Michelle E. Dickinson Part 1 | Resilience You Can Actually Live | Ep61

Resilience isn’t something you scramble for when life falls apart. It’s something you build daily.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Michelle E. Dickinson joins Pam Dwyer to explore resilience as a lifestyle, not a last-minute survival strategy. Together, they unpack how small, consistent choices quietly shape mental health, emotional stability, and long-term well-being.

Michelle shares lived experience, practical micro shifts, and a refreshing reframe: setbacks aren’t failures. They’re data.

Inside this episode:

• redefining resilience as a proactive practice
 • reclaiming agency over stress and emotional patterns
 • recognizing early signs of quiet burnout
 • micro shifts for sleep, movement, and daily rhythm
 • the pause, breath work, and brain dumps at night
 • instant soothing vs sustainable well-being
 • failing forward with self-compassion
 • gratitude and journaling as mental recalibration
 • memoir as healing and shared language
 • protecting your baseline energy and joy

This episode is about building stability before life demands it.

Part 2 continues the conversation on March 5th.

You can find Michelle and her work, including her book Breaking Into My Life, in the show notes below. If today’s conversation resonated, I encourage you to explore her resources.

Connect with Michelle E. Dickinson:
  🌍 Website: ResilienceAsaLifestyle.com
  📘 Author site: breakingintomylife.com
📱 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michelle-e-dickinson-7882013
📷 Instagram: instagram.com/michellemd_resilientlifestyle/
🐦 Twitter / X: twitter.com/mdickinson13
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/michelle.dickinson.146 
▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UC8Vt31TIEWh6dW_V2-qmtTQ  

This is Delay the Binge™ — formerly The Plus One Theory Podcast.

Delay the Binge™ explores the patterns behind urges, habits, stress patterns, burnout, and Quiet Depletion™ — and what happens in the pause between impulse and action, where real behavior change begins.

Through conversations with leading experts in neuroscience, psychology, resilience, and human behavior, you’ll gain practical insight into how the brain shapes reactions — and how small, intentional shifts create lasting behavior change.

Full video episodes available on YouTube.

Pam Dwyer | Speaker
 Learn more: DelayTheBinge.com

Storytelling that transforms. Healing that lasts.
 From bestselling author Pam Dwyer (PJ Hamilton)

Books + speaking: PamDwyer.com

Delay the Binge™ is a trademark of TPKK Concepts LLC
 © Pam Dwyer. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Delay the Binge Podcast, a space to slow down, get curious, and explore what's underneath the habits that keep pulling at us. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer. Enjoy the show. Today I'm joined by Michelle E. Dickinson, a resilience and burnout expert, TEDx speaker, and founder of TriFecta Mental Health LLC. Michelle's work is shaped by three powerful perspectives: her lifelong experience caring for a mother with bipolar disorder, her own journey through depression, and her role in helping organizations build more compassionate, mentally healthy cultures. She's also the creator of Resilience as a Lifestyle. It's a prevention-focused approach that integrates mental, physical, and habitual practices to support long-term well-being and sustainable performance. Michelle, welcome. I'm so glad you're here with us today. Thank you so much for having me, Pam. I'm so grateful that you found me. Me too. Me too. I can't wait to chat with you a bit. So let's start out with for those meeting you for the first time, can you tell us a little bit about you? What led you into this work and why helping people understand stress, resilience, and agency became so important to you?

