Ep 6. From Severe Burnout to Top Health and Dream Job - A Client Story

Episode Transcript

For me the turning point, or the biggest signs, was the fact that I started getting white-outs. For what I remember, I would go into a meeting, and I’d come out, 30 to 60 mins later, without remembering anything. 

Hi ladies, 

There are moments in our lives, when everything suddenly turns upside down, and you have no choice but to stop and reflect. And make changes.

In this episode, I interview one of my dear clients, Anna Setterberg about the most challenging time in her life. 

It’s a story of how she ended up in severe burnout after 30 years of pushing herself to the extreme. But also on how she turned it around with professional help and transformed into a happier version of herself, stronger than ever and ready to start a new dream job. 

We will cover how you can spot signs of burnout within yourself, your colleagues, or your loved ones and what some of the keys are to getting out of the situation.

Anna is an amazing human being who I’ve had the privilege to work with for over a year now, actually since day one of her sick leave. 

Find the show notes and other resources at sofiavoncelsing.com/podcast

So over to my conversation with Anna! 

Super welcome Anna, I’m delighted to have you here. 

Thank you so much for having me. 

I would love the audience to understand a bit more about who you are, so why don't you start by telling us a bit about yourself? 

Absolutely. 

So I'm a Swedish girl. I'm adopted from China, was raised by Swedish parents, and in the early 2000's my family moved to Switzerland due to a new role that my dad took and so for the majority of my life I've lived and studied in Switzerland. I went to university in the UK and then ended up coming back to Sweden, Stockholm about nine years ago or so. 

So today I'm happily married. And in my free time I love exercising. Right now I'm focusing on building strength, so I'm on a rigorous but very good program with my personal trainer and I also love reading and going offpist skiing with my family is a huge, huge passion of ours and like you mentioned Sofia, you and I have been working together for over a year now. 

Which has been insane, but huge exponential sort of learning curve in what it is about to be human and to sort of riding yourself all the way to not having any fuel, any energy to finding a way to get back. So I'm back, from well, it's more than the one-year long absence leave of absence due to burnout. 

Recovering From Burnout

Yeah, I'm feeling stronger and I'm feeling much happier. So yeah, very, very excited to be part of this and hoping to reach out to more people who are experiencing either right now or have been experiencing symptoms or burnouts like mine. 

Yeah. And I'm so, so delighted to see. I mean, just the way you shine now and the way you feel and all of your, you know your wins, that you've, you know, gone through and overcome.

Why don't you tell us a bit more about, how you were feeling a bit more than a year ago? What happened? 

Wow. So there's quite a big back story to what happened to me. And I mean, I'm a millennial kid. I was born and raised by two high-achievers, boomers, and they raised me with the idea that I need to do the dog years to prove my worth whenever I get into professional life before I can succeed.

And on top of that, both my parents are university graduates they are and have been but they're still very successful in their fields in addition to that when we moved to Switzerland as part of my father's business success in the early 2000’ and I studied at international schools which of course is quite different to Sweden as well. 

They're rigorous. I remember in sixth grade, so I was eleven years old or something like that eleven twelve years old and we had more than twenty hours of homework every week because that's the way they saw it, that well you're going to school during the daytime to learn things but then you need to do even more work than that because that's what's gonna happen when you get into to your professional lives as well. 

That's just crazy. 

It is pretty crazy and I think I mean work-wise. I started doing summer jobs already at the age of 15, very much babysitting and working in restaurants and the camping places and things like that. But I mean since the age of 15 I still I've, I've, I still haven't had a vacation longer than three or four weeks which is quite insane. I'm, over 30 now, and that's half of my life I've spent working on making sure that I'm working somewhere.

And I even remember I had one summer job where one summer where I worked at three different restaurants at the same time. I was working in the service in one, I did dishes in another and then I did extra nights in the third one. So I've always been well, I've always been working a lot. 

And I think part of me, I felt like a superhuman when I did that, because it's a feeling of being invincible, of being able to manage so many more hours during the day than other people. And on top of that, I mean, like I mentioned with my high achiever parents, I was also taught early on that you can never be over-prepared. 

