Episode 285 Rising Above Burnout with Arivee Vargas
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
Intro:Divina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
Davina:Hi, everyone. And welcome back
Arivee:to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And my guest today is Areevie Vargas. Areevie is an award winning certified executive coach and the founder and CEO of Hubbell Rising LLC. She specializes in helping high achieving women leaders and lawyers feel less overwhelmed and stuck and have more joy, fulfillment, purpose, and personal alignment.
Arivee:She's also the host of the Hubble Rising podcast, where she shares inspiring stories, primarily from women of color and provides actionable strategies for achieving sustainable success and fulfillment. Harini is also the author of your time to rise, unlearn limiting beliefs, unlock your power and unleash your truest self. Your time to rise is about increasing self awareness, gaining clarity and uncovering your truth, envisioning possibilities and aligning what's inside with what you're doing, saying, and pursuing on the outside. She shows you how to use her simple four part framework to navigate personal and professional inflection point. Most importantly, a review provides actual strategies and tools to help you break free from the often harmful and limiting beliefs and expectations you've internalized keeping you stuck and dissatisfied.
Arivee:Your time to rise will equip you with what you need on the journey to rise up, claim your truth, and the long overdue clarity, joy, and fulfillment you deserve. Please join me in welcoming Erivia Vargas to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. Hi, Areev. It's good to see you today and have a good on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast.
Davina:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Arivee:Good. So you have a wonderful book. I've had a chance to read some of it, and I'm excited to talk about that, but I want to start with just giving, everyone a little bit more of your backstory. I've introduced you and told a little bit about how you were in law and then you shifted. Can you tell us, more of how you started out and why you decided to evolve your career?
Davina:I love this question because I think a lot of times people think careers are linear. Career journeys are linear. And that just because you start or you think you wanna go to a law firm means you have to end up there. Or you may start off in a totally different place and then end up at a law firm, wanna be a partner and own your own firm and love that as well with becoming an entrepreneur. So for me, my story really does start with my parents.
Davina:So I am the child of Dominican immigrants. And so I'm first generation Latina lawyer. And so I I say that because I learned firsthand what it means to work very hard, what it means to have a lot of perseverance, what it means to, internalize that rest is unproductive, which is not helpful when you get into, being a lawyer and your work is measured every 6 minutes and your value is measured every 6 minutes. But what I got from them was this tenacity and this hunger, and this ambition to make it here in this country. And I didn't wanna be poor in all honesty.
Davina:I didn't wanna be poor. So I was going to law school. I thought I wanted to do education policy, but did an externship and realized that was not for me. Went to a law firm and did what every 1st year associate probably does, which is you work really, really hard. You're a sponge.
Davina:You observe, you do everything you can to be helpful and you try to get really great at your craft, knowing that you may not be great the 1st or second year or the 5th year, but you're doing your best and supporting your team as much as you can. And so I did that, and I also clerked for 2 different federal judges, and I worked at 2 different law firms. And the entire time I was doing that, I would say absent the clerkships, the clerkships were extremely personally rewarding for many reasons, the gravity of what those judges are doing, but also the connection and, you know, the relationship you build with a judge is something I mean, I still I still have those relationships today. They will always be mentors to me. So that's a totally different kind of, to me, a different kind of work.
Davina:But as I proceeded in my career and at the law firm, I always had a whisper, always, even in law school. I had this. I just was so busy trying to do well that I didn't really pay attention and it wasn't that loud, so I could easily brush it off. But this voice and this whisper saying, I'm not sure this is it for you. Like, I'm not sure this is your thing and sure.
Davina:You're good at it. You can do it. You could be really great at it, but I'm not sure this is what you're meant to do. And that was always there. But as I, when I had my son, I was at my second law firm.
Davina:And when I had my son there, I essentially had an identity crisis of, wow, my whole life has been working towards becoming partner at this firm and, or, you know, my whole career really working towards that. Right. Even though I had that whisper of saying, is this it? But I was, that's what I was marching towards. Like, this is what I was working towards.
Davina:I was working a lot. You know, I I was like, I earned it. I'm I deserve it. All those things you tell tell yourself. Then I have my son and everything shifts, meaning I have my son and I'm on maternity leave, which I'm blessed to have had paid maternity leave.
Davina:And I recognize that's such a privilege, but I was in a place where I was like, wait, I wait. So all I do is take care of an infant all day and I'm not working. Like I'm not and not that I wanted to work and take care of an infant. That's not what I'm saying. But what I realized was I didn't know who I really was without my constant need to work because work gave me such, even though it was a grind, right?
Davina:It's a grind. It was a grind for me, but it was a grind of also like achievement. And there was a lot of instant gratification and a lot of validation. You get all of the time from your work. And I started to equate my self worth as a person with my work and my output and validation from, you know, the people I worked with and was I doing a good job?
Davina:And, you know, I was once told Or
Arivee:just being a lawyer, just being a lawyer and the prestige of of being a lawyer at a prestigious law firm and all that that brings with it, you know, you have instant credibility and authority. Yes. You know? And so, and then, and then as a mom, this child just doesn't care.