Redefining Resilience As Daily Practice

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, that's a great question. And I I'm always, I feel like whenever I get asked this question, it like grounds me a little bit. So my backstory is that I grew up with a mom who had bipolar disorder that shaped me. Anyone who has a parent that goes through something, it affects us as little ones. So that shaped my experience as a little girl and taught me my own sense of resilience, actually. But it it definitely is at the heart of why I do what I do. My mom struggled a lot. I watched her in and out of hospitals. Um so as I got older and was, I felt um grateful that I was able to hold a good job. I emerged from the situation relatively healthy. Um, I was invited to give a TED talk about my mom. I was in an organization that was really trying to normalize the mental health narrative in the workplace to create a sense of um, I guess, shared compassion for people with mental illness. Uh, so I gave that talk and that really shifted things for me. It led me to write my memoir about my mom. But then ultimately always questioned, you know, after doing the mental health advocacy work, you know, why we were waiting to hit burnout, why we were waiting to hit depression, why were we not talking about the things we can do to preserve our well-being? Like simple things, things I wish I could have told my mom that would have helped her avoid maybe some of the crisis that she had. So then I just got real passionate about, you know, let me start talking about resilience as a lifestyle, really help people understand their they have agency and there's things they can be doing that can literally prevent that trajectory. So that landed me doing the work that I do. And I love helping people. Helping people is like my passion. So I feel very fortunate to uh to have been able to help so many people.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Man, I can so relate and I appreciate how you talk about stress as something to um understand, not just something to power through, you know. So when when people hear the word resilience, they often think it means pushing harder or holding it all together. So, how would you define resilience in a way that actually protects mental health instead of draining it?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, I think a lot of people look at resilience as that term that means like I bounced back from something, right? I have the strength to bounce back, but instead I I relate to resilience as something that we get to build every single day so that stress doesn't devour us. So we have the ability to ebb and flow with inevitably the stress that's going to show up, whether it's personal life or professional life. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just be like, okay, I can handle this. I feel very empowered. I don't have control over everything, but I have agency over putting my own oxygen mask on so I can handle that and it doesn't take me down.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Exactly. I mean, I took care of my own mother the last 10 years of her life, and and I wrote a memoir as well. So um it was hard. It was difficult for me to write about my mom, but it was healing at the same time, you know. But I intentionally waited until she passed before I published it though.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, same. Oh my goodness, we've similar stories. Like yeah, it was hard and cathartic and something I wanted to do uh after she had passed away. So relate to that.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, because I mean the last 10 years we had come so far, I had forgiven, and we had just a totally different relationship. So I didn't want to ruin that, you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I can I can appreciate that more than you know because my mom was so vulnerable and there was nothing I wanted to do to upset her.

Agency Over Stress And Coping Skills

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So exactly. Well, you've said before that there will always be those outside stressors, but how we respond determines how well we live, right? And so how did you come to understand that through your own lived experience? How did you discover that?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

You know, it was a matter of a lot of coaching. So I've coached over 7,500 hours of individuals from all walks of life, right? So I had my formula, but in reality, I needed to learn what actually would move the needle for people. And so I had the privilege of getting to support people through some really rough times. And I got to see what did help them. And I would say that the first thing I noticed is people come to the conversation waiting for their external world to change, waiting for circumstances to be different than they are, and relinquishing the agency that they truly do have in the face of what's going on. So, my first, my first invitation to them is stop waiting for things to be different than they are and realize that you could be doing things for yourself now to help yourself feel better now. You know, but most people don't realize that. So they sit or they power through to your point earlier. They power through, they grind it out until they hit a wall. And and I am here to say, don't do that. And don't wait for things to be perfect in order for you to take care of yourself, because the people who love you are the ones that are going to get the short end of the stick of you not being at your best.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Man, my listeners need to hear that so much. Um, we we talk about that a lot. Um also, I've I've been to like, I don't know, eight years of counseling because of the way I grew up. And every, and I've had a lot of different therapists, and they all, every one of them ended up because I want them to fix it, make it go away. But they all tell me that, pam, we can't undo what has been done, but we can teach you how to cope, give you these coping skills. And so that is when my eyes were opened, like, oh, it's just not gonna instantly disappear. It's always gonna be with me. It's always gonna be a struggle and something that I, you know, try to correct.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

But just being aware of it and and taking a pause, a moment to understand what your pain is. You know, that's what we're trying to get a lot of of women to understand to slow down long enough to evaluate yourself to to be intentional about what you're what's going on inside, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I think, you know, we forget how good we can feel, and we forget that we deserve to feel good. You know, and I think we often are givers as women, where everybody's needs comes before ourselves. But but the impact of that is we get run down, the people that we love get a watered down version of us. Our joy isn't there anymore, we lose our shine. And so, you know, I think it's really important for people to realize there's so much in it for you and everyone else if you make the time to feel good, whatever that means.

