TaskHuman Talks: Coach Reita Johnston Explains REAL Happiness

En este episodio de TaskHuman Talks Podcast, los entrenadores Reita Johnston y Jamie Carroll discuss all things burnout and happiness.

Reita is a Trauma-informed Life Coach (she believes many people have trauma in their backgrounds) and TaskHuman Coach. She regularly helps people dealing with burnout and creates spaces for people to lean into their emotions, instead of avoiding them.

Reita has two critical messages:

1. Attune to yourself
2. Acknowledge your emotions

As a coach who’s experienced burnout herself, Coach Reita has critical methods for learning more about your emotions.

1. Happiness Might Not Be What You Think It Is 

Reita has described herself as “on a mission to find happiness.” Reita’s admitted that her journey to happiness was not without work. When she began, she was a high-achieving woman in a competitive industry. She was earning the accolades and the money she thought she wanted. But something wasn’t right.

“I was achieving the things I set out to do, and I was miserable,” she says.

Misery wasn’t enough. Reita kept pushing herself until she was past her breaking point. She became sick. She was hospitalized. But there was even more of a “wake-up call.”

Her doctor said, “Whatever you have going on in your life, if you don’t change, you won’t live to see the end of the year.”

With images of her young daughter in her mind, Reita knew she needed a change.

2. Burnout Is Everywhere

Her own experience inspired Reita to help others with similar challenges. She wanted to give people the tools they needed before they ended up in the hospital, or worse.

The first action: start to feel your emotions.

According to Reita, people are taught to push emotions away and ignore them. Because of this, emotions manifest themselves in our bodies – quietly causing havoc until one day we’re forced to notice.

When you allow yourself to experience the full range of your emotions, you give validation to them. You open yourself to knowing yourself more.

You find happiness because you learn what you really want.

“It comes down to building a relationship with myself the way I would with anyone else,” Reita says.

Knowing yourself in times of stress is critical to your health. Reita cautions that in times of crisis (political and racial tension, to name a couple) we are traumatized, even if it’s not impacting us directly at the moment.

We all have a sense of loss. We need to work through it – not push it away.

Lectura relacionada: Utilizar las relaciones como clave del éxito en la prevención del burnout

3. Trauma Needs to Be Acknowledged

Recognizing and naming the trauma is the start. It gives access to the emotions and thoughts surrounding the trauma. Then, you can begin to process it all.

People are hardwired to create protective responses to trauma and the emotions behind it. Often these responses are body-based, motor responses (called Somatic Experiences). It could be tapping, hair twirling, or anything we do with our bodies to make ourselves feel better.

Reita encourages paying attention to our actions and when we’re doing them. It helps us tune into the sensations behind the emotion. Then, you can allow yourself to feel the sensation without feeling the emotion.

“We often learn these motions as children,” Reita says. “Then we are shamed for them.”

Using touch to soothe is normal, like a massage or a hug.

Opening to your emotions is a practice that benefits you in all areas of your life—and one that Reita is ready to help you with.

Engage with the full podcast recording aquí. 

Conecte directamente con Coach Reita for support and to learn more about your specific responses to stress, trauma, and burnout. 

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