Burnout’s Best-Kept Secret with Cait Donovan
What if burnout wasn’t just about work — but everything leading up to it? Cait Donovan’s bold decision to walk away from a full scholarship and follow her heart led to a life-changing journey across the world.
In this episode, Cait opens up about recognizing the warning signs of burnout, embracing foundational self-care, and the power of resentment journaling. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed or seeking a reset, Cait’s insights will empower you to reclaim your energy and embrace a bolder, healthier life.
Tune in and discover the tools to bounce back and thrive!
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
Cait’s bold move from pre-med to Chinese medicine
Understanding burnout beyond the workplace
Foundational self-care: pee when you have to pee!
Resentment journaling: uncover hidden boundaries and self-neglect
The emotional cost of always saying “yes”
How childhood experiences shape resilience and burnout
Unpacking the mental patterns behind burnout
Embracing bold decisions and trusting your inner voice
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“Burnout isn’t your fault — but recovery is your responsibility.” — Cait Donovan
“You can’t prevent burnout if you don’t even realize it’s happening.” — Cait Donovan
“Boldness isn’t the absence of fear — it’s acting despite it.” — Cait Donovan
“Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is listen to your body.” — Courtney Turich
“You’re more deserving than you think you are.” — Cait Donovan
About Cait Donovan
Cait Donovan is a burnout recovery expert, speaker, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast. With a background in Chinese medicine and years of personal experience overcoming burnout, Cait has dedicated her career to helping others recognize the signs of burnout and reclaim their energy. Through practical tools like resentment journaling and foundational self-care, she empowers people to set boundaries, embrace bold decisions, and prioritize their well-being. Cait’s mission is simple: to show that burnout isn’t the end of the road — it’s the start of a powerful transformation.
Follow Cait Donovan:
Stay Connected with Courtney Turich:
A Team Dklutr Production
BLOG TRANSCRIPT
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Courtney Turich: Hi friends. In today's episode, we're chatting with Cait Donovan, who's made bold moves and confident choices to build something incredible. We'll dive into her journey, the key lessons learned and some surprising insights along the way. A little background about our intriguing guest.
Cait Donovan is the powerhouse behind fried the burnout podcast and the author of the bounce back ability factor with the unique fusion of biobehavioral sciences and Chinese medicine. Cait is on a mission to elevate emotional intelligence. And obliterate burnout, her electrifying keynotes aren't just talks.
They're game changers offering transformative insights and actionable solutions that have made her a go to speaker for top tier global organizations. Get ready to dive deep into the science of burnout and emerge with the tools to thrive. Guess what? Because you're in for a ride today. Cakes. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being here on Bold Moves Confident Choices today.
Cait Donovan: Courtney, I'm so happy to be here.
Courtney Turich: Your background is so inquisitive and I just can't wait to dive deeper into everything about Cait Donovan. So before we get started, can you share a little bit more about your story?
Cait Donovan: Yeah. Journey was a winding one that took me from Eastern medicine to Western medicine and back through South America and Europe and back.
so there's been a lot of, bold moves and changes along the way. I just rebranded recently and the title of my brand is now Burn Bold. which when you wrote to me, I just started laughing and I was like, well, what are the chances? So I did a lot of following my heart. I started off as a pre med student.
I ended up in Chinese medicine instead. I met a man while traveling in Argentina, ended up married and living in Poland. just, my life has brought 42 years. Oh
Courtney Turich: my gosh, I don't even know where to go with all of that, Cait, because it is so layered and so interesting. how about this? Because I think the big question we're gonna ask is going to take us down a road here.
And Cait, what would you say is that big, bold, confident moment in your life that took things to the next level for you?
The Bold Leap: From Pre-Med to Chinese Medicine
Cait Donovan: I really think that the first one that set things on a very different course than I ever imagined was the choice to my pre med program that I was getting a full scholarship for at Boston University.
Wow. From Boston to San Diego. To start Chinese medicine school, which is a master's degree, but not well respected. If we're honest, most people think acupuncturists learn in basements, I don't know what people, it's people don't understand that it's a four year master's degree and it's a very serious schooling.
So I think that big shift from. I'm living in Boston. I'm close to my family. They're only an hour south. I'm studying medicine the way I always thought I would, too. I'm living in San Diego, right by the beach. I'm studying Chinese medicine and acupuncture and learning to meditate,
Courtney Turich: Okay, Cait. So now I have to ask, what caused that transition?
Cait Donovan: ` I took a class the second Semester of my sophomore year at BU called the sociology of medical school, and we spent the semester reading a book by someone who went through the full medical school program and residency, etc. And it sounded absolutely miserable to me and growing up in a family without a lot of means.
