Overcome Burnout/Rediscover Yourself: Monica Connelly On Healing, Purpose & Transformation (Inspirational)

Have you ever felt trapped between who you are and who you're meant to become? Discover how to reclaim your identity and purpose today.

In this powerful episode, Reginald D sits down with holistic life and mindset coach Monica Connelly. Monica shares her transformative journey from caregiver burnout and emotional grief to rediscovering her true self and losing 150 pounds. Monica reveals the critical turning points that propelled her to heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Learn practical strategies from Monica’s proven "THRIVE Blueprint" designed specifically for high-achieving women to overcome stress, reignite purpose, and build resilience. If you've been struggling with burnout, loss of identity, or emotional eating, this episode is your guide to meaningful and lasting change.

Today's high-achieving women frequently experience burnout, losing sight of their identity amidst overwhelming responsibilities. This episode directly addresses how to overcome this common struggle, guiding listeners toward emotional, physical, and spiritual healing.

What you'll benefit:

• Understand how to break free from burnout and reclaim your sense of identity.
• Learn actionable steps to heal emotional wounds linked to stress and weight management.
• Discover proven strategies to reignite your purpose and live authentically with renewed confidence.

Play this episode now and begin your journey from burnout to breakthrough with Monica Connelly's empowering insights.

Monica's links:

Website - https://monicaconnollycoaching.com
Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/monica.a.connolly.7
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/monicaconnollyandco

Burnout recovery, holistic health, emotional healing, overcoming grief, stress management, women's empowerment, weight loss journey, reclaim identity, mindset coaching, holistic life coach, Monica Connelly, purpose-driven life

Transcript

Welcome to Real Talk with Reginald D. I'm your host, Reginald D. On today's episode, I have Monica Connelly. She is a certified holistic life and mindset coach, speaker, and founder of Monica Connelly Coaching, a transformational company helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, health, and purpose, and also the host of Unshakable Belief with Monica Connelly Podcast. Welcome to the show, Monica. 

Thank you so much for having me. 

Thank you. Thank you. So, Monica, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you grew up. 

Yeah, so I actually grew up in Colorado, born and raised, moved to Texas four years ago, but was born in Colorado, lived in the same valley almost my entire life. And I was really fortunate my family lived there. So my aunts and uncles, my grandparents from both sides of my family, it was a really small town, but my whole family lived in the town. grew up with my family, with my cousins, really close-knit community. 

Yeah, that's always good. So Monica, you walked through grief, burnout, and major transformation. Can you take us back to the moment when everything began to shift for you?

Yeah, it starts quite a while ago. It took me a while to—I'm one of those people that needs a really good hard nudge to realize that God's trying to tell me that I need to change. And so I was married. I had a daughter. I had a son that I lost as a newborn at one day old. Um, a year later, I had another son, another newborn. And a year after that, my husband suffered a traumatic brain injury and I became his primary caregiver. Both of my kids had medical challenges. And so at that point, I really became a full-time caregiver for the three of them. I was working in healthcare and so pouring into patients and I stopped pouring into myself and I forgot how to do that. And I attended an event two years ago. Actually, yeah, two years ago, a friend of mine said, I'm having this event. It's a small group of women. You should come. Well, by that point, I was really, really sick. I had been told by my doctor that if I didn't make some really serious changes, that I was not going to live much longer. My health, I was horribly, horribly overweight. I had all kinds of health issues related to that. And I had two kids that needed me around and a husband that needed me around, but I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know what next step to take. So a friend invited me into a room, an event that she was hosting, and I really, for the first time in a long time, I realized I had forgotten how to dream. I had forgotten who I was. I had lost my identity and basically got permission at that point to to pour back into myself and to start making small changes. So that's what I did. I came home and I started walking on a treadmill, listening to my very first podcast. I had never listened to a podcast before that. And I walked and walked and I ended up losing 150 pounds in two years. But I gained myself back. I learned who I was. I learned how to dream again. And in that transformation, I realized that I was meant to help other women walk through those challenges and come out on the other side stronger and with a dream and a passion. So that's what I do now.

Yes, and think about it, you know, people can lose their identity in life because here you are, you know, taking care of the kids, taking care of your husband that, you know, fell sick, and they kind of mix up responsibility and purpose. Yeah. You know, and people's like, well, this is my responsibility. I got to do this. And then they lose itself because they given so much to the responsibility, but not giving anything to the purpose.

