Finding Bliss after Burnout

Do you wake up and have the same internal debate about exercise, then hit the end of a long day and face the “what’s for dinner?” question with a fried brain? In this episode, Michelle shares how she stopped negotiating with herself by making decisions in advance and putting simple systems in place. Drawing on her experience of nurse burnout, she explains why reducing daily decision-making frees up energy and brain space for what actually matters.

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What if leaving the bedside doesn’t mean leaving nursing? 

So many nurses stay in roles that are draining them because they believe their only options are to push through or leave the profession completely.

But there’s an entire world of nursing careers most of us were never told about.

In this episode of Finding Bliss After Burnout, I’m joined by Beth Montano, RN of 15 years and founder of Autonomic Nurse, who helps nurses transition into non-clinical careers with clarity and confidence.

We talk about the limiting beliefs that keep nurses stuck, why our identity can become so intertwined with being a nurse, the transferable skills nurses often underestimate, and the non-traditional career opportunities available beyond the bedside.

Most importantly, we challenge the belief that choosing something different means you've failed.

Your nursing experience isn't wasted because you choose a different path. It might just be the thing that opens the door to your next one.

If you’re burnt out, questioning nursing, or quietly wondering “What else could I actually do?”—this episode is for you.

Have you ever looked at the nurse next to you, who seems to work shift after shift without flagging, and wondered why you feel completely wiped out? In this episode, Michelle shares how discovering she is a Manifestor in Human Design gave her permission to stop fighting her energy and start building a career and life around it.

She also announces the launch of her free Human Design Calculator for Nurses, along with free guides and a Human Design playbook created specifically for nurses.

In this episode

• Why Michelle spent years comparing herself to other nurses and carrying guilt and shame about her energy
• A quick overview of Human Design and how a chart is calculated (date, time and place of birth)
• What it means to be a Manifestor: big bursts of initiating and creating, followed by a real need for rest and solitude
• A real-time example from a huge filming day, and how Michelle honoured her energy dip by handing over the afternoon
• A brief look at the five energy types: Manifestors, Generators, Manifesting Generators, Projectors and Reflectors
• How energy type can shape the nursing roles that suit you, from variety and movement to autonomy, mentoring or predictable routines
• Michelle's own shift from 27 years in critical care to casual occupational health and safety nursing
• Why struggling doesn't mean you're a bad nurse, and doesn't mean you have to leave nursing
• Options for doing nursing differently: changing hours, specialty or environment, skipping overtime, going casual or pool nursing, or moving into leadership

Key takeaways

1. There is nothing wrong with you if you can't keep up constant output.
2. You don't have to leave nursing to feel better. You may just need to do it differently.
3. Understanding how your energy works lets you choose roles and routines that support it.
4. Curiosity beats self-criticism.

Mentioned in this episode

• Free Human Design Calculator for Nurses: www.thehealthyhappynurse.com/human-design
• Human Design Playbook for Nurses (details sent after you use the calculator)

Connect with Michelle

Once you've found your type, message Michelle on Instagram at @thehealthyhappynurse and tell her what you are.

Melissa is the founder of Leading Rein, a leadership facilitator, coach and the 2023 Tasmanian winner of the Agri Futures Rural Women’s Award for her innovative and professional development framework Leading Rein. 

https://www.instagram.com/leadingrein/

https://www.leadingrein.com.au/

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In this episode, Michelle sits down with Wendy Trevathan, a nurse with more than three decades of experience across clinical nursing, education, and management. Wendy shares how nursing culture and training have evolved — from hospital-based certificate programs to university degrees — and reflects on what's been gained and lost along the way. The conversation moves into the pressures driving burnout in the profession today, Wendy's own experience of workplace dysfunction and speaking up, and why she ultimately stepped away from nursing to support the profession in a different way.

Wendy also introduces the upcoming Standing Strong: Addressing Bullying, Safety and Culture in Nursing Summit, an event she created to give nurses practical tools for navigating bullying, isolation, and organisational dysfunction — without burning out or losing their sense of self.

Get your ticket to the summit

Recorded from a quirky pink hotel on the Gold Coast during a solo business trip, Michelle shares a moment that stopped her in her tracks: watching an elderly couple at dinner, sitting side by side, sharing toasted sandwiches and wine, completely present with each other. No phones, no rush — just quiet togetherness.