In addition to that misery, I knew I was going to have at least a quarter of a million or more. in student loan debt by the time I got through med school, so I was going to have all this misery that this person is talking about in this book, and I was going to be massively in debt, and I wouldn't really start my working life truly until after I was 30.
Because school takes so long, and then we talked about how you only get six or seven minutes per chief complaint with your patient. And I was thinking, that doesn't make any sense. At the same time, I was taking a master's level course in meditation. My minor at BU was Eastern religion.
the woman who taught the class was Livia Cohn. She's a world's foremost scholar of Taoism. And I went into her office hours one day and I was like, you know, very much a hippie and living with people that, smoked a lot of weed. And I was like, Livia, I always thought I was going to be a doctor.
This is not the right path. I don't know what to do. She said, we'll study Chinese medicine. I said, what the heck is that? That one sentence changed everything for me.
Courtney Turich: Oh my goodness. Okay. So that one sentence changed everything for you. How long did you look into it before you said, okay, I'm going to pull the plug on my full ride scholarship to be you, right?
And travel to San Diego, which I'm guessing you had to pay for. Okay.
Cait Donovan: Let's dig more into
Courtney Turich: that.
Cait Donovan: Yeah. So I went home. I started reading a book. before it must've been the fall semester. This happened, not the second semester because I got some books for Christmas from my roommate that year about Chinese medicine.
And I started reading about them and I was like, why does this make everything make sense? you know, people find religion at that time of life often if they didn't grow up in it or, it's like this time we were searching for something, I found Chinese medicine and I was just like, everything make sense.
And I fell in love. So I looked into school and I realized I only needed two years of undergrad to start school. That meant I had one more semester to go. I figured, well, I'll give it a shot. I applied early. I got in providing that I finished that semester, and then I took the end of the semester, the summer and the fall to work.
So I was bartending and waitressing to earn money so that I could then pay for myself and my car to get out to California and know, figure it all out. So it was. Pretty quick, honestly, for that kind of big decision. My mother was like, cool. My father was like, what is wrong with you?
Courtney Turich: Oh my goodness. I am trying to process and imagine if I would tell my parents it was something and to know at that age and your gut, Cait, that that was your calling. It is so impressive.
Cait Donovan: I don't know. At the time, people have told me that I'm bold my whole life.
Courtney Turich: And I can take this
Cait Donovan: off your intro.
It is. Right. And, from decisions like this, what I think people forget about boldness in general is that we're usually afraid when we do it. Yes. Yeah. You're right. Right. Like it's only bold. It's only courageous if you're actually afraid of it. If you're not afraid of it, then there's no courage involved.
Very true. So I did these things and I, felt like they were right for me at the time and they were, but was I petrified? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.
Courtney Turich: So you go on to San Diego, you're getting your degree in Chinese medicine. What happens next? I feel like I am unfolding this
Cait Donovan: book with you.
So I'm in school. I'm one of the two youngest people in the entire school. Most people that go to acupuncture school are coming in as their second career. So they've worked for 10 or 15 years and now they're most of my classmates were around 40 and I was 20. I couldn't even get a drink my first semester of classes, it was, it was really silly.
I started school in January and I didn't turn 21 until August of that year, so it was, interesting. Hey,
Courtney Turich: can I just interject real quick? you keep saying acupuncture school, but, Chinese medicine. Can you just share what that means for all of us? So Chinese medicine
Cait Donovan: is the bigger umbrella term.
And when you're in school for Chinese medicine, you're learning acupuncture, herbology, Tai Chi and Qigong, different massage techniques, lifestyle and nutrition, anatomy, physiology, et cetera. you're Chinese medicine covers all of the different aspects. and acupuncture is one of them that is most well known.
Got it.
Courtney Turich: Okay. Awesome. Okay. you're in California, you're 20, you can't even get a drink. You're one of the youngest people in school. Okay.
Following Her Gut: A Life-Changing Trip to Argentina
Cait Donovan: And I got through three years of schooling. I had one year left. And schooling was really intense. I was in school 30 to 35 hours a week. I was working full time bartending and waitressing to keep myself afloat.
I was a little bit tired and I had this internal, must go to Argentina feeling. And In my mind, I justified it by saying, I want to learn Spanish, but I just told you I was living in San Diego and working in bars and restaurants. Everyone that I worked with was speaking Spanish all day, every day. but in my mind, I needed a reason.
I needed a justification, but I had to get to Argentina. So I saved up my quarters from working at the bar, cashed in my quarters and bought a ticket to Argentina. By myself. This is
Courtney Turich: while you're at school. While I'm at school.