In terms of the homework, but also when it comes to preparing for a job or working in a job, if you're the person who knows the most, who's the most well-informed and up to date, you'll always be a go-to person. You'll also be the person that is included in things because you know the history, you know the processes. 

And on top of that, I was told early on as well that. You should always compare yourself with those better than yourself. So never with those that are worse, but always the ones that are better because that will, you know, make you even better. That will sort of drive you to do more and be more every single day. And I think these ideas of needing to be the best, all the time current with the fact that I'm adopted and I have a sort of gratefulness towards being one of the lucky few that was adopted to an amazing family and it's thematic throughout my professional and my personal life. 

So when I started working in a more professional scene at the age of twenty-three which as you probably know it's quite young in Sweden and that's after having completed a bachelor's as well and had a sabbatical year so I was quite early to everything as well. I was determined to overachieve everything that I sort of took on. So already in my first job, I kind of slid into the IT industry. Not quite sure still how that happened, especially considering my first interview when I was supposed to be configuring SO building servers and computers and I was asked can you tell me 3 parts of a laptop and I said well, the mouse, the keyboard and the rest I can learn. And apparently, I was convincing enough so I managed to get the job. 

I love that, that's amazing. 

It is amazing. But what also happened is that I'm a quick learner and I think that's something that has helped me really project myself in my career, but it's also something that I have been able to lean on throughout my professional life, so I mean..

It's really one of your superpowers. 

It is a superpower, but it's something that we're gonna talk about a little bit later as well. It's also something that I felt that I lost during my burnout. But you know, I was hungry back in the day. I still am, but when I started off, I was hungry. 

Women Need to Work Harder to Excel in the IT Industry

And I wanted to do even more so quite quickly I got promoted into an IT sales role instead and I think another thing that became my truth early on is that I was a girl in the IT scene, in an industry that has still fewer women than men. 

Few women have been successful and even if we talk a lot about. Sort of diversity that we want not only gender anymore, but of course with age, with race, with, you know, whatever sexual orientation that you have, it's still something that is very dominated by men that have been part of the industry since the beginning of it. 

And I understood early on then that I need to be, I need to work twice as hard as the guys that I work with to get the same results as them. And in my mind, mathematically, that meant that if I work four times as hard as the guys, I can double the results that they have. And that's what I did. And that's what I that's what I've kept doing since then. 

So it's now, it's almost 10 years that I was going on that trajectory so I think that's sort of what lays the ground for how I ended up where I am today or where I ended up back in March 2022. Yeah. 

And what were you experiencing then? 

You know, we've been talking a lot about this, but it's great for the audience, the other women leaders listening to this to understand what the symptoms are and the signs of when something is really going in the wrong direction. 

Can you walk us through a bit how you were feeling and what symptoms you were noticing? You know, the months leading up to you actually, you know, ending up there going on sick leave? 

Absolutely, and to be honest with you. There were so many signs now that I look back at it, even before what I saw leading up to it. I was very much in denial about the symptoms that I was having. And I've actually had. I had quite a few close friends and colleagues of mine who had gone through the same or similar types of burnout as myself, and I even had two close ones that were on longer leaves. 

You know when I when I went into mine and I mean I worked in the IT industry across a variety of different sales roles and I've always been the high-achiever and last year. So right before I went into my burnout, I was working as a Nordic Sales Rep in a hyper-scale American SaaS company and I was great at my job. 

I mean I started in the middle of the pandemic and despite working one hundred percent remote from my living room next to my tv I got over three hundred percent of my annual target in the first year so I've always been one of those that I don't believe in a hundred percent I wanted two hundred and fifty percent at the very least yeah and I have I had previously sensed fatigue at different workplaces and of course a lot of stress. 

White-outs In Meetings, Not Remembering Anything 

But after some big company changes in the in that well that employer I including an acquisition had several changes in leadership as well as changes to my territory. So they affected me personally as well. I felt more drained than ever and I think. For me, the turning point or the biggest signs was the fact that I started getting white-outs during my meetings, and all of my customer meetings as well as you know in internal meetings were done virtually. And what I remember is I would go into a meeting and I'd come out 30 minutes to 60 minutes later without remembering anything.

