Your Midlife ‘Crisis’ Might Be Burnout (with Jody Brooks)

[Dana] (00:01)
Welcome, friends, whether you’re out on a walk, running errands, or relaxing at home — it’s wonderful to connect with you. Joining us today is Jody Brooks. Jody is a midlife and burnout coach whose own journey through severe anxiety, depression, and suicidal thinking led him to rebuild his life from the inside out and create the nine principles of authentic living, a practical framework helping people turn crisis into connection and sustainable well-being. Jody, welcome to Phoenix and Flame.

[Jody] (00:43)
Well, thank you. I’m thrilled to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this all morning, so I’m looking forward to a really good chat.

[Dana] (00:50)
This is going, because we get real on Phoenix and Flame, so we’re going to just kind of jump right in. Listeners and viewers, I was chatting with Jody earlier and I asked his permission to bring up something that he had messaged me when we were trying to decide how to do the podcast. And he gave me permission to share that he had said his pile-of-ash moment was sitting in a restroom cubicle at the office, crying so hard that he could barely breathe, realizing burnout was no longer a joke, but a full-body shutdown. Jody, that is an amazing description of what people experience. And I would really like to know — let’s just start with what that was like for you in that moment, in that experience of burnout, when you’re realizing “this is real.” What is going on right now?

[Jody] (01:47)
I think when you say “this is real,” that’s probably the best description, because in that moment I was like, this isn’t just a thing — this is real, this is full-on now. And it was a flood of emotions through my body of an accumulation of all of the anxiety and overwhelm — the pushing it to one side, the pretending it wasn’t real, the “just push through one more day, one more day.” And I think what always strikes me when I think back to that day, of some of the days I’d ever had, that one was really insignificant. It was not a hard meeting that I’d left, I didn’t have a hard afternoon — it was just… And maybe I sometimes wonder whether it was that moment of calmness, almost, where my body just went, now’s the moment. And I just remember sitting there thinking, I actually can’t go back. And I think that’s when the tears came — I just sat there and I was like, I can’t go back, I can’t go back. And the canteen was full because it was lunchtime, and I knew that I was going to have to leave, go into the canteen, put a face on — jazz hands, as I called it, because a lot of my job involved jazz hands. I worked in education internationally for a brand, went to our customers and did presentations, stood on stage, launched products, and so all the time there was this veneer on of “roll it out,” that kind of thing. And I just was like, I can’t even walk through the canteen, because I was frightened of what I might say. It was at that point where I was like, I’m actually not in control, I’m not in control. And whilst I was thinking all of these things through, I happened to take some toilet tissue and try and mop the mess that was on my face at this point. And on the back of the cubicle door was a poster that said, “Do you need to speak to a mental health first aider?” And it was the most sobering moment, because in that moment I was like, I actually do — I’m not going to, because I don’t trust anyone in this building right now.

[Dana] (04:33)
Got you.

[Jody] (04:34)
And right where I’m sitting at this moment in time, I thought: you did this, you did this to me. And I’m not about to tell you that you’ve won, or that I’m broken, or say that I can’t cope. And so I actually got myself together enough, went back to the meeting room, put my laptop away, walked to the car park, got in my car, and somehow drove the three hours home — did an awful lot of thinking in the car on the way. And, you know, when I work with clients now, I talk about this — midlife crisis, and it’s not a crisis, it’s a calling, and it’s a calling to connect. And on that journey home, I think I realized that I had gone so far away from my route — I was not on my journey. People call it alignment, but I was like, it’s like I’d hit this fork in the road and gone off completely the wrong way. And I’m a huge one for metaphor and visualization, and on the way home, as I was driving, I just kept thinking, you need to come home to you. And I got home that evening, sent an email, said, I’m not going to be in tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll be back. And I took three weeks off and sat quietly. I mean, I was privileged in that I worked for a huge global company — we were able to take time off for things like that without question. It’s the UK as well, so we have law here that says you can’t be questioned — you can self-certify for a week without question. And that’s it — I got home that night and just went to bed and was like, tomorrow I’ll make a plan. And then I got up the next day and started to make a plan.