Cait Donovan: No, I have one more year to go. I'm taking a semester off and going to South America.
I'm on my way, get my ticket. And as I get by my ticket, the woman says I was at like a student ticket place and there was all these different rules and it was real cheap. And she said, okay, well you have to stop in Costa Rica on the way there and in Peru on the way back. So if you want to stop for any length of time, it's no extra charge.
I was like, give me 10 days in each. At the beginning and the end, because I was planning on being gone for months. So 10 days was fine. I took off, I went to Costa Rica. I did not know where I was staying the first night. I had no idea what was happening. I met a Tican girl at the airport before we left.
And I was telling her my story and she said, You are crazy like my father. I'm going to help you. So her brother picked us up at the airport, took me to his house. Put me up, set me up with his friends that were driving out to the coast so I could go see my friend. And we're still friends to this day.
Crazy. Wow. Yes. Then I finally get back to San Jose, fly to Argentina. I booked the hostel for the wrong day. So I arrived, in my mind I was getting there on the 27th, so I booked from the 27th, but I was getting there at three o'clock in the morning, which meant I needed a booking from the 26th. So I got there.
I show up at the hostel. They were like, we're full. Your thing is tomorrow. And I was like, shoot. So sent me to another hostel in three o'clock in the morning, middle of Buenos Aires. I don't speak Spanish. I don't know what's going on. I find my way into this new hostel. I put a towel down on the bed, not even sheets, hugged my backpack and took a nap for five or six hours until I could go back to the other hostel.
I went back to the other hostel, walk upstairs, I'm checking in and my future husband turns around and says, Oh, are you Irish? Because Caitlin Donovan is a very Irish name. And I said, no, American. And he went, Oh,
Courtney Turich: that's great. We have that stigma.
Cait Donovan: we spent the next six weeks almost nonstop together. And when I was leaving Argentina to head to Peru, one of my friends from California had come to meet me and we were going to Peru to hike Machu Picchu together. I was leaving and he said, I think we should get married.
And I was like. You know what? You might be right. So, I left Argentina, engaged to a man that I knew for six weeks, went to Peru, went back to California, finished my degree, was in a long distance relationship the whole time. He was living in London at the time, finishing a PhD, uh, not starting a PhD. He had just finished his second master's degree and did not do a PhD, but thought about it.
and then we decided that we should start our lives in Poland, in his home country. Because he had an apartment there, we would be able to live for free, but I didn't know if I was going to be able to practice acupuncture there. I was just finishing school, I had no experience, I didn't know if my papers were going to be valid, but I was like, it'll just be a year if I just have to bartend to get through it, fine.
We ended up being there for six years. Oh my goodness. I'm just
Courtney Turich: blown away. You are. Every bold move, every step of the way. So you've been there in Poland now for six years.
Overgiving and Ignoring the Signs
Cait Donovan: Yes. And this is when burnout started for me. So I had followed my heart, but I have these underlying, like, I'm not good enough.
I have to overgive. I don't know how to accept help sort of messages. And Poland is not the place for me. I love it for so many reasons. I speak fluent Polish, all the things, but it's just not my, vibe. So I tell my husband, we got to get out of here. I sell my acupuncture practice that has a three month waiting list, the business that I built from scratch, sell that practice.
My husband gets a job offer in Prague and I'm like, great, Eastern Europe to Eastern Europe, like, here we go. But we moved to Prague because that's the option. I worked in another acupuncture office just renting rooms, so I didn't start my own clinic, I just sort of hopped into another little space and built up a business in Prague and then we were there for six years.
So, all together you're up about 12. And then, I started to get antsy. Okay. And I said, I think it's time to go home. So we moved back to the States just before the pandemic in 2019.
Courtney Turich: Okay. So you talk about burnout along the way.
Cait Donovan: Yeah. So
Courtney Turich: can you share more about how this starts to weave into your life?
You're doing all these amazing experiences, really bold moves, everyone. Like these are huge, bold moves. I'm blown away. So how does this all come back and I'm guessing kind of smack you a little, like
Cait Donovan: wakes you up. So there was the moving, the learning new languages, all of that was costly energetically.
And I had just a ton of combination of limiting beliefs and coping mechanisms. That worked for me for a really long time until they didn't perfectionism and people pleasing and no boundaries and inability to ask for help and feeling like I didn't have value unless I was giving everything to everyone all the time.
So my acupuncture patients were paying for acupuncture, but getting acupuncture and life coaching. And, if they needed a doctor, I was sending them recommendations that I was doing all the things for all the people, all the time. The only thing I was not bold about was taking care of myself.