And the strange thing is that none of my customers or my, you know, colleagues seem to see this in me. It's just that I would come out and I would have nothing from the meeting and I would have to ask afterwards, you know what? What were we actually talking about? Because somehow I seem to go into autopilot. 

Yeah, So that's very strange still not sure how that worked and the strange and the funny thing that I think a lot of people can sort of identify with, is the fact that I would work very hard but then I would say that oh there's a vacation coming up, so I can work you know two hundred percent and then I will get to rest but what would happen is that I would come back and be equally tired after my vacation. 

Getting Sick During Vacation From Stress 

A lot of my vacations I also got a fever. I got ill so I wouldn't even enjoy them, but I would just be staying in bed or something like that. And the sort of final blow was at the end of one of a long time going sales process with back then a potential customer that did become a customer but not because of me but what would happen is that I I actually had to ask my manager to complete the final negotiations because I I didn't trust that I could do it myself. 

I had started slurring my words and getting off in the middle of sentences, just not remembering where I started off. And so I asked my manager to close the deal. I got myself on sick leave, but only for a couple of days. 

Stress Reaction in the Shape of a Panic Attack

And then the night between Saturday to Sunday and I was supposed to go back to work on Monday, I had my first panic attack. I'd feel my heart racing. I thought, I mean, I've been in some strange situations before, but nothing like that. 

And on the Sunday morning I called up one of my friends who had recently gone through burnout herself and on top of that she works in HR so I wanted to be informed you know what what is the process of what can I do to simplify everything because that's also the person that I've been, the person who wants to make sure that I know how to do everything even if it's not in my role because that will simplify that will make me more productive and effective. 

And called her up and got a lot of support and ended up calling up my manager on a Sunday, which I don't recommend to anyone but I but I did and explaining the situation to him that I needed to get or seek professional care. And two days later I sat at my doctor's office. I was told that, well, this is gonna take some time. 

And this is definitely going to take more than what I thought then was going to be two weeks off. 

Yeah. And that was the day 1 of my recovery, sitting in that office. 

Wow, thank you so much for sharing. And it's just, I mean, insane. We've gotten to know each other really well and just hearing everything you've been talking about now, but also everything I know about you from before, it's, it's so apparent that it's not just one thing. 

Obviously, there are many years leading up to something like this and such a, you know, severe crash. But also so impressive that all of the things you have overcome and all of the challenges you've taken on and your mindset and your drive and all of these, you know, that's your super skills. 

But then it's also not having been able to listen and seeing the symptoms and knowing how to take care of yourself within this, so you know, it's so sad to hear that someone has to push themselves so hard, to end up in this situation. 

But do you think there's something that would have helped you earlier? 

So I have thought about that a lot and it's interesting that you say that it's, you know, it's a superpower, but it's also what led me to where I ended up. And I've seen it. I started seeing it a bit like my Hamartia or Akilles Heal - however way you would like to see it. Like it's it's my fatal flaw, but it's also something that I needed to go through to really understand and learn. I mean, I was, I was in denial for so long. 

Signs of Burnout at an Early Age

Even back when I was working in three different restaurants, I had another summer when I was working at a camping and my mother ended up picking me up and saying you know what you're you're going to take a week off now because you are stressing yourself out and you're only 18 years old. This is not supposed to happen yet. So it's. I mean I've had, I've seen that, I've been going into this path of burnout or this downward spiral several times, but I've ended up managing to stop myself, either with, you know, a job change or taking a week off or something like that. 

But I haven't sort of put myself all the way down. And I think for me that's something that I needed to do to really learn, to really understand and to appreciate and start to respect my body and my needs as well. 

So I know, I mean, you know, I've, I've heard of a lot of people that managed to stop themselves before ending up there. But I think for me, I mean I've, like I mentioned, I've had a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues around me, but I've gone through it and back then I used to think, well, there's obviously something wrong with that. Like there it's not normal to get burned out, you know. It's something that has to do with so much more than just circumstances. 

