On today’s episode Kristin interviews Renee Dineen, a bestselling author, Tedx Motivational Speaker, and Founder of The Deep Tissue Institute, about being a workaholic and a doing addict and how we can stop overworking and overdoing and practice slowing down, saying yes to the right things, and be present over perfect.
This is a great episode for anyone who identifies as a workaholic, perfectionist and is always saying yes too much and wants to learn steps to move away from those tendencies. If you are ready to build a business & life with more ease by being intentional and more authentic this is a perfect episode for you.
Renee went from having a corporate career and then working in the tech space to start her own business and designing a life and schedule that is sustainable and more in alignment.
Join Kristin’s 7 Day Encouragement Challenge Today (free) and Join the Your Encouraged Life Community. Join the Encouragement Challenge. Join the Your Encouraged Life Community.
Or learn about how you can be Encouraged and Coached by Kristin – both 1 on 1 support and group programs to Create, Scale & Monetize Your Creative Passion Online available here.
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Connect with Renee:
Instagram: @reneemdineen
#entrepreneur #femaleentrepreneur #buildabusiness #startabusiness #stopoverworking #workaholic #livecoaching #faithledbusiness
Transcript
build_a_life_You_Love_season2_Renee_Dineen
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
life, people, living, addiction, world, aligned, point, renee, authentic, year, love, step, feel, addict, serving, knew, words, family, slow, stay
Are you ready for a richer life to build a business you love with a little more ease, and spend time with the people you love. Make sure you're taking care of yourself, and you're doing things that light you up and just make you excited for life. Well, welcome to building a life you love. This is your host, Kristen. And each week we're going to have guests on, and we're going to talk to them about how do they build amazing businesses? How do they have impact in the world? And how do they make their family and the things they love a priority in their lives, and also make ourselves a priority. I'm so glad you've joined us. And I can't wait to provide you with really great ideas and conversations and things that will inspire you and motivate you to make the small changes in your life that will make a big difference. And welcome back to building a life you love. This is Kristen, and today's episode is going to be so good. We actually talk about how do we step away from being a doing addict? If we're one of those people that we're always doing, doing doing going, going going? It's never enough, and we can't even pause for a moment, then this episode is going to hit home for you. Because we're going to talk about how do we say no to the things that aren't really working for us that aren't aligned with us, so that we can say yes to the right things in our life. How do we learn how to slow down so that it's, we're living a healthier life? How what are the things we want to change in his or her current life serving us physically and mentally and in our relationships, or our relationships, suffering, because we're always going and we're not really present. So take a listen. I think you're going to be so inspired by this conversation today. And I think it'll really give you some great ideas on how you can step forward into your life. Hi, today on the show, I would like to welcome Renee Dineen. She is a best selling author, a TEDx and motivational speaker. And she is the founder of the deep tissue Living Institute, which is a coaching and consulting platform dedicated to doing the deepest work for those who never thought they could. Prior to launching her own practice, Renee spent 20 years in executive level HR roles in the high tech and biotech industries, including five years working and living overseas in Switzerland. Welcome, Renee. Hi, good to be here. Thank you have absolutely, well, you've done lots of really cool things. And you've stepped out a very high paying job in tech biotech, to now create and help, you know, executives and team develop and their team development. You are coaching and consulting, you know, companies and I think individuals, so I cannot wait to have this conversation with you about how we can do less, but still experience more life. So can you share with us first a little bit about your journey and what you're up to now? Yeah, thank you. Um, well, I studied organizational psychology. And I studied that at a time when that field was still pretty new, you know, now it's definitely more mainstream. I got really lucky in my undergraduate degree, they had one class called industrial psychology and about I wanted to be a therapist, and I realized I was a little bit more. I just wanted to work forward. And at that time, I didn't have the depth of understanding of the human condition yet. So I thought, Okay, do I want to look back or look forward and my personality as well, let's move forward. And so this whole idea of organizational psychology was emerging, I moved to the Bay Area in California, where the Silicon Valley was just booming, you know, that was kind of mid late 90s. And I fell into this world where, you know, organizations were finally waking up to the power of healthy humans and seeing what role they can play in creating cultures and processes and systems and roles that really enriched a person's life overall. And so that still inspires me to stay in this field, but at the time was new.
And people were starting to say it wasn't enough to show up just for a paycheck. So I fell into that industry, first high tech and then biotech and I spent the last 15 years when I was working on the inside there, and I loved what I did.