Yeah.
Courtney Turich: Wow. So when that moment happens for you, what do you do and bring us up to today? Like how that has evolved to your book that you've written, your
Cait Donovan: keynotes, all of that. When I started digging into why people burn out at the time, this is 2016. So the research is, Minimal and a lot of it was the same researchers that had been doing the same research since 1978 and they are wonderful and magical.
And I'm so grateful for their work and their work did not apply to me. I was a female entrepreneur and the work was based on doctors and or corporate workers. And I was like, this is not my story. So I started gathering other people's stories and information for the book because I was at this point that this stuff needed to come out of my body.
And also I needed to figure out if it's not these things that I'm reading in the research, then what the heck happened to me? Right. and I'm not the person who did it alone. Like a lot of people that work in burnout will say, I figured it out all by myself and now I'm going to help you do it better.
I did not figure it out by myself. This was the first time in my life that I said by myself, isn't working anymore. as a Chinese medicine specialist, you're a stress management expert because. You will learn your whole entire four years of schooling is how different stressors affect the body according to the Chinese pathway.
It's like the whole thing. So I know more about stress than pretty much anybody, and this still happened to me. So what the heck? So when I started digging and I started finding that there's some childhood traumas that change your brain development, that make you less resilient to stress, that there's some cortisol and hormonal pathways that might not work the same if your experiences were X, Y, and Z.
And I started to think, okay. Well, maybe this isn't exactly my fault. Maybe there's a bigger story. gosh, it's been nearly 10 years, I've developed a full framework that Chinese medicine would be very proud of that has six different buckets of why burnout happens. And most of the time there's no root cause for it.
Understanding Burnout: A Thousand Little Cuts
Cait Donovan: There's not one thing. So every time I see on Instagram, like the root cause of burnout, I'm like, no burnout by a thousand cuts. It's being parentified as a child, having a bully at work, living in an environment that doesn't support health, not having access to green space, not liking the color of your walls, becoming a perfectionist, having a parent that's an addict, doing it's all of those things before you get to the workplace.
Even, and all of the research is just about the workplace. You're right. And I'm like, you're spot on. That's a small view of a person's life. So as I developed these things, I started the podcast, wrote the book and started speaking professionally and understanding really quickly that the way that I was speaking about burnout was very different than the average person who was coming in and saying, You can prevent burnout if you manage your stress well.
People that burn out don't know that they're not managing their stress well, so they're never going to hear that message. Spot on. So I really started focusing at that point on what it means to recover from burnout and what it takes. And that was going to be my area. Like, I am a burnout recovery expert.
Because I think burnout prevention is Yes.
Courtney Turich: So, you know, what's fascinating about this, Cait, is you have Chinese medicine and if I'm right, it's the whole self back to your point. Burnout is just not workplace. It's not one thing that's causing you burnout. So you went back to your core foundational training of Chinese medicine and you're bringing forward new ways to help people through this process.
Cait Donovan: And it's so fun.
Courtney Turich: Oh my god. I love it. I love it. might be having a girl crush right now on Cait, everyone, because she's so fascinating. she's got this great energy. I knew it before we even started and she just, it hurts. Again, I could keep talking to you all day, but what can you give everyone here to maybe help with some of that burnout right now?
Just some teasers. And then if they need more, we can direct them your way. But what would you say today? Two things.
Listen to Your Body
Cait Donovan: And most people that are burnt out will be annoyed by both of these things. Because the first one doesn't seem big enough to make a difference, but it is. And the second is one that they don't really want to dig into.
But here they are. The first one is something that we call foundational self care in my practice. Foundational self care is meeting the basic core needs of your body. The unofficial hashtag of FRIED, the burnout podcast, is Pee when you have to pee. Because this is very basic, very basic, super simple. But that means you can't write three more emails once you realize you have to go to the bathroom.
That means that when you're thirsty, you have to interrupt yourself, go get a glass of water, and take a sip. So it's pee when you have to pee, drink when you're thirsty, eat when you're hungry, rest when you need rest, move when you're antsy, stop eating when you're full. Feel an emotion when it comes up, all of these skills are related to something called interoception, which is your ability to sense what's happening in your body and respond to it appropriately.
The higher your interoception, the better your emotional regulation, and the more you are able to see and feel the things that are happening so that you can avoid burnout in the future. Most people that burn out have low levels of interoception. So they didn't feel the little shifts happen along the way.
That's why it got too far. right. So the number one is foundational self care work on one of them at a time. It feels like it's not going to do anything, but once you start paying attention to it, really, you will start to understand how little you allow yourself to focus on your body. That's number one.
