Hey everybody. I wanted to just take a second before this episode and let you know something personal about me. I just got accepted on to a Boston Marathon charity team. So I'm going to be running the Boston Marathon 2020 and I'm so excited and I'm running with the Martin Richard foundation. And Martin Richard was only 8 years old when he was killed during the Boston Marathon bombings back in 2013. And this Foundation is justReally incredible. They took a really bad situation and made something beautiful out of it. So I'm just really flattered and honored to be representing them during the Boston Marathon. I myself. I was actually at the Finish Line during the 2013 bombings and you know, I'm totally fine, but it just means a lot to me to be able to run in the Boston Marathon and kind of, you know, take back a little bit of something that I think. Think was stolen from a lot of us. So all of that is to say if you would consider donating even if you donate one dollar or if you know five dollars, it would just mean so much to me. So the link is in my bio on my Instagram page. So by Instagram is Phil underscore the underscore OT and please please please consider donating. I'm not the best at fundraising so any dollar or you know, any amount would be incredible. So enjoy the show and please All right. Thank you. Hi everybody. Welcome back to season two of spilled OT podcast. It has been a hot minute and for that I apologize. I think a lot of you weren't sure if I was coming back and the truth is I wasn't sure if I was going to come back this podcast started off as kind of a passion project that I just wanted to get some information out there and then it kind of turned into a little bit more work than I anticipated. I know that I've told you before I have like really Is executive functioning things? So this season we're going to switch things up for me. I have a really hard time finding the right people to interview and then finding the perfect time for us both to get together and record. It's just been a challenge for me. My schedule is all over the place. I have been working full time, and I have actually gone back to grad school and part of a grad school is I have to do some pre practicum hours and I'm also starting another podcast. So I just have A pretty full plate right now, and I do want to continue on with this podcast. I want to try and improve it make it better. So I'm starting off a voice recording thing where you can actually send in your own messages. So I have a number that you can call me at and it's for o1 to O3 307 to and you can call this number. It's a deadline. It's a Google Voice number so it might ring but it's just going to end up going to voicemail and if you leave a voicemail I Share it on the air. So this can be a comment or something funny that happened to you. Or maybe it's something upsetting that's bothering you with PD p.m. Or whatever is on your mind and that you'd like to be shared in the podcast. If you leave me a message. I will be sure to include it even if it's not nice. So if you're going to leave me a Mean One know that I am going to play it on the air. So just want to put that out there because sometimes people send not-so-nice emails and I want season 2 to end that trend. And I am only looking for love. So if you have anything nice that you'd like to say, I'm going to share it. But if it's not so nice, I'm going to share it too. So I also want to conduct my interviews a little bit different. So I think if you're interested in coming on the show, then email me at spill that OT @ gmail.com and then I'm going to send you some questions and then ask that you voice record and send me back your responses. So I have a iPhone and on my iPhone it has the voice. Memo app you can set up to 30 minutes of content via email really easily. So all you would have to do is record on your own time answer the questions. You can be as honest or as blunt as you would like to be about answering those questions. And then I'm going to take them and put them into the podcast. I won't do all my interviews this way. If you really want to talk to me then that's perfect and we can schedule a time but I think that this will help me be able to get episodes on here more regularly if If I can just pull from content that won't require us to get together each week because again, I'm not the most organized person and I don't want you as listeners to have to wait just because I'm not organized to get people on here on a regular basis. Okay, so I think that's it for housekeeping. I want to say a huge huge. Thank you to everyone who has rated and reviewed this podcast. I've just been so happy and so amazed by all the people who reach out to me via email or On Instagram or by leaving reviews you guys are just rock stars and it makes me really really happy. So anyway, it is October 5th. And if you are working in the healthcare part of OT then you know, there have been a lot of big changes that occurred on October 1st. So I do want to hear from anybody who has something specific that they like to share about PD p.m. I don't know enough about it. I'm kind of out of the health care. Peace. Piece of it I'm in the school systems. So I'm not really being affected by too much yet. I'm sure at some point it will trickle down but right now it's not really impacting me that much but I know that it's a huge issue that's going on. I have two friends who have actually been let go they were assistants. But I mean, there's still one of us and it just was pretty upsetting to hear about their stories. So if you have anything that you would like to say good or bad then I would love to Or it again. Just email me at spill the OT @ gmail.com. Okay, and I am so so excited to introduce Our Guest for today. This is Erica del Pozo. She is an mot. Oh TRL and she holds a bachelor's in dance and Masters