Early Signs Of Quiet Burnout

SPEAKER_00 8:44

I love that so much. So, how would someone that's just listening to this, um, how would um, I mean, you work with so many people across different environments, right? And so what are some of the early signs of burnout or stress that people tend to miss? Like what they're either ignoring it or do you think they just don't realize that they're that stressed?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

I think it's like a matter of numbness, you know, putting your head down and plowing through, um having opportunities to connect, but you're too exhausted, having opportunities to do things that you once loved, but you're not really interested, right? Those are like telltale signs, right? Not being able to sleep because you have the constant chatter in your mind. Um and having like no space for you, you know, like I think those are important things. Like if you don't have the energy, if you don't feel a sense of happiness or joy, if you um don't look forward to the things that you once once, you know, enjoyed doing, that's when it's a really good time to take a step back and say, all right, what is it that I'm I'm doing for me? And if if the inventory says nothing, or the inventory says Sunday night before going to bed for the work week, then you have to really stop and say, listen, we're not on the planet just to work and pay bills. You know, but I think the average person just thinks, if I could just get to, you know, vacation, if I, you know, like the trapezing from one vacation to the next, hoping, you know, that that North Star is enough to keep them going. And I'm here to say, you should be filling your cup a little bit every day because that's going to give you the ability to run the race and not just a sprint and then burn out.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I notice a lot of times um a lot of folks, they don't realize they're just shooting for the destination, right? Like you said, the vacations or, you know, whatever the short-term goals are, but they don't realize that if they don't pay attention, they're gonna lose themselves in the journey and getting there. And then when they get there, there's that numb thing where they're not feeling anything. I mean, they're successful, they're doing everything right, their family is amazing, all is good, but they still don't feel the joy. They don't feel anything inside, and they don't understand why.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah. Well, listen, life's happening now. We're not promised tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

We're not we're just not promised tomorrow. And I, you know, and I see this all the time. Like, stress is the number one killer. Like, we know that stress has a physical and emotional impact on our health, on our bodies. And it's like, don't do that to yourself. You deserve to feel good, you deserve your vitality, you deserve longevity, you you deserve to be around. Yes. These are these are some basic things that, you know, it's important to get in people's face about this because there's no promise for tomorrow, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Right. And there isn't. And also just reminding them, you know, as we are intelligent, intelligent women, we know what we should be doing, but we still choose not to do it. It could be something as simple as exercising, right? We know what happens if we don't move our bodies.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

And we don't want to be that elderly person that is just all hunched over and can't move. Yes. But we still don't have either, we think we don't have time, we think that, you know, someone else is more important than our time and taking that walk or going to the gym, doing the things, and then we end up overeating, over pleasing, overworking, doing all the things that we tend to do to numb out because we're so exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Just to soothe, to get that instant, to get the instant gratification that's temporary. You know, like to have the glass of wine. Like I can't remember the last time I had a glass of wine by myself at home, right? Like, because I know, you know, there were moments when that was appealing, when that was, I gotta just take the edge off. I gotta just relax and take a glass of wine and feel good. But the reality is, like, I know that doesn't really serve me, but in the moment, it's kind of like chocolate cake. In the moment, and in the moment, it's wonderful. But as that is that really gonna serve you, and I think that's the tendency we have when we're overwhelmed and stressed out and not filling our bucket, that we gravitate to those instant, instant things to quell uh what's missing.

Short‑Term Soothing Vs Long‑Term Well‑Being

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Man, I couldn't wait to talk to you about the neuroscience of things because we've been really taking a deep dive into that as a community and understanding the lower brain chatter versus the frontal cortex, you know, like the the thinking part of your brain. And a lot of times that lower part we're we're understanding is just a short-term fix. It wants to take care of you, but it wants to soothe you with whatever it can grab, like the chocolate cake or the glass of wine or whatever that is, it's telling you you need to do this, you're tired and you you deserve it. And this goes offline.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yes. Yes. The reward. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

