Phoenix Rising Family Medicine

Phoenix Rising Family Medicine Phoenix Rising Presents: Umbound
Science-backed burnout repair for women entrepreneurs. Reclaim your energy at the cellular level! Do you know your Burnout Type?

Burnout is not a one-size-fits-all. Hello! Welcome to Phoenix Rising Family Medicine FB page! It has been our dream for many years to have the opportunity to get to know you and your health and wellness goals. We believe our role as your primary care provider is to partner with you -- to support you in the process of making your goals a reality. If you would like more information, please click on the PRFM website link. We look forward to hearing from you! Warmly, and in Health & Wellness,
Dani Dupuis & Kira Biron

12/30/2025

Burnout isn’t just about being tired.
It’s about your brain getting stuck in the same stress pattern.

One of the fastest ways to soften burnout is novelty — not big life changes, just tiny experiments that wake your nervous system back up.

When you try something new, your brain releases dopamine. That’s not the hustle kind — it’s the curiosity kind. The kind that says, “Oh… I’m still here.”

So here’s a gentle invitation based on your burnout style:

Warrior burnout — the overachievers who want to win at everything.
Try “achieving” stillness. Set a 2-minute timer and see if you can not optimize anything.

Fortress burnout — the ones who want to be safe and often retreat or stagnate.
Try movement for just 2–5 minutes. No workout. No plan. Just remind your body it’s allowed to flow.

Winging-It burnout — the ones who swing between wanting to be liked and wanting to be free, trying everything at once.
Try single-tasking. One tab. One thing. One small finish.

This isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about introducing just enough novelty to help your nervous system remember that change can feel safe again.

Let curiosity lead.

12/29/2025

Day 2 of the Curious Rebel Burnout Recovery

Hey everyone! Yesterday, we just practiced noticing those survival-mode habits creeping in. Today, we’re taking it a playful step further!

Meet your fictional Curious Rebel. This is a creative little character you invent who gently pops up whenever you start slipping into a shame spiral. We often feel shame because of the burnout we feel OR we feel ashamed of the survival strategies we use when we can’t seem to practice self-care). Curiosity can be a great cure for this shame spiral but like we mentioned yesterday - sometimes curiosity can feel far away. So, instead, we create a fictional character to practice curiosity for us. Think of them as a whimsical inner ally who says, “Hey, I see you’re being hard on yourself — let’s get curious instead!”

Why does this help? Because creating a fun, fictional character is a form of creativity, and creativity naturally interrupts stress. (Shoutout to Martha Beck’s research for backing this up!)

Also, when you’re watching your own thoughts and gently talking back to them with your Curious Rebel, you’re practicing metacognition — which is just a fancy way of saying you’re stepping outside the spiral and breaking the burnout cycle.

So today, let’s give that inner Curious Rebel a name and let them turn your self-criticism into curiosity.

Your Brain on CuriosityCuriosity isn’t a mindset.It’s a brain state.When curiosity is online, something powerful happens...
12/28/2025

Your Brain on Curiosity

Curiosity isn’t a mindset.
It’s a brain state.

When curiosity is online, something powerful happens inside your nervous system:

• The prefrontal cortex lights up — the part that helps you imagine, problem-solve, and see options again.
• The hippocampus gets more dopamine — which strengthens learning, memory, and pattern-making.
• The brain’s reward center (nucleus accumbens) shifts from chasing relief to exploring what’s interesting.
• The default mode network re-engages — so your mind can wander, integrate ideas, and dream about the future.

This is why curiosity feels like:
• mental flexibility
• creativity returning
• motivation without pressure
• a sense that your world just got bigger

Burnout narrows your brain into survival mode.
Curiosity widens it back into possibility.

And the best part?

Curiosity isn’t something you have to become.
It’s a state your brain already knows how to enter again.

12/28/2025

Curious Rebel Reset – Day 1

Relief Radar: noticing your move toward comfort

Burnout doesn’t erase curiosity.
It reassigns your brain’s reward system.

Research by Todd Kashdan and others shows that when we’re under chronic stress, dopamine stops fueling exploration and starts fueling relief instead.

