Burnout Isn’t Laziness: Perfectionism, Nervous System Healing, and Real Self-Care | Victoria Evans
[00:02:07] Aneta: Victoria, welcome to the Live The With of Your Life podcast.
[00:02:11] Victoria: Thank you so much. I'm super happy to be here.
[00:02:14] Aneta: I'm so excited that you are here, and I think you just told me today that is today the day that your book launched, that it's actually officially published.
[00:02:23] Victoria: Yesterday, but I'm still riding the high, so it feels like today. Yeah.
[00:02:27] Aneta: That is so exciting. So, for those who maybe aren't as familiar with your story, tell me how you went from corporate life to becoming the self-care mentor and author.
[00:02:40] Victoria: Yeah. So I started my life thinking that I had to tick all the boxes to be happy, as many of us do. And so I had gone to university, and I got this really amazing professional corporate job. I used to work at L'Oreal at the head office. It was very fancy, very put together.
[00:03:00] It was everything I thought I should have wanted. But at the time, I was actually massively struggling with anorexia and bulimia and depression and anxiety, and really trying to be who I thought I needed to be to be happy, and so I was burning out. I was absolutely miserable. And I was confused because I'd done all the things that I was told that I should do in order to be happy, in order to be loved, or to be successful, and yet I'd never felt so broken and so empty and so lost.
[00:03:36] So when I was working for L'Oreal, I hit this rock bottom moment in my eating disorder recovery at the time, and this kind of illusion of who I thought I needed to be really came crashing down. I had a very dramatic rock bottom moment, which really became the catalyst to what eventually turned into this self-care journey and this healing journey, and eventually turned into a book.
[00:03:59] So I left that corporate job, which was very difficult. It takes so much guts and courage to leave a corporate work life with that stability, and so I was humming and hawing for a long time, but essentially, I ended up leaving. I had a whole eat, pray love moment where I moved to Bali for several years, and I've lived all over the world subsequently, but when I left, I started working with women in eating disorder recovery.
[00:04:26] And after going through my own journey and launching that program, and what basically kind of evolved from that was what I'll say to people, the people who struggle with food and body issues. It's never actually about food and body. Those are the symptoms, not the problems.
[00:04:40] And so the program that I had put together during those kind of darkest moments of my life eventually became the program that saved my life. And then I started to teach hundreds of women around the world. And so my book is not framed through the lens of food and body because it's never really about that.
[00:04:56] So it's about radical self-care and how to actually show up for yourself. Not in a performative way, not in a way that's going to look good on Instagram, right? But those messy ways of really being what we need, checking in with ourselves. And unlearning a lot of the things that we were told we need to be and who we need to be to be worthy and loved and good enough.
[00:05:16] Tearing down a lot of the patriarchal expectations and the capitalist idea that your worth is linked to how much you can produce and how many emails you can send in that busy Olympics. And so it was a lot of unlearning and then embodying myself into these new truths, which is essentially what became the book today.
[00:05:34] Yeah.
[00:05:35] Aneta: Wow. And the book is called Beyond Bubble Baths and Face Masks, which I absolutely love because I think sometimes people think, self-care, that's what it is. And it really is taking care of ourselves. And that could be one of the ways, but there's so much more that is relevant. I want to go back a little bit to what you just talked about when you had your moment of wait a second, I'm so confused. I've done all the things. I follow the rules. I check the boxes. I cannot tell you how many times I'd said that to myself and how many women, either clients or people, have been on the podcast who've actually said the same words, like if I got money, every time someone said that, they woke up and they said to themselves.
[00:06:20] Is this it, like literally those words? It's absolutely incredible, and I think it's an awakening where we start to see little cracks in the conditioning, in the programming that we've been given since we were small. And when the feelings and the inner nudges and the inner knowing do not align with what expectations are.
[00:06:47] We start to say, wait a second. Is it something I did? Did I do it wrong? And then when you're like, no, I was pretty good at what I was doing, then you start to question, wait, have I been focusing on the wrong things this whole time? And for you, you said it came across as control around your food and body image.
[00:07:06] And that's definitely one. And some people overeat, and some people display control in different ways. So when did you notice that you were having these experiences and these thoughts, and how long did it take for you to actually decide, okay, I need to leave and do something different?