And so how, I mean, we teach the pause, right? However long that is for you, if you just take a moment to pull this back online, your frontal cortex, then you can reason yourself out of doing whatever that unhealthy thing is.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

But I also think that like, why wait to that moment, right? Like, I I challenge the people that I coach all the time and I say, try a couple of little micro shifts. Like I just did a training for a a law firm and they were all women, uh, divorce attorneys, ironically. And they all are type A, work their tails off, right? Yeah. So I invited them to make micro shifts. Anyone can do a micro shift, right? Like small things, so that you don't get to the part where now you're wrestling with your brain, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

But if you did little things every day, the challenge is I promise that if you do little things every day, you're going to start to feel different. And when you start to feel different, you're gonna realize wow, by doing this, like what else is possible? So the micro shifts that I often share are having an intentional start to your day, whatever that means. It could be a 15-minute sitting, having a cup of coffee by yourself in a space that you love to start your day on your terms, something little, right? Because if you could do that for yourself, it oftentimes creates a domino effect for the way the rest of the day goes. And then making sleep non-negotiable. You know, people say it all the time: sleep's important, sleep important. Like sleep is the only place we go to restore ourselves so we can handle the stress. And we know the stress is waiting for us. So why not give ourselves a chance to handle it by feeling rested and recovered? So sleep, you know, moving your body, you mentioned that doesn't have to be long, it could be a 15-minute walk. By doing small micro shifts and measuring how you feel, it could really make a huge difference so that you're not getting yourself up against the wall where now you have to wrestle with a bad decision that your mind wants to make in the moment. So, like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

So we don't give the lower brain chatter any any time to to to take this offline or thinking part, if we do those small intentional steps. I love that. I love that so much. Uh we talk about the plus one theory, which is what this podcast used to be called, which is you do your best, plus one more in small incremental steps. That's it. You know, to use pain for purpose, but to think and not you're you're right. I I never really put it like that though, where let's just avoid going there altogether.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah, so it's it's palatable, you know, like yeah, it needs to be realistic or people will be overwhelmed easily. I noticed that from coaching. I can't give I can't ask them to boil the ocean. I just have to give them a little thing so that they start moving the needle in little tiny degrees. So it's like an airplane that shifts one degree and lands in a completely different place.

Micro Shifts That Change Your Day

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's a great, that's a great visual there for me too. I'm so visual. Yeah, I can see them. So if um I would like for you to talk to our listeners about failure because I a lot of times they feel um if they're so exhausted and they're caving to urges or binging, they feel failed. But I always tell them they're not failed. It's just your brain giving you information. And if we pay attention to it, you know, it can actually help us move forward more wisely instead of starting over. Because uh we all think, oh, I've ruined this, I'm gonna have to start over next week. But we're learning that no, we're gonna pick up where we left off because we did all that work. Yeah. And what brought us to this point, we don't want to start over, right? That reeks of failure. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

So, from being an entrepreneur, I've learned you fail fast and you fail forward. If you want to call it failure, call it failure, whatever you want to do, whatever. So then just get up and move forward, right? Like when I was in Weight Watchers many, many years ago, there was a sign on the wall that said, if you tripped going up a stair, would you throw yourself down the entire stairwell, or would you just pick yourself up and keep going? Like you'd pick yourself up and keep going. So I think the number one thing is fine, consider it if you want to consider it failure, fine, then just fail forward and keep going. But then the other thing is, is we always beat ourselves up. So, like, why do we have to beat ourselves up? Why not just give yourself grease? Like, would you would you beat up uh your best friend if they failed? Or would you give them grace and give them encouragement and say, just try again tomorrow? Right? Like that's where that's where self-love comes. Like we're human beings and we're we're not always gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

We always refer to it as speaking to the to a child, you know, because like if I want let's use chocolate cake, we've been going there. Sounds yummy. But if I wanted chocolate cake and I know I it's not gonna serve me well, then I speak to my child, myself as a child, and I say, okay, we can't have this right now, but tomorrow, if you still want it, we'll have a piece, but we'll plan it and we'll be in control.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, and we'll be reactive, right? Yeah, yeah. Or it's riddled with guilt or self-assault. Like, you know, I think that's a really important thing to become aware of. I think the magic is always going to be in the awareness, like you said. It gives us information, it gives us awareness to do something with it.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Mm-hmm. And to use it, you know, that's that's the big message of my memoir is that your past doesn't define you, it prepares you. And I learned how to use that pain as fuel, you know, for purpose to do good things with. Because what else am I gonna do with it? I'm not gonna sit there and just whine about it. You know, right.