I love the human condition. I've been studying human behavior, actually, since I was like, preteen my parents were really involved in the self help world at that time and
get being gifted a new personal development seminar at every, you know, major milestone 1518 graduation, you know, sort of my at that time, you know, also kind of a spiritual grounding and my family and then we're also Christians, but I loved what I did. I am by nature, I'm just a busy person. High energy. I've learned how to harness my energy and my passion more thoughtfully but back then I just everything the world was big and I just wanted to be in it. And so my doing addiction. You saw my TED talk where I named doing as an addiction.
I can't blame that on my corporate life. That really was something that when my friends now, friends that have known me since elementary school that like you were always like that I was like really just bumping from one thing to the next and, you know, tasting everything, but not savoring much. And, you know, it's all about the next kind of doing high, whether it was an experience or a goal or so it fed me and identified with my ability to get things done. And it served me financially. Intellectually, experientially, I saw the world I lived overseas, so you know, from the outside, and it looked good, and it looked like a life of my choosing until it wasn't. And I was a, you know, working mom, I was an expat. I was working globally, and
I was so tired. Some days, like my bones ached, just was so exhausted, I'd lost my ability to fall asleep on my own. We had two young children, and we were living overseas that actually was kind of the first intervention in my life was when we moved to Switzerland, because they don't work in the same way that we do. They work really hard, but they're not married to their jobs. They're all well educated. I mean, it's a fully different system from the beginning. But so it's hard to compare. But what what does feel realistic is to experience this life where weekends are yours and evenings are yours. And it's actually rude to email someone or to you know, spend your weekend working, come into work tired Monday, you know, it's actually irresponsible. And so I started to get this picture that maybe the way I was kind of doing life wasn't necessarily as healthy as I thought it was. And I think the second wake up call was I was home for Christmas, and I was eating a bowl of cereal and my hands started to shake. And I had a tremor. And so I got an MRI. And my doctor said, you might have multiple sclerosis, and I was like, early 40s. And I was thinking, What are you talking about? Because, again, from the outside, and I looked healthy. And thankfully, it wasn't, I had a stutter, I had a tremor. And it was all stress induced. And so my years of, of not sleeping, and just adrenaline rush after adrenaline, my adrenal system was shot, my nervous system was shot. My kids at that time now were about five and seven, and I was missing it. And I was starting to feel sad, you know, like and regretful. And even though I loved what I did. So, I moved back to the States. And about a year and a half later, I left and started my own coaching consulting practice. So that's sort of my story up till then, and maybe the rest of our conversation, I can talk about why that wasn't as easy as it looked in what I did with whitespace. And all the other things I've learned since and you know, what I would say, today, I'm still in recovery, I still have to very thoughtfully choose what I say yes, to what I say no to, and I have to still consciously choose presence over perfection, and being overdoing and relationships over results and all the things. So Oh, my gosh, so good. How long ago was that, that you stepped out of the biotech and tech industry into doing your own thing?
October 2015, okay, all right. Yeah. So let's see, what is that like, seven years about that six ish coming in a row V seven, which is crazy, because it just anyway, life life is fast. Yeah. And so tell us about that. So I think, you know, basically, you left that career because you just realize it wasn't serving you. In any case, not other than maybe the paycheck, you know, the price tag you were getting, wasn't serving your health, your mental health, your physical health, it wasn't serving your family environment, maybe the you know, how you really wanted to live. So I'm assuming that's kind of why you stepped out of it. Was it also because you started to have this desire to, you know, make your life look different, but also your the type of work you did? Like, were you starting to realize you want something different there?
Yeah, you kind of nailed the two reasons I left. And both of them by the way, were sort of gray, you know, it was like, it's not a reason to leave, right? Like, is that really a reason to leave? Because actually, I still loved what I did. So from the work perspective, I, I do a lot of what I did, but instead of doing it in one organization, where you have to live with all of it, including its dysfunction, and its expectations and all of that.