[00:07:25] Victoria: Yeah. So it was a journey. It was a process. And I think what was difficult for me was, at the time, it was the height of my bulimia, anorexia, and exercise addiction. And so I'd achieved this body that I'd always dreamed of having, thinking that was going to be what made me happy, and connected and loved and worthy.
[00:07:45] So I was getting a ton of praise from coworkers, from family, from friends. You look amazing. How are you doing this? I'd joined this woman's weight loss guarantee program on Instagram and found myself in front of all of her followers, with my before and after photos. She looks amazing now.
[00:08:01] She looked terrible before. So I was getting all this external validation for how I felt, which was the complete opposite of how I was feeling on the inside. I thought I was going to reach the top of the mountain where I had this body, and at that point, I had this job, I had the partner, I had this beautiful apartment, and I was like, okay, I should be happy.
[00:08:22] And what really hit me the hardest, and I reached this pinnacle, and I talk a bit about it in my book, about one morning when I'd had a handful of trail mix, which I deemed unacceptable at that time, and ran a 30-kilometer run as punishment. And I was at the top of this place in Montreal called Mount Royal.
[00:08:41] This top of a big hill mountain and the sun was coming up. And just remember, having this moment where there's never going to be enough weight loss for me to be happy. There's never going to be a perfect enough body for me to feel good about myself. And then I started to look around at the rest of my life.
[00:08:58] Where I had this fancy job that was all about aesthetics. It was very kind of Vogue-esque, and I had everything I thought I should, but that crack that you're talking about really came from this food and body idea of who I thought I should be. And once I started to challenge that narrative and see the cracks in that foundation and kind of this buildup of this is the pinnacle of who I need to be in reaching it, once that started to crack, I started to notice it in other ways in my life.
[00:09:26] And ultimately, as well, when I started to do this recovery journey and healing, I started to understand a lot more about perfectionism and how that shows up. And this idea of trying to gain external validation to feel good enough on the inside. And I started noticing how so many things in my life were simply, I was doing it for the external validation, for the clap on the back.
[00:09:49] And so many of us pick our careers simply because we think it's going to sound good. I initially started my master's in economics with the idea of getting my PhD and going to the United Nations. Just because I thought it sounded cool, like for the sole reason I thought people would think that's very interesting if that's something I did.
[00:10:06] And so ultimately, I hated my master's program when I quit, and I ended up moving to work at L'Oreal, but it was just a different version of what that basically was. It sounded cool. It sounded like something I should want. So a lot of my recovery with food and body stuff, which is never just about food and body, was unlearning this idea of I had to show up in a certain external way and be validated in that way to be good enough.
[00:10:30] And so once that crack with the food and body and my healing journey started to open up, I couldn't unsee it. It was like once I started to see, like, oh no, I've built an entire life base around the external things I thought I needed versus what I truly, deeply in my core need and how I actually need to show up for myself.
[00:10:47] And so that process, my healing journey, it wasn't overnight, as if anyone's gone through any type of recovery. It doesn't happen overnight. So it was a while. It was humming and hawing. And then ultimately, I didn't necessarily know how I was going to leave my job at that time. But essentially, after I had gone through recovery and started talking to people about what kind of that looked like, I essentially left for my Eat, Pray, Love moment, but teaching other people basically how to heal and reclaim their body.
[00:11:14] And that really helped me create that transition because it was something I felt very passionate about, something that felt really right in my soul and really resonated, and that really helped me to make that leap because I wasn't just making it for like a lateral leap to a similar job that didn't really fill my soul.
[00:11:30] I had done a lot of soul searching on that recovery journey and realized, no, I want to do work that makes me feel like I'm making a difference in the world and I'm contributing, versus L'Orea,l where I felt like I was just creating more insecurities and selling people solutions for them. So that really helped me create that transition, was just feeling like it aligned more with my core values and who I wanted to be, truly, and not who I thought I should be.
[00:11:53] Aneta: Yeah, it's so important to have that inner alignment with your values. And once we know and can identify it, then we can say, that's the missing piece, actually, trying to build something outside of that is never going to feel right. But when you do, and you find it, you're like, this is the key that goes to this lock.
