And one of the things that I also work with with people is attachment styles. So are you an avoidant person? You know, when conflict comes up? Do you try and get away from it? Are you an anxious person, when you have an argument with somebody you feel like you have to stay in the argument and resolve it or things aren't going to be okay. For me, I'm disorganized. So I'm both of those things. So that puts me into a freeze mode, where I know it's I'm extra, I do everything to the next level. But I you know, in those instances, I want to reach out to the person that I'm struggling with for comfort, but that also doesn't feel safe. So I just kind of freeze and normally I can't think through that. when that's happening, because that's our fight flight, freeze phone system, that's our, you know, stress response, I was able to sit back and think and I said, Oh, I'm, I'm having a disorganized attachment pattern show up right now. And he goes, Well, that sucks. I was like, Yeah, sucks. And he's great. So we were kind of able to talk through that. And I was like, I want to ask you for comfort and this type of thing in this situation. But that doesn't necessarily feel safe. And I also don't want to ask you to do something that you're not comfortable with, you know. And so we were able to have a really constructive conversation around it, because I wasn't bordering on a panic attack, in the process of doing that, or so dysregulated, that I couldn't stay in the conversation. So psychedelics are really useful at creating a little bit of distance, where we can have this observational experience, and actually do some functional work there. So it usually just starts out with observing, because you will be a little bit less reactive over the several weeks that you're starting to microdose. And it gives you the opportunity to say, Okay, how do I want to react in this moment, you know, because people always talk about there's, there's that moment between an action and your reaction. And that's where you can decide what that reaction is, for most people with a really heightened nervous system, or with a history of trauma, or something along those lines, that space is incredibly small. Yeah. And I feel like psychedelics widen that space, just enough to actually be able to make the conscious decision of like, oh, I don't, I don't need to panic. Or I can do something to resource myself and feel safe. Myself, right now, I don't need to rely on somebody else for that. That's amazing. So in your, in your coach, they really are magical, like they call them magic mushrooms and like, fuck, they are magical. Yeah,

Marlena  

For those, that don't necessarily want to do psychedelics, or aren't at the place where they're ready to try that. What are some of the modalities that you use to work with your, with your clients?

Dr. Eliza Collins  

So actually, a lot of the modalities that I use to prep people for psychedelics are the same modalities that I use for people in burnout, okay, and so it is that framework, which is nice, because for people who don't want to do the psychedelics, you're still getting the benefit of neuroplasticity, like yoga nidra is a really great tool that I recommend for a lot of people because it is passive quote, unquote, because you're just laying there kind of listening to a guided meditation that relaxes as you relax different parts of your body. But there's research that indicates that it actually does increase neuroplasticity, so that it does the same thing that psychedelics do, just not quite as quickly, like psychedelics are, it's like being shot out of a slingshot versus going for a run. So psychedelics are going to really accelerate that process. But it's not like that can't happen in the absence of psychedelics. So you don't need psychedelics to be able to do this. That, for me is just another tool. It's just another useful tool. Yeah,

Christy  

I was just thinking, I'm like reflecting because I had this. I went to yoga last Friday, and then had my son, for the first time tell me he hates me. So I don't know if that was a winner loss, but I'll take it as a win. But I was able to, like you said, there's the time between like your reaction, right? I had, it felt like such an elongated time. But it was really just mere seconds, right. And I didn't react, I didn't react the way I thought I would have that situation, like getting angry or, you know, like, escalating to his level or, and I was just super calm. And I was telling you for hours super calm with this kid, of just going back and forth and just you know, kept kept telling him well, I love you. And that's never going to change. You know, like no matter what you say to me, it's never going to change and I was calm, calm, calm. And finally, it was like he got tired of it. And then I kind of sat back after that whole experience. And I was like, number one, I'm tired. But number two, I'm so fucking proud of myself right now. Like what happened? Like, that was amazing. Like, how was I in that headspace? And so when you were talking about the modalities and you know, yin yoga, and what yoga and McGarry I want to say that wrong, but flow yoga. vinyasa? Yep, yeah. And so that was where I was and was able to, and usually I can get to that space. But I was just thinking, wow, okay, well, maybe that's why, like, maybe that's why I was able to come home and to deal with it