So instead of being pulled toward wonder, we’re pulled toward:

• scrolling
• snacking without hunger
• checking email obsessively
• busywork that feels “productive”
• anything that takes the edge off

Not because you’re lazy —
because your nervous system is trying to survive.

That’s why today isn’t about changing anything.

It’s about noticing.

⸻

Today’s Curious Rebel Practice

Every time you catch yourself reaching for relief, just say quietly:

“I’m moving toward relief.”

No stopping.
No judging.
No fixing.

Why start here?

Because awareness is the doorway back to choice.
Curiosity can’t return until the brain is no longer on autopilot.

⸻

Research roots

Todd Kashdan’s work on curiosity shows that threat states narrow attention and shift motivation away from exploration and toward avoidance and relief-seeking. Other neuroscience research (Gruber & Ranganath) shows dopamine supports learning and curiosity — but only when the nervous system feels safe enough to explore.

⸻

💬 Curious Rebel Question

What’s one thing you notice yourself reaching for when you’re tired or stressed?

Best gift EVER…Dani sent this image to me and I had to share with our peeps. Because sometimes the best burnout medicine...
12/27/2025

Best gift EVER…Dani sent this image to me and I had to share with our peeps. Because sometimes the best burnout medicine is a good chuckle 🤭

12/27/2025

I’m posting this in my PJ’s. The same PJ’s I wore to bed last night. I haven’t even brushed my teeth. I had tea, watched TV, went outside to check the mail…and now I need a nap. Whose idea was it to put the most social, highly marketed, high-energy, family friendly holidays right near the shortest day of the year? I would like to file a grievance. Riiiight after that nap.

12/26/2025

Most people think the opposite of burnout is vitality — more sleep, better supplements, another productivity hack.
But that just props up the same system that broke you.

The real opposite of burnout is authenticity.

When you live out of alignment, your body goes into performance mode:
• you manage everyone else’s feelings
• you say yes when your nervous system is screaming no
• you shrink, hustle, over-function, smile through resentment
• you become the helpdesk, the fixer, the “strong one”

That state is biologically expensive.
It keeps your nervous system in threat detection — even if your life looks “fine.”

Burnout is not just exhaustion.
It’s chronic self-betrayal.

Vitality asks, “How do I get more energy to keep going?”
Authenticity asks, “What’s draining me that was never mine to carry?”

The moment you stop performing and start telling the truth — in your body, your boundaries, your relationships — your system doesn’t need more fuel.

SO…

The opposite of burnout isn’t pushing harder to get more energy so you can do more stuff you don’t actually want to do (but that other people and/or the culture expect from you.)

It’s coming home to yourself.

12/24/2025

Burnout recovery tip #1: Stop fixing. Start getting curious.

Not “positive.”
Not “grateful.”
Curious.

Because burnout isn’t laziness — it’s what happens when you become the unpaid operations manager of everyone’s life.

So try asking better questions before you try harder:

• Why am I running an emotional helpdesk, restocking the toilet paper, managing everyone’s schedule — and still expected to be grateful?
• If I’m so “blessed,” why do I fantasize about checking into a hotel alone and not telling anyone?
• How did “at least you have a job” become the cure for chronic exhaustion?
• Why does every meltdown get met with “try gratitude” instead of “holy hell, that’s too much”?
• Why am I told to practice self-care in the same breath I’m handed more responsibility?
• Is bubble bath supposed to undo years of unpaid labor?
• When did lighting a candle become a substitute for real support?
• Why does “just think positive” feel like code for “don’t make this uncomfortable for me”?
• If self-care works, why does it feel like one more task on my to-do list?
• Why does rest feel rebellious but gratitude is mandatory?

Curiosity isn’t cute — it’s rebellious clarity.
It’s how women stop internalizing systems that were never built to carry them.

12/23/2025

Burnout isn’t just in your head.
It’s in your cells.

Your body has a built-in survival switch called the Cell Danger Response (CDR).

It turns on when your system senses threat —
not just physical danger, but emotional stress, trauma, lack of sleep, blood sugar crashes, inflammation, toxic relationships, or years of pushing too hard.

When the CDR flips on, your body says:

“This is not safe. Shut it down. Protect everything.”

So your cells stop focusing on growth, repair, creativity, and joy —
and shift into emergency mode.