I wanted to work in different industries, I wanted to work I wanted to put my stake in the ground more deeply around women in leadership, I wanted to
come back to my roots, my my, I have a double major psychology and communication with a minor in well being wellness. And I wanted to come back to that premise that I was kind of really rooted to as well and just as kind of forgotten how to model it myself, which was, you know, this whole healthy, balanced life and I mean, that's what organizational psychologists should be striving for, but in the end
context I was in I would, I was so far gone. And they were, you know, again, I have no blame. They were amazing to me and I still work with them and I adore the humans I met, I wouldn't trade any of it. But it just for me at that time, I needed such a drastic shift in how I lived my day to day life. I just couldn't stay. And I also knew as an org psychologist, most of us do go out on our own and start our own, you know, if we can we start our own practices, we do writing, speaking. And so I knew I could I knew I could make a living. Yeah. So yeah, it was a little mix of both. And mix of naivety. Yeah. Well, it'll be a little bit of that to start something new. Don't wait. That's right. It was not without fear. But I would say, I think not one single day. Did I ever regret it? I was really, I knew my why I knew my reality. I finally was being honest. I, I started to read the signals better that it was time to leave. And I knew my expectations and the expectations of others. So I kind of had a solid picture. I could leave without crashing and burning. I knew I could.
Yeah. Oh, and I think so many as we talked before we started recording so many people right now, you know, one, I think in their lives in general, so many people I talk to and you probably have worked with hit a breaking point, right it for one of one or both of the same reasons that you mentioned. So I think that's very common, it happens at some point in many of our lives. But with COVID and everything else going on in the world, how lot more people that might not have woken up to one of those realities for themselves. And not everyone does, but because some people are content with how their life looks right now. But so many people have woken up to the fact that they need to make a change, whether it's for them, you know, for their health, whether it's for they just they don't feel like it's aligning the work they're doing with a really what they their purposes, or it's because their family, they need to support them in another way. And it's not working what we have available right now. And so I think I think it is such an important topic. So as people step out in are kind of assessing their life, like how did you you obviously said you had health signals? But did you have that heartstring pool like you wanted? I know, you said you still work in a similar industry, but in a different way. So do you feel like you knew going out on your own it would be more meaningful in a, you know, and feel more aligned than working at just one organization?
Yeah, yes, yes. And yes, I think I still do the same. The same work to some degree, I work with
leadership in teams, and I help them be more aligned, conscious, happier, healthier. I actually love going into a team with with pain, and where they've really done some things that maybe even the moment feel unrepairable. Or there's just a toxicity or dysfunction that they just don't know how to stop, you know, I really love because I what I, what I wholeheartedly believe about my clients is they already know what's going on they and to some degree, they know
who they are, what's working, what's not working, what I think they lack most often is permission to address those and feeling empowered to shift and change something that you know, may or may not be fully under their control. So once you arm yourself with that additional sense of true, you know, source of truth and sense of power. You know, most people were coaches always tease, you know, half the people I coach leave. And certainly companies aren't paying coaches to have people leave. These people are very valued, and it would be wonderful if they stay but when you wake up to what's true, or for you than what was yesterday, most of us have to make a change. And so I heard you that as sort of like I heard that voice like one of one of the voices that I have shared and part of my story and is a voice that I still try to recall more as a mantra is, you know, who I am, what I've done, and what I have is already enough. And so I had to get to this point where i i felt complete no matter what, you know, that I felt whole. And I felt I knew who I was enough and my who I was and what I did was aligned enough that I didn't need the affirmation of the world around me anymore. I didn't need the performance rating or you know, checkbox goal or name mentioned here are people to you know, even thank me mean now, yes, clients are thankful and they you know, hopefully when you hold them with great care, they they know that, you know, they then care for themselves better but I think there is this for me a reconciliation of where my value was really being driven from Yeah,
yeah, so I that was the biggest
pattern cycle system that I had to release myself from is how the world sees me
Ah, absolutely, because most of our lives, we are identified by our role or our title. And so when that's taken from us, right, it's or not, not that it was taken from you, you decided to step out of it, but I'm saying. So that is something that most of us at some point go through, which is something is now gone, whether we chose it or not. And we have to realize that, like, you just said, we are a whole person, regardless of all the different identities and roles and titles we have or have had in the past and that we're moving into. Yeah, yeah. And the voice was quiet, but she was consistent, thankfully, shall we said, You'll leave eventually, and eventually wasn't in my 50s, you know, at the time, I knew it would be sooner than that. But what I couldn't hear I kept turning the volume down on was who I would be without those things. And