That moment sparked this episode's central question: what are you waiting for?

Michelle unpacks the habit so many of us fall into — postponing real life until "someday." Waiting until the kids are older, until the job gets easier, until there's more money, until burnout passes. She reflects on her own post-burnout realization that she was surviving, not living, and how she made the decision to stop waiting for permission or perfect timing to start actually showing up for her life.

Tag Michelle on Instagram: @michellegordon_coach

In this episode, Michelle sits down with Dr. Toby Brooks — performance scientist, professor, coach, and leading voice in the science of resilience and reinvention — for a conversation about identity loss, grief, and rebuilding when "the person you used to be no longer fits."

After more than 20 years studying how elite performers navigate adversity, Toby shares his own story of chasing (and ultimately grieving the loss of) a college basketball career, and how that experience shaped the frameworks he now uses to help athletes, healthcare workers, executives, and everyday people move through transition. Michelle connects this to her own journey from critical care ED nurse to entrepreneur, and the two dig into what it really takes to grieve a former identity, find alignment, and build forward into a new chapter.

What You'll Learn

• Why gratitude and grief can't coexist — and how reframing grief into gratitude changes your emotional state
• Toby's personal story of grieving the end of his basketball dreams, and how it shaped his career path into athletic training
• How to tell the difference between a season that's ending and one worth pushing through ("the million dollar question")
• The UNDONE framework for navigating identity loss and reinvention: Uncover, Define, Overcome, Navigate, Execute
• The "door" ritual Toby uses with graduating students to mark closure and new beginnings
• The concept of a "purpose storm" — what happens when your sense of identity and purpose is suddenly destabilized
• Why struggle and adversity make your story "holdable" for others
• The UCVMV framework for high achievers: Ultimate Concern, Vision, Mission, Values
• Why tying your self-worth to output and performance can be a mask — and what happens when the mask starts wearing you
• Treating setbacks as data, not failure

Key Quotes

• "Gratitude and grief cannot coexist together."
• "Don't be sad that it's over. Just be thankful that it happened."
• "We don't need to bounce back. We need to build forward."
• "The adversity, the struggle, the strain — those add handholds that other people can grab hold of."
• "It's not failure. It's data."

About Dr. Toby Brooks

Dr. Toby Brooks is a performance scientist, professor, and coach who has spent more than 20 years studying how elite performers navigate adversity. Through his work with athletes, military personnel, executives, and everyday people, he helps them understand that life's greatest setbacks can become the catalyst for their next chapter. His new book is due out this September, with pre-orders opening in August.

www.DrTobyBrooks.com 
@DrTobyBrooks on Insta, FB, and LinkedIn 

Fresh off a family trip to the Gold Coast, Michelle tackles a comment that's been grinding her gears: "You're so lucky." Lucky she gets to travel. Lucky she only works casually. Lucky her husband owns a business.

In this episode, Michelle pulls back the curtain on what people don't see — the years of burnout, the rock-bottom moments, and the hundreds of small decisions that built the life she has now. She shares her own story of nursing burnout, the wine-every-night spiral, and the single decision that changed everything.

If you're a nurse who knows something needs to change but isn't sure where to start, Michelle invites you to check out the Aligned Nurse Method Program — a self-paced program to help you uncover your values, understand your burnout patterns, and start building a career and life that support you.

🔗 [Click here for the Aligned Nurse Method Program ]

What if the burnout you keep cycling back into isn't a willpower problem, but a wiring problem? In this episode, Michelle sits down with EFT practitioner Faye Chan to unpack why tips, techniques, and morning routines so often fail to create lasting change — and what actually does.

Faye explains how Emotional Freedom Techniques (tapping) works, why the body "keeps the score," and how patterns anchored in childhood quietly run our careers, relationships, and habits decades later. Through a series of vivid client stories — a five-year-old who couldn't give up her bottle, a business owner stuck under six figures, a chocolate-hoovering emotional eater, and a pilot whose need for control served his career but wrecked his relationships — she shows how rewiring the source of a pattern changes everything downstream. Faye also shares her own story of caning, report cards, and the moment she realised her seven-year-old self had chosen her corporate career.

A genuinely eye-opening conversation for anyone stuck in survival mode, people-pleasing, or their "third burnout" wondering why they can't shake it.

https://linktr.ee/livingwellwithfay 

www.instagram.com/livingwellwithfay