Davina:The cloud doesn't care. And also you don't know what you're doing, right?
Arivee:Oh, yeah. There's no mastery there.
Davina:There's no, there's no mastery. You have no expertise in this area, your books, but then you also are sleep deprived. So you're reading, but you're not processing and you're, and you re and you recognize in that moment, Oh my gosh. You know, when I'm doing, when I'm working, I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm good at.
Davina:I know what I'm doing. And as a parent, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know if I'm doing a good job. There's no feedback on that end. So it's a lot of uncertainty and I did not like that.
Davina:And I have this crisis of, I was asking myself, who am I without the prestige, my title, me being a lawyer, who is, I'd be the person even without the mother title. Right. Cause I, then I was saying, am I just a mom? No, I am. I have to be multiple parts.
Davina:How do they all fit together? And so I had this, this essentially identity crisis in that period of time when I was home with my son and I was itching to get back to work. But I I obviously didn't. I I took time to really delve deeper into my own kind of self discovery. And that voice that I had mentioned earlier was getting had gotten louder at that point and said, hey, I think this is a sign that maybe you wanna shift sooner rather than you think to something different that might be more aligned with who you are.
Davina:And so I would say a year and a half later, I, was having a you know, those you have performance reviews and, you know, you're told, should you go over partner? Should you not? And I had this conversation with, 2 of my partner mentors who said, hey. We really want you to, you know, you could you would be up for a partner next year. You have to decide whether you wanna do that.
Davina:Like, but you we would support you and, like, we are supportive of you going forward. And I all I felt in that moment, I felt an obligation to them for all of their investment in me to say yes. But inside my whole body was like, I don't think this is for me anymore. Not because I could, I totally, I know I could have done it, but it was that it that voice was like, hey. This is this is the crossroads moment.
Davina:This is the time you get to decide. You get to choose in this moment. And so after a few weeks, my partner mentor, one of them came over to me. He was like, hey. We really need to know, like, what what your decision is.
Davina:And I said, you know, I don't know if I really wanna do it. And he was very kind and perceptive of me. He was like, you know, I can tell there's something else going on where you're probably struggling with something else. It's like, but I want you to know whenever you're ready, I'm here to like talk to you about it. And long story short, I ended up going in house to a very fast paced biotech, which at first PC people think going in house is easier.
Davina:And I always say it depends on the company you go to. People say going to like, oh, clerking is 9 to 5 for a judge. And people always say that. And I say, it depends on the judge. It depends on the dish.
Davina:It depends on the circuit.
Arivee:So it's a lot of things. Yeah. But when we get into discussing that transition, I wanna talk about that and what it led to. But I wanna just say that I think a lot of women lawyers will really relate to this because so many of us start out like on this path had, and there's such a huge investment in becoming a lawyer that it's really hard to re career. Like it's really hard to shift to something else because you're like, but I, I have told everybody I'm a lawyer.
Arivee:I've spent all this money to become a lawyer. I, my family's proud of me for being a lawyer. And you've got all of these things and it's, it's an identity that's really hard to shift. And I had a friend who said to me, she said, you, you will always, you did that. You will always be a lawyer for as long as you choose to, you know, be active in the bar or whatever.
Arivee:She goes, even if you're not practicing day to day, nobody can take that identity away from you. And that was a big, that was permission for me that I was struggling to give to myself when I changed my career with that, you know, I worked so hard for that identity. It just seemed, you know, upsetting to sort of walk away from that goal and all of that, for any reason, you know, even if it felt like it wasn't the best fit for me or, you know, it wasn't going, but in the direction I wanted it to go or whatever. And I think a lot of, people really struggle with that as lawyers. And so they keep trying to like hop around the lawyer, you know, thing and say, there's gotta be another place for me to lawyer as opposed to sort of thinking, you know, well, maybe I just need to do something different altogether.
Arivee:It maybe used my skills, you know, my analytical skills or whatever skills you learned in another capacity. So you did that. You shifted working in a corporate environment. You went in house, were you an attorney in house? Cause I know you worked in sort of with people and, development and that kind of thing.
Arivee:Was that the same time or?
Davina:So I went in house to, to join the litigation and corporate compliance team and our corporate compliance team at that time, we we hadn't I I would say it wasn't a full corporate compliance team or program. It was we were still building very, very much a an a earlier stage kind of program. But litigation and compliance are very closely related in terms of the work that they that we did. So, eventually, I transitioned completely from litigation and into corporate compliance with a bunch of other lawyers, basically. Like, they took lawyers parts of the company.
Davina:We we created this this revamped team, and we were now leading big global efforts, each one of us, which was an incredible experience because now it's about the business and how can we make sure that we get our business impact and results, but not just like legally, but also compliantly. And we're building a pro we're building, we're building a program, which was very exciting and creative. It allowed me to really stretch certain strengths I had and exercise them and learn a lot of new skills in collaboration with a very tight knit team who was also a, who were also a bunch of mostly litigators. Right. So we all had a similar experience coming in and doing something a little bit new.