trusting that I was already that person, I need to do anything. To see her a little more completely and cleanly, you know, so. And when I did that, I was like, Okay, I finish things up by closer, some really good things and felt good about that. But that people will say, Well, I'll leave when or, and so, you know, kind of knowing your,
what do you fantasizing about will be different or better? You know, like, what are you ready to change, because when I got off that, and my calendar was white, you know, I was like, Ah, I gotta fill it, and fill it with what you know, and fill it with the same stuff. Like those things that check, you know, keep me either in check or sort of like, Oh, good job, or fill them with things that
really deliver true value coming from the person that I am uniquely designed to be. And so my husband always said that first year, they said, How's Rene doing? You know, because I always saw me just busy and gone and in and out. And yeah, she's good. I, you know, she's at like her fourth retreat, I had to get super quiet. I mean, I just couldn't, I thought I woke up on a Monday, right? And hi, oh, my God, I'm not in these meetings, that I don't have these set things. And I have a new calendar. And then I was like, What the heck am I gonna do? Like, what does it look like to be of service still in this with a white calendar? Now, it's not white anymore. But you know, at the time, it felt pretty open. And so I filled it, but I filled it with things that would settle me that would keep me still where I could just create more distance between my choices and my internal experience. And so I could learn and rewire my brain for how to align those in a more healthy and, you know, authentic way. So it wasn't easy didn't happen overnight. Yeah. And I think, for anybody that finds himself stepping through something new or stepping out on their own, I think that's two important things that you have to keep top of mind, which is, you have to define what it is you want your week to look like. And make sure what you say are your priorities are actually on your calendar. Right in priorities can be taking care of yourself working out can be time with family and friends, like it can be all those things that should be, then you know, work time for work or building your business. But it's also boundaries. To your point, if you change from one thing, and you're stepping into something new, what we don't want to do is repeat the same patterns. If the whole reason we left is we wanted something different. Yeah. So you know, you can call it boundaries. Of course, we don't have to call it that. But I think it's really important, just like you said, in the example and Switzerland is, you know, they have really mastered that. Whereas some of our culture, you know, and in the US, we have not as much it's changing, but it's still you know, there's still this badge of honor of busyness and overworking. You know, for a lot of groups there were a lot of people and so you're in it takes time, though to go from what you were like and how you scheduled to making that shift, you know, and so you gave your time yourself space and time to adjust to that new you know, what did you want this to look like and then how do you design it? Yeah, I wish I you know, you have any thinking which I haven't really thought about what were those little sort of new habits that I put in place and color coding is one like you know, my family is pink on my calendar and so like yes, if you open my calendar, you know, it wouldn't just be like look I have all week free I'm gonna go for a walk and cook a new recipe and be awesome and sometimes I do that but like tomorrow going wine tasting with 10 girlfriends and yeah, no problem like right and all of us I was like how is it that I sent this out a month ago and all 10 of us could go right so the world is changing thankfully. But I think you know, there is this like as I look at it, and yellow is sort of for my podcasting and my writing and my sort of just kind of message and movement work and and other colors for like the stuff that pays the bills that I still love and I still get myself saying yes to things sometimes I'm like, Why did I do that? But I see it through and I try again right i It's part of my four steps like last step is okay there you go again next time choose choose a differently. So but I think there is this sort of like new
A new set of practices. The other thing and my business coach I had a year or two ago said, Why are you so stuck on this 20 hours?
And not that she was
kind of invalidating it, but she, she did think it was sort of too, too rigid. And for me, it wasn't, I was like, nope, 20 hours of paid work 20 hours while I'm on the hook to something that I committed to, but isn't necessarily freedom. And I want to do what I'm doing it out of choice. But for me, that's very different than being free. And so I just said, Well, 20 hours, that's what I kind of need to live this great life that we live and not.
Because I also like to tweet love to travel and, you know, do things like that. And so yeah, you do need money. That's, I don't want to be unrealistic with that. But I think there's this like 20 hour balance, like, but we'll take like the whole month of July off or half of April, or you know, most of December. And so I figured out a way to weave it in. But in general, I'm also working instead of 60 to 70. I'm working 20 ish.