[Dana] (06:43)
Wow, wow, Jody, that is such an experience. And I was following everything you were saying, and I know my listeners were thinking, “wow, I know what that feels like.” And as you talk about connection, I feel like if we’re all honest, we can connect with a lot of what you said. And I’m sitting here — I already have three or four notes just in that short period of time that you were speaking. What I’m wondering, and want to get your take on, is: we’re full of — you mentioned the word anxiety, which I call a fear baby. Fear is the father of anxiety. And so it’s like we go through so much fear of “what if, what if, what if.” And how many people do you feel like are just one small step from a breakdown? They’re thinking, “is this the thing, when is this going to happen?” They’re walking along and they’ve handled so many things — they’ve absorbed so many big things, crises and beat-downs and criticisms, all the things — and then they go to the copy machine and it’s out of paper, and they’re thinking, I can’t handle it anymore. Is this the thing that’s going to push me over the edge, from carrying around all of this fear and absorbing all of these things? What are your thoughts on that?

[Jody] (10:10)
I think, obviously, working with clients, the anxiety word comes up a lot of the time, when you say, “where are you now, how do you feel,” those things. I think people have a desire, or people follow a path where they think they can eradicate anxiety, and I say, you need to stop that straight off, because anxiety is a part of life. The problem is you need to control your anxiety, and not have it control you — and there are ways that we can do that. And I think you’re right, in that moment when I said, “I can’t do this” — I mean, my coaching practice is called Authentic Coaching, because I have a reputation for being authentic, and sometimes that can be dangerous. I always think in that moment, I was like, if I go back in there, I might just be a bit too authentic — because that moment you’re talking about is when it breaks, when you don’t have that level of control, when the anxiety overwhelms you. Because anxiety’s purpose is to keep us safe — it’s a fear detector, and it’s to allow us to go out in the world and understand risk, but it just gets a little bit out of control. I talk a lot about our subconscious when I’m working with clients, and I say, look, the problem for your subconscious is it doesn’t know whether you’re looking at a saber-tooth tiger or it’s just a Tuesday. And it does that an awful lot. So I think it’s that thing about — you have to have a reality check, but the reality of it is, when you get to that point, it’s gone too far. And if you have that moment, like I did, then my advice is: get out. Get out, because what happens next won’t be pretty. And I’ve dealt with clients who — you know, they say “the photocopier moment,” “the partner that didn’t boil the kettle for the cup of tea” — all of those things, and I just say, if you do one thing for yourself, it’s to come back from that. I kind of use a technique with clients all the time called Oxygen — it’s a stress-safe word. The first letter is Observe. The second is Exhale. And you know, when people are experiencing extreme stress, that’s what I go through with clients. And then the Y is Yield — lean into it, don’t fight it, because if you try and fight anxiety, it will go to war with you, because it’s so sure that you are in trouble. And people say it’s irrational, but it’s not — it’s rational, because at this point our body is being flooded with chemicals, and if you go to war with anxiety, you’ll start triggering adrenaline, and if you trigger adrenaline, you’re on that roller coaster, because you’re going to have to do something with that adrenaline. So that yielding into it is about listening to it and understanding, okay, I’m triggered, where do I go from here? And then the next one is to Ground — push your feet down into the floor, reconnect, because at this point you probably have adrenaline and you probably start to almost float a little bit, it raises your heart rate — essentially it’s there because it could be a saber-tooth tiger, so your body has to be primed for that. And then the next, E, is Embrace — embrace it, because it’s actually the ultimate sign of your humanity. In that moment, it’s a sign of your humanity.

[Dana] (13:03)
I love this, and the acceptance that you’re talking about. I want to wrap back around for a moment, if I could, and hover over when you were talking about walking into the canteen, because I’ve heard this before — how hard it is for people to put on their face. How many of us are walking around — and you mentioned alignment, and we also talked about kind of going down a wrong path. Life is complicated, and it’s confusing sometimes. And I’m wondering what your thoughts are, and what your experience has been, with yourself or with clients, that because they’ve gotten out of alignment in their life — somehow along the way, somehow on their journey, they took a wrong step — and because of that, they find themselves having to put this fake face on, and how much energy that takes out of us, to act like we’re okay when we’re not effin’ okay.

[Jody] (13:59)
Yeah, completely. I think the first thing is, when we talk about alignment — in that moment, you can only be out of alignment, really, if you know what alignment is. And on that drive home, I realized I didn’t even know what alignment was, so it’s no wonder I’d gone off route. There’s a great phrase that I love and use all the time: if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. And so I think it’s this thing — we have this huge bit, and then I think that builds anxiety, and that builds a sense of failing, because people are like, well, I’m not in alignment. And I love that as a question — clients come in for a session and I go, okay, well, what’s alignment? And I talk about it as — it’s kind of almost a sign of the modern world. We get in our car and we just tap in the destination to the sat nav, and we presume it knows where we’re starting. And we have the same approach to life. Alignment is about knowing where you’re starting — it’s about setting the starting point in your sat nav internally before you can ever dream of a destination. And so the anxiety part of it is — the one I say to clients all the time is, imagine if I asked you to get on a bus and you don’t know where the bus is going, and you don’t know how long you’re going to be on the bus, you’ve just got to get on it and sit there. And most of them, I say, how are you feeling? They’re like, well, I’d be pretty anxious. And I’m like, but that’s how you’re approaching life right now, and that’s where your anxiety is coming from, because the internal part of you is screaming at you, but you keep pushing into this destination that you’ve set, which, who knows whose bus you’re on. And that’s, I think, this pivotal moment when we hit midlife — which I love the fact that midlife now starts at 35, it makes me feel much better about it. I just tell all my clients, don’t panic, it starts at 35, so you’re —