Davina:Some were not new to it, but some of us were. And I did that for about 4 years. And my role shifted almost every year because when you're in a small company and you're moving fast, roles shift very quickly and you're very adaptable. You have to have a growth mindset or you just won't make it. Like you just won't make it.
Davina:And everyone was high performing. And when I say that, I say that because again, sometimes I hear of this perception that not everybody that goes in house or if you're in, like, a legal and compliance department, there's a lot of coasting. And I say to them, I don't know a department like that because my department was we're going as fast as the business and the business is going super fast. And we're, most of us were from big law firms. So on all of our training and experience and the way that we thought of work into our work at that company.
Davina:So we got things done very quickly. It was done well. Our standard was very high. It's excellence all of the time. And it was exciting because we were doing new things and creating new things and building.
Davina:And so, like, when I started at that company, maybe 1200 employees, when I left, it was closer to like 6 or 7000. I mean, you're tough, but a massive shift. And it was exciting. And yet when I was getting to that 4th year, I I looked I would have moments. I would look at the team and I would look at what I was doing.
Davina:And I would say, you know, I feel like I feel like I've done what I came to do here. I feel like I've learned what I've needed to learn. And I, again, that voice, not whisper was still there being like, you know, this was so exciting and you learned a lot and you learned a lot about yourself and what you're capable of. You stretched yourself a lot. I think we need to stretch you in a way that really focuses on personal impact.
Davina:And at that time I will be the timeline. I share this timeline because it's really important. I had already by that time, because of my identity crisis had had a coach had gotten into coaching, had been certified as an executive life coach and high performance coach. I had been coaching women on the side. I had started my podcast on the side as like a passion project.
Davina:I would take a few clients every month. I didn't have, like, a robust program or, like, you know, a group coaching program or anything like that. I was just really focusing on personal one to one impact and impact with my podcast, and it was a passion of mine. So I had I had been doing that and exploring that further. And I think that's why after 4 years, that voice got a little louder and was like, I think we need to go more in the leadership personal development direction because that's where you get lit up, and you can do that in leadership development with emerging and, senior leaders.
Davina:And so that was where I was shifting towards. I literally called the, well, you know, we emailed, then we set up the call, the chief legal officer and my leader who's also, you know, one of my mentors and told them, hey. I I really I think my time as a lawyer and and a compliance professional, all of it, because we all look together so much in this department. I think, I think I'm, it's time to, for me to move on. And this is why.
Davina:And, and they, at first, the first reaction was, wait, hold on. So this means, you know, this means like you're not going to be in the legal compliance group. Like you're not really going to be a lawyer, even tangentially. You're not going to be like with lawyers. Like you understand that.
Davina:Right? I said, yeah. And I, and I'm totally fine with that. Like, I'm totally okay with that. And they were like, okay.
Davina:And I said, so I really would love to get into HR to do leadership development because we don't have any programs yet. I would love to build that and do that on that team. And they were very supportive of me. And I will say that I think when you move a lot in house at one company, you do need a, a very senior leader to like really push you along and support you and talk to others to get you kind of into those roles and positions. So that's what I did.
Davina:I I went into HR, but I had to stop before leadership development because there weren't positions open. And at any company, you have to have the headcount to give someone a position. And I had to make a stop at employee relations because, I had a set of skills. I was always I was an investigator. That's what I did a lot of even in compliance and a litigation, and I could I could interview anyone.
Davina:This is like a set of skills I had, and I was good at it. So and I also wanted to help people. So I said, okay. Let's let's try this. And I did that for a few years and helping to, again, build up our employer relations program.
Davina:It was a very emotionally I would say for me personally, it was a very emotional role. I tend to be more of an empath, and that's not helpful, if you're too empathetic and you internalize others' feelings, be really challenging when you're dealing with allegations of, like, the full gamut when you have employer relations, discrimination, bullying, harassment, whatever it is. Mhmm. And so I I had a difficult time emotionally with that. And at that same time, and we can get into this a little bit later, at that same time, I had my 3rd child.
Davina:It and things started to get very heavy in my personal life as well, and it was like a perfect storm. Eventually, moved on into leadership development, when a role opened up there. And I I enjoyed that role so much because, again, I was in creation mode building a global program, working with with other, folks in HR, which I never realized how much HR really does and how much of a backbone for a company they are until I experienced that.
Arivee:And Can I, interrupt you and ask you a question? So at what point does the burnout come in? Because one of the things I'm hearing from you is even though you were in these high performing jobs and you were having children and all this was going on and you're operating at the highest level, you did this for years and you did it without burnout. You did it with, oh, you know, I've got some other things I want to do. And I think it's kind of amazing because I think a lot of us stay too long at the party.
Arivee:We don't listen to that voice in our head because we think of things like I need job security. I don't want to give up because you mentioned the beginning about money. I don't want to give up the check, all that. So I think it's really kind of amazing that you listen to the voice and make these transitions, but at some point you experienced burnout. What was the difference that occurred that caused you to say, you know, I'm feeling really burned out here.