in occupational therapy from Nova Southeastern University. Erica has practiced in outpatient pediatrics for five years and is also had experience working with older adults with Progressive neurological conditions. Erica created a modified dance curriculum for it. Dealt with Parkinson's disease in Boca Raton, Florida in 2016, Erica special interest include work well-being and burnt out prevention and Healthcare. She is CEO and founder of the joy energy time a business dedicated to helping Healthcare professionals and organizations address. The ongoing challenges of burnout. She is the Creator and co-host of the burnt out to lit up Podcast, which is a holistic Wellness show for healthcare professionals and Erica has served as an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University for three semesters. And collaborating with dr. Landon had a Veena to teach occupational analysis and human interactions are goes worked with several distinguished continuing education agencies creating short and long evidence based courses around holistic and multi-level approaches to address burnout and mental health in the healthcare. Long story short. I love my conversation with Erica because I've been feeling burned out as you know, if you've listened to any episodes before I was also feeling kind of burnt out by this podcast. I think this interview with Erica took place either by end of May or the beginning of June. It was a while ago and I just have been feeling so burned out between school going back to school. We'll try to figure out what I want to do with my life. I also turned 30 which just made me had like a whole what am I going to do with my life moment and it was just a lot of things at once and honestly the podcast was burning me out too because I felt like I had to keep pushing out content and I just was feeling overloaded and stressed out. And it was just a whole lot. So my conversation with her was really timely and then it kind of gave me the power and the confidence to just say I need a break so I probably should have told you guys that I was taking a break but I did not so all of that is to say my conversation with Erica was just really awesome and she just really makes burnout feel like it's not your fault. I think that there's a lot of guilt and shame about burnout. Like is it me that's not strong enough or did I pick the wrong career or I think that there are just a lot of layers to it and what causes it and she just puts it in terms that I think are so important for us to acknowledge and I just hope that you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed having the conversation with her. All right, here we go. So, my name is Erika del Pozo. I'm from Miami Florida. And I like many people had no idea what occupational therapy was growing up and you I wanted to do something on a Go world, like I was interested in becoming a physician and I was interested in medicine from a really young age. And when I was an undergrad, I had danced my whole life, but when I was an undergrad, I took it to another level. I decided to major in dance and something overtook me which I still can't really quite explain why I became so obsessed with dance and I wanted to become a dancer but then after a few entries in the middle of my undergrad career, I was getting freaked out. Out because I was like hmmm. What am I gonna really do once I graduate like and I had a few injuries. I had a few broken bones like they were a stress fracture. So I was completely overworking myself and killing myself to like get to this goal of becoming a dancer and then halfway through undergrad a friend of a friend told me about occupational therapy and it seemed like just like the perfect solution for me because it was that science that and that medical world that I love so much but it was also The creativity and I got to Shadow especially in Pediatrics. I thought that was so much fun. So that's where all my shadowing took place and then I got into the Occupational Therapy Program. I know it's not the Eastern University right after my undergrad and I just I felt relieved that I found a career that thought stable and secure but a career that really inspired me to work with people and actually use some of my dance techniques, which I actually have. Have to combine my love for dance with therapy and to have this awesome career. So that's kind of like where I got started. That's awesome. So how many years did it take you total to get your degree 6? Okay. So can you talk to us about burnout? Yeah, so I didn't really know what this was until I experienced it myself and this was something that I didn't know like I had heard of it and I had heard of like Burnout and stress by hadn't really I didn't really know what to call what I was going through and I just went through everything during the first few years of my career when I first started out I had an amazing job with amazing support systems, but I didn't know how to use my voice. I've always been more shy and I've always been more reluctant reluctant to voice any concerns or something's bothering me to stand up for myself. So I never stood my ground and what happened was that I started to get more and more work my caseload started to grow and my evaluations and re-evaluations were literally consuming all moments of my day all moments of my night. Basically my whole weekend all this paperwork and I have a little break down in the middle of the day and because I was just kind of denying how I was feeling about all this work and I had nothing else to compare this year. I thought this was normal. Just thought this is how my career is going to go. This is what is expected of me. And so I had a little breakdown in the middle of the workday. And like I said because it was such an amazing first job. They were able to help me out and meet me in the middle