[00:12:12] It's so incredible. So how did you pick Bali? Did you literally see it because of Eat, Pray, Love, or was there another reason you decided to go to Bali?
[00:12:22] Victoria: Yeah, so Bali came up for me because when I was working at L'Oreal, I was so miserable. I was taking different courses online, starting different businesses. At one point, I was trying to do like a flower dying kimono thing, I was just like shiny object syndrome. Anytime I thought I could start a business to help me escape from that life I created, I was just like, this is who I am now.
[00:12:44] This is what I'm doing. None of those things truly resonated. But when I was in that kind of phase of trying to just grasp onto things. I'd come across a news article from these two girls who had started a social media management, graphic design type of business, and had moved to Bali, and this was back in 2017, at the time, so it wasn't really a thing.
[00:13:05] 2016, 2017. No one really digital nomad. It was starting to be heard about, but it wasn't really on people's lips like it is now, especially post-COVID. So it was the first time I actually learned that you could move somewhere else and live abroad. And they had talked about it in the article about Bali.
[00:13:23] And then I found myself on a website, it was likea digital nomad list or something. And it ranks like the top places you can live in the world, in terms of cost and safety. And anyway, at the time, Chiang Bali was at the top of the list. So that's where I went.
[00:13:36] And it also helped eat, pray, love moment. And then later on, I found myself in Chiang Mai for a very similar reason, and then also in Lisbon for a similar reason. And now I live full-time in Porto. But yeah.
[00:13:47] Aneta: I did a retreat in Portugal last year and spent time in Porto before we went to Ericeira, and So beautiful. And Portugal now is just such a hub for digital nomads, people from all over the world. How long have you guys been there?
[00:14:02] Victoria: I've been here for just about three and a half years now. Yeah, I met my now husband, who is Brazilian Portuguese, and he's been here for eight years. So when I was living in Lisbon, took the train one weekend up to Porto and then met him, and then now I live here full time.
[00:14:19] Aneta: It is so absolutely beautiful. What is the biggest thing that you've learned from living in Portugal? How has it changed you?
[00:14:25] Victoria: That's a great question. I think living in Portugal and also living in other countries. Really being able to cultivate a sense of community is so important, and realizing we need other people. I think so much of my life, I really self-isolated, thinking I didn't need other people. And I had a difficult time connecting, also because I was such a perfectionist, and I was convinced that I had to be perfect to connect.
[00:14:49] Not realizing that was what drove the disconnection. And so moving abroad and being able to find other people who have chosen a different path. They're choosing not have that hustle and grind, and trying to just move up a corporate ladder for the sake of moving up the corporate ladder, as so many people do.
[00:15:09] Which, if that's your dream, perfect, but for many people, we're doing it just because we were told that's what we should be doing. So being here in cultivating a sense of community with people who have that, it just forces you to get out of your comfort zone and meet new people because you don't have the people that you grew up with, those friends and family from university.
[00:15:26] So it's a great opportunity when you're living abroad and especially in Porto because everyone's so wonderful. But to really cultivate community and put yourself out there to create new friendships.
[00:15:35] Aneta: That's so beautiful, and it's so true. We absolutely need people and communities, and when you move somewhere else, I imagine you have to go and make the effort to do a little bit more of it, to be more intentional about it.
[00:15:47] Victoria: Yeah, absolutely. If you don't, you're not ever going to leave your apartment, your place. I remember when I first moved here. And like I do it all the time, actually. There's usually a Facebook group in new cities when you get there. So if you can find that Facebook group, and then I would just post a picture of myself in it, all girls’ groups, just for safety reasons, and meet in public places.
[00:16:05] But saying, I'm new here, this is the things I liked. I didn't want to meet up for a coffee, a glass of wine, or a walk. Every single new city I would get to. I would post that in a group, and then it'd be like a slew of women being like, I love these things. Let's go for a coffee, let's go for a walk.
[00:16:18] And then that's just how I find community is just being like, Hey, I'm new here. I have no friends. Does anyone want to be my friend? Basically, even though it sounds so cheesy and corny, it's hard to make adult friendships. You have to be so intentional and active about it. Otherwise, it's just not going to happen.
[00:16:36] Yeah.