So you get confused. You lose sight of your purpose with the responsibilities that you have.

Yes, absolutely. So this is remarkable. Your journey includes losing one hundred and fifty pounds, killing your emotional wounds, rebuilding your identity, What was the turning point to help you? I know you say you went to a seminar and heard some people speak, but still, you had to leave there and believe in yourself. What made you say, hey, I got to do this?

Right. I knew I had to do it because I had faced death several times, and I knew that I didn't want to die. But I didn't have any faith in myself. I had completely lost any trust in myself because I had tried so many times before and failed. Well, every time I tried, I would bite off this huge chunk. I would try to change 10 or 15 different things and then it's just not sustainable. I couldn't ever keep it up. So this time I started with one thing and I allowed others to believe in me more than I believed in myself to start with and getting in that community and having that support and that accountability from others kept me going and kept me going and then you know, I would have a bad day, but the people that were holding me accountable were like, okay, but you have to get back up tomorrow. And it just kept going like that until I had the belief in myself and realized that I can turn around and do that same thing for somebody else. Now I can pour my belief into them and believe in them more than they believe in themselves right now and be what they need to help them reach that same point.

And one thing I always say, because I hear a lot of people, and I see a lot of people, losing weight is one of the most challenging things that people, and it's one of the most things that can get you discouraged, that make you relapse back into just like, forget it, man. Because losing weight, you hit that plateau, and I know a lot of people that does it. And then it's suffering because they're not eating like they want to and like, man, this is it. But you got to keep going. Losing 150 pounds is very remarkable. I know it takes dedication and that's what it takes.

Oh, and for me, I had to heal my mind before I could heal my body. I had to work on healing trauma and healing grief because I was an emotional eater. And when I talk to a lot of people, that's what I tend to hear is, I didn't, you know, I didn't realize that that's what I was doing at the time. And a lot of times people don't realize that that's what they're doing. They're not actually hungry, but food for them is associated with a feeling. And so if they're happy, they eat. If they're sad, they eat. It brings back a memory for them. And so many times when people go back and they heal that trauma and they move through that grief, they find that they don't need that food anymore. They found other things that they can use to get them through a stressful situation or to help them move through grief in the future, so they're not going back to food as their source of comfort.

Yes, absolutely. And the thing about it, I've learned, I think maybe three or four years ago, because I was always taught, and then with me, myself, I see change from diet and exercise. But I learned a few years ago, three or four years ago, he was talking about how stress brings on weight and you can't get it off. Yeah. I mean, it's so hard to get it off, but in that way, you know, you can eat, you can work out and all that kind of stuff. But if you stressed out, they say it just, you know, something about your body that doesn't know, react to it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When you are under stress, your body is in fight or flight, and you start dumping cortisol into your body. And that affects your blood sugars, it affects inflammation in your body, it affects your thyroid, all of those things, you know, we're finding now all of those things are interconnected. And so by learning how to deal with stress and trauma and getting your nervous system back into a calm state. Then, you know, working with different providers. I love functional medicine providers just because they tend to do this work more often, but they can then start looking at other areas of your body that need healing. And that's, you know, with that combined, you start to see people losing weight and getting healthier.

Yes, absolutely. I was reading that stuff. I was like, wow, man, this is crazy. But so, Monica, can you tell us about your Thrive Blueprint?

Yeah, so I started sitting down trying to figure out how to help women and decided I needed to find an easy way, something that's easy for them to walk through. Just, you know, different steps for them to walk through. So THRIVE stands for Tuning In and Transforming Your Mindset. So really before your transformation begins, you have to tune into your true self and recognize what's holding you back. This helps you rediscover who you are, but like beyond the roles that you play, like you were talking about with the responsibilities beyond that, and gives you more confidence. It opens up possibilities. Age is going to be heightening your wellbeing. So you're going to want to prioritize your health and your wellness on all levels. So most of the time when people talk about health and wellness, you think about diet, you think about exercise, but it's emotionally, it's spiritually, all of those ways that you show up, those all have to be healthy and those all need attention. The R is going to be for reigniting your purpose. So really uncovering what truly fulfills you so that you can live with meaning and direction and live in that purpose that you were put here for. The I is gonna be for igniting self-leadership. You want to take full ownership of your life and the decisions that you make. And by stepping into the power of that, it gives you confidence. So that is something that's huge. The V is for visualizing and taking inspired action. So you want to turn your dreams into reality by aligning your daily actions with your vision. And the E is for embodying resilience and empowerment. So your journey is never about perfection. It's about progress. It's about perseverance. And it's always about self-celebration.

