When Bronwen Sciortino looked in the mirror and saw a quarter of her head missing after emergency skin cancer surgery, she didn’t just see a physical wound. She saw the culmination of years of ignoring every signal her body had sent: chronic pain, the sleepless nights, the double knee surgery that literally prevented her from moving forward. What started as a misdiagnosed patch of “psoriasis” became the catalyst that shattered her entire existence into pieces on the floor around her.
The Perth, Australia resident had spent years operating on two hours of sleep per night, triple-scheduling every moment, and believing that emotion was dangerous. This was a lesson learned early in competitive sports and reinforced throughout her legal career. When her general practitioner noticed the supposed psoriasis had doubled in size within twelve months and referred her to a dermatologist, Sciortino received shocking news: it wasn’t psoriasis at all, but skin cancer requiring immediate plastic surgery.
Her response? Annoyance at having to fit surgery into her already packed schedule.
“I gave myself half a day in my schedule to have 6cm of my head cut out right down to the bone,” Sciortino said. “And was back that afternoon working on my laptop, sorting out everyone’s problems.”
This moment reveals something critical about burnout recovery that most people miss: the crisis point doesn’t arrive when you’re tired or stressed. It arrives when you’ve pushed so far past those warning signs that your body makes the decision for you.
Dangerous Territory Beyond Burnout
Most discussions about burnout focus on prevention strategies or early intervention. But Sciortino’s experience illuminates the rarely discussed territory beyond burnout, including what happens when someone who has built their entire identity on being strong, capable, and perfect suddenly can’t maintain that facade.
“I was told for a period of about eight years that I had psoriasis on my head,” Sciortino said. When the dermatologist delivered the cancer diagnosis and surgical plan, her reaction exposed the depth of her disconnection from self-preservation. The surgery revealed four different strains of cancer in the tumor, yet even this didn’t immediately break through her armor of productivity.
The actual shattering came four days later during her post-operative checkup. Looking in the mirror at her disfigured reflection created what she describes as “being flipped into a different dimension” where everyone around her moved at super speed while she existed in a void, unable to process basic questions or communicate her confusion.
“Every single thing that I knew about myself, every single hope, dream that I had for the future, every plan that I had for the future, was just completely gone in those moments,” Sciortino said.
The drive home from that appointment included her telling her husband John that she would understand if he wanted a divorce because she looked like “a monster.” This moment of perceived disfigurement became the entry point to confronting a lifetime of compressed emotion and rigid perfectionism.
What If Your Body Forces the Conversation You’ve Been Avoiding
Sciortino’s recovery period reveals the brutal honesty required for true burnout recovery. For nine months, she existed in isolation, unable to cope with anything beyond absolute basics. Loud noises felt unbearable. Complex situations overwhelmed her completely. Most significantly, she experienced what she describes as “my entire lifetime’s emotion in two years.”
“I had compressed all of it because emotion was dangerous,” Sciortino said. “There was just no emotion because not only can you not show it, you can’t feel it, because if you feel it, you show it.”
This compression had roots in her childhood experiences. Playing high-level netball taught her that showing emotion gave opponents ammunition. Being a protector of bullied classmates made her a target, reinforcing the lesson that emotional invisibility meant safety. She chose to pursue a career in law and economics. These were fields that reward analytical thinking over emotional expression and she cemented these patterns into her professional identity.
The homework from her psychologist exemplified the depth of her disconnection: journaling. It took Sciortino three weeks to write one word on a page because she was “absolutely terrified of writing anything personal down because it could be used against me as evidence I wasn’t perfect.”
Amy Stone, the podcast host, asked an important question during their conversation: “What were you aware of the people who were in your life, your friends, your family, your co-workers, what would they have noticed when you were going through this?”
Sciortino’s answer reveals a critical truth about burnout recovery, that external appearances rarely match internal reality. People saw her start crying unexpectedly in public, but those episodes stopped and started so quickly that observers often acted as if nothing had happened, while for Sciortino each moment felt deeply personal and raw.
The Permission to Question Everything
The path forward emerged not from a grand revelation but from two deceptively simple practices that anyone can implement before reaching a crisis point.