unknown 20:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Just gonna lean into it. And that's what a lot of folks call resilience. But I don't know if it's truly that or it's just that the the thinking part of my brain is just like, okay, this is here. You're gonna have to deal with it. So let's just use it.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

And it serves us. I I recently had a conversation with someone, they were like, you're underestimating the amount of wisdom that you've accumulated. You know, we're so quick to, I don't know, maybe judge ourselves, but if we ever take a step back and look at where we've come and what we've gone through and all the adversity we've we've you know, stepped up to the plate around, it's like remarkable what we've accomplished. It's remarkable the the amount of wisdom that that we have that we get to bring forward with us. But we never we never do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

I know, and I don't know why. I I'm still trying to figure that out, trying to do a lot of research to see why we it's almost like self-sabotage, right? We don't think we're worthy enough, or we're just too tired to think about all the things we do know. We're just trying to look at the day and the next day ahead. You know, it's that quiet depletion again. And I'm still guilt, I find I catch myself all the time, you know, trying to do all the things, check all the boxes, and I've forgot that, you know, I need to eat or I need to drink water.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

You know, this is simple, just simple things that can add up over time and and become an issue, especially with your health, you know.

Rethinking Failure And Self‑Compassion

SPEAKER_01 21:56

I also think too, though, we live in such a stimulated world where There's so much information coming at us. There's so much that we think we have to think about. There's so much noise that we know that from research, you know, through various people that I follow, like Dr. Joe Dispenza and some of the most remarkable teachers, is it's really in the silence that we connect with ourselves in a deeper way. But but we're we're oftentimes we're too busy and we're too consumed by all the noise that we aren't making that time to connect with ourselves. So, like I mean, it's funny because we're seekers of information as women, right? Like we're seekers of information, we're seekers of solutions. We are always trying to help everybody else's problems. But in reality, the best way to help ourselves is to create that time where we connect with who we are and and our and our inner voice and our and our higher self.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

But you know, we have to make that time to do that. We do, and that seems to be our biggest challenge is that even the plus one theory, everyone thinks of it as, oh, another thing that I have to add to my day.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

But no, it literally takes seconds or like journaling. I am a big advocate for that, but it's so hard for me to help other women see the see that it's valuable, it's value, and they don't want to take the time to do it. And I just tell them, okay, then if you're having trouble sleeping, we're gonna do a brain dump at night, and you're gonna write on a piece of paper everything that's in your head, and you're gonna dump it onto that page, and I promise you you will sleep better because it's gonna be there waiting for you in the morning. And uh most women that try that, that's how they get started with their journaling, because then it's just no it it moves from just words, word vomit, I call it, but it moves from just words into sentences and then into thoughts. And then I'm like, okay, now you can see patterns. You know, two weeks, if you do this for two weeks, you'll see a pattern. Because I don't remember what I was feeling or thinking two weeks ago. I don't know about you, but yeah. But if I journal it, then I can analyze it.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

And a lot of a lot of times, I mean, I'm guilty of it too, is like having an overactive night mind at night when I'm trying to sleep. It's like it impedes your ability to relax and just unwind and recharge yourself when you have all that noise going on. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Well, from your perspective, um, because I just really want to glean everything I can from you, from your expertise, but what helps people make those those small strengthening shifts you were talking about instead of pushing harder or checking out when they're tired, when they're exhausted? How do you how would you advise they do that?