I like the way you wrote that down. I really like that. That's awesome. So many high-achieving women feel guilt when they want more for themselves. How do you coach them through that guilt block?

Right? You know, I hear this so many times from women. They're like, I have this amazing life. I have, you know, an amazing house. I have, you know, a spouse. I have kids. I shouldn't want any more. But something that someone told me one time was that God will never put something on your heart as a passion if it's not meant to be there. and so many women are stuck in that position of well these are my responsibilities and this is what i'm supposed to do this is what society says that i have to do and to want more is selfish of me but i think that being able to, you know, through different techniques, mindset work, nervous system work, things like that, I help these women move through that and realize that your responsibilities are different than your purpose. And whenever something is, you know, a purpose in your life that's put on your heart, it's you, so many times you don't feel prepared for it. You're like, well, you know, it's not a good time. or I'm not qualified enough to do that. And I find that that holds women back a lot. And it's building that belief in them that doesn't have to be the perfect time. And if the notion was put on your heart, you are qualified enough to move forward with it. So it's a lot of working on that overcoming. A lot of it's fear. It's, you know, it's doing something new and it's the unknown and showing them that, you know, you can have fear and it's okay to be afraid, but it's not okay to let that fear stop you.

And that's the thing, you know, I think a lot of times you said it because when I was studying you and the things you do, it came to me that Women sometimes, society has painted this picture. You can live in this grand house, you got the kids, you got the husband, he's the guy. We got to make sure he gets what he wants and his purpose and stuff like that. But the woman has her own dreams and her own destiny, but she's just tied into just a responsibility of just being the wife, the mother, and things like that. But it really doesn't work like that. You have a purpose just like your husband has a purpose. Exactly. But let's talk about this. Let's talk about burnout. What are the warning signs most women ignore and how can they start reversing the damage before it's too late?

Yeah. So the more I talk to people, the more people I see in burnout and they don't realize that that's what it is. So you're going to see it a lot of ways. You're going to see it in your health because it's a nervous system reaction. So it's going to affect your body. You may be overly tired. You may find that you're really not present when you're away from your work and you're with your family. you're not present with them. You may find that when you're at work, you're really distracted, or you are overworking, almost like in a position where you're trying to prove something. So health wise, you're gonna start to see issues with weight loss, weight gain. You're gonna see skin issues is a huge one. People's sleep is affected. A lot of people will report like, I have this horrible brain fog that I can't seem to get under control. Chronic pain, that's a big one too. You'll start to notice that your body hurts and there's usually no medical explanation that you can find for it. So really kind of recognizing those in yourself and saying, okay, I need to take a step back here and, and really, you know, focus on why am I burnt out? Am I burnt out because my job isn't fulfilling me? Is it because I'm not passionate about my job? So really identifying where the burnout is coming from related to your job. And then like, if you have the ability to take time off work, that's something that I promote really, really heavily with the people that I work with. If you have the ability to take some time off of work and really like, don't go, you know, don't plan this wild, crazy vacation, take a couple days and just set just be with yourself, just have calmness and quietness, and really get a good feel for, you know, how is my body responding? What do things look like? How am I behaving towards people? And, you know, if you have the time and you have the ability to take one or two days and really sit and rejuvenate yourself and start pouring back into yourself whatever that looks like for you. I used to think that self-care was really selfish, that it, you know, I can't take time for that because I have all of these other things that I'm supposed to be doing. But when you don't take care of yourself, you disappear. You just, you lose your identity, you disappear. And so really, making those habits of taking time for yourself, rather that is, you know, getting your hair done, rather that is going for a hike every weekend. Make sure that you're putting that on your schedule and you're taking that time.

Yes, because you said something because, like, when I go on vacation, my team always asks me, where are you going? I said, nowhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Take a staycation.

I'm not doing it. Like, man, that's crazy. Now, you know, me and my wife do take trips, but I'm like, I'm not doing anything, you know, because at the end of the day, I've learned sometimes vacation is work. By the time you get on the plane, you got to figure out this. You got to figure out that it's like, man, you still just like hustling and bustling, trying to figure it all out. And so sometimes I just take the time out. So I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going to be home and then just do what I want to do and relax my mind. And that's it. I think it's powerful, too.