And I almost felt like a superhuman when I was working and I was working an average 13 hours or something like that. I look back in my calendar. 

Working 13 hours a day on avarage. 

Yes, 13 hours a day on average. I would also work on weekends. That my manager wouldn't know because I've made sure to and I would write emails, then I would schedule them and then I would send them on Monday morning sharp or at least schedule them for us. But I've done a lot of work during the weekend just to make sure that I was on time, always proactive.

And so no, I think I needed to go through this, but I don't think that everybody has to. I think they're so many things that you can do to avoid ending up, where I ended up. 

Yeah, for sure. And what would you say have been your key learnings from this experience? 

I would say there are four big ones.

For me, and I know that burnout is a process and it looks different for every single person, but I think the first one for me is that your energy is like a bucket of water, and if you don't continuously fill it up and recover yourself, there's gonna be nothing left at some point. So I think it's extremely important to find, identify and find and then execute on ways to recover. Whether that is, you know, spending a whole day in bed, whether that is going for a long walk and listening to a podcast but or even doing yoga. But some way to understand that your body needs the recovery and not just knowing it, but also doing it. 

My second biggest learning is that you cannot perform your way out of a burnout that I've I love processes always done, always will and but at the same time I love being productive. I love making sure that while I'm, like I mentioned, I want to be prepared for anything and everything. I want to be well-informed. 

I want to have all the tools from day one and this is just not something that you have when you get into burnout and what got you into it, which is for me, I performed myself into the burnout, is not what will get you out of it. 

Yeah. 

Put on your Own Oxogyen Mask First

And then I've also thought a lot about the fact that our flight attendants are right. You need to get your own mask before you help others put theirs on. And I think it the same is true for work and life. You know, if you're not, if you're not taking care of yourself first, whether that is health-wise or professionally, you're not gonna be good at helping others either. 

Because what's gonna happen is that your health challenges are gonna spill over into other people's buckets as well. And then the fourth biggest learning that I have, that I also want to shed a light on us that stress can injure your body in unimaginable ways. When you stress over a long period of time and your energy is on autopilot or you know there's no fuel left, your body starts shutting down areas to conserve energy. And I'm not a physician, so I can't talk about the scientific benefit of it. 

Cognitive Challenges Due to Stress & Exhaustion

But for me, apart from my fatigue and indecisiveness, that I think a lot of people experience as well, and I was experiencing cognitive challenges such as extreme memory loss, and I felt stupid. And especially when I would lose my trail in the middle of a sentence and go off with tangents, I felt like, wow, all of that intelligence that I prided myself in previously was gone. 

And we don't talk about these symptoms until we're already in it. So what happened is that when I got burnt out and started opening up about it and letting people know, people around me were more willing to share their stories as well. And I've heard about high-achievers becoming paralyzed and taken several years to recover. I've heard of people going blind from their stress. 

And I've even heard about people doing MRI's and the brain has blackened, so it's sort of rotting because of the stress. 

O my goodness.. 

Shuts down and it's and it's staying as well because this is, you know, I've heard from several people. I feel like every single person that I open up to has shared something about either personally that they've experienced or someone that they know. Are close with. So this is not something that you know this is this is normal. 

This happens to a lot of people and I think especially in the world that we live in, when we're always online, we're always accessible somehow. You know I was told by my dad that back in the day when he was going on commercial flights professionally flying to see a customer. 

People knew that well, he's on the plane. He's not able to answer any calls. He's not able to do anything. So he would actually, he would print out huge documents just to sit and read on the plane. But today that's not something that we do anymore. Today we have Wi-Fi. Today, people can join in virtual calls even if they're sitting on an airplane, which is insane. 

Yeah, you're never off. 

Never off. 

Learning to Switch off is a Vital part of Self-care

So you really need to learn to switch off and allow yourself those breaks and it's such a such a vital part of like self-care but most people, in my experience, no idea (including myself, I had no idea either what that looked like or even how to do that.) Or allowing yourself to do that. 