[00:16:36] Aneta: For sure. I want to talk about your book, and I want to learn a little bit more. First of all, how did you come up with this amazing title, and then what is your hope or your intention with the book?
[00:16:49] Victoria: Yeah, so the title came about, I called it Everything You Never Learned About Yourself or something. It was very long, and I was like, that doesn't sound fun. So beyond bubble bath was, I wanted to have some kind of alliteration, some kind of fun with it. And then like you're saying, it's so true, self care can be a bubble bath, but that's not all it is, it can go so much deeper and oftentimes we do the bubble bath or the face mask, not realizing that is just what we've been sold is self-care and not is what is true, messy, really showing up for ourselves in those moments where it's not Instagram worthy. It's not going to be something that we're buying in the store.
[00:17:30] It's those moments when we're with ourselves, by ourselves, how we show up for ourselves. And so I wanted to have the play on the face masks and the bubble bath because that's what we think of when we think of self-care. But knowing it's beyond that, it's more than that. And so that's how I came up with the title.
[00:17:45] And it's also just fun to say, and then, when it comes to the intention, this is the book I wish someone had handed me several years ago, and it's basically the culmination of my seven years of work with hundreds of women around the world. So it's all packaged up, it's my life's work, and it's the work that I think is so important for women to learn if they haven't.
[00:18:09] And not trying to put myself on any kind of pedestal, because I'm still learning and I'm still in the throes of things. But so much of the world right now is in chaos. It's stressful, it's overwhelming. And what we don't need is more women stressed out about trying to look perfect on Instagram and stressing about the size of their thigh gap and who's on Ozempic and who's not, like all these superficial things.
[00:18:34] Dieting is such a distraction. It's a tool for control. So we're talking about that in the book. We're talking about how the patriarchy likes women to be small and quiet and not take up space. No, we need women taking up space right now. We need women taking a seat at the table and demanding more from their government, from society.
[00:18:50] Then we're talking about capitalism, how I said before, like our productivity is our worth. And unlearning that and knowing how so many women are sacrificing themselves and have a martyr complex because we've been told that if we give enough of ourselves away, and if you put everyone first, then you're a good woman. And that's a total lie.
[00:19:08] If we give ourselves away to everyone else, then we don't know who we are anymore, and that's how we end up burned out, and that's how we end up resentful. We don't know who we are anymore because we become someone for everyone but ourselves. So this book is all about coming home to yourself.
[00:19:22] It's unlearning and rebuilding and embodying a lot of the truths that we knew at one point, but unlearned along the way to meet societal expectations.
[00:19:32] Aneta: It's so true. And I think about going back to even elementary school, I got good grades, but I would need improvement on talking because they always said, you talk too much. And then I remember in college I was always a little bit of a nerd, actually a lot.
[00:19:46] And so I would always raise my hand, want to participate, ask questions, like just be engaged. And in one of our classes, our lit classes, the teacher stopped calling on me, another friend of mine that were women, and we went up to her afterwards, and we said, a female professor. And I said, what's going on?
[00:20:05] And she's like, yeah, you guys just talk too much, and we just need to let other people. And I was like, wow. Like we're adults in college. This was my senior year, and you're not going to call on us because other people don't have their hands raised. It was just one of those things where when you say women are made to feel small, so true.
[00:20:26] And then you start to question it. And that led to me and my career not always wanting to speak or not always wanting to participate. Or even now, when I take classes, or I'm part of groups, feeling like I'm too much or extra. And I'm like, I'm 53 years old, and why am I still feeling this?
[00:20:44] But it's so true. So what do you do with your clients to really help them overcome this feeling of following the rules, being asked to play small, whether we realize it or not, and really stepping up more into our own power in a way, instead of trying to constantly control or make ourselves smaller.
[00:21:06] Victoria: Yeah. Such a common experience that making yourself to feel small and happens in school that's awful. It's a place you want to learn, and you want to show up, and you want to take up space and be loud and be heard. And yeah, it's awful that these kinds of situations are happening and having these lasting impressions on us.
[00:21:22] Something I always talk through with clients is who profits off it. I always love to frame it in that way, like who is benefiting you? Who's benefiting from you? Not taking up space by not raising your hand. We need more women taking up space, raising their hands, being loud, demanding more. And if other people think it's too much, it's because they are still in that brainwashed mindset that we've been told and sold to be small. After all, small and distracted is easy to control.