First, Sciortino began asking: “What if they’re wrong?” This single question creates space between automatic reactions and conscious choices, allowing evaluation of whether external expectations actually serve individual needs. Whether the advice comes from family, colleagues, or cultural conditioning, this question interrupts the pattern of unexamined compliance.
Second, she gave herself permission to put every option back on the table. This would include those previously dismissed as “too woo woo” or impractical. She replaced the words “success” and “failure” with “adventure” and “explore,” removing the judgment that had previously prevented experimentation with different approaches to living.
“There is no failure,” Sciortino said. “All there is is immediate messages of something that you don’t need to work out. You know, go down that path any further. You get a response really quickly that it’s not right for you. Great, that’s just as fantastic as it is right for you.”
This reframing allowed her to follow intuitive pulls toward activities like Bikram yoga or beach walks without needing to justify their productivity value. The practice of trying things and evaluating their fit became more valuable than achieving predetermined outcomes.
Her husband John contributed what she calls “the most brilliant line” to her recovery vocabulary: “Later’s a lie. Later never happens.” This phrase cuts through the universal tendency to defer self-care, personal needs, and difficult conversations in favor of more immediate external demands.
The Signals Most People Miss Until It’s Too Late
Looking back, Sciortino recognizes numerous warning signs that preceded her crisis. Constant physical pain. Chronic exhaustion despite inability to sleep. Double knee surgery to realign her knees which was a physical manifestation of her inability to move forward in life. Most tellingly, she remembers thinking “multiple times a day” that it would be easier to “just go and sit on a banana lounge in one of the mental health clinics and just be drugged into oblivion.”
“Life was just so hard and I was so tired and I just did not know how I was going to keep going,” Sciortino said.
Yet each signal got dismissed with the same rationalization: “I’m strong and I have to keep moving and I’ve got so many things that I have to do for everybody else. I’ll deal with all that later.”
This pattern reflects a broader cultural conditioning that begins in childhood. Traditional education systems train people to look externally for evaluation and direction. Students receive syllabi, rubrics, and constant feedback about right and wrong ways to engage. This conditioning creates adults who instinctively look over their shoulders wondering if they’ve done a good job rather than developing internal metrics for satisfaction and well-being.
The mental health landscape has evolved since Sciortino’s crisis twelve years ago, yet significant barriers remain. She notes that workplace Employee Assistance Programs remain reactive rather than proactive, accessed only when people have traveled so far down the path of burnout that they desperately need intervention. The medical system operates similarly, preferring to address broken legs and full breakdowns rather than preventative support.
“What I want people to understand is that you can actually do the work in tiny little steps in really easy, simple, practical ways that can stop you from ever needing that,” Sciortino said.
Reclaiming Authenticity After Identity Shatters
Sciortino describes her recovery not as building a new identity but as “coming home” to her authentic self. Before her crisis, she had fragmented into three distinct personas: Bronwen at work, Bronwen at home, and “Bronwena,” the social party version. The complexity became so extreme that colleagues had to remind her which surname to use when signing documents, as her legal name differed from her professional identity.
“I really lost who I was in the process of being what everyone expects, [or] what I thought everyone expected me to be,” Sciortino said.
The recovery process involved aligning her truth with how she actually lived, rather than reverting to a younger version of herself or constructing another performance. She describes this as moving through life consciously in alignment with who she fundamentally is, regardless of external expectations.
Her support system during recovery remained deliberately small: her husband John, her cat, access to nature through beach walks and hiking, creative expression through cooking for others, and various meditation practices. A counselor at the hospital provided crucial guidance, particularly helping John understand that as an engineer focused on fixing details, he needed three simple, consistent actions he could do without analysis. This was a strategy that prevented him from floundering while providing Sciortino with support that actually helped rather than increased her stress.
The nine-month period before she began reentering social situations allowed the deep internal work that superficial interventions cannot accomplish. When people began asking what she’d been doing during her absence, the only topic she could discuss without collapsing into tears was journaling. This led to encouragement to write a book, which she initially rejected as impossible given her broken state.