And I think and you can keep reassessing. And I think that was sort of you mentioned earlier, it's permission. But you also have to just reflect back, you know, each week or each month like, hey, what worked well, this week, what what do I have in place, it's working well, and what's not like you said, if you need to up the income, you might need to do more, you know, some more hours, if it's that you're just really unbalanced with, you know, time with people you love and things you care about creativity, then maybe you need to pull the nozzle back down a little bit. So the nice thing is, you work for yourself, or you're a consultant or whatever it might be, you have the flexibility for, like you said to take off this other month, because you can put things in place to have that work done or not take on a new client or schedule, you know, podcast out, you know, or writing or whatever it is further out, you know, so yeah, I love it. Yep. So why don't we while we're still talking, and we have time for a little bit more. Let's talk a little bit about this idea of, like you said your TEDx Talk authentic in action. And if you just find you're doing too much, kind of what's the pitfall of that? And what is how does it look different if we can actually change that pattern? Yeah. So the name of my talk is authentic and action,
and doing the doing and do crazy world. And those two words, authentic inaction. Some of your listeners might be familiar with a retreat center called SLN, which is on the coast of Big Sur, was really like a place for in the 60s and 70s for all of the kind of human transformation development people to hang out and, you know, do their thing. And it's a little more mainstream, but it's still got this very spiritually grounded consciousness intention to it. And so I was at an all women's retreat my daughter with with me, and we were it was a closing session. And these women were being invited into the circle to kind of share how the weekend unfolded. And I walked in, I was in my retreat year, right, like, where I was just observing, observing, receiving, receiving, instead of pushing, striving, effort and doing and so I was already prepared. I was primed, physically and spiritually for it to hear things differently. And so my daughter is stepping into the circle. She was like, 12, like, 10 times, I liked the bass and I met new friends and you know, all this, and she's looking at me going like, why are you stepping in the circle? And I had sat on the outside circle. So I was already like, what am I doing? Like, I don't want to step in there at all. This is so weird. So I was like, so curious, watching this new human unfold. Like, I don't know, like, I don't even need to step in the circle. Like, no one's asking me to step in the circle what you know that my Doer was like, yeah, why are you here? If you're not contributing, like, speak up or get out, right? So I was wrestling with these two voices and my daughter's eyes, prying eyes. So I walked out, I just got up and walked out. And I was just looking at the ocean. I'm like, What the heck was that? That was weird. And then those words came to me like authentic inaction, that's sometimes the most authentic thing to do is to do nothing to just wait to just to receive to just download to just pause. And so that became a kind of two word inspiration for a new set of practices. For me, it was like my chapter two of my since I've been out I think I'm on chapter three. Now I'm ready to go in chapter four. But after one was that year of like, Ah, who am I without all that? And how do I really embody this new energy and this new set of you know, this clarity that I have about who I am and how I want to show up and then year two was like, Okay, how can I sustain this? And so yeah, so that those were the words and, and then I always wanted to do a TED talk. And it would be easy to say wasn't that just another thing to do? And I get that but authentic action is the goal and authentic action is choosing. I chose to do that and it not only
was an accomplishment and something I really felt like my message could be a movement and that I wasn't the only one suffering. And I was seeing doing attics all around me everywhere. I looked all of a sudden I'm like, there's another one. There's another one and, and so my talk really became a way for me to stay
me this idea of my own doing addiction and and also keep me in recovery because when you put it out on a TEDx and you know, over half a million people watch it you better better stay court stay the course. Right? Yeah. So and then you asked like how do you know if you're doing addict I mean, I have all sorts of motivators for my doing I did lay out five different types of doers, supporting doer, achieving doer, avoiding doer, controlling, doer and perfecting doer, just by the words, you get a feel for the reasons why we why we stay stuck in that spiral. And that addiction if anybody addiction, I was really thoughtful and like, I don't want to be casual about that word. But I talked to a lot of addicts different kinds. And they said, did you have control of your choices? No, I didn't. It was destroying your life. Yeah. Did it take you down? Yes.
And so it was it is an addiction, and I'm in recovery. So and lots of reasons. And some people say, Oh, my God, all five, I'm all five.
And I believe that can be true. And some of us like, it's one, it's our perfection or need for it to be right to have it be perfect or need to control not let others in and not let not wait for others to you know, do it their way. So there's all sorts of good valid reasons that if you your first step is you look in the mirror and say, Oh, my gosh, I'm doing addict, and here's what it's taking.