[Dana] (16:21)
No…

[Jody] (16:21)
— late to the party.

[Dana] (16:26)
You’re an overachiever.

[Jody] (16:28)
That’s it, so yeah, overachiever. So, you know, but I say, if you think about how life is — when we’re children, we don’t even know, we just get put on a bus and someone drives us, that’s it, and we’re going on the same bus. And then we hit our teenage years, and we start to maybe not decide what bus we’re getting on, but we get on a bus with people that we think look like they’re going somewhere fun, and we get on their bus. And then education, career, our twenties — we kind of start to do a similar thing, like, they look like they’re going where I might want to go, and I think — and then it can be like — I call it the marriage bus, the family bus — all of these things, we get on these buses that are a destination that society has prescribed for us, but they might not necessarily be the destination you’re supposed to go to. And they may be a part of your journey, but they’re not actually your destination. And so what happens in midlife — my true passion and belief working with clients, and myself, is your inside goes, we’re not on the right bus, you need to stop the bus, you need to get off, and you need to find the right bus and get back on it, kind of thing. And I think that’s that whole bit of alignment — of being out of alignment, you can only be in alignment if you know what alignment is.

[Dana] (17:53)
You know, as you’re talking, I’m thinking of two different types of buses. I’ve had conversations with lots of different people on podcasts, and I’ve guested on podcasts, and it’s just an amazing way to connect and hear other people’s experiences. And I’m thinking — it’s not necessarily about midlife, because I want to get back to that, because that’s hugely important — but also, along with that, I’ve heard conversations with, like, the Gen Z generation, that they’re on a bus and they don’t really know where it’s going, but they have to get on a bus. And they say, “I cannot imagine being on this bus for the next 20 or 30 years, that’s freaking me out,” and so they don’t know how to align, they don’t know how to gauge what they’re doing. And then also I’ve talked to people who feel like they’re on a bus where everyone on the bus is functioning better than them — they feel like, “I got on the super-high-performer, high-achiever bus, and I feel like I’m the low man on the totem pole.” And then, you think about how burnout kind of plays out in these different experiences of how we’re comparing ourselves — because you mentioned the word connection, and I think prior to connection, a distortion of that sometimes is the comparison of ourselves and what other people are doing on that bus that we’re on. Are we aligned with what they’re doing? We’re comparing ourselves to them. What are your thoughts on that part of the journey toward midlife?

[Jody] (19:39)
I think, when you mentioned younger generations there — I think the reason that it’s maybe, it’s a twofold thing for younger generations. I sometimes get asked, would you be 20 again? And I say, I would be 20 again, but not 20 now.

[Dana] (20:01)
Mmm.

[Jody] (20:02)
Like, okay — because I can only imagine what that experience must be, and the speed at which the world changes — it’s impossible to set a destination. And I feel like our younger generations are growing up with this — you know, like the film Speed, they’re on the bus and it is going at speed. And I think that there’s some really lovely things about our younger generation as well, that they are, I think, going to question it, call it out, and say enough’s enough. We’re starting to see that in the not-prescribing, the not-adopting-labels — and I think it’s a very subtle undertone through society that speaks a bigger volume. But the huge surge around non-binary and these kinds of things — this whole rejection of all labels — it’s not really about a masculine phenomenon, it’s actually about this rejection of, “I’m not getting in a box, I’m not getting on a bus, I’m not getting in a label, this is all too much.” And I say to people, so just give them a break, because what you think that is, is a symptom of something much deeper in our younger generations.