Davina:Yeah. So I mentioned that perfect storm, right? What I was in the, I was in my employer relations role, which I just explained was very emotional for me. And I didn't fully when I was in that role in the beginning, it didn't feel that way, but it became that way for me because I felt like, am I really helping peep I'm not really I feel like I'm not really, really helping people, Even though the feedback I would get was like this, you are doing a fantastic job. You are really helping our employees.
Davina:Like you, you know, you're helping our leaders be better. You know, you get the feedback, but feel that way. And what happened was, as I alluded to before I had my 3rd child now I had at that time, we'll get it. Do my math, but my, my son was, I think maybe 6, 6 or 7. My don't, my middle daughter was still like a toddler, right?
Davina:She's like 4, 4 years old. And then I have this infant and it's COVID. So it's COVID. I have an infant we're we're stuck inside. You know, my son has to do zoom classes as a kindergartner.
Davina:And this is not, this is not effective. It's not working. The way we're working in our household is not working. And I have an infant. And, you know, just because you've been a mom before doesn't mean that having an infant the 3rd time is necessarily easier in terms of the, you know, the toll on your body and your mind and your spirit.
Davina:It's still very changing. The chemistry of your body is changing. Your hormones are going out of whack again.
Arivee:So and you have an entirely dependent human that's on top of the ones who are barely. I mean, even if it's right, right.
Davina:Right. Yeah. Not that same time again, this perfect storm at that same time, my husband decided to leave his full time job. He was also a lawyer to leave his full time, but he was a lawyer and then transitioned into the business in house and then decided to be an entrepreneur and started his entrepreneurial business at the same time that my when my daughter was born, my 3rd child was born.
Arivee:Mhmm.
Davina:Now there's there's pressure there. He's trying to prove like, literally proof of concept. He's trying to get investors. He's working around the clock. I have an infant.
Davina:And even though she now I'm back from maternity leave, say I'm back from maternity leave, my job is extremely demanding, not only in hours, but in emotional work, like emotional
Arivee:load. Right.
Davina:And I have 2 other children. We're still in COVID. I have 2 other children who need our attention. We are to the max in terms of work. We have to take care of 3 children.
Davina:I start to feel like physically extremely exhausted. And when I say that, I say, like, you had mentioned, oh, you were doing all these other things and you were experimenting and you were handling all of that, but you didn't get burned out. And I knew when I was feeling so fatigued that no amount of rest was letting me recharge, I knew something was wrong. Like, something is not right, but I was trained to keep going. I'm trained
Arivee:to just,
Davina:I'm trained
Arivee:to suck
Davina:it up, literally suck it up and keep moving. Right. And I honestly think that does serve you to a point. I do think that kind of mentality does make you successful, but to a point. Right.
Davina:And so I kept pushing myself and working again, just all these crazy hours, but what started to happen was, and, and this is important for people to understand about burnout is that it's not just that you have a hard 2 week period. Because I I people like throw out the word burnout. They're like, oh, I've had such a hard week or like a hard 2 weeks, and I feel like I'm burnt out. And I'm like, no, that's you're tired and exhausted. Burnout is a there are 3 stages to it.
Davina:It's like you're exhausted, fatigued, then you experience cynicism and detachment from your work, and then you literally can become nonfunctional. Like, your cognitive abilities are impaired. Like that's you.
Arivee:So give give us some examples of each of those so people can really understand the stages because that's really fascinating. So the first stage
Davina:The first stage is you're fatigued and you're exhausted.
Arivee:So what does that look like?
Davina:So that can look like, you know, you are getting like, you're like, okay, I need, I'm gonna, I need to get a full night's sleep. I'm gonna get 8 or 9 hours and I'm gonna do that for a week. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a week off and you take that week off where you do those 8 or 9 hours every day for a week. And your body still feels so tired. Like you feel like you're can't ever recover.
Davina:You can't fully recharge or reenergize your body just feels heavy. And this is why, you know, I always say this is that burnout is really I say this what other doctors say. Like, there's, doctor Neha Sangwan, and then there's doctor Christine Maslach, who are experts in burnout, who will say burnout is a stress response. It's your body's response to stress. So you have exhaustion, you are fatigued, you aren't able to recover your energy.
Davina:Like you're depleted. You're just completely depleted. And then when you move into that second stage and for me, I got to that second stage, but I also, before I got there was experiencing for me personally, this is not everybody with burnout, but I was experiencing panic attacks where you couldn't physically breathe and you catch your breath and they were random. They actually never happened with work. It was in my house.
Davina:I had to do something and I would have a panic attack or I would be just like in the kitchen, you know, washing dishes and all of a sudden the overwhelm of everything in my life would hit me and I would have a panic attack. And my I had experienced, I started experiencing like skin issues that I hadn't had before digestive issues I had never had before. My hair started falling out. Like these things were happening to me physically and knew something was really wrong. And I went to the doctor and, you know, my vitamin D levels were low.