It's now starting to take more than it gives, then you can really start start the journey of the undoing. So good. Well, yeah. And it's much like, you know, nowadays, we even call I mean, most of us have it, a lot of us have an addiction to being on our phone too much. Right? In other words, we if we even have a moment of boredom, or a moment of like,
waiting in a line, we all go to our phones or do something and, you know, sometimes it might be productive, like we're reading or, but the point is, is they say the average person I think picks up their phone, is it like it's over 2000 times a day, right at this point. And so there's a lot of addiction going on in the world right now. And a lot of it is, you know, we're numbing ourselves, or like you said, we're trying to fill some need we had or how we were taught to grow up or how we perceive to have value. There's all these things around it. Right? And they're real. And I say that to like us. I am not under estimating how hard this might be? Because I'm No, I think, you know, and have to, you brought it up so well, which is we have to be aware of what what's, what's good in our lives, what's beneficial, what feels good, and how does it is it serving us? And what isn't where at some point is it no longer you know, and if that means it's because we're working too much, or we're we're never satisfied with? You know, so we're doing more work, we're saying yes to more, then we can realize hold on maybe? Maybe this needs to change even just a little bit. Right? It can it's a process, right, like anything else. But what about that, one other thing I want to talk about? You talk about the? How do we do nothing but manifest everything? So can you just talk? I know, it's obviously related to what you just said. But is it? Would you add anything to that that might, you know, be beneficial to the listeners? Yeah, what if doing nothing could manifest everything. My, my belief and experience
with doing nothing is really about creating distance between the stimulus and the response. And when we're constantly, you know, bumping up against that energetically, schedule wise physically bumping up against that next thing, you know, we How do you decide, and so that, you know, doing nothing is just, it could be a minute, and it could be a year and by you know, getting clear, what is the choice? But is this thing? And if I say yes to this, what do I say no to and being willing to be with those chirping noises that we're all pretty I met very few people that love to just sit in silence, you know, and just, that's rough. It is painful. I mean, I think it now and I get like a little bit tight in my chest. And I believe in meditation that I try it. I've given up getting good at it, because that's not the point. But for many years, I was better at this. And it was like, Okay, you're really missing the point, Rene. But yeah, so like, what if doing nothing can manifest everything. What I mean by that is like, what if you could just get so clear.
And so aligned with what you do and who you are, that your life was just full of more freedom and ease and grace and space? And isn't that and quality relationship and ability to be present and enjoy the moment and savor things rather than just, you know, licking the tops of them and passing it out. And so for me, and this, you know, some of your listeners might be like, I love the idea of that, but not right now. I totally get that too. You said there's probably going to be come a time when you pause and it's not a midlife crisis. And it doesn't have to be it could happen at 25 right when you're like, Ah, this is not how I want to live my one precious life. And this isn't even getting me what I really really want. And so I'm I need to slow down get quiet.
stay still and just
trust that the answers will come. And my yes and my no will be authentic. And for me, authenticity is a core value and so that all authentic actions like I chose that I chose to do a TED talk, was it a lot of work? Did it create stress? Absolutely. But I'm not, I'm not slowing down so I can have no stress and achieve nothing, right? Because I still want to do big things. But you want to choose the right things that feel aligned for now. That's right. And what you brought what you were talking about, there is 100%. And I agree and I like how you talk about about how doing nothing manifest everything. But the honest truth is, and I talked about this pretty often, it's when we actually step away from the busy the doing that we will often have an idea for a new business, a new program, we'll have a you know, that inspirational, you know, idea or creative idea that download, it's when we eliminate some things, there's space for rest and recharging so that we can actually then have these these more ideas or like you said, the actual be in the present moment. But really, it comes down to space, you know, so whether that's getting outside in nature or going on a walk, or just slowing down, you know, I am actually it's not a new book came out 2019, one of the probably 15 books I'm reading because I never had just one book.
I'm more of like a skimmer through and then come back to it. But it's the ruthless elimination of hurry by John Mark comer. He's a pastor in Oregon. But it's it's cool because it's kind of his journey through and then of course, the Christian example of really you know what that life looks like. But it's really that he was like, every other person is like, I was working crazy long days. By the time I get home at night, I was kind of burned out exhausted, he traveled a lot. He writes, you know, he's an author. He's like, I just wasn't I have my family and my kids and I want to do it all. But he's like, this isn't really how I want to live, you know. So he stepped down a couple years ago from being a pastor at a big church to being like a pastor at one of their satellites, churches where he can walk to work. And so he's basically kind of redesigning his life to align more with the slower living this unhurried living and being intentional, you know, not just spending our time with entertainment, like mindless entertainment or overworking? Yeah, so I love that book. And it's a lot aligned with those things, you know, if you don't slow down, you know, I had my family over. The last time I had remember Sunday night, so of course, you know, during the day, some I'm prepping and getting food ready and doing all the things but it's like, I planned nothing else for that day.