[Dana] (22:24)
I empathize with this, because I’m a Gen X, and for me —

[Jody] (22:31)
And I think a lot of clients that come in, like mid-forties, fifties, Gen X’s — we grew up with the destination of the bus being very different to where we’ve arrived. And so this sense of feeling lost in midlife is — well, I don’t look like I’m in my fifties, I don’t feel like I’m in my fifties. And all of my models I have for that are my aunts, my grandparents, even my parents, slightly less than my parents. But I found a picture of an aunt the other day, and I just looked at it, and I was like, hmm. And then I worked out that she could only have been 50 maximum in this picture, but I would have said 70, because of that shift, that change. And I say to people, it’s not — it’s like 50 is almost the new 30 these days, comparative to my life —

[Dana] (24:41)
Yes.

[Jody] (24:42)
— when I look at it like that, I’m like, 50 is the new 30. Like, it started out in my 20s, we were kind of maybe five years, by my 30s we were at 10, by my 40s we were at 20, and by my 50s — we’ve had a 30-year shift in how life looks. And I say, when anybody’s harsh on younger generations — as they are, you know, when I used to deal with businesses and they’d go in and say “youngsters today, this, that, and the other,” I just go, whoa, back up, okay. It’s just like — first off, they’re living in a world that we created, so if you don’t like what you’ve created, do something about the problem. Secondly, how do you feel about getting older right now? And then they go, well, it’s hideous. And I go, now imagine being 20 right now and having that feeling, with another 30 years before they even get to where you are. And so I think there is this huge shift change. And I think, like, one of the principles is Empowerment. And that’s because — at that point in my journey, I felt empowered, and realized that I actually get to pick up the pen and write the next chapter. And that’s what empowerment became — you know what, don’t see this as doom and gloom, see this as: you’ve got a blank page, there are no norms anymore, Jody, there’s nothing that you’re expected to do, because the expectations have all disappeared. And as frightening as that void may seem, you get to fill it however you choose. Pick up the pen and write the next chapter.

[Dana] (24:37)
So that’s a fabulous analogy. So what would you recommend for someone who is struggling with their midlife calling — you like to look at it that way — and they’re sitting there with a pen and a blank sheet of paper, freaking out, thinking, “I don’t know,” especially a Gen X-type person who we were kind of told what to do — you go to college, you do this, you do that, we didn’t have the choices. And so now it’s kind of like, okay, a blank piece of paper and a pen — what recommendations, what encouragement, suggestions would you have for someone who is in that position in life, who might be listening now and doesn’t know what to write? They know that they did not end up in life at this point where they thought they would be, and they might be disappointed in themselves, and they don’t know really what to do, and just sitting there with the pen and a blank piece of paper, it feels extremely daunting. So what suggestions would you have for someone like that?

[Jody] (25:43)
So I do an activity, and my first piece of advice is: actually start one thing, and one thing only, and that is to start stopping. Stopping what no longer serves you. If you don’t know what to put on the page, because you don’t know where you want to go, start by identifying where you don’t want to go — because sometimes where you don’t want to be has the clues for where you do want to be. And so I do an activity with people that’s literally called that: Start Stopping. I sometimes get them to visualize a suitcase, and I say, if you were going on holiday — or let’s just say, because I used to work internationally, so I used to literally — I think my busiest year, 52 flights in eight months.

[Dana] (26:41)
What the fuck?

[Jody] (26:42)
I mean, I don’t know why I burned out — it’s a mystery to me.

[Dana] (26:48)
No…

[Jody] (26:53)
So I say — as you’ve kind of, as well, been in education, my trade was, I was a hairdresser, a session stylist, a platform artist, I did fashion work. And so I would come back from a trip and I would have a case, and I would have to unpack the case — you know, like for instance, I might’ve been in Dubai, and the next day I may be flying to like the most northerly part of Norway. And I’d say, so I would have to open the case, take out all of the things from Dubai, because I’m going to be pretty cold in swimming trunks and a t-shirt in Northern Norway. And so I say, you kind of have to do the same thing with life — so you’ve arrived here with this trunk full of stuff, and some of it you just don’t need, and if you’re going to put new stuff in, you’re going to have to take old stuff out, and you’re going to have to start stopping the things that no longer serve you. And, you know, my realization in that was, because those two weeks that followed that burnout —

[Dana] (28:01)
I love that.

[Jody] (28:01)
— that’s exactly what I did. I was like, okay, I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I definitely know where I don’t want to be. So let’s start with where I don’t want to be, because if I start writing a chapter that doesn’t have those things in it, and I make sure it doesn’t have those things in it, then I’m pretty confident that destination is going to be better than the one that I’m currently on.