It really is. I mean, you said when you go on vacation, it's hustle and bustle. You've spent money for a trip. You want to get your money's worth out of it is what a lot of people tell me. And I remember doing this with my kids. We would go somewhere for vacation. And I'm like, we're going to be there when the park opens. And we're staying until they close because it was so expensive. And it took us a full day of travel to get there. and you rush through it and you don't realize like you're not you're just causing your body more stress and it's supposed to be fun so definitely taking that time you know i love to go to the beach and i mean i can just go and sit at the beach all day and i would be perfectly content but just taking that time where you are just calming yourself and that's really hard for people especially people who are overachievers you know these overachievers and high achieving people if to ask them to just sit and not do anything even for five minutes just sit and be quiet for five minutes that's really hard And so that's something that we work on in my coaching is, you know, learning to just sit. And if it means you can do it for one minute to start with, you do it with one minute to start with. And, you know, looking in the mirror, I ask my coaching clients to talk to themselves in the mirror because So many times you see people, they, you know, they may glance at themselves in the mirror while they're getting ready or when they're walking out the door, but they don't ever take the time to pour into themselves by looking at themselves in the mirror and making eye contact with themselves and saying nice things to themselves. And so that really, um, that's just, it's so huge.

Yeah, it is. Because I'm like, when I spend time with myself and I say, well, I'm going to take time off and I'm not going to do anything, people think it's crazy. But I'm like, man, this is normal. I'm being normal.

Yeah.

I'm being normal.

Yeah. And more people need to make that the normal. But it's something that we have to keep pushing out into society, saying, no, this is OK to do this. Because society right now says, no, you shouldn't do that. Yeah.

So Monica, what transformations have you witnessed in your programs like Reset and Rise and Thrive?

Yeah, so I actually just worked with a woman that I've known for a while and she came to me and we did a six-week coaching program and she's Again, a high achiever, she works a full-time job, but she's starting two businesses. And she really felt a lack of confidence in being able to put the time and the effort into those businesses. So a part of it was time management. That's something that I talk about in my program and that we go over because people will ask me, how do you do all of the things that you do? Like, how do you have time? time management, you really have to learn. And sometimes that means saying no to things that you always said yes to before setting those boundaries and deciding what is, you know, what is it that I'm going for right now? What are my goals right now? And what has to go on the back burner? So by the time that we got done with the six week coaching program, she had launched both of her businesses. She was showing up on social media. She was hosting events in her house. It was just, and just even looking at her, she carried herself differently and more confidently than how she had before.

I like that. I like that. So now let's talk about faith. I know you're a woman of faith. So how does your faith inform your work and what role does spiritual healing play in helping women come back to life after feeling emotionally numb?

Yeah. Um, yes, my faith is very important in my work. It's really the foundation of, you know, everything that I do is based in my faith. Like I said, I had, you know, I had several instances where I should not have survived. And for me, I can't ever remember a time in my life, even back to a young child where I didn't have faith. And When my son passed away, I remember having to make a very clear decision of, I either am going to continue with my faith and I know what that road looks like, or I'm going to turn from my faith and I know what that road looks like too. I remember thinking, if I turn from my faith, my life is ruined. I will never, I'll never accomplish the things that I want to accomplish, and I'm going to have heartache for the rest of my life. And so that is such a huge part of everything that I do, whether it's in my podcast, or it's in my coaching, or in my speaking, or in my books. That is the foundation of everything that I do. Women who come into my program know that and not all of them have faith. And so it's been really interesting to watch the ones who do have faith, the ones who are, you know, who really, you know, are faith driven. watching that grow, but also watching the transition in the women who came in with, you know, no faith left and watching that be rebuilt in them and watching them see, oh my gosh, like, you know, by following these principles and by keeping faith, you know, in my life. I encourage them to do daily scripture work and things like that, you know, listen to podcasts, listen to sermons, feed yourself with it. and watching those women transition where they may have come in and had very little faith left, and they leave, and you see a difference not only in their faith, but their confidence in their self, but their faith is restored as well.

Yeah, and I always used to hear my grandfather say, he was a pastor, he used to tell us, he said, prayer is the key and faith unlocks the door. you know, when it's all said and done. So, you know, when you believe in your faith, I think that's the thing, you know, a lot of things we can do on our own, but the faith gives the extra thing that, you know, that's going to take you to the next level of breakthrough, you know, because you have faith, you know, that it works in ways that you can't work. That's what I love about it. I always tell people, you keep the faith, man, you'll be good. Don't give up. That's all faith is. You don't give up.