Like the most relaxed, no big deal day, everything was ready ahead of time, because I didn't have 15 Other things like I'm gonna run here and go see this person, I'm gonna go do this. I, I just said, you know, I just, this is what we're doing today. Like, I don't have to do 16 Other things, you know, and that was a very calm day. But it's because there was space to just actually enjoy the things you were doing instead of them feeling overwhelming, you know? Oh, I love that so much and right, like what that took you choosing to do that. That's right. And, you know, I have a now she's 15 year old daughter, and I'm noticing, in addition to her need to be busy is this
challenge speaking her truth when she thinks it's going to create pain.
And what I worry for her is that that hesitancy that lack of may feel like courage or clarity on her boundary, will set her up to do exactly what I did. Because by the way, my mother did it really well. Yeah, she's still really just a very active working busy, 76 year old and so I wanted to break that cycle. And yet I still see my daughter, you know, so I have to just she keeps me honest, like, she's good. Yes, there's maybe a genetic trait, because my grandma was also quite busy. But I also think this, this inherent modeling, and you know that that was maybe the other thing that really gave me the courage to stay the course is I realized how many people I communicate, I was complicit in being a leader that said, this is the way to get live your life do do do over achieve over engineer over effort, everything. And you know, at this point, I refuse to live one more day as that person and modeling that as success. Yeah, I just won't do it anymore. You have the right. It's so important, because I mean, I have sons of three sons, and they're teenagers and ones in college and to your teenagers. And I've seen all sorts of things, not so much the overachieving to the point of workaholism type of thing at all. It's more like you said, are they willing to just say speak their full truth right now? Or are they even unsure of what they feel? You know, and then definitely too much with the phone or the video games? Like it depends on which son is which thing but, you know, as a parent, it's hard once they have these things, to unlearn some of this you try, right? You keep trying as a parent, but the older they get, the harder it is to guide them through it. And so these are
All things that, you know, it's our we have to lead by example. And then we have to just do our best to try to give them tools and guidance and information to try to help them through, you know, how the world is right now? Yeah. And we is, are they spending enough time with themselves in their thoughts and their feelings in? And do they recognize how to you know, do they know how to create stillness when they need it? And how to see those signs or signals earlier than I did in my early 40s? To say like, oh, no, I'm done. So, you know, and again, I don't want to I always say, like, I am not recovered. I still I again, I look at my daughter just this weekend, and I think, Oh, my goodness, she is looking way too familiar for me, you know, and what have I done? It's like, okay, breathe, continue to share my story, continue to point things out thinking, you know, she'll get it sooner than I did. If my mom has, you know, God loves her. She's, and she's a happy human. So it's not that she's unhappy. But other things, right. And so then, okay, I've broken it at least. And I give her another option. I show another way, possibility for her. Yeah. My son is so mellow. And like, Thank God for him. He's like, whatever. So easy going. And you know, that's awesome. So let me ask you, any last just words of encouragement, or tidbits you'd like to share? Before we wrap up and find out how people can connect with you?
Well, if you're resonating with this conversation, and you're wondering, you know, what's that first step, if that awareness has happened, you already achieved the first step. That's the hardest, looking yourself in the mirror and saying, Oh, what have I done? What am I doing? What I'm doing needs to happen. So you're already there. And now the second step is just starting to play with different ways to show up. And you know, if not you then who and if not, now, then when, and only, you know, if the urgency is there to break this, this addiction and show up in the world in a different way. But you are already equipped. And when you're ready, there, the methods will show up.