Davina:My iron was low. Okay, great. But I was not feeling well. And, and she, you know, I I didn't want medication. I was like, no, I I don't want medication.
Davina:Eventually did get on medication for other reasons, but I had hit that point of physical exhaustion, physical symptoms where my body was responding to the stress I had been putting it under. And that's what it, that's what it looked like for me.
Arivee:Right.
Davina:Right.
Arivee:And then the next stage is what? So I think that paints a powerful picture for people to understand. We're talking about like, not like, oh, I didn't sleep good last night. And today you're talking like a cascade of symptoms that are really not normal for you. Right.
Arivee:Right.
Davina:And it's, and it's more longer term. Like you see, you're started seeing a pattern and you start seeing a term. Right.
Arivee:Not getting better on its own.
Davina:Correct. Even though even though you're doing things to try to make it better, it's like nothing Yeah.
Arivee:Go into the doctor. It's still not there. There's nothing. Yeah. Right.
Arivee:I just the second phase of that was what?
Davina:Is depersonalization or cynicism. Like you start, you start I this is what I would say when I hit that stage. Why am I doing this? This doesn't matter. I don't care anymore.
Davina:I literally don't care about this anymore. You start depersonalizing and you start feeling very negative or indifferent about your work. And that gets really scary because I had never ever had those thoughts before. So again, I knew like something is not right. Like this is not right.
Davina:Because even when I was feeling like, oh, I have to do something. I don't wanna do it. I would still be like, no, but this is important. I'm gonna do it. And I care about doing a good job.
Davina:I start stopped caring. Meaning I would say that and I would go to do things. And I would just always have that feeling of this is pointless. Why am I doing this? And that's that cynicism piece.
Davina:And when you hit that piece, that stage of burnout, that's when it becomes really dangerous because you're going to move very quickly into not actually being able to do your job.
Arivee:And that's
Davina:what happened to me. Because when I hit that stage, I was already in this stage of, I would, you know, when you're in house and you're presenting to the business, you're presenting even to your colleagues, you're doing a lot of slide decks and PowerPoints
Arivee:and Right. You're
Davina:doing, that's how we communicate is through slide decks. So, I mean, I've been spending years doing those and knowing how to do them. And I remember one particular evening, I was working on something that was difficult, like, something that was challenging, but I was always able to plow through, and I was always able to get it done within a short period of time. But this particular evening, it was like 9 PM and I was on one slide till, like, 3 AM. And I was just and that that was that started to happen to me.
Davina:I would work on, like, an email. What emails will take me a long time to write, even when I'm sharing something that's really important or an update. And I would just be spending hours like rereading it, rereading it, rereading it. Cause I'm like, that doesn't make sense. Does it make sense?
Davina:Questioning myself repeatedly, I'd be in meetings and I would lose my train of thought mid sentence, which never happened to me before. Right. And that meeting, I would, I would ask my colleagues. I'm like, guys, did I make sense in that meeting? And they're like, no, you were fine.
Davina:You made sense. Like, no problem. And I'm thinking like, hey, am I just being hard on myself? Or, you know, are they not telling me the truth? And then I asked my, one of my more senior peers, hey, like, are you seeing anything in meetings that, you know, you'd wanna share with me?
Davina:Because I feel like something's off with me. And she's like, I feel like something is off, but she's like, I don't know. Maybe you're just tired. You know, she's like, maybe you're just tired. But that's how it showed up for me in terms of that 3rd stage of your productivity and performance starts to suffer.
Davina:Like you yourself can see this is taking me longer. This is harder than it used to be. Things are not easy anymore or don't, I can't just plow through it anymore. That's how it showed up for me was like slide decks and emails and even conversation. I couldn't, I didn't think I was fully forming sentences, even if I was 700% and people understood and they were fine.
Davina:I personally knew I wasn't at the level that I was before.
Arivee:Right. You're feeling like freaking out. Cause this is not me. What is going on? This is, yeah.
Arivee:Yeah. So your, when you started getting those feelings and that issue, what is it that was kind of the wake up call for you that something's got to change? What, what moment was there a pivotal moment or, or
Davina:Yeah. What started to happen was I started to get emotional at work and I never do that. I never do that. I started getting emotional when people would ask me the question, how are you? And I would instantly tear up.
Davina:Yeah. And, and thankfully I'm so thankful that the people who did that were actually very good friends also. So I felt like, okay, if I'm crying in front of them, it's fine. It's not a sign. Yeah.
Davina:The fact that I would respond, my body was responding that way to such a typical, like pleasant question. How are you told me, like, I am not okay. Something is very wrong. And the fact that I was getting emotional, like, all the this is not who that's not how I operate. And in fact, I'm a person, like, if you ask me how am I how I am, or I used to be this person where if you asked me how I was and it was horrible, I would say, I'm great.
Davina:So let's get to what we had to talk about. Like, I will just zoom right past it. Cause I'm not going to engage, but I was engaging because I was suffering. And that was when I'm started getting emotional at work. When people ask me that question, how are you?