and we do some of my workload and I just did my schedule but unfortunately the burnout persisted in different ways. I was in another job now because I had moved and this is like a few A month or a year later after this first incident probably like over a year and I'm going to another job and totally different setting but then different things started to happen, and I'm so thankful for that first job because they prepared me was like, okay, this is like if you have a problem, you know, you should be able to speak to your manager or supervisor and they should be able to help you but in the second instance, I learned that so many other factors were just coming at me. Like everyday I didn't know what I was going to get. I felt like I was completely out of control of everything and this is what I really start to pay attention to what burnout is and and what and how to impacting me after I left that job. I began interested in. Okay, what exactly is burnout because these experiences that happened to me. I felt like I'd all they felt so unique to me. I know I wasn't alone and I became fascinated. Animated with a researching burnout and that led me to this path of where I am today where it's been a really windy path a lot of like ups and downs a lot of turns and curves. But um, I have researched burnout. I've created multiple continuing educational courses around this topic and have worked with big agencies and small agencies to get this information out there to to clinicians and I feel like this is just the beginning for me. What settings were you working with? You had your first job and then your second job. So the first job was outpatient pediatrics and then the second job was also I'll patient but it was mostly neurological conditions like plenty of Parkinson stroke Ms. But it was older adults. Okay, so you've had some time to kind of think about burnout obviously. Can you pinpoint exactly what it was that like caused it for you? You yeah, so looking back and in retrospect that first time that it occurred to me, it was the what I perceived as a lack of autonomy because I so burnout you can break it down into three basic components. It's increased emotional exhaustion increased cynicism and decrease self-efficacy. So not just are you exhausted beyond beyond belief, but it's exhausting that is combined with like This Detachment from work like you are detached from your job. You are detached from your even career or profession. And then you also feel poorly about your efforts your self-efficacy or your contributions to your work. So it's kind of like all those three things that make this so unique and in that you know, so that first setting was the autonomy and then in the second setting it was a combination of everything it was workload and case law. Oh that was attached to the autonomy because there are things happening without that weren't in my control with my caseload and schedule that were significantly impacting like my mental health and then it was this lack of or this unfairness. I noticed there's favoritism unfairness lack of community because I would go to work and I knew who I could trust who I couldn't trust and there was a lot of Politics a lot of kind of this internalized aggression and so it was a dynamic corrosive environment to work in Dynamic not in a good way just very unsteady the energy sometimes I didn't know what to expect. Sometimes. I felt like I kind of goes back to autonomy just out of control of my day out of out of control with my schedule and then the the rewards now because on paper that was probably know that was the highest paying salary I've ever received in an outpatient job on paper. That looks great, but it was other rewards that were missing for me like the social emotional words like being appreciated feeling seeing and feeling heard. I did not feel like I was being appreciated in that way. I felt like I'm just a warm body in this clinic and I'm expected to do what is given to me and I Third question, it looks very bad. And I'm outed and I'm the black sheep and it was kind of like all these different factors combined in this corrosive environment that that led to this exhaustion that led to this detached view from work and then that led to me questioning my abilities. Yeah, I hear you so bad because I never thought about like the three different categories, but it's almost like the five stages of denial. Like I've had all three of those come and like I do think they build on each other because my first job, I remember like it was a good experience. I had co-workers who are my age fresh out of college. So it's like a fun younger group to work with but just the caseload the productivity the Showing that you would work six days a week. We had to be there over the weekend. It was just the culture of the work environment. Oh, if you're not going to work on Saturday, then I'll have to work and you felt guilty to go in so I think starting there and I only worked there maybe six months or so and then I feel like I'm even burned out from job switching because I switched jobs and I'm switch setting so many times chasing for a better situation. but I think that in itself is causing burnout Mmm Yeah, I feel like there's other factors that go into that and if you're switching settings and you feel like maybe you haven't found that that that job that provides all those things for you that really lifts you and supports you and makes you feeling like you're part of this community you you're proud of working in this established when you want to come back to it and there definitely is exhaustion with With switching jobs, so I can relate to that like would you mind talking about I know you said that you've liked struggled with depression before I feel like so many people to can you touch on that at all. Would you feel comfortable? Yeah. Yeah. So like this