Number two is put down the dang. gratitude journal and start a resentment journal instead.
Courtney Turich: Everyone, did you hear that? Put down the gratitude journal, start a journal. I've never heard this. Okay, okay, keep going.
Cait Donovan: So the resentment journal's job is twofold.
If you take it seriously and really look honestly underneath the surface of all the things that you learn that you're resentful about, it will teach you two things that are critical to your recovery.
The first is where your boundaries are being broken. People always want to talk about boundaries and how you need to set boundaries and no is a complete sentence and blah, blah, blah. But most of the time we don't even know exactly which boundaries are broken. We're not paying attention to that. So we're then trying to implement boundaries in places where they don't necessarily belong and are a little bit awkward.
And then we're wondering why people are reacting poorly. it's just, are we not trying to figure out which ones are broken before we're setting new ones? I don't understand. So let's figure it out. Most of the time. You will find, if you are very honest with yourself, and this is the part that people don't like, that you have overstepped your own boundary.
You have over given, over promised, over done, meddled, thrown your opinion in, stepped up when it wasn't called for, said yes before anyone even asked. You overstepped, and you'll have to learn how to stop that, and that's really annoying. The other part will be, you'll find some places where someone has crossed your boundaries, and you'll need to have a conversation about it.
I highly recommend ChatGPT for structuring scripts around conversations that you don't want to have or don't know how to have. Super helpful.
Courtney Turich: I've been doing that. Right? And I've been journaling there, Cait.
Cait Donovan: Good.
Courtney Turich: But I have just never heard of this resentment journaling, so this is fascinating.
Keep
Cait Donovan: going. this resentment journal is copyrighted to me, so no one else can have it. Oh, okay. Good to know. Very
Courtney Turich: cool. Yes. You go girl.
Cait Donovan: So that's the first part is boundaries. The second thing that you'll learn with the resentment journal, and this one is even more painful than the fact that you cross your own boundaries. The second one is resentment will teach you every single place in your life. Where you have chosen self neglect and self abandonment for the perceived comfort of other people.
Courtney Turich: I have chosen that one.
Cait Donovan: It's awful. Wow. if you look at it, and you start to see, hey, I gave up what I needed in that scenario. Nobody asked me to. But I abandoned myself. I abandoned my needs in that scenario because I thought it would be good for someone else. Then you can start to see what your true needs are.
So then once your foundational needs are met, once you've already done this work of peeing when you have to pee and drinking when you're thirsty, this will teach you what emotional needs are. are not being met and what other needs, wants, desires, and preferences you have that you are not allowing yourself to indulge in.
Courtney Turich: Wow. I am just, I'm processing all of this, Cait, and these are just two things. There's more to your process. Yes. Okay. So, Cait, you have had this remarkable life. You've done a lot of work yourself, and it's not like you're just teaching us based off what you've learned. You've actually faced a lot of this and dealt with it.
So if you go back to little Cait, her 18 year old self, what would you say to her today?
Cait Donovan: You're more deserving than you think you are.
Courtney Turich: That's powerful. And when you say that, how does it make you feel?
Cait Donovan: Today it feels like relief. Yeah. Then it feels like sadness. Going in your face. Yeah, going back it feels like sadness, but today it's still a reminder that I need.
Courtney Turich: Mm hmm.
you say that, and again, it hit me too, because I think we can all remind ourself of that one.
it's
Cait Donovan: hard. Comes up a lot more often than I'd like to.
Courtney Turich: But you're being real and authentic with us. And this has been a very, and I keep saying powerful conversation, but it's really, hit home for me. And so I want to thank you for that, you know, Cait, as we're coming to an end here, what do you want everybody to walk away with today from this episode?
Cait Donovan: If you find yourself in a place of burnout, it's not your fault. It never has been. You unfortunately have to do the work of unwinding all the things that piled up over the years that you were not primed to notice, but the fact that you were not primed to notice is not your fault and getting out of it is possible no matter how much it feels like you're stuck in a cycle.
Courtney Turich: Wow. Cait. Where do people find you to take more of what did
Cait Donovan: you say, Cait, one of two places all the time. The first is fried the burnout podcast. It's available everywhere. People listen to podcasts. And the second is Cait Donovan dot com. Between those two places, you can find me anywhere.
Courtney Turich: Well, Cait, again, thank you so much for sharing your valuable time with us to talking about burnout.
Big, bold moves in life and also sharing what you would tell little Cait. It's, it's very been very impactful for me and I know our audience, it's going to stir up a lot for them. So again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And to our audience out there, please go remember, be bold, be confident and be you.
Thanks. Thank you.