Davina:That's when I knew like something is actually really, really wrong. And that coupled with when my work started to get very hard for me, I was like, this is not normal. I need to get help. And so I, I immediately reached out actually to, a therapist and I started talking to her and it turned out that I also had like high anxiety. You know, I was previously probably highly functioning anxiety.
Davina:Right. But now everything was coming to a head and I reached out to a therapist. And so that's how I was. I began my road to recovery, but it took me a very long time. I would say, I would say it took me like 6 months plus over 6 months to truly, truly recover and be back at my best self again.
Arivee:So did you step away from work?
Davina:I took a leave. I think it was either 2 to 3 months. I took a I took a I have I have to go back and fact check that, but I it was a it was a significant amount of time. It wasn't a vacation. It was a medical leave.
Davina:And I remember after 4 weeks, I think maybe I said I wanted to take, like, a month. And then after a month, my therapist and I talked and I was like, I I am still in the deep weeds of darkness. Like, I am still not okay. And because it takes your body and your mind, like, time to even recognize that, okay, you're not working anymore. So what does this mean?
Davina:And again, you feel like a little bit worthless. You're not working at, you're not doing much, but you, you need to recover because there's so many, so many stressors you need to recover from, into so viscerally. And so I, we extended the leave after 4 weeks to either 8 weeks or more, where then I came back and I felt like so reinvigorated and I felt so much more ready to tackle anything. I had all my energy back, but there was a good period of time in there where I, I was really in a lot of darkness. Like it was really hard for me.
Davina:And so when people about burnout, I, I always say like, if you're look, if you're tired and you're exhausted, let's call it that. But burnout is more long term chronic stress and you really do need support with that. And it's not just go get a massage. That's not going to help you there. Yes.
Davina:Go get one one more. Go get your nails done. Yes. We all want our hair done, but that is not going to help with the root cause of that issue.
Arivee:Yeah. I feel that way about mental illness. I have a sister who's schizophrenic. And so when people say I have mental health problems and what they mean is I got nervous before I did this or that it bothers me because I'm like, no, that's not a mental health problem. That is, like I know all of us have it's a human emotion to feel anxious.
Arivee:Yes. It's a human emotion to feel sad or get the blues. It's a human emotion too. And there are some people that it really becomes debilitating. And that's when you're talking about, you know, mental is the, it's the debilitating piece.
Arivee:It's not, I have anxiety by, you know, going out in public because I grew up during, you know, COVID or whatever. Like it, I have a real, so I have a, I have a real, you know, kind of, I think it's important that we distinguish because it keeps people from, I think getting help, right. Because we're, we're not differentiating. And so a lot of people say, well, I'm just exhausted. I just had a baby.
Arivee:I'm working. I'm just exhausted. This will pass. It passed through the first one. It'll pass, you know, like, and so, but I think you, when sharing your story, you really shared a lot.
Arivee:There were a lot of clues that were like bricks being thrown at you. There are a lot of big clues. Right? And I think those are the kinds of things where people need to pay attention and say, okay, the, you know, and it may be different for other people, but it will still be significant. So their physical symptoms may be different than yours.
Arivee:Their skin may not break out, but they might have something else. Right. That they go, this isn't like me. And then I, and I think the middle piece where you're talking about that sort of, that sort of disassociating and not in a good way, like that, we can be overly attached to things, but, and sometimes attachment is good, but that, that pendulum swinging too far in the other direction and saying, I'm disassociate. I think I just, I don't care if it all blows up tomorrow.
Arivee:If it all goes away, I don't, I don't want to do this anymore. I, you know, this is not, I'm ready just to quit. I don't care about the consequences. Yep. Those sort of thoughts and feelings when we start having those, I mean, everybody may have that like a bad day every now and then, but we start having those sort of consistently.
Arivee:It's like, and then it's very interesting. Your, the next level is just the inability. And I think a lot of us who are high performers cannot conceive. We might be in the 1st and second stage, and we really can't conceive of not being able to push through our power through because that's what high achieving women do. That's how we got to where we are.
Arivee:It was that sort of pushing through. So it was wonderful for you that you had. You were in an environment where there were people who were asking you how you were, and also there was an opportunity for you to take leave and not have that, you know, that stress. And I'm sure your spouse, you know, was supportive in all of that or, or whatever. So, I mean, I'm glad that you had that.
Arivee:I, what did you, when you came back then, did you come back to the company and continue working or did you then make that transition? So you came back to the company and, and so how long was it before you were like, no, I really need to. And that's so I'm gonna
Davina:do 2 more here, 2 more years. Yeah. I came back and I went into that leadership development role when I came back. Shortly after I came back, I stepped into that role. Because that old that role had opened up, and stepped into that role and loved the work, loved the team, felt such a fire in my belly to build this program and, make a mark on in, in, in the department, but at the company.