is the thing about Bernal that I like to be like to make a note of in be careful about a lot of the the research out there and you know, you know at all points. Back to an organization that creates conditions that that don't support workers and therefore burnout is a byproduct of that and I would I would like to know not I like when I talk about burnout, I understand that it is not the individuals fault. It is not a weakness of the individual but I with that being said, I experience burnout but I Also have a history of anxiety and depression. So, you know, we all those things can kind of fuse together and they can exacerbate the other. Oh experiencing burnout with the anxiety. I had it just made things 10 times worse and how like how I handle it. Xiety is I have a lot of somatic symptoms that cause me a lot of just prefer. An embarrassment because if I'm experiencing anxiety in the middle of a work day and my sympathetic nervous system is going haywire. Then I can I have left my patient with another therapist because I had to like go and throw up and it makes like I wish I could tell you why that is but I just know that like I can't breathe. I can't I have a million thoughts in my mind. I have shortness of breath and this is like my sympathetic nervous system. I feel like trying to do something and it's like it's something that I've had to deal with for four years and growing up. I started seeing a therapist in high school for my depression and anxiety again, and that started in high school. And as I went through the different stages in my life College an undergrad and even working on an OT I have been Through different types of therapies. I've done anxiety medication and I went to my doctor during this burnout. I didn't know quite what to call it. I didn't know what like how to express myself with that. I just knew that I was I had a lot of anxiety and I didn't know like again I put a lot of that blame on myself. So my doctor put me on anxiety medication and during that experience I can look back and I can assess that like the medicine. Helped me with my somatic my physical symptoms, but I was in a situation where I still didn't know how to Advocate and I was so stressed that it was impacting my sleep and everything is so like everything is just so integrated. Like I can't really tease out like what came first, you know, but I know that burnout did masturbate my anxiety because it if it affected like every part of me even while I was away from work, So you really hard going through that and I would advise if anyone is that listening is experiencing right now that you like you have identified that you know your work for whatever reason it's not supporting you or you're not supportive environment. But you also have like these other symptoms from anxiety and depression. There are there's no right answer medication therapy, you know, I would advise you to to seek the help that you need because that medicine was helpful for me at the time but I could have also used at the time even though I did go through therapy. I don't think I was in therapy during that particular time of prayer now, so I felt like I was just kind of like dealing with things on my own and the best thing I knew how to do was just not do not stand up for myself. So I wish I would have you know looking back. I wish I would have learned some of the things I know now, but but that's the whole, you know. Of learning and growing and you know now I know better. Wow, how did you navigate that with your boss? Like if there was a situation where you knew that you were physically going to be sick. Did you talk to them about that or did you keep it kind of private so my co-workers you and the co-workers that I trusted that you me very well if I was showing signs of like hi. Like high levels of the stress if I was showing in my face and my body I got kind of quiet and serious. My co-workers would understand if I need to excuse myself or if I needed to wait a few minutes before I got my my next patient like my co-workers were there to help me out, but I was embarrassed to tell my bosses about that and it was something that I couldn't predict when it would happen and I even have little alcohol Wipes in my pocket and if I felt nauseous, I would just like sniff it for a second and it would help me like come it would take away like the nauseousness. Um, but it was just like something that I was ashamed of that my I felt like it was all my fault. You know, I had all this work like all this at a huge caseload. He worked huge workload and all these other things going on and I felt weak that can handle it and and my body was taking it out in this way. And so no, I know I didn't like tell my boss that by my co-workers that once I was supportive of me did help and I think that having that community and people that understand at work really truly makes a difference. Definitely. I actually struggle it kind of Ebbs and flows, but with anxiety and depression as well. It presents a little bit differently for me. But I totally relate to just like you don't know who you can really trust with that information because you don't ever want it to be used against you in a way. So I hear you on that. It's a tricky thing to navigate. Yeah, I think think a lot of the studies show that having work BFFs and having well, so a lot of studies don't say that but having people at that you can trust having friendships at work that can be used in a positive way versus for example, like you can have friendships at work that are based around a lot of negativity and a lot of venting and a lot of you know citing up against creating sides against each other and I mean those type of friendships I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about friendships that are positive where you can find support or if you have a problem, you can tell them in