[00:21:53] So the reframe I always like to give to people, and I talk about in the book, is, yeah, who profits off this? Who is going to have their life made better by you, by your life being made worse essentially? And why do they have that opportunity? Why are they more important than you?
[00:22:08] Why are their expectations of who you should be more important than who you actually are? And we have one life. If we spend our entire life showing up, being who we think we should be, we're going to get to the end of our life and completely regret it. We're not going to know who we are. We're going to be confused and burned out and frustrated and resentful.
[00:22:27] And on the more nervous system kind of side of it is helping you to get into a more regulated state. And I know that at the beginning of this podcast actually was actually great. We did a little embodied moment, taking some breath, you talked me through it, and that was. Perfect. That was amazing. So we need more moments of checking in with ourselves and noticing, okay, I'm feeling super anxious.
[00:22:48] I'm feeling really overwhelmed. I'm feeling like I am too much. We're in those states. We're likely in that fight or flight. That sympathetic state. We're feeling overwhelmed and anxious. Or maybe even we're more of a shutdown state. Maybe you're in a more of that kind of dorsal, overwhelmed, dissociated, all of that.
[00:23:04] In those states, the stories we tell ourselves are going to be, we're too much. We shouldn't say that thing. What is wrong with me? Versus when we're in a more regulated state, our nervous system feels safer and more relaxed. We're going to be more able to challenge that narrative. We're going to be able to take more risks and put our hand up and take up space.
[00:23:22] And so it's great to be able to check in and see, okay, where am I at right now? What can I do to come back to myself to get back into my body? Maybe that is a few breaths. Something I always used to stress with clients is. Setting some silent alarms, making sure they're silent because if they're not silent, you're going to scare the bejesus out of yourself.
[00:23:39] And that's not the point. But setting some silent alarms and changing where it says the word alarm to things like, how am I feeling? Checking in, breathe and scheduling those throughout the day. So they just come up on your phone as this nice little reminder. Changing the times periodically, just so you don't kind of just start glazing over them.
[00:23:56] But it's a great reminder to take that moment to come back to yourself and to check in and have those couple breaths so that you can be in that more regulated state so you can challenge the system more. Because if you're always running on panic and anxiety and burnout, you're not going to have the capacity to challenge the system.
[00:24:12] Aneta: Yeah, nervous system regulation is so important, and that's why I love to do that exercise before the podcast, because everyone is running from somewhere; we didn't just land and drop into this moment. There was something that happened, and just being able to tune back in, set an intention, control your breath, regulate, start to embody, whatever that intention is, it doesn't take long, and it makes a world of difference.
[00:24:42] It makes the world. An honest, authentic conversation and one that isn't. And I know one of the other things that you talk a lot about, too, is boundary setting. What have you discovered with the women that you work with in terms of their ability to create some solid, healthy boundaries, and what are some of the tips that you can offer?
[00:25:04] Victoria: Yeah, so boundaries are such an important one. And the thing with boundaries is that as women, we are told not to have them. We're told that everyone else's needs come first. But real self-care is learning to recognize when your body's in overwhelm, when people are not supporting you, when people are walking all over you.
[00:25:28] And so boundaries are not so much about saying no to others, even though it technically is. It's more about saying yes to yourself, because if we're saying yes to everyone, then we're often saying no to us. So the interesting thing about boundaries that I always like to say to clients is that it's showing up in a way that you're not allowing others to manipulate and control you.
[00:25:48] So what it looks like to set a boundary is a sentence of when you do XI feel blank. I would like to do this next time. So it's making it about how you feel when you're setting that boundary, not about how they make you feel, but how you're feeling in that moment. And it can even add in, like the story I'm telling myself is that X, Y, Z.
[00:26:10] Really making sure when you're setting that boundary, that you are coming at it from how you feel, and then stating that boundary with intention, with purpose, writing it down in advance, and being sure in those moments as well, after you set that boundary, that you are sticking with it. So that kind of broken record technique, where you're continuing to reinforce that boundary.