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah. 100%. And, I mean, we talked about that in Chinese medicine too. Like, you know, we talked about stagnation. So like a bruise is a good indication of stagnation. It's, you know, blood that sort of broken out of the blood vessels and is stuck someplace that it shouldn't be. And our body has a mechanism to deal with that. It breaks it down and it brings, you know, chemicals into that tissue to heal that tissue to get rid of the bruise. But that's an element of stagnation. We also have emotional stagnation, where we feel stuck, or if we're bottling stuff in and then all of a sudden we explode. You know, you did something for yourself that created flow that created movement and that elongated movement spilled over into the rest of your life. And you were able to stay emotionally regulated at a time when it's hard for people to do that. And for a longer period of time, that is neuroplasticity. And recognizing that the thing that I love that you did is that you recognize your that and you, you were like, hell yes, I did that. That's amazing. Yeah, that is the type of thinking that wires that into your brain. You're like, oh, I can I can do this. And so when people recognize stuff like that, I encourage them to do it more frequently, like just high five yourself, if you manage to stay in traffic, again, I live in New England, yet all it is is one way streets and roundabouts. And everyone who's super short, tempered, aggressive, aggressive. So you have to really kind of course correct your emotional response if you're going to be a driver in New England. And I really encourage people to do that. Like when you don't spouse out or flip somebody off, pat yourself on the back for that and be like, oh, man, like, look at how I'm regulating myself right now. This is really cool. Because that's the type of thinking that does rewire our brains.

Jamie  

And then when you do flip out, don't beat yourself up.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Oh, totally. Totally. That one of the things? Yeah, no, but what growth? It is, and and again, one of the things that I do with clients is allowing yourself to like sit in discomfort and just feel your feelings. Because it's a moment. I had a really hard day, last Sunday. And I was like, I was also PMS. And so there's that, like, I get really weepy around my cycle. And so I was like fetal position, bathroom floor, bawling my eyes out talking to my boyfriend. He was great. He was like, Do you want to talk about stuff? I was like, Yes, I do. And I let myself have that where in the past, I would have really shut on myself for being like, oh my god, can't you just keep yourself together? I was like, No, I don't. First of all, I don't need to, these feelings need to come out Better out than in. And secondly, it's a moment. It was Mother's Day. And I was missing my mom. And I was feeling some grief. And I had some other big complex feelings. And I always thought as I was getting older, it might get easier. The farther away I get from it. And it's not. And that's okay. But giving myself that being like, Okay, this is just this moment. It's what I need to feel in this moment. And this moment isn't going to last forever. It's the same thing when you're mad. It's the same thing when you're hurt. It's the same thing when you're frustrated. You've got to let yourself feel your feelings. There's nothing wrong with you.

Jamie  

Right? It's okay to sit in it. It's okay to sit in it and give yourself that moment of whatever the emotion is.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, my coach called it sitting in the muck. Yeah, you don't want to live there. You don't wanna build a condo there. But give yourself some time to actually feel it. We have. There's such a cultural expectation to push through to be stronger to use adversity to your advantage. And it's like, cool you. You'll get there, if you want to, if you choose to. But let yourself also have those moments because that's a complete life.

Daizy  

Absolutely. So I hear that you do Tarot as well. How do you integrate that modality into everything else that you do?

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, that's been really interesting. And really fun. I read tarot cards for myself for about 20 years. And my coach was like, You need to integrate this. And I was like, I don't know how the hell that's gonna look. And what ended up happening actually, is that with coaching, like I do just standard tarot readings, but with coaching clients, I utilize it less as a divination tool of like, let's see what's going to happen in the next 369 12 months. And I use it more in terms of okay, this is what this cards mean, or this is what this card means, or this is what's coming up in this spread. How does that relate to your life, because the beauty of Tarot is that the cards are based on archetypes and life circumstances that are universal and ubiquitous. So something in each card is probably going to apply to someone's life at some point in time. So if a certain card comes up, and it's like, hey, you know, it's we're talking about your career, and the three of swords comes up, which is a card about heartbreak. It's like, where are you breaking your own heart? Is there a loss that you haven't started grieving? Because you shifted positions or you're doing something else or so it more asks thoughtful questions, and that leads to much deeper conversations. And most of my coaching clients that are utilized her with are like, oh, man, I came in with one question, we ended up talking about this. And this was the stuff that really needed the attention. That wasn't even in my conscious awareness. So it's been really, really interesting and really cool to see where that type of work comes up. Because it just gets so much deeper than you could with just a standard conversation of like, Oh, you've got a problem. Let's talk about your problem that can be useful as well, but I was my mind was really blown at how efficient my coaching became when I started putting Tarot into it.