[Dana] (29:00)
I love that, I’m a visual person too, so I absolutely adore analogies. And as I’m listening to you describe that — of course, I’m known as the Queen of Boundaries — and so I’m thinking, to let go of things, to stop things that no longer serve us, it requires the agency to say no, whether we’re opting out of a relationship that we’ve been in for decades maybe, but it’s really sucking our emotional energy out of us and not leaving us with enough energy to do what we want to do — or maybe it’s an event, or some events, that we’ve signed up for, that we’re contributing our time and energy to, that just really don’t serve us, when we do that analysis that you’re talking about.

[Jody] (29:21)
I think — I mean, I also am a huge believer in boundaries — but I always, kind of, the second principle is understanding, after that moment of awareness, is understanding why. And in that is where your core values are, sitting behind everything. When you start to find the why, and you start to see the pattern behind it, your core values will be in there somewhere. And that’s your subconscious making those decisions — well, no, because you don’t believe in that… but if you don’t know what they are, again — alignment — you trigger things like guilt and all of those things. There’s obviously a big journey from understanding to integrity, which is where boundaries kick in. But that whole point there is, that by the time I got to that, and I was really clear about what my boundaries were, I could actually really see why I’d found the workplace really hard. I could see why relationships had gone wrong, I could see why I’d had the conflict that I’d had, I could see why I’d put myself in positions where I was able to be hurt. I could see all of these things, all of a sudden, really clearly — because I could look at every situation and go, yeah, that wasn’t meeting your growth need, that wasn’t authentic yet, that was injustice. So I can navigate, and still do to this day — that alignment piece now is those five core values that I can turn up with every day, and I know what my boundaries are, because I think the other thing about boundaries is people see them as so final. I always say to clients, look, when you know what your values are — for some of them, they’ll have a boundary that’s here, some of them will have a boundary here, and some of them will have a boundary here. Now, some of them will have a gate, and there will be rules and conditions to which you allow people through that boundary, through that gate. So don’t see them as finite. Somebody actually said this to me the other day — “how do you say no so easily?” — and I go, I just say, because I know that it doesn’t serve me already, and if it doesn’t serve me, this is how you get to do stuff guilt-free. And it is a hard journey for people to get their head around, because obviously we’re conditioned about being selfish and all of those things — but if something doesn’t truly serve you, it can’t serve the other person. So, in fact, if you continue to do that, you’re doing a disservice to the other person, because the relationship you’re forming is not authentic, and you’ve already destined it to fail. And so, when I went back over my — in the, like, 18-month journey after burnout and discovering the nine principles, I went all the way back to my childhood, and these different things came up, and I was like, yeah, that’s why — that’s why, because it was screaming at you, kind of thing. And so I think — I say it’s like, you know, I was worried about this thing, you’re on a podcast, and you’ve done the journey, and you make it sound like it’s so simple, and it wasn’t simple — it’s a lot of inner work and a lot of hard work, but I promise you that the destination point of it is so worth it, because it prevents you from putting the wrong stuff in your suitcase from that point forward. You won’t have to unpack again, because you won’t put it in there again.

[Dana] (33:17)
I love this, that is amazing. Our time is up, so I wanted to make sure that the listeners and viewers are able to get access to you, and learn more about you, and get access to your nine principles. So what I have is AuthenticCoaching.me — is that the website?

[Jody] (33:35)
Yep, that’s it.

[Dana] (33:36)
Perfect.

[Jody] (33:36)
Yeah, that’s my website, everything’s there, it’s really easy. There’s a free-to-join community as well, so you can jump in there — and Oxygen, that I mentioned, and Start Stopping, are actually free resources that are inside the community. So they can jump on and download away, and message me.

[Dana] (33:54)
I love that. Oh, Jody, this has been — I feel like we could probably talk for another easily 30 minutes, but I appreciate your time and your willingness to come and share your transparency, your journey, your wisdom, with Phoenix and Flame listeners and viewers. Jody, thank you so much.

[Jody] (34:14)
No, thank you. I mean that — my grandmother always said, if you find something you love, you’ll never do a day’s work, and this episode has been a complete example of that.

[Dana] (34:27)
That is wonderful, I love being with you, thank you very much.

[Jody] (34:31)
Thank you.

[Dana] (34:32)
Listeners, viewers — my gosh, I know you have heard multiple things today from Jody that you’re thinking, “you know what, I know a friend, I know a coworker, I know a relative that absolutely needs to hear what Jody said on Phoenix and Flame.” Take this podcast episode, copy and paste this link, send it through text, send it through email, put it on your favorite social media sites, so we can grow our Phoenix and Flame community, and let people know: you are not alone. I hope your day is going great — I’m Dana, on Phoenix and Flame.