confidence and they can help you or you can help them problem solve support support one another and I do really the optimal work environment would be that the leader the manager. Whoever your Superior is does lead you more than just telling you what to do you want to be able to come to them with a problem? And work through it together ideally. Hey everyone. Have you ever thought about starting your own podcast? Then you have to try out. Anchor first of all it's free and there's a creation tool that allows you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer anchor will distribute your podcast for you. So it can be heard on Spotify Apple podcast and many more you can also make money from your podcast. It has everything you need to make a podcast in one place to try it out download the free anchor app or go to Anchor dot f m-- to get started. Alright. Here at soon. So that's what you're kind of looking for in a workplace is can I trust the people I work with are my needs being met in the sense that like I have support if I'm having a bad day someone going to use that information against me or are they going to be there for me? I'm so glad you brought up the point about friends that are based on more like loving rather than like cause it's taking the easy Road by kind of creating that like enemy like say you have a terrible boss. It's really easy for you and a co-worker to kind of gain up and be like, oh the bosses of where she does this this and this but that's not building a true relationship. That's just kind of having a common enemy. So I'm really glad that you kind of distinguish between like a healthy relationship at work and a non healthy because I do feel I've worked in quite a few facilities. Use and I'd say in well more than half their is kind of like a negative undertone in a lot of these facilities, but it could be because everybody else is feeling that same burn out and they just don't know how to express it or they might not even be able to identify it. Yeah, unfortunately a lot of organizations and this is in my experience in that place for I worked where I did experience the most and that like the most severe burn out is that some organizations get stuck and didn't sir. Contracts and if you've been somewhere for a really long time, then you might not see that your organization is stuck in a trap because that becomes your new normal, so I walked into a setting where screaming across the therapy room is normal. I you know certain things you walk into a like what you experienced in an interview can look completely different than what the actual setting like a normal work day. Looks like so it's important that you if you're in a job interview that you asked if you can shadow. Or talk to another employee without the presence of the employer involved if you like get to just like see how the facility runs and operates because if there are a lot of those internal politics and I've heard some crazy like crazy stories and I experienced it myself. If you see those internal politics or some people don't talk to other people and there's this like lack of unity and there's this, you know, like i4i startup mentality. It's you those are red flags like You might not be able to do your best work there. You might not be able to thrive there. And you know, it's It's tricky because other things can look alluring or appealing to you. Like I said a high pay maybe compensating for the fact that they have a high turnover and they're trying to keep you interested and invested if other things are falling apart at the seams than what what good is it if you can't sleep at night. I am and have all these problems and challenges at work people, you know, like it's about weighing the pros and cons but this is something that you may not know the beginning of a job. So again, don't be hard on yourself because I didn't notice I definitely the red flags and I wanted to be a team player. I wanted to be um, you know, like the good therapist but start to learn these red flags observe them and trust your gut. I would just say trust your gut. I'm I'm so glad you brought up the shadowing thing. I think that's so important because like you said the interview might be like some of them are 20 minutes long and you just don't get to see what it's actually going to be like, can you share for people who might be like, okay, you're using the word burn out a lot. What does Burnout actually like mean to you? Yeah, so burn out huh? Like I mentioned earlier those three components, but what that means is that it's Specific to work right? Because if I'm experiencing if I say, oh I have a huge test coming up or oh my my co-workers out of town. So I'm covering her caseload for a week and you're using the word. I'm so burned out that you're using the the term incorrectly according to its meaning its these three components the exhaustion the cynicism and the self-efficacy all it together. So not just if you are like exhausted and you're just tired, but you felt confident in your skills and your ability to do your work and so still that that passion and that energy for your work your you could just say you're exhausted because that's completely fine for you to say, but burnout is a lot more of a heavier term and I think it's just been misused so much and it's been used interchangeably for stressed. She give you studying for a test. I'm really stressed. Having your case. Your co-workers is load for a week. But if conditions return back to normal, you know, when that co-worker comes from work or once that test is done. If you know those conditions go back to normal then burnout wouldn't have had the chance to develop because burnout really like what really really when you really start to cross that threshold in to bring out its when you have acute fatigue, but then it develops into a chronic fatigue. And usually