“Can you not see I’m broken?” she remembers thinking. “How could you possibly expect me to write a book? I can’t cope with the basics in life and you want me to write a book.”
Yet that project, approached without pressure or deadlines, provided the path back to the middle of the pendulum, away from the extreme of triple-scheduled chaos and the extreme of complete withdrawal, toward sustainable engagement with life.
Universal Lessons in One Woman’s Crisis
Sciortino’s experience offers a sobering reminder that the body keeps score, and when warning signals get ignored long enough, it will force, “the reckoning.” The chronic pain, the inability to sleep, the physical manifestations of misalignment—these aren’t character flaws or inconveniences to schedule around. They’re the body’s communication system attempting to prevent the kind of complete system shutdown that eventually occurred.
The cultural conditioning toward perfectionism, emotional suppression, and external validation creates the perfect conditions for this kind of crisis. When strength becomes defined as never showing weakness, capability as never saying no, and success as meeting everyone else’s expectations, the inevitable endpoint is some form of shattering. Whether this comes through as physical illness, mental health crisis, or both simultaneously.
But the journey also reveals that recovery isn’t about returning to previous functioning or building new armor. It’s about removing the layers of conditioning that created disconnection from authentic self in the first place. It’s about developing the courage to ask “what if they’re wrong?” when receiving advice that doesn’t resonate. It’s about replacing judgment with curiosity, success metrics with experimentation, and “later” with present attention to what needs addressing now.
The gift in Sciortino’s willingness to share her story is the permission it grants others to recognize warning signs before reaching their own shattering point. The chronic exhaustion, the fantasy of escape, the physical symptoms that keep accumulating, these aren’t badges of dedication or strength. They’re the body’s increasingly desperate attempts to communicate that something fundamental needs to change.
Twelve years after her crisis, Sciortino works as an executive coach, Forbes contributor, and author specifically focused on helping people implement the tiny, practical steps that can prevent burnout before it requires the kind of dramatic intervention she experienced. Her message centers on proactive rather than reactive approaches to well-being. This includes the small daily choices that create sustainable life patterns rather than waiting until the body forces a complete stop.
“We don’t make changes because we’re scared of them,” Sciortino said. “You know, we’ve been taught it’s hard, but actually it’s really easy when you just give yourself permission to take tiny little steps and try things out.”
The scar on her head remains visible, a permanent reminder that perfectionism is an illusion and that the earth suit’s appearance has nothing to do with the inherent value of the person inside. That visible mark of imperfection became the doorway to accepting herself as enough exactly as she is and her foundation for any sustainable approach to life beyond burnout.
This article was inspired by an interview with Bronwen Sciortino and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectadulting To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Burnout: Bronwen Sciortino with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | October 2025
Amy Stone [00:00:07]:
Bronwen Sciortino. Welcome to the art of imperfect adulting. I’m so happy you’re here. Are you ready for a fun chat today?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:00:15]:
Hi, Amy. I’m so, so pleased to be here. I can’t wait to see where our conversation goes.
Amy Stone [00:00:22]:
Me either. All right, so I start all of my interviews asking people what part of the world they call home. So share with us where you are.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:00:31]:
So I’m in Perth, Western Australia, which is on the west coast of Australia, and it’s sort of the lesser known cousin, if you like, to the Sydneys and the Melbourne’s of the world.
Amy Stone [00:00:42]:
Absolutely. And we were talking about before we got started the challenges of connecting on time zones. But the flip side to that is it’s like so much fun to be able to talk to people who are really on the opposite side of the world so easily these days. Such a cool thing. So what is next question. Warm up question. What is your favorite way to transition from busy time to downtime?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:01:09]:
I actually love playing with my cats. I get told when busy time’s over and when it’s playtime. So, you know, I literally have inbuilt mental health support and they basically just run all over my keyboards, jump up behind my computer and or sit on the floor and just meow at me until I get down and play. So that’s my, that’s my transition off the chair onto the floor and letting the inner child out and playing.