[00:26:31] So, for example, if I have a boundary of, I don't respond to text messages after 7:00 PM, and someone's texting me at seven 30 and they're saying it's really important. I want to make sure I'm saying, sounds important. I'm going to get back to you tomorrow, and I have a capacity.
[00:26:43] And standing by that. And the people who respect and understand, and the people who are looking to that and saying, yeah, I get that. Those are the people you want to have in your life anyway. It's a bit of a litmus test. If people are saying, that's unacceptable, that's not what I want.
[00:26:59] Then maybe those people aren't who you need to have around you, and that can be hard, and maybe some people need to have a little break, which is why sometimes boundaries can be difficult because it can be a way that you can see who loves you for you and your life, and supports you in your growth, versus who is trying to change you and manipulate you into who they want you to be for them.
[00:27:19] So boundaries are also amazing because they're so contagious. With my friends, if I'm saying something like, I just don't have the capacity to do this right now, I'm going to come the next time, or I'm going to circle back. So saying no and being intentional with whatever boundary is that you've set for yourself allows others and permits them to do the same.
[00:27:37] So boundaries are such an exercise in coming home to yourself and knowing yourself and showing up for yourself. Then, as I said, it becomes such a ripple effect on other people in your environment as well. So boundaries can be tough, but they're also necessary.
[00:27:53] Aneta: Yeah, it's so true. And I think that it takes practice. Sometimes we just haven't had. Good examples of how to set boundaries. We haven't had the practice, and so it's moving from thinking about it and how the other person is going to respond, which I found to be effective and actually practicing it, like even just saying it over and over again, where you can take the emotions out of it and do it objectively.
[00:28:19] And then waiting and just allowing the other person to respond, knowing how they choose to respond is not on us. What we can control is setting the boundary, being pretty clear about it, upholding it, and then how the other person chooses to respond. As you said, they may choose to respond appropriately, and those are the people that you want in your inner circle. And if they don't and if they constantly try to push against it, that also says a lot about the relationship.
[00:28:45] Yeah. So important. Yeah.
[00:28:48] Victoria: Yeah.
[00:28:49] Aneta: This book sounds amazing. So tell me, Victoria, where can folks find the book?
[00:28:53] Victoria: Yeah, so I want the self-publishing route. So it's on Amazon, so you can get it anywhere. It's Kindle Direct Printing, so it should be with you in a coupleof days. So you can find it on my website, which would link you to Amazon, which is victoriaevansofficial.com/book, or you can findit on Amazon if you search Beyond Bubble Baths and Face Masks.
[00:29:12] But some people are having trouble with that. So if you just search my name, just because it was published yesterday, it takes a little bit to be indexed. So if you search my name, Victoria Jacqueline Evans, J-A-C-K-L-Y-N, it'll also come up as well. So those are different places you can grab it from. Yeah.
[00:29:26] Aneta: It's fantastic. And listen, I self-published my first book, and I'm working on my second right now, and I might self-publish again. I just think that it's wonderful that we have more opportunities and choices to be able to do that. And the KDP route on Amazon is fantastic. We'll definitely include all of those links in the show notes. And Victoria, I love to ask everyone a final question, which is, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
[00:29:54] Victoria: That's a beautiful question. I think for me it's when I'm by myself, how do I feel about myself, to really understand if I'm living the full width of that? Another kind of tactic that I kind of frame almost what you're saying is if I were to go behind a door and live my dream life, and I couldn't tell anyone about it, and at the end of the day I would come back through that door, would I still want that life through the other door?
[00:30:18] So it's not about other people, it's not about doing things because I think it sounds good, if it were a total secret, how to live my life. And for me, even writing this book was like, I'm going to be proud of myself even if no one buys it, because it was just for me. So that for me was like fully living the width of my life.
[00:30:33] But it's that constant checking in and making sure that you are following what feels good for you, like we talked about before with the values, and then leaning into that and creating the time and space to check in with that is really on the path that you're on, and you're not living someone else's.
[00:30:48] Aneta: That's a beautiful reflection and answer. Victoria, congratulations on your book. I wish you so much success, and thank you for the beautiful work that you're doing in the world. It just makes such a difference. It's so important.
[00:31:01] Victoria: Thank you so much for having me, and I can't wait to hear more about your second book. That sounds amazing.
[00:31:06] Aneta: Thank you, Victoria.