Case Study: Michelle - Rewired Global

Michelle

Senior Executive

“The lessons were like magic. The right lesson or daily work happened at the exact moment I needed it. And honestly, that just led to trust in knowing I am where I need to be. I have the right people in my life right now. Let’s just see where we go next.”

“The lessons were like magic. The right lesson or daily work happened at the exact moment I needed it. And honestly, that just led to trust in knowing I am where I need to be. I have the right people in my life right now. Let’s just see where we go next.”

Case Study Excerpt

THE TRANSFORMATION

Michelle was in a role she loved. She had a supportive family. She should have been happy—so why did she feel so down?

“Far gone sounds a little dramatic, but that’s just how bad the burnout was.” It’s a refrain that is familiar to many high-achieving women. If you work hard enough, you will achieve success. So that’s exactly what Michelle did. Weekends, nights—whatever it took, she did it. This is, of course, in addition to being present for her family.

Eventually, the round-the-clock schedule took its toll. Michelle’s sleep started suffering. She would lie awake crying because she was so exhausted. She started feeling physical pain in her hips; her heart would race. It didn’t make sense that she could love so many aspects of her life and feel so bad. When the noise in her brain finally got so loud that she could no longer drown it out—she turned to her husband and said that she needed to take some time off or she would have a breakdown.

“He’s a very compassionate person; he listened to me. And then he looked at me and said, ‘How are you going to be different in six months? I’ve known you for 25 years; you’ve worked hard for 25 years. How are you going to be different?’ It hit me like a two-by-four in the face.”

At that moment, Michelle knew something had to change—and that’s when she found Rewired.

Keep reading to discover how Michelle transformed

THE REWIRED EFFECT | According to michelle

Trust the process.

I’m a natural skeptic. I tend to jump into things with both feet. When I started with Rewired, part of me thought, is this going to work? Fernanda says you will change in three months; I figured, I’ve tried everything else, so why not try this?

After the first two weeks, I literally thought I was going to fail out. I thought, ‘this isn’t working. I’m not going fast enough. I’m not getting this.’ I thought I would be the first to get kicked out of Rewired. But I kept showing up and doing the meditations in the morning (I really needed them in the morning). And it was honestly, forming that daily habit—having something to focus on, that helped me learn how to detach from worrying about where I thought I needed to be.

I kept listening and putting in the time, and it was like magic—the right lesson or daily work happened at the exact moment that I needed it. That led to a feeling of trust that “I’m where I need to be. I have the right people in my life right now. Let’s just see where we go next.”

That helped me understand my thoughts, which taught me to show up and recognize the physical signals and noise. When it started to get noisy in my head, I learned to try different things, work through the noise, and see my thoughts as just thoughts That’s it. I’ve got a lot of little mantras in my toolbox now to help me get through tough spots. I just feel better. I feel calm.

Break out of your rut.

One of the biggest things that I realized is that we have, what I like to think of as, brain ruts. Fernanda teaches us about brain habits, and I had some old habits that I wasn’t even aware were there. They were thought patterns from a long time ago that, quite honestly, I thought I had dealt with. They weren’t in my conscious mind. But they were in the noise. They were in the chatter. I would go to these thought patterns when I felt stressed or threatened. And they’re really noisy, and they’re really exhausting. And then, once I learned how to see them, I could say, “Oh, why is that coming up?”

I have this vision of an old-fashioned cart and buggy with horses riding in the old ruts. But now we’re building new, better ruts. These new ways of thinking are going to get overgrown. Sometimes we might veer off course, but now we know how to get back on your new path.

Separate yourself from the outcome.

Around week six of the program, I got tapped for a highly regarded role in my company. We have 120,000 employees, and I got a phone call saying that I had been one of six to be selected to interview for this role supporting the C suite. I was terrified. I thought, ‘how did this even happen?’ I started falling back into my dog mind. And then I said, no, I’m going to show up. I control the input. I control how well I prep for this. And I put my head down and asked my boss to cover for me so I could prepare. I can honestly say I went into that interview without a marriage to the outcome. I said to myself, “I’m going to show up the best I can with as much preparation as I know how. And the rest is what will be will be. For the first time, those weren’t just words—I felt it—and I got the job. And now, I’m continuing to work with Rewired on what it means to be in this new space. So it’s a success story.

WHY I JOINED REWIRED WOMAN

I Googled burnout and high-achieving women and realized that I was not alone in this, so I started looking at my options. I knew there was no magic pill for this. I just kept thinking this was a journey. I saw that some companies work with women. I interviewed a few. The number one thing that brought me to Rewired was that Fernanda said, “there is no fluff.” This isn’t therapy—that was very attractive to me. It was global. I’ve worked with global women my whole career. And at Rewired, there is a sisterhood. It’s just a special unique bond. I wanted that. Add in the brain science mixed with mindfulness—it was an instinct. I can’t tell you why, but I knew it was the right fit. This is it. I had no idea how I would fit it into my day. But I said if I have to get up half an hour early, I will do it.

And I am so glad that I did.

“Rewired helped me understand my thoughts, which taught me to show up and recognize the physical signals and noise in my head. I just feel better. I feel calm.”

- MICHELLE

“The work we do at Rewired is not a quick fix. We follow a battle-tested process and the outcome is profound and lasting. This is about changing your brain. It takes one thought at a time, one day at a time. You have to understand the crucial elements that make it work and you need coaching when you get stuck and stop progressing. But once the impact of that practice starts, you begin to see it occur naturally in your day-to-day life.”

— FERNANDA LIND, CEO & FOUNDER OF THE REWIRED WOMAN