Daizy  

Yeah, I really like that. Yeah, I read tarot too. So I feel like you're able to almost get there with someone else in a way that's almost like a backdoor because you're not directly asking them questions, but then it brings things up that they get to explain to you as well,

Dr. Eliza Collins  

yeah, yeah, they definitely I think in many cases feel less attacked. Because it's like, it's not me. It's the card story that I'm reading the book that happened to fall out of the deck today.

Jamie  

And well and makes them. Okay. Wow, I didn't think about that, you know, it's that. Okay, this could lead to what I was actually coming for. But I have to start back here. Okay. Okay,

Dr. Eliza Collins  

yeah, I worked with one client and the three of cups came up. And we were talking about how like, she was balancing work and balancing family and I was like, okay, recruit your family, your kids have hands. They're not infants, like you can institute a Saturday morning, half hour, everybody cleans up their bedroom, you clean up your bedroom, they clean up theirs, put on some fun music throughout the house. Like you can start doing this stuff so that you don't feel like you're carrying both the physical and emotional labor of running a household. And you're creating a really fun thing to do with your family. So it's something that everybody does together. And so you're creating secure attachment in that moment, as well. And doing stuff like that to sort of bring other people in your house into the fold, so that you're not living these disparate lives. And she's like, Oh, my God, that's brilliant. Like, yeah. And then you'll have more time for sorting out what you want to do with a business.

Marlena  

I'm just listening to you and like processing everything. And I was like, Man, where were you two years ago when I needed

Jamie  

I think I started getting into tarot a little bit on myself, because I don't feel like I could read people. But it has become one of my daily practices. Like in the morning, I wake up I meditate I, you know, say my my little speech, my little prayer, if you will, to the universe, and then I pull play out play with my pendulum a little bit and I pull out my tarot cards, and I read three every day just for the message. Marlena knows this, but like the last few weeks, I've been dealing with a lot of stuff at work. And so I'm pulling these cards to try and get myself just the other day I was like, Okay, I swear I was telling Marlena, these, like the same cards keep coming up. I mean, it's just like, repeated, repeated. And I finally flew no matter how much you shuffle. No matter how much I flipped over a decade. I'm like, There's a shit ton of cards are in here I have never seen so don't tell me that there isn't a pattern to this because I keep seeing the same things like I could get any one of these cards, it is actually really amazing. And I liked that you said you started reading for yourself? Because that's how I use it. I need to know my daily message. What's What is it today that I need to focus on and it helps me with my practice. So I like that you said you read yourself for a very long time because I don't trust myself reading other people.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

It's so funny. I, I have read now professionally for probably two years going on three. I don't remember if it's 2020 or 2021, that Kate suggested that. I still feel that way. Every time I sit down to work with somebody else. I was like, I'm a charlatan. And then I pull the cards out and I say something and they're just like, I'm like I did a reading for an event. I work in event a couple times a year. And the first girl that sat down, I pulled the cards out and it takes me a minute to sort of like settle myself and be like, Okay, what, what's the story that I'm seeing here and I don't use specific spreads. I don't use a 10 card spread or anything like that. I just pull cards. It's all intuitive. And I asked her something. I don't remember what it was. And she goes, You are freaking me out right now. It was like, I'm freaking me out right now. I don't know what's happening. And so when people will just be like how does it work? I'm like, Fuck if I know, I pull the cards, they tell me a story. I tell you the story. And then you start crying. It's usually the number of times that I've like, put people to tears within like 30 seconds of opening my mouth. I'm like, but it's yeah, that's, I say the magic. I'm like, I don't know how or why. It seems to. And you know, people are like, what's your accuracy rate? I'm like, little at this point, probably 85 to 90% the number of times that I have people come back to me and be like it. It happened exactly as you said it would. I was like, Please don't call me it's like that all the time. They're like, Are You Psychic? I was like, technically, I don't advertise that I also don't advertise mediumship. But that happens every once in a while. So I don't know. That's that's one of the things that I like about it. It always keeps it fresh.