that fatigue is the first sign and those two other components accompany it, you know, the exhaustion sorry the cynicism self decreased self-efficacy those kind of like tag along usually the exhaustion is a pivotal point and you have a lack of opportunities for recovery. So what I mean by that is Republican happen during work and it happens outside of work and even during sleep so When I was burned out, I would go to work of course and my on top of my anxiety. I felt like I was turned on like the entire day and even like probably then her night like my sympathetic system was always always on I woke up stressed. I woke up anticipating in my problems at work and I would wake up extra early and get to work early so I could just sit in my car for a little bit because I felt like because my days were so out of control getting to work early was like my way of controlling things. And so again like worrying I could barely like eat and then, you know during the day. Any recovery time during the day essentially was like during lunch, but I made the mistake once of eating lunch at my desk once and then I was forced to do an evaluation during my lunchtime. So I learned that at 11:59 have to leave I leave the door like physically the building and come back. I like 12:59 and that was in my instance. Like that's what I had to do. But during that lunch time. I was counting down the minutes of like, oh hi. My God, I have to go back have to go back and then I would leave work and work out but I would be like hi Insanity workouts or I also did workouts in the morning and my other job. So I would wake up at 5 in the morning and try to do a high intensity workout. And for someone that has a ton of anxiety and I was experiencing right now. I like that that wasn't a good mix key because again, my sympathetic nervous system was like on I'm always everything. It's like a threat to me. I was stressed out about everything so usually I would my workouts were just most stress provoking and then I would go home cook and like watch TV and no in my head. Okay have two more hours then have to go to sleep in like work is focused coming and then like I would go to sleep with all this pain in my shoulders. I had so much pain in my shoulders and I couldn't like fall asleep. I had trouble staying asleep. I would dream about work out through your mouth treating patients. Patience and then one of the Friday night came. I just couldn't be like happier. I just wanted to press pause keep fighting it going on forever hours. This was the height of it all just like the height of the works of the worst. And there was a lot of crying there was a lot of just a lot of not I like numbness in me. So that was what burnout was for me in my experience in my experience and and that's how you know, Getting to those points. It just became normal a bit. Like I said became like sort of like my normal. I had nothing else to really compare this to so look back now. It's I'm grateful that I went through that actually because it has allowed me to see how strong I wasn't you know, and going forward and trying to make change trying to stand up for myself and he but it was definitely hard. And yeah, it's just really hard for me. So after you were able to identify what was going on, can you kind of walk us through what you did after that? How did you get out of it? Or how did you find coping skills to help and just where are you now in your process? Yeah, so during that time in that job work things were upside down for me. I started to feel so uncomfortable about the current situation that I tried to I To to stand up for myself. Like I had meetings with my supervisor with the owner of the clinic and I told them I don't feel comfortable doing x y z, you know, I don't feel comfortable treating patients without a prescription like things that were unethical and fraudulent and I felt like it was so uncomfortable for me and my my ethics was telling me like my heart was telling me like I can't do this. I got hot I have to stand up for myself and so like it took a lot of Courage for me. I thought maybe you know things would change but unfortunately that advocacy those attempts to like express myself did backfire we had meetings where we had a big team meetings where I was being talked about but my name wasn't being said and I knew that this attention was being brought on me how they're sewn in the room. That's not a team player how we should all be on the same team and all these Being used against me and so in my heart, I knew that I went in last year long and so I made sure I had another job lined up and then I give it two weeks notice and I left and that was that experience at that job was quite traumatic for me. And so looking back, you know when I got another job and when things things just got so much better because then I was Was in an environment where I felt comfortable safe supported and then I also began adjunct and I became an Adjunct professor. So I was balancing being an adjunct for one of the classes in the OT program in Florida. Excuse me, and then also bouncing like per diem back in Pediatrics where I felt like was my favorite setting and and so slowly but surely again. I didn't have a manual at the time to tell me you were burned out and this is what you need to do, but I To explore things. So I began exploring meditation. I just started with healing myself first and so like I began with meditation I use the headspace app. I'm obsessed with it. I still use it and never would have thought I'd be like a meditator but I I use meditation every single day and it's one of my favorite tools because I can see how 15 minute meditation has impacted the rest of my life and such. Positive ways. I've become just more in control of I'm not control but just gained more more awareness and more Consciousness about like who I am how I show