Amy Stone [00:01:39]:
I love that answer. That’s so good. All right, so the topic today that we’re going to talk about is burnout. So you shared in your pitch that you didn’t just burn out, you pushed so far past it that your life shattered into a million pieces on the floor around you. And so I’m interested to learn more about this. Start with this question. How long ago was it that this shattering into a million pieces happened? Bronwen?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:02:10]:
Yeah, so it was about 12 years ago, a little bit over 12 years ago. And I was told for a period of about eight years that I had psoriasis on my head. And it turns out that psoriasis was not a correct diagnosis and that I actually had skin cancer. And I went from thinking I had psoriasis to being told I had skin cancer and I would need plastic surgery in the space of about 10 seconds. And most people would stop at that point and start evaluating their life. And I was just annoyed because it was something else I had to schedule into my day and how was I going to make it happen? And I had surgery, gave myself Half a day in my schedule to have 6cm of my head cut out right down to the bone. And was back that afternoon working on my laptop, sorting out everyone’s problems. And then four days later I went back to the surgeon, had my post op checkup, and for some reason the surgeon left the room. And I looked across the room at my husband and said, you know, is it okay? And he was just white and he just was looking at me going, oh, yeah. And I was like, okay, something’s not right. So I walked across the room, looked in the mirror, and the vision looking back at me was like a quarter of my head was missing. And because previously it’d been all bandaged up and I couldn’t really see it. And suddenly that, that moment created such a huge shock in my system that my entire system just shattered. And everything in every little piece that had gone together to make up me previously was on the fl. Millions of little shards around me. And that moment triggered this, this journey that I had to go on to put myself back together and work out who. Who Bronwen 2.0 was.
Amy Stone [00:04:11]:
Wow. All right, so let’s talk about some of the things in there. So Australia has the unique distinction, I believe, that you guys are the experts actually in skin cancer, because you have more of it than most places. And so before this happened, how did you discover the. So you thought you had psoriasis, you were going to a doctor, and then did you find yourself at a dermatologist or how did they, how did they make the jump from psoriasis to skin cancer? How did you find out?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:04:43]:
Yeah, so for me, I had, I got it checked with the GP at an annual checkup and it had grown significantly, so it probably doubled in size in a 12 month period. And I was under significant stress. You know, I was sleeping two hours a night for, you know, sort of eight years, 12 years, that sort of thing. I was running literally on fumes. And so all of the signs and it looked like psoriasis and all of the signs and the symptoms of it kind of pointed towards psoriasis. But because it had grown significantly in that 12 month period, the GP said, oh, I think it’s fine, but we’ll just send you to a dermatologist just to make sure. And so I got referred to the dermatologist, went to the dermatologist, they said, no, it’s not skin cancer, it’s not psoriasis, it’s skin cancer. You’re going to need plastic surgery. We were referring you to a plastic surgeon and the plastic surgeon then said, yeah, I completely agree with the dermatologist, and we’re going to map it to see where it is. And it was right through my hairline. So a lot of what we thought was twice the size. It was actually probably four or five times the size because it’s actually growing through my hair and actually couldn’t be seen. So it sort of went from being a bit of a nothing thing to, you know, a really big deal. But I didn’t take it seriously because I didn’t have time for it because I was too busy.
Amy Stone [00:06:12]:
Okay. All right. And, you know, this is in. In hindsight, the idea that you’d be too busy to pay attention to this kind of medical information might seem like it doesn’t track. But I talk to people all the time who say a similar thing. They’re like, I don’t actually have time to worry about this right now because life is too busy. So I’m going to use my words to classify part of this transition that you experienced almost as, like, self awareness. Would you. Does that sound like a good word choice for one of the things that was going on? All right, so I’m going to ask you some questions about, like, two things. We’re going to talk about burnout, and then we’re going to talk about recovery from burnout. Burnout is a word that we toss around here, at least in my space. And I think there’s a lot of variety in how people actually define it. So before you went through this readjustment and this shattering and this alignment and self awareness, what, if anything, did you know or think about the concept of burnout?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:07:18]:
Nothing.
Amy Stone [00:07:19]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:07:19]:
Like, I was completely oblivious to it, and it sort of wasn’t a big thing.