Davina:So my, all my ambitions, everything was back. And then I did that for 2 years and, and it was because that role was so, was so aligned with me that when that voice came up again and was like, Hey, I'm so sorry, but like, this isn't it either. But you're like, you're really close, but you're really, really close again. Like these are just steps you take to get closer. It's not it's totally not linear as I mentioned earlier, but I started to feel that, and I started to get a lot more clients.
Davina:I started to get busier with that, and I'm like, okay. Something this now it's kind of untenable. Like, I need to be focusing on my
Arivee:gotta give.
Davina:My leadership role has to that's my priority. Right? My kids are my like, I'm thinking of my priorities. And but this voice is like, hey. And also had written the book, Divina.
Davina:I had written a book at that time. I was writing a book end of 2022. I had been writing a book about what I had been experiencing, like how to get better in alignment with who you are and what you most want and need and how to shed societal expectations and shedding beliefs that don't serve you anymore, and keeping your alignment tight. And so I I that voice came back and was like, yeah. So this is the actually the time to do your thing.
Davina:You've written a book. It's coming out soon. You have your coaching clients and you love coaching. You love speaking and it's something that lights you up. You have your podcast and it was like, you know, this is what you're meant to do.
Davina:You're meant to serve differently. Like you're this chapter, this corporate chapter is done. And now it's time for you to go on your own. Take a chance. I know you're terrified.
Davina:I know there's no blueprint, but like, take a chance on yourself and apply every ambition and all the hunger you feel and all the tenacity you have and apply it over here. Because if you apply it there, it's going to work. It just may not look like you may you think it might look like, but it's going to been in. It's what you're meant to do. And I felt it in my body too, Divina.
Davina:Like, I remember going into work physically, like going into the office and feeling like I love all of you and it's time to go. It's time for me to go.
Arivee:I think it's so wonderful that you have that inner voice. I, so many of us have, well, you know, we have the inner voices, but we don't listen to them. And I remember for me, I had a real shift in my life. At one point I had so many advisors and so many people talking to me about, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this. Cause I was wanting to change what I was doing.
Arivee:I wasn't happy and all that. And I had to get really quiet to hear mine. Like I had to really shut out everyone. And it was like this little tiny flicker of a flame. So how I picture it and I couldn't get, like, I needed to give it some oxygen and people around me were sucking out the air with all of their advice and their well meaning, you know, whatever.
Arivee:And I, and I had to get really quiet and go, what is it that you really want? And that is hard because the way I grew up then just wasn't taught. It wasn't a priority. It wasn't. And, and so I think it's, I love hearing you talk about that little voice that keeps kind of your inner guidance that keeps guiding you to this, this path and, and the way you approach it and just say, I'm going to listen to it and trust it.
Arivee:Yeah. Trust that this will lead me where I need to go. So I think that's a beautiful experience.
Davina:Divina, it's not like I had people around me who were like, I'm I'm sorry. You're going to I I get that when it comes up, but like you I mean, I remember when I left the law to go into HR, I had plenty of people, Divina, who were like, you are gonna waste your law degree, you're gonna waste everything you've worked for, you're gonna waste
Arivee:all of that.
Davina:And I had to tell them, it's not a waste, I'm using all those skills now, like it's not a waste, but I felt convicted in it so that all that noise bounced off of me. I didn't internalize it because I really felt very strongly that, of course, I'm always gonna be a lawyer. And I'm I, that training I had, the training you get to work through discomfort and the training you get to, to double down and focus on what's really important and and work really hard and persevere through that, and to adapt to working with different personalities and demanding personalities. Like those are things that you carry through in your career. Like those aren't wasted.
Davina:And so to be clear, like there were plenty of people around me who were like, are you sure? Even that person, my my parents, my parents, like I'm
Arivee:in my voice. Yeah. Yeah. I fucking ever have to, what my
Davina:parents think. And 9 and my parents were like, are you sure about this? Like that, you know, you're not gonna have a, like, an every week paycheck. Like you, because the financial stability for, especially for many people, but especially for, you know, people who come here from other countries and they want to fulfill this American dream, or would they want their kids to do that? You know, financial security and stability and health insurance and health insurance benefit.
Arivee:I grew up with people. My parents were government workers and they hit within poverty, where there was instability and everything. And so to them, that steady paycheck was the thing. And I, I buried an entrepreneur and I loved his entrepreneurial lifestyle and that's what sort of led me down that path. And then they just like, I just don't like comprehend that.
Arivee:Right. And the lawyer thing is, once you reframe it and you say, you know, my career can evolve and I can do all kinds of cool things in my life. Then you start to put it in a friend go, well, I did that. You know, that was really cool. And I really did that and I enjoyed it and I can always go back to it if that's something I want to do.
Arivee:And, but I can also do other things and let's just see if I like that. So I, I really, I really get that. I understand. Before we need to end, I want to ask you a little bit about you're now coaching, professionals on how to deal with burnout now, is that correct?
Davina:So I coach, I coach, yes, I coach, you know, lawyers and corporate leaders on when they're at certain inflection points and crossroads in their personal professional life. Most, most of them come to me. Most come to me when they're almost on the verge of burnout. They've hit number 1 and some of number 2, that second stage. And they're say to me, this is what they always say.