Silence, Journaling, And Pattern Awareness

SPEAKER_01 24:56

So most people that come to me, I'm always asking them, you know, I'm asking them to rate their energy, their stress, and how empowered they feel or in their life. And anyone who's listening can do this for themselves. One to five. What's your energy? Well, if your energy is really low, then that what's the definition of insanity, doing the same thing and hoping for something different. So if your energy is really low and your stress is really high and you're not feeling very empowered about your life, you're feeling like you're just sort of being drug around and having to respond or react to people and requests, then you have to think about what is it that I could do differently to feel better energy, to feel like I can manage my stress and to feel like I'm in the cockpit of my life. So when it comes to that and they see that, then they're interested in asking what I could do differently that's going to give me more energy and that's gonna help me feel like I'm not being squeezed by stress. So that that opens the door for the conversation of, well, like, are you sleeping? Are you eating? Are you drinking? Are you moving your body? Um, what what are your what are your stress management skills? What do you do to when you feel overwhelmed? Do you know about breath work? Do you know about uh visualization? Do you know about journaling? All of the things that can help you mitigate stress. Movement is really good for stress. So when you present them a menu of things that they can start to move the lever on those three core items, then when they take that on, they can then self-assess after getting a 15-minute walk in three days this week, are you feeling any better? The proof is in how you feel, and that's going to encourage you to continue on because you want to keep feeling better. I think the majority of people have forgotten how good they can feel. Like, you know, I have people that come to me and go, Oh, Michelle, but I sleep five hours and I feel great. And I'm like, Really? When was the last time you got eight hours of sleep? To compare it. To compare it, exactly. Or hamsters on a hamster wheel. Yeah. Nobody's checking in to be like, that's ludicrous, that five hours, like you know, that's not good. Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

So that's what if you talk a lot about joy too. Totally choosing it. I always tell people I choose joy because it is a choice.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Yeah, but here's the thing, Pam. You can't choose joy if you're depleted, if you're exhausted, you know, it's so hard. So, like, you want to feel those emotions again. You got to start making sure that you're taking care of your tackle, which is your body.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

So, how do yeah? So they'll they'll if they just focus on their body and if they don't know what to do, be curious, right? Because I am in a constant state of educating myself, learning. I call it gleaning. Yeah. I glean all that I can from anybody that knows anything. And it really helps me be better and healthier and stronger, you know, the more I absorb from people. But you gotta be curious.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

You do, you have to be curious. And I think too, people think that, you know, the mind is is there to make you happy. And one of the things that I really appreciated learning, I don't remember if it was Esther Hicks or um Louise Hay or Dr. Joe Dispenza, but the reality is the mind is not wired to make you happy, it's wired to protect you. So most people are focusing on their problems because the mind is out to protect you. So it's organic that we're we would wake up and start thinking about all the things we have to do and all the things we're worried about. But every time we dwell on that, we feel that throughout our bodies. And then that leads to us not feeling so great. Yeah. So if you could remember that the mind isn't wired to make you happy and realize you have to do something different if you want to feel happy, and you have agency back. And so one of the ways to do that is focusing on the gratitude. You know, like people say, Oh, gratitude. Like, no, I'm not even kidding. Gratitude is the thing that can refocus you to see the good stuff, which it's in in return of that, you're gonna feel good. And if the name of the game is to feel good, you bet your bottom dollar you should be thinking about things you're grateful for.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Definitely. And there's so much, people don't realize how much they are they have to be grateful for. And you're right, the brain it develops patterns, right? And if the pattern is just every day getting done resolving problems, issues, then that's what it's gonna do every single day. It does take work and effort to create new patterns, though.

Energy, Stress, And Empowerment Check‑Ins

SPEAKER_01 29:47

It does. And discipline, and whatever you focus on is always gonna expand. It's kind of like if you you know that that little you know ant ant hill that turns into the mountain. And it's it's because your attention is on the ant hill, you know. So if you shift, if you notice, oh, I'm doing that thing where all I'm doing is thinking about every freaking thing that's wrong. All right, Michelle said, I have to think about three things I'm grateful for. If you redirect it and sit in that, in that gratitude, in that um rampage of appreciation, um, it feels so good. And it gets your mind to blow up something positive and feel good in that moment. So redirect your thoughts. You have the power to do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Right. The pause. That's what I'm really big into, is just taking a moment. It doesn't have to be all day. It can just be literally 30 seconds just to remember what you're grateful for. I love that so much. Well, so I wanted to go back since we had this in common about the memoir. Your book, it's called um uh breaking into my life. Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I haven't read it yet, but I did I do want to read it because I it sounds amazing. So um when you were writing it, I just want to compare it to my own feelings. How did that story uh shape you um and how you understand resilience and healing? Did it completely change your outlook on that?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