What has been the major transformation for you, like where are you now compared to where you were when we started working together, more than a year ago? 

So I think one of my biggest transformations is respecting and listening to my body and what I need. 

I mean, I mentioned that I love exercising. I still do. But one of the first things that was shut down, that I was told by my doctor was you're not allowed to exercise. Because when you're stressed over a long period of time, your body doesn't understand whether it's work stress or it's, you know, social stress or if it's stress from exercise. So what will happen is that whatever you do that is not recovering is gonna sort of continue building up. 

Building up until you completely you know, blow out. So that's one of my biggest transformations. I've been using Headspace. I did even before I went into my burnout, so I love getting time to focus. You also introduced me to the Positive Intelligence program which has been well, part of my transformation. Very much in identifying, you know, what are the thoughts that I've been listening to and making or believing are my truths into understanding that, well, thoughts aren't real, they're just thoughts and having a thought about something, even if that can conjure your emotions and response. A lot of stress responses and fear responses on top of that. 

It doesn't have to be the truth. Maybe it's completely wrong and there is a different truth behind it. A lot of that and I think as well in terms of sleep and training, I started to listen more to what I need rather than listening to what should I do or what must I do to avoid something that I'm afraid of so. I mean, I will have days when I've slept poorly during the day, even if I had planned then I was gonna go and exercise. I'll just say no. You know what? I'm gonna take a day off. Because it's more important for me to feel fresh and awake and take care of my body than it is to go out and push myself to the brink.

Setting Boundaries and Saying No are Keys to Burnout Recovery

I think those are the biggest changes, the transformations, and then finally professionally I've I've learned or gotten more equipped with setting boundaries and I think that's something that's very important, especially for high-achieving women. We are more likely to get into these hiccups and problems for sure. And we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. I think on top of that, society puts a lot of pressure on. You know, a woman should be able to take care of the home and she should also be a high achiever at work and she should make her own money, but at the same time not more money than her husband. And so there are a lot of things weighing in that I think we put onto ourselves and we internalize. 

As have I done? Yeah. And so being able or feeling more confident in putting boundaries on, you know what? This is what my role entails, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to do five other people's job just because it makes me feel good at that moment, because what's going to be the repercussions? 

What's going to be the consequences of me doing something for someone else? Are they gonna continue pushing their workload on me? Probably. Am I gonna burn out because of it? Most likely. And on top of that, you know, feeling wise, will I feel as though I'm doing more than what I actually earn? Also most likely so. So to me, it's been more important to setting down my foot and being completely transparent with what am I capable of doing right now and just focusing on that.

Yeah, so I really hear, that it's a bunch of learnings, which often in my experience also is it's the key because people are complex and it's not one reason why we end up here. And it's also not one thing that would help us to get back from it. But what you mentioned was really to learn to set boundaries, say no at work. 

But also personally I've heard also and then, you know managing your energy to taking care of your energy, listening to your body, you know really prioritizing self-care, and not pushing yourself where you would have otherwise done that or earlier you would have just you know even if you had a bad night's sleep you would have still gone to the gym and now just listening like what do you need most today. Is it to go to gym or is it to go for a walk?

And all of those things also in my opinion and in my experience is vital, you know, to learn to do that. And then you also mentioned listening to learning to become aware of your inner critics and the saboteurs that are running in your head and to challenge them and maybe not, you know not act on their direction or on their demands, but more seeing them as what they are. They are the inner critics or saboteurs, but choosing to do something different. 

Absolutely. And I think I mean I realized I spent almost 30 years burning my energy to the ground and going into patterns of doing things more efficiently, more productively, something that we talk about a lot as well in in organizations, you know, we want to be more smooth, more lean, we want to do more things with less resources, but that doesn't work for human beings and we're more complex than that. 

And what I also realized is that in terms of this transformation, I mean if it took almost 30 years getting into it. It's going to take every single day for the rest of my life to continue on track and choosing new ways to act and to be, which is something that I look forward to now. But it is, it does require work somewhere down the line and most of all I think it's it's, it just requires you to continue looking into, well, I don't want to go back there. 