That's all it is.

What advice would you have for the woman listening who feels like they're in the gap between who she is and who she's meant to be?

So you're not alone. I see you. I was you. And always remember that you were made for so much more than you could ever imagine was possible.

That's great. That's great. Now I want to talk about this. Tell us about Ember to Empire. How did that come to life?

So something for me at the start of my journey was community and meeting new people and networking. And that is how I started on my journey. I started connecting with other people, men and women who had, you know, been on a journey like mine or, you know, ended up in rooms that I was in and shared their stories with me. And I wanted a way to have these people come together in a community where they could get support where they always knew I can go here and I'm going to get supported because that's what I needed and and somebody here is going to believe in me and. I may have some crazy idea that everybody else thinks is, you know, is totally out there, but I know I can go to this group and I can tell them my idea and they are going to be like, yes, how can I help you with that? What do you want me to do? And so it was really, you know, it's a networking group, but it's really there to help people build their businesses.

Yeah, because each one needs one. That's the thing about it. Everybody needs help and genuine help too. Nobody has motives. Everybody's just trying to help each other. And that's what life is all about when it's all said and done. I always tell people, I don't want anything, man. I just want to help you. That's just it. I'm good. God has blessed me. I'm good. I'm all right. If you don't do nothing else for me, I'm okay.

Right. But it's so uncommon for someone to hear that and to be told, look, I'm not here. I don't want anything from you. I am here to serve you and I'm here to help you. What can I do? People don't hardly ever hear that. And so that was part of starting my community. I wanted a place where people could come and that that's what they would hear.

And I think that's just the, um, That's the heart of God, the heart of Christ. Cause he came, he was a servant. You know what I mean? That's all it was, servanthood. Even though he was, you know, he was the one, but he's had servant leadership. And I think that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. So Monica, this is good. I like this. If you could speak to a woman, cause I'm really tapped into this and I'm glad you came to the show because I always run into some women that's You know, in life, they feel like they're shrinking, you know, and they plan it small, things like that. And knowing there's so much greatness inside of them, you know, and they just stick to the norm. What's comfortable? This is comfortable. I don't want to do this. I've been hurt before. I've been damaged before. I don't want to be let down. And it's not the fact that, you know, the letdown is not, just say for instance, they want to start a business. but they've been let down so many times from relationship. So the letdown is a letdown. So they feel like everything I do, it doesn't work no matter what. It's two different things. So what would you say to somebody, you know, that's in that predicament and saying that, Hey, I just, you know, I can't do this. I'm not good enough. You know, I don't have what it takes.

yeah, that's, um, that's really where I was. I had no faith in myself. I had no trust in myself. And so really getting those women to identify what are those big dreams? What are those dreams that maybe you've never told anybody because it's so big and it's so audacious and you just are like, yeah, I have this dream, but there's just no way And so really sitting down and identifying those and walking through them and saying, okay, what are your barriers? What are the barriers that you're running into in doing this? Is it fear? Is it because you don't have enough belief in yourself right now? Identifying what those barriers are that are stopping them. and then working specifically on those. So rather that is building their belief in themselves and building their trust in themselves. Helping them realize that you don't have to wait for the judgment of others. You can choose. You get to make that choice. You get to choose that this is what you want and this is what you're going to go for. and there may be stumbling blocks along the way, that's how you learn, but you get to choose that and put out your hand, ask for help, but always, always keep going for those dreams.

That's real talk, real talk there. So, Monica, lastly, how can my listeners listen to your podcast, connect with you on social media, or sign up for your programs?

Yeah. On social media, on Facebook, I am under Monica Connelly. On Instagram, I am Monica Connelly and Co. My website is MonicaConnellyCoaching.com. you can reach out to me any of those places. My podcast is Unshakeable Belief and it's available on Apple, Spotify, all the major areas where you would listen to a podcast. I just finished wrapping up season one of my podcast and season two is going to launch this fall and it is going to be absolutely phenomenal. I cannot wait for everything that is going to be coming out in the podcast this fall.

Absolutely, and I'm so excited for you.

Thank you.

So, everybody, Monica Connelly. Monica, thank you so much for taking the time out to stop by and talk with us for a minute. I'm pretty sure the audience will enjoy this. It's insightful, the things you're doing and the things you've said. You know, God bless you. I really appreciate you.

Well, it was absolutely my pleasure.

Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to Real Talk with Reginald D. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts. See you next time.