Marlena  

Well I'm back to you stating you use tarot on your with your clients on what to work with. That's actually how I started using Tarot was journaling and pulling cards to be like, Okay, what the fuck is going on in my life that I need to change that I need to work on that I need to, you know, figure out and so that's actually how I started using Taro. I was like, oh yeah, this really works.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Yeah, it's I call it a gateway drug. Because like you get into it like for yourself and then you just want to share it with everybody you know?

Daizy  

yeah, I think you have to start you have to start with yourself because then you know yourself the best and then you get to work on yourself. And then that makes you a clear channel to do the work for other people or for

Dr. Eliza Collins  

100%. Yeah, and I, I actually the deck that I work with is really beautiful. It's it's very dark, it's all black and white pointillism very, very unique deck. And it's the first deck that I've gotten that I actually feel like I can read myself most accurately on, because I know like, you know, psychics go to other psychics for readings and mediums talk to other people to make sure that you know, they're not getting their wires crossed. So I always went to other tarot readers, even though I would utilize Tarot for myself as like, again, a thought exercise or things like that. I never really felt like I could get a cohesive spread where I'm like, Okay, this, this feels like I understand what I'm reading on myself. And it took that deck to be able to do it. And I was just like, dammit, but I do still collect Doxon I love them. But finding finding the right one, finding something that that fits you and suits you and makes you feel like you're in alignment when you're using it. I think that's a big deal.

Marlena  

Yeah, as far as reading myself, I can't do that. I like, you know, the whole thought process on what I need to work on. Like, figure that out. But pulling cards I'm like, because I know exactly what I want to happen. And I'm like, Yeah, this isn't telling me that let me reach up.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

For years I did that and the tower came up and it was like, exactly. Now you know this how the tower is usually like the most terrifying card in the deck to a lot of people. It's my favorite card. Now when it comes up people are like what does that mean? I was like strap in is what that means.

Jamie  

That kept popping up this week. I'm like, Marlena. She goes I know. I know. This tower go what's how I know. And the big bump. It's happening. It's exactly happening. So yeah. Yep, I know the tower card. Very familiar this week. Damn tower card this week. Ciao tower card. Yeah, well, Lysa,

Marlena  

what would you like to leave our listeners with,

Dr. Eliza Collins  

if you are feeling burnt out? If you are interested in psychedelics, this, this information, this advice applies to both. Don't do this alone. We have such a, I think almost pathological bend towards feeling like we need to fix ourselves, we are not broken, the systems that we live in are broken. And those are not going to be fixed overnight. So starting with ourselves is a really great place to start. Because if enough people do that, that's how systems change. But tackling something like burnout or approaching something like psychedelics is too big, I think to try and do on your own, you're not supposed to. I've been saying for a while now, healing happens in community. And so it doesn't have to look like me. It can be a therapist, it can be a support group. It can be a book club of friends who just get together and read meaningful things and talk about them. It doesn't have to have a particular type of structure, but just start by reaching out to one person. And if that's me on Instagram, DM me, I love talking to people, and I will direct you to where you need to go if I'm not the right fit, but start somewhere. That's not you just trying to hack this alone.

Marlena  

That's beautiful. And we will put all of your information in our show notes so that all of our listeners can contact you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Dr. Eliza Collins  

Oh my God, my pleasure. This is like the best way to spend a Sunday. Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here. I was just like,

Christy  

oh, so great. You guys. All right. Well, thank you Dr. Eliza Collins for joining us on this episode of a witch a mystic and a feminist. We will be back next week Tuesday and go visit us on w m f pod.com. We'll see you all next week.