No, I don't want to go back to feeling miserable, being tired, feeling like I'm stupid. I want to be energetic, I want to be happy. And I think that's the key as well in terms of what's going to make me happy, because whatever media tells you that's something that's happening over there. But what you need is highly individual. 

Dare to Choose Your Own Path

And what's going to make you happy might not be the trajectory or the road that you've chosen to go the ground or something that's, you know, completely different. 

Yeah, wow, that's beautiful. And I'm thinking also a lot about all of the women out there that might be experiencing symptoms right now of exhaustion. 

Could be, you know, like you mentioned, either lack of memory or loss of words or not being able to sleep, fatigue, headaches. 

What would you recommend them to do? 

Take Symptoms of Stress and Fatigue Seriously

I would recommend them to please take any symptoms seriously. So saying that you're tired from work. Feeling so stressed out that you cannot sleep or even having anxiety about going to work I mean, that's not right, it's not worth it, no job is worth sacrificing your wellbeing and your health and that's definitely something that I've experienced as well that is as soon as I lost my health I lost a lot of things around me.

I lost my social positive spirit. I lost motivation. I lost time spent with my family, with my friends, with my husband. I didn't have the same energy. I felt like a bad wife simply because I didn't have the energy to be fun and you know, trying on new things, which is something that we love doing together and hopefully we'll do so much more. Even traveling, I just, I didn't feel like doing anything. 

Life is about so much more than than work, even if career is extremely important. I understand that and I'm completely with you. 

Yeah. 

But I believe that there are so many ways to make career. You know the part that you thought was the right way might not be. And I think if you look into any person who has been successful in their career. 

But there's not a straight line from starting work to being CEO of a global company. There are a lot of tangents that we go off to. It's like a roller coaster, but it's also important. I think that's the way that we learn. Another thing that I want to urge you to do if you're familiar with any of these symptoms or things that we've been discussing today. 

Or if you know someone who is, you know you can see from the outside that they're on a downward spiral, is listen to podcasts like this one because they're filled with inspiration and also because what we talked about before, you're not alone. And in terms of not being alone, I mean, I look back on my recovery and one of the things I'm, I'm a true believer of mentorships and I mean, even if I'm in sales, which is normally what we see as a one man show, that's not the way I've seen it ever. I see it as a team. 

It's something, you know, I I look back on all of my sales processes and none of them I've done completely alone. I've always had, I've been surrounded by technical specialists. In different partnerships I've had, the wider global team, I've had amazing managers and people with the know-how that I don't have and that I, to be honest, shouldn't have. And the same thing is true when it comes to, you know, wanting to do something in your life. I think I've been blessed by having an amazing, patient and truly supportive manager in my current employer. 

And furthermore, the company has had one of the best insurances in the industry when it comes to stress and burnouts, which has allowed me to access a coordinator, a physiotherapist, a psychologist and a professional life planner as well as a doctor. And on the outside of this I have my personal trainer since three years or something like that. 

Find a Mentor or Coach to Support You

And then I found you, Sofia, my stress mentor. And to be honest, it's together with Team Anna that I was, you know, determined to get back on track and was accountable to it as well. So my recovery has been a team effort. I think that's true for a lot of us that we feel like we need or want to alienate ourselves when we're stressed. But to be honest, I think it's much more important to talk about it and to normalize this, because this is a phenomenon that we're gonna see even more of in the future, especially the more technically savvy we become, this is gonna be huge. 

And on that note as well, do reach out to someone to talk about. Whether this is a close friend, someone like myself who's experienced burnout and I'm happy to share, or a stress mentor like Sofia who has been a champion to me since, well, pretty much day one as well. I think I reached out to you on the same day that I was put on leave of absence. 

Yeah, you did. 

You have been key to my recovery journey as well. Because no one is alone and you shouldn't feel like you are alone either. 

That's so beautiful and I can only echo exactly what you said. It is a team effort. It's like I said, it's not one thing that makes you end up there and it's not one thing that would help you get out of it, but it's really looking at the person from a holistic perspective, like I've been talking about a lot with a mind, body and soul. 