Amy Stone [00:07:24]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:07:25]:
You know, the whole mental health thing wasn’t talked about. Stress wasn’t talked about. Burnout. It just wasn’t talked about.
Amy Stone [00:07:31]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:07:31]:
Everybody kind of knew about it, I guess, but it just wasn’t seen as a real thing. And that. That played a big part in my recovery and my journey because there was things I had to overcome as part of that. You know, things like, you know, when you get referred to a psychologist and you. I don’t want to go to a psychologist because I don’t want that on my medical record. And I don’t want people to ever have to, you know, an opportunity to find out that I had to go to a psychologist because that means that there’s something mentally wrong with me. And, you know, you sort of go into this spiral and this. Because it was a big thing then that it’s just not. It’s not really the done thing. Mental. Mental health is really for people who are really sick, you know, and I wasn’t really sick, so. And because I didn’t have to have chemo and because I didn’t have to have radiation, because I was so lucky that the surgeons caught everything in the surgery, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be able to say that I was a cancer survivor. You know, so there’s all these kind of boundaries and these. These labels and these definitions that we put on things that are just not true. And that was sort of part of the real unfolding that I went through as well on my journey back to wholeness was, you know, as a recovering perfectionist, I had to accept that I’ve now got a 6 centimeter crater in my head and I can’t ever be perfect again. And so as a perfectionist, going through that and trying to sort that out and unravel that and pull the threads and really try and understand that it’s not about the. It’s not about the earth suit and how that looks. That makes the person inside perfect exactly as they are. It’s the constructs that we put in place around that and the definitions and the labels that we put on things that really create the complexity for us in life.
Amy Stone [00:09:18]:
No. So well said. So well said. So you had. I’m going to ask you a particular. You do not have to answer this. And if you don’t. If you don’t want to. But. So you. They find skin cancer, you go in, you know, you’re going to have surgery and then reconstruction with a plastic surgeon. Is this is what you had, like, we called it the Mohs surgery, where they go in and check as they take it out and just go and go and go until they feel like they’ve gotten everything.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:09:44]:
Yeah. So I didn’t have reconstruction because of where my cancer was, because right down to the bone, it’s literally a skin graft. So there’s no reconstruction really available or. There certainly wasn’t. When I had my surgery, the surgery, they put it off two weeks because there was new technology available where they could take out what they thought was the tumor and then they can analyze it under microscope at the time of surgery.
Amy Stone [00:10:14]:
Yeah. Like right then. Yeah, yeah.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:10:17]:
And they know whether or not they’ve got it all. And when they did that analysis, it told them that was four different strains of tube of cancer in the tumor.
Amy Stone [00:10:26]:
So these I’ve. So I don’t know if it’s the same one, but. So these procedures where they’re like snipping and checking and snipping and checking or whatever the actual medical terms are, these procedures can take a really, really long time because it’s. They’re checking while you’re in there. So this was probably a very long day for you.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:10:48]:
No, they were relatively quick. They actually got it all in the first go, so they didn’t have to go back. If they hadn’t waited that two weeks, I would have had to basically have an open wound.
Amy Stone [00:11:01]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:11:01]:
And while they did the analysis on the margins and all of that sort of stuff, and then I would have had to go back and had the skin graft or had more taken out, go back, do the analysis, all that sort of stuff. But the piece that they took out was large enough that the margins were clear when they did the analysis while I was under. So I think it was probably about two and a half, three hour surgery. So it wasn’t super long, which was amazing.