I love that. Yeah, the only thing I'd add to that is, you know, and I talked about slot, because I'm so passionate about it. But if we could all just get a little more curious. And we could wander a little bit more, you know, what would this look like? What would I do? How could this be better? You know, but if we just start asking ourselves more questions that would have a positive answer, you know, like, what do we really want, you know, and then get real about yourself? You know, I say that, because so many of us spend time with other people. Sometimes we forget, or we
put push away what we actually enjoy or what we like, you know, so sometimes I tell people, learn more about yourself, date yourself, like, have dinner by yourself. I mean, most of us have enough people around that we never would have to do that. But I've done it before, as at a conference by myself at a town or you know, whatever reason. But once you got used to that, you're like, wow, we're just shopping. If you always have girlfriends, or you know, my spouse, sometimes you're informed by they're like, Oh, I like this, but I really like that. And you're kind of like, oh, okay, sometimes, right? Not always, but I say, Well, what if you were by yourself? What would you pick? You know, and so I think we just have to be careful to not let people and things around us to inform when change our choices for what we truly want. Yeah, absolutely. And that's their children. Yeah. How was that unfolding? Yeah, I just say that. And I think they're the ones now in my life the most more than coworkers. Yeah. But I, you know, do was I, it was I do or do as I say, yeah, absolutely. For sure. So tell me, Renee, how can people connect with you and learn more about everything that you have going on now? Online? Thank you. My website is first last name Renee janine.com. I'm new in the Instagram space. It's definitely been more for me a practice of writing, keeping the in my writing. I'm writing a book on this idea that we've been discussing. And so it's definitely keeping that's been my writing practice. So it's more of a writer. It's around wellness leadership lifestyle, and that's at Renee M. Dineen at Renee M. Dineen, and I have the deep tissue Living Institute as building out a platform. I have a deep tissue living leadership program that's coming. I have a soulful mastermind for working mothers that's launching in the fall. I do mother daughter work. That's my healing work. That's my mother wound is my really related to a lot of what we've talked about. But so I've been doing that work now for about six years. And I offer retreats in the Sonoma wine country in California. And we'll have one in Costa Rica this summer. So lots of lots of things, but all authentic things and things that still allow me to keep those boundaries on my time and my energy, but
everyone's like, Oh, Renee is gonna write a book and launch a podcast and like, yeah, we'll do those things over the next 10 years. That's super different than, you know, all in one year. So I'm still doing.
We have to have to be in a reasonable schedule. If we're going to come
continue doing the work right. So well thank you so much for being with us today. I loved your story and all the information and thoughts that you shared with us today. Thank you so much. What I loved about the conversation with Rene today is that she pointed out that even if there's something good in our lives, something we really enjoy, we maybe we really enjoy our work, it can sometimes be one of the sources of something that needs to be changed. Maybe we're neglecting some of our relationships, maybe we're neglecting our own health or mental health. Maybe we're just exhausted, because we're saying yes to too many things. Or we haven't said no to too many things on our schedule. And I love this idea that Lisa took her springs up in her book, it's not supposed to be this way. And she's talking about walking through a hard season or a season, that's just too much. And I just love the visual that this gifts, because I think if we find ourselves, just you know, burning the candle at both ends, or we're just worn out, we're burnt out. Something needs to change. Or if we've gone through a hard season, a diagnosis, a death, a separation and divorce, you know something hard with one of our children. It's hard to just show up, just like we did the day before. And usually that's because it's an indicator that we need to make a change in our life. And we need to get really clear on our priorities, what it is we need right now. And so this is what Lisa Tucker says.
Yes, I had stood long enough in the sun without all the props and the pretentions of dressing up on an outside that is hurting on the inside. And that's when it occurred to me that if you get desperate enough, you'll go all in with living slow for a while, you'll quiet down all the outside noise so God's voice can become the loudest voice in your life. Now I realize none of us can quit life when life falls apart. But we can quit some things. And she says, When you suffer, slow becomes necessary, slow becomes good. One of the best parts of the season of suffering for me was a life that doesn't require shoes. When you live slow first season, the sun has access to the parts of you normally covered up everyday put ons. Oh, my goodness, I think that's amazing. And I think, where is it that we can slow down just a bit? Where is it that we can pause some things so that we can really get clear on if our life in our schedule is really aligned with our life priorities. And so I would say to you, is there a time is now the time for you to slow things down, free to put away all the things about life that aren't working, and just make some choices for yourself so that you can also stop being a doing addict. Once again. Thanks for listening to the podcast. And if you enjoyed the podcast, we would love it if you could leave a review on Apple podcasts because that helps us get discovered by more people. We'd also love your feedback. So email me at Kristin at Kristin fitch.com or DM me on Instagram. I'm at Kristin Fitch and let me know what ideas or ideas for shows or for guests you have I would love to hear from you.