But we are complex as human beings and we need to look at ourselves from all these different angles to see what is it, what are the keys for you that will help you to get out of it and also not just survive, but actually to thrive. 

And just to see where you are now, it's like, so inspiring. And you have this also, like, I think it's a superpower to be able to surround yourself with mentors, with support systems. Because not everyone is, you know, allowing themselves support, not allowing themselves to ask for help. 

But doing that and just seeing how that has transformed you and where you are now. I mean, just going into, yeah, you're just about to jump into a new exciting opportunity, career-wise. You wanna tell us a bit more about that? Where are you now? What's next? 

Well, I mean, today life is great, right? It's, I mean I'm learning something still every single day, which I think is amazing. I'm still on the Positive Intelligence program, but now on the Grow part of things. So I've completed the six intense weeks. Of sort of getting into learning, getting it into practice, but also into the kind of pattern of doing it over and over again. So it's something that you do without thinking about it. 

And I mean, thanks to my amazing team and following this, this process, I'm back on track both mentally and physically, which is insane as well.

Back in the days, and I think it's three or four years ago, I was in what I thought was my best sort of fitness ever. I was deadlifting 100 kilograms. I was super strong and a lot of muscle mass as well. And then when I went into this downward spiral and I was on top of that, put on hold from exercising, I thought, well, that's never going to happen again and. Strangely enough in the past three or four months I've been doing a program with my personal trainer which is basically strength training two days a week so it's it's not a lot of strength training to be honest but just following the same exercises and putting on a little bit of load every single time that you exercise and I mean I'm lifting a hundred kilograms again easily which is insane. I've been doing squats with seventy-two kilograms which is also insane, it's like a hundred and forty percent of my body weight. 

I think it's such a great proof that you can get back and not just get back, feel a lot better than before. 

Yeah, absolutely. And also it's, it's so wondrous, the fact that your body is so elastic and your mind is elastic too, you know, you can drive yourself, to what felt like the ground. But then you can build yourself back up again. And that's why we should respect our bodies as well, because it's, you know, it's organic. It's something that we need to take care of every single day to make sure that we're happy, energized and enjoying life. 

Amazing. And it's so inspiring. Like I said, you're really living proof of that. And any last words that you wanna send to the audience listening? 

Well, I think, I mean, you did ask me about my sort of next role and I didn't really respond to that. So basically, I mean, I'm starting my dream job after this summer. 

Because I made the decision that a change of scenery was required for my well-being and it's insane because it's like I mentioned, it's my dream job. It's something new but it's also something that you know, the biggest promotion of my life. 

When I got into my burnout or even before that my biggest fear was that if I do get burned out, and I was, I was going to be unemployable forever for the rest of my life because nobody would want me beyond this point, especially with my cognitive difficulties. And today I know that that's untrue. So for anyone who is afraid that something like this is going to, you know, discourage the rest of your career or make you not be employable. 

That's completely false. I also believe that going through something like this or having respect for it, respect for your time, being able to set boundaries, putting yourself first, that's all all sort of, well values that companies want in a person. It's about personal integrity and it's about putting your own happiness first. Because we have one life and we should live it to the fullest and be there for those people who are there for us, like our family and our friends. 

Wow, thank you so much and congrats again. I said it many times but congrats to this amazing new role that you will start off the summer and I'm just so grateful to having been part of and continue to be part of your life and part of Team Anna. And it's so inspiring to see you know, all the hard work you've done but also the amazing results you have you've had, it's thanks to you, you've been able to take all of this on and had a strong drive and motivation to feel better and that has also supported you so much. 

So thank you so much for joining and for sharing your story. Take care and speak to you soon and for those listening, please take this to your heart because this could be...you know, this could be you. This could be your sister or your friend or your daughter. 

And just to learn to see this, the symptoms and the signs in the people around you and also within yourself. Because we don't need to continue like this. Life shouldn't just be about surviving, it should be about thriving.

And you can do that too. 

So with those words I will leave you.

Take care! Bye bye.