You know, it was interesting because when I sat down to write this memoir, I thought, you know, I'm just gonna tell the story of my mom. It's no big deal. It's very factual, right? Like this happened, then that happened, then this happened. But then I had um the fortune of working with a writing coach who was like, oh no, Michelle, you have to bring, you have to bring the reader along and you have to really create an experience for them. So that means you have to really relive those moments, which made it even more painful and challenging. It took me four years to write that book because I had to literally relive every one of those experiences. Yes. So it was hard. And at the end of the day, after I got through all the emotional writing, I wrote an epilogue at the back of the book because I had come to realize how every experience serves me. But you can't get there immediately. You have to get there by going through that.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yes, and and just understanding your pain. Yes, you know, I had healed a lot. So going back to the brokenness of all of it, it was really difficult for me too. I it was hard, but I'm so glad I did it. Yeah, so glad. And it's helping a lot of people. I thought I was one of few that went through this horrible childhood type situation, but I'm one of many.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And they're all and you gave them a voice, or because when they read your story, they're like, That's my story.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

I see me in that. And so it's I never thought I'd be a writer, to be honest with you. But I love it so much. I'm obsessed with it. So I like writing anything. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

No, I mean, even if you help, you know, someone once said to me, Michelle, even if you if you only helped like a few people with your story, it's all been worth it. And I and I agree, I totally agree. But to this day, I still hear from people. And I released my book in 2018. So I still hear from people, and that just warms my heart that I could make a difference and give a give their story a voice.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

And some, yes. I heard some one one uh writer, uh, one author say, I uh my story gave them legs.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yes, wow.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

I thought, oh, can we you mean movement or what do you think? Um, so this is my final question for you. Um if someone listening feels depleted or exha quietly depleted, still functioning, still showing up, still checking the boxes, what would you want them to hear right now about resilience, healing, and how to continue moving forward?

Gratitude And Training The Mind

SPEAKER_01 34:02

You don't have to wait to hit a wall. And if that's the trajectory, you have to ask yourself, what's the probable, almost certain future if you were to do absolutely nothing? And this is how you feel today. Like you will hit a wall and and give yourself the grace and the honor that you deserve by taking a step back and saying, I really what could I be doing differently so I don't hit that wall? You deserve that.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

That is my most favorite takeaway from this conversation. So, first of all, thank you. And can you tell us how to find you, where we need to go to buy your book or just visit your website, which by the way is lovely. I looked at it in your news. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yeah, so my second home is is LinkedIn. You can always find me there. Um, but my website is Resilience as a Lifestyle, and I'm on all the socials. Um, not as active on the socials as I used to be. Life is busy. So um, but you can always hit me up on LinkedIn through message um or on my website. And I'm always looking to talk to people, help people, whatever, whatever they need.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

That is wonderful. And I'll be sure, everybody, to to list all of that in the show notes. So don't worry about jotting it down. We'll have it for you. Michelle, thank you so much. This conversation felt grounded and honest and well, just human. Deeply human. One of the biggest takeaways for me is the reminder that burnout isn't failure and that let's not wait until we hit a wall. So, uh, when we pause long enough to listen, we don't we don't have to start over. We can keep moving forward with more wisdom and and self-awareness and more compassion than before. Thank you for the work you do and for sharing your story so generously today. Thank you for having me, Pam. You're so welcome. And everyone, before uh before I go, you can find Michelle and her work, including her book Breaking Into My Life, in the show notes below. I encourage you to explore her resources if today's conversation resonated at all, and I'm sure it has. If you're listening and realizing that you're more tired than you've admitted, let that be information, not judgment. Sometimes a pause is the most powerful next step we have. Thank you for spending this time with us, and I'll see you next time on Delay the Bench Podcast.