That looks like:

• Crushing fatigue
• Brain fog
• Anxiety or numbness
• Sleep that doesn’t refresh you
• Feeling disconnected from yourself
• Burnout that rest alone doesn’t fix

Here’s the part most people miss:

CDR isn’t bad. It’s protective.
It’s supposed to turn on and then turn off.

But burnout happens when your body gets stuck in that danger mode.

Not because you’re broken —
but because your nervous system has learned that life itself isn’t safe.

And no amount of productivity hacks will heal a body that still feels under threat.

Burnout recovery isn’t about pushing harder.

It’s about teaching your cells:

“We’re safe again.”

And that’s a whole-body conversation — not a mindset shift.

⸻

12/22/2025

Stage 12 of Burnout: Collapse

This is the stage where the body says “enough.”

Not because you didn’t try hard enough.
Not because you’re weak.
But because you’ve been running on empty for too long.

In stage 12, the nervous system shuts things down to survive.
Rest doesn’t refresh. Motivation disappears. Even basic tasks feel impossible.
You might feel numb, hopeless, foggy, or like you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

This isn’t failure.
It’s biology pulling the emergency brake.

Collapse often comes after you’ve already felt the sadness, anger, or depression—
when nothing changed and your system could no longer keep going.

Here’s the hard truth—and the hopeful one:
You can’t push your way out of this stage.
But you can rebuild from it.

Stage 12 isn’t the end of your story.
It’s the point where your body insists on a different way of living.

Recovery starts with safety, support, and radically less demand—not more discipline.

—

Important note:
These stages are observations, not diagnoses. Burnout doesn’t always move in order, and it can overlap with depression, trauma, or chronic illness. If you’re struggling or feeling unsafe, support matters—and help is not a failure.

12/21/2025

This is the stage where the system is no longer fighting burnout—it’s exhausted by fighting.

Stage 11 often feels like:
• Deep numbness or emotional flatness
• Loss of motivation or meaning
• Withdrawal from people, even ones you love
• “I don’t care anymore” replacing anxiety or anger
• Getting through the day feels impossibly heavy

At this point, the nervous system isn’t activated or reactive—it’s shut down.
Not lazy. Not weak. Protective.

Many people at Stage 11 wonder:
• Is this depression?
• Will I ever feel like myself again?
• Why can’t I just push through like I used to?

This stage can overlap with clinical depression, and for some people, additional support (therapy, medication, medical evaluation) can be genuinely helpful—for stabilization. But ultimately what people tend to REALLY yearn for is a break.

Stage 11 is often the last stop before full collapse…
or the quiet moment before real recovery begins—if rest, support, and safety are finally allowed in.

Important note:
The “12 stages of burnout” framework is observational, not diagnostic. People don’t move through these stages linearly, and context matters—privilege, trauma history, health, and support systems all shape how burnout shows up.

Burnout is not a personal flaw.
It’s a systemic problem that eventually and inevitably shows up in the body when the nervous system has been pushed past capacity for too long.

You’re not broken.
You’re depleted.

12/21/2025

This is no longer just “I’m tired.”
This is emptiness.

At Stage 10, the body and mind have been overdrawn for so long that the system powers way down. Motivation collapses. Joy feels distant or unreachable. Things that once mattered now feel flat, pointless, or heavy.

You might notice:
• A sense of numbness or deep sadness
• Loss of interest in work, relationships, or hobbies
• Feeling slowed down, foggy, or disconnected
• Sleep changes (too much or too little)
• Thoughts like “What’s the point?” or “I don’t care anymore.”

This stage often gets mislabeled as “just depression,” without context. But in burnout, this despair is frequently downstream of prolonged stress, self-betrayal, over-responsibility, and nervous system overload.

Your system isn’t broken.
It’s conserving what little energy it has left.

Important note:
These burnout stages are observational, not diagnostic. People don’t move through them neatly or linearly, and depression can have many causes. This framework is meant to increase compassion and awareness—not replace professional support.

If you’re here, it’s not a personal failure.
It’s a sign something essential has been missing for a long time.

(Stages 11 & 12 go even deeper—but they also point toward why recovery must be slow, relational, and humane.)

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Salem, OR
97302

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