Davina:I can't live like this anymore. I can't do it like this anymore. I need to do something different, but I don't know where to start. I don't know how to change anything. And a lot of them come to me at that inflection point where, like, something has to give, something has to change, but I don't know what to do.
Davina:I don't know how to start to change anything because I feel like if I do anything, everything I've worked for is gonna go by that. Everything I've worked for is going to go.
Arivee:Disrupted to my family. My spouse is not going to like it. You know, I'm able to get a lot of pushback from, you know, people at work, my friends that I've made at work all these years. I mean, there's a lot of factors that come up when we try to like change, but it is so critical because you have to stay true to yourself. Yes.
Arivee:Right. And you're depriving yourself of that next level. You, I mean, that's one thing. Yours has been an evolution. I know it's an evolution of who you are as a person, not just in a career.
Arivee:Like I'm sure you've really evolved
Davina:as a person.
Arivee:You probably look back to yourself 10 years ago and go, oh, that was like, I don't recognize such a default person now. Right. Because all these experiences have given you that.
Davina:Yeah. But you know, it's interesting as you look back, I look, I love that you said that because I look back and I'm like, oh, I, who was that? But then I look back also and I, I think of that person and I, and I wanna tell her that, you know, it's only gonna get better. And I wanna tell her, you know, what you're doing right now is right for who you are right now, and it's okay to be here. And and I appreciate her so much because if she wasn't hadn't been who she was fully, it we wouldn't have evolved to now where we are.
Davina:Right? But it's I always think of career, like professional and personal as one and the same. Like, I do feel like we're a whole person And I do I always have this challenge. I have this challenge when we say, like, work in life. I mean, I use the terminology as well because what people use, so I use it too.
Davina:But work is a part of your life. Right? You have a life, you are a person and work and what you do is part of who you are as a person, but it's not all of who you are. And so I do think personal is professional, professional is personal because you can't separate yourself. Like, you are Right.
Davina:And so looking at life holistically and thinking about like, what do I really want? What do I really need? What is working well for me? What is not working anymore? That used to work for me.
Davina:What is not working anymore? And what do I need to shift moving forward?
Arivee:Right. When I started out with my clients, the first thing that we talk about are their personal goals and I really make them get granular on what they want in their life. Because if you create a business that does not support what you want in life, then you're doing yourself a huge disservice. And that often happens with people. They've got their success successful for all intents and purposes.
Arivee:And then they then they're like, but why do I feel so unsatisfied? And then you're like, well, because you've built something that does not support all these personal goals that you have, right? Like maybe traveling the world and you're going well, I'm working around the clock. Right. And there's no time for that or, or, or not making enough money and there's no money for that or whatever it is.
Arivee:Right. So really understanding what you truly want. And I think it's one of the hardest questions for a lot of us to answer, because, you know, when you say, what do you want? Well, we often know a lot of what we don't want.
Davina:Yes.
Arivee:And it's really hard for people to start to get clear on what they do want. So I love you sharing your story. I hate that we have to end, but we do. So why don't you show people your book and tell us about that? You've got your book behind you.
Arivee:It's called your time to rise.
Davina:Called your time to rise, unlearn limiting beliefs, unlock your power, and unleash your truest self. And it just it came out in January 14, 2025. It's an Amazon bestseller, in work life balance and a lot of different categories. It's a number one new release, in multiple categories, so I'm very excited about how the book has been received. But you are talking to me now about, you know, how a lot of people don't know what they really want.
Davina:They know what they don't want. And and this book is the starting point to answer that question. It really is that. Excellent. It's excellent.
Davina:It's that starting point when you're at that place of, I don't know what I want. I don't know where to go from here. I'm feeling like success is ringing hollow for me, achievements that used to feel good. Aren't satisfying anymore. Something shifted in me.
Davina:What's happening to me. I'm not who I used to be, but I don't know what to do with that. And so this book is really the starting point of how do I move through that kind of period in my life. So I have more clarity. I have more, I have more courage to do what I need to do that maybe didn't put
Arivee:them up
Davina:to and the connection that I need to move forward. So I have more fulfillment and I have more groundedness and I'm able to align who I actually really am now, not how I used to be or who I used to be 5, 10, 15 years ago with who I am now with what I'm going to do moving forward. And so the book really provides a 4 part framework and very practical strategies you can implement right away on how to do that. Good. Good.
Arivee:It is an excellent book. You guys need to check it out. The link will be in the show notes. And also, why don't you tell us where we can reach out to you if we need to connect with you, we want to connect with you.
Davina:I'd love to connect with anyone on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn, on that platform. I'm also on Instagram, which is at utdyvargas. You can always always reach me at uttyvargas.com, and you can listen to the humble rising podcast at any time as well.
Arivee:Great. Renee, thank you so much for being here. I've really enjoyed our conversation.
Davina:Thank you so much for having me.
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