up. It just it has just made me a better person. So I kind of started there and I just started slowly but surely getting like started listening to a ton of podcast reading books on what you would find in this up help section. But it's all this personal development personal growth that I think has shifted from like our idea of like self-help is into like at least for me became something that we all need like reading. My favorite book is you are a badass by Jen sincero and that book really helped me to realize that I am like I am powerful. I am wonderful and I started to really take care of my my soul and my mind with these books and Podcasts meditating and then I became passionate for the advocacy of burnout. Can you share what type of OT are you doing now? You might have just said that but I just want to make sure I understand it. Okay, so actually what I'm doing right now is unconventional and it's not like I'm not in a traditional OT setting I founded your energy time until 2017 and so An LLC and basically what I've been doing for the past few months my husband and I moved and so when we moved because he's a physical therapist. So he's doing travel travel therapy. And when we moved in we left our home I saw this as an opportunity to just explore Joy energy time and so I'm not employed by anyone now I so far for the past few months. I've been a concrete contractor for creating these courses. About burnout for some agencies, like occupational therapy.com and some other like mom-and-pop agencies for for like courses around burnout and then that so that's what I've been doing and I presented this year at aota and the Occupational Therapy Association of California. I presented my my courses on burn out. So I'm just Hams do my own thing right now and would join up to time. My biggest thing is creating a brand that is like a community like a community for healthcare Professionals for healthcare organizations to find resources on wellness and how we can be advocate for shipping a Better Health Care system. So I am totally figuring out everything by myself. Self and this is like, you know pretty messy for me, but I'm for I'm very driven to create something that can impact people so they don't have to experience what I experienced and I'm drawn to this idea of creating some but it's not for everyone and I've spoken to so many OTS and VG's that love love pictures care love clinical care, and they don't have a desire to leave. But unfortunately, the types of settings were working in the types of companies were working for sometimes to see us has a number and that's that's the thing that like is it makes me so sad because we enter health care because we have this compassion for helping others and we have this like romanticized view of what it is to be in healthcare, but once we get into Healthcare and we have these productivity numbers, we have to hit and we're in meetings. Supervisors because we haven't had these numbers or whatever may be dealt with the real world it for so many people that that takes away from why we entered health care and you have all these other birds and some tasks that fall on you that may be outside of your expectations. But you start to take on things that maybe weren't a part of the job when you signed that that you signed up for and it's important. That get you know, get clear with me like what try to tease out the things like that are aren't working for you like about you know, is the same thing. Is this the right setting for me do I like working in Pediatrics or do I like working in acute care? Like I think getting first getting down to like, okay this setting is just setting for me. Do I enjoy working with these clients? And then you know thinking about the company this is Can you have my best interest fine do they care about me as the person or do they just care about me as a number? How am I treated hop am I being listened to am I being heard? That's I think I have a guide not even God. It's a Chic. She just won t with 12 factors 12 questions. You can ask yourself and it's kind of broken down into basic needs individual needs growth need teamwork needs so you can terminate Okay. Am I are my needs being met and you're probably look at this than you may think. Oh, I didn't even know this was important but it is so I'll leave that link, you know, put your email in and then that that that she will be sent to your email. So it's really quick way to just fast. Okay, like am I being taken care of? That's perfect. Yeah, because I think there's just so many pieces at play and you never going to have a perfect situation right that's life. We do the best that we can but if you can Or ties what matters the most and then see if you're able to get those to work for you and not against you. So I really appreciate you sharing that I think a lot of people including myself will find that helpful. Ya thank ya. Thank you for having me on and I'm happy to share that that resource I have other free like sheets sheets are guides on my website as well that kind of cover. Were all these different aspects that we've been talking about like I have any emotional Wellness toolkit. That's how to enhance your emotional wellness. And then also what else the needs so teaching I was taught just telling you about and then I can't think of it now, but I have a few more resources and they're all in one place on my website. So it's easy to find can you tell us about your podcast and what you do over there? Sure. So I have the burnouts little podcast and I can't take credit for the name. My husband thought of the name but um, I co-hosted with my husband like I mentioned he's if he's a physical therapist, but I make it a point to interview people that are in healthcare that aren't in healthcare anything but my mission in interviewing these all these different people is to deliver holistic Wellness. This for you because I had to listen to a ton of different podcasts to get more in touch with my spirituality to learn more about advocacy and health care or to learn about like all these different things. So, you know holistic Wellness is huge. There's so many different Dimensions of Wellness, you have occupational wellness and mental Wellness Financial Wellness, you have emotional Wellness. So it's like I try to bring in experts from all these different places whether they're in healthcare or not. Just bring good content to my audience awesome and where can people find you so you can go to Joy energy time.com. That's like the mother website because you'll find everything there. You'll find the resources that was mentioning, but I'll leave that the link for that sheet with you so they can access that that she right away. But if you go to draw and shoot em, not calm you'll see how you can find us. Our podcast we have a newsletter and you can also search burnt out to little podcast on iTunes on Spotify on anywhere you listen to podcasts print out to lit up is there so yeah awesome. So before you go, I like to ask everybody this if you could talk to your 18 year old self, would you send Erica to OT School? It's a great question. Yes, yes, I love profession. I know there's a lot of room for growth and I am proud to be an OT. I think we're one of the most versatile professions there is I just think we need to do a better job. I'm not pigeonholing ourselves and I think that we may not change, you know if we create that. And down, we create those businesses and we create other things outside of the traditional that we're kind of pigeon-holed into I think we can really like flourish as a profession and keep gaining that that recognition and that respect in the world. So, you know, it takes creative OTS it takes Brave oaties to get out there. It's not it's not easy, but we chose this. It's amazing profession that we could do so much with so yes, I'm proud to be an OT. I'm really glad you said that because we're in a couple Facebook groups together is for alternative careers where you can kind of use your OT PT or SLP degree and people just give conversation to what they're doing and I feel like In school we learned about a lot of alternative careers that you could do with OT like Reiki or a community mental health OT and for a long time. I've kind of been complaining and being like well, where are these jobs? I don't see these jobs anywhere. I look up indeed. It's Skilled Nursing Facility. It's outpatient Peds. It's acute Inpatient Rehab. So where are these jobs, but I think we I think you're absolutely right. We kind of need to take ownership and if we have that spark in ourselves, like we have the opportunity to create it. I know that it's not for everybody but I think if somebody's listening and they feel really passionate about a certain area and they know that OTS can help then it is worth being brave and just at least putting that out into the universe and seeing what comes back at you. Exactly, you know if I don't know I would like to make on that is we go to the school to and we learn how to become good employees. And this is something that like just being entrepreneur. I really like thought about because no one taught me or encouraged me to take these risks. But yes, if you if there's something you want to do and you don't see it go out there and create it. Thanks again for having me. This was a great conversation. I'm almost done. We don't want interviewing people. So it felt good to just be interviewed and share like these other parts of my story that I know are really helpful for people. So thank you. Well, thank you for coming on. I know that your time is very valuable. So I and everybody else really appreciates it. All right everybody. I hope that you enjoyed that interview don't you just love her I just feel like she's amazing and I could listen to her talk forever, which is very good because she has her own podcast. So make sure that you check it out and if you are Are new to this channel, make sure you check out season one, and if you are a long-term subscriber that I'm sorry that I Disappeared, but I'm back. I'm going to try and release an episode every week and I would love for you to be a part of it. So if you are interested, then email me at spill the OT @ gmail.com. Make sure you check out my Instagram at spill underscored the underscore OT and as always if you can bring review this podcast, that would be awesome, and I hope you guys have a great week. Bye.
Welcome to season 2 of Spill the OT Podcast! Today we are talking about burnout with Erika del Pozo from "The Burnt out to Lit Up" Podcast Erika del Pozo, MOT, OTR/L holds a BA in Dance and Master’s in Occupational Therapy from Nova Southeastern University. Erika has practiced in outpatient pediatrics for five years and also has experience working with older adults with progressive neurological conditions. Erika created a modified-dance curriculum for adults with Parkinson’s Disease in Boca Raton, FL in 2016. Erika’s special interests include work well-being and burnout prevention in healthcare. She is CEO and founder of Joy Energy Time, a business dedicated to helping healthcare professionals and organizations address the ongoing challenges of burnout. She is also the creator and co-host of the Burnt Out to Lit Up Podcast, a holistic wellness show for healthcare professionals. Erika served as an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University for three semesters, collaborating with Dr. Lambdin-Pattavina to teach Occupational Analysis and Human Interactions. Erika has worked with several distinguished continuing education agencies, creating short and long evidence-based courses around holistic and multi-level approaches to address burnout and mental health in healthcare. 