Amy Stone [00:11:26]:
That is amazing. All right, so you describe yourself, pre burnout as strong, capable and a perfectionist. Do you have an idea, any idea or thoughts or anything where you picked those up as personality traits?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:11:43]:
Yeah. So I think, you know, growing up, just the situations that I was in throughout life, whether it was in sport, whether it was in school, I just learned at a really young age that emotion is emotion’s dangerous and it can be used against you. And, you know, particularly, like, I played quite a high level of netball, which, you know, some people around the world will know what that sport is and others won’t. But one of the things that you are taught from a really young age is to, you know, put the mask on and you show no emotion. Because a player that you’re playing against can use your emotion to impact the way that you’re. You perform in a game. And so if you show no emotion and they’ve got nothing to work with, it makes it harder for them to play against you. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, like, when I was at school and I was always, you know, if somebody was being picked on, then I would step in and try and, you know, be the protector, if you like. And that made me the target. And so then it became about don’t show any emotion, because then it then it shuts down, the being picked on. So I think I just learned it from, you know, general life that it was safer not to show emotion. And as part of that, it really fueled the perfectionist tendencies because if there’s perfection, there’s nothing for anyone to pick up.
Amy Stone [00:13:12]:
I get it, I get it. All right, So I want to rewind the clock way before any of this happened, back to when you were say, 10 to 14 years old. What were your dreams then? Or did you have any about what you wanted to be and do when you grew up?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:13:29]:
So I spent, I spent my days either playing sport or with my animals. So I’ve got a really, really strong empathic connection with animals. And I grew up in semi rural area, so I was always with my horses and dogs and cats and all of that sort of stuff. But I lived for sport, I went to school for sport. Having said that, all I ever wanted to be was a lawyer.
Amy Stone [00:13:57]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:13:58]:
It was just kind of the thing that I was, that I was going to be and there was never really anything else that came across my path. And I don’t really know how those mesh because they’re so far apart. It’s not funny. They’re outdoor, sporty, active, and the animals just doesn’t. There’s nothing even related to sort of law in there. But I think probably along the way I was told that, you know, some of the outdoor sort of stuff, well, I was, you know, above that, beyond that, or, you know, as you get that social conditioning. So I probably didn’t really look at those sorts of things. But that law, that legal thing was really the. This is what I want to be, this is what I’m going to be when I grow up.
Amy Stone [00:14:38]:
All right, very good. You actually touched on what I was going to. The follow up question is like when you were then in the time frame where you’re making those decisions, 17 to 20 ish years old, what were you getting? What feedback were you getting from the people surrounding you in your life? Your friends, your education team, your family. Did any of them have opinions about what they thought that you were supposed to be or grow up into?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:15:07]:
I don’t really know that there was opinions as such so much as approval for, you know, when I went to uni, I studied economics, law and there was just sort of an approval and a support for that as opposed to opinions that sort of came around that so positive.
Amy Stone [00:15:26]:
You got positive reinforcement for that decision. It really struck. So it’s an intense career, it’s an intense field of study and it’s an intense career. I think that people who follow that, if you group them all together, you would find a very high concentration of detail oriented, driven people who are following the pursuit of studying and being lawyers. Don’t have any data to back that up, but that’s just my instinct for who appeals there. All right, so now let’s go back and talk about the actual event that is the Shattering. I’m calling it the Shattering. I’ve named it like it’s a movie. So you told us the story of the diagnosis, the resistance to facing this, the realization when you see your actual condition reflected back in your partner’s reaction. And also the mirror. Was the shattering like just that moment in the office? Was it hours? Was it days? Was it weeks? Was there. What did it look like? Like for you? What did it feel like for you? Was there yelling? Was there crying? Was there sleeping? Share with us all the things.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:16:40]:
Yeah. So I get asked this question a lot, and it sort of goes in stages. It’s not like it’s one thing continuously.
Amy Stone [00:16:49]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:16:50]:
The moment itself was like being flipped into a different dimension. And you can see everybody else around you, and you can see them operating. It’s almost like that they’re at super speed. And I was. I was just in this void where everything was really slowed down, that people are asking me questions, and I couldn’t cognitively process what they’re asking me. And it was like there was no way to communicate. There was no. I couldn’t understand what they were asking. And I. It was like every single thing that I knew about myself, every single hope, dream that I had for the future, every plan that I had for the future, was just completely gone in those moments. And I remember just sitting there thinking, I just don’t. I just. I just don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t. I don’t know where I am. I don’t really. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do now. And I remember driving home from the doctor’s surgery, the surgeon’s surgery after that, and I remember saying to John, it’s okay. I understand if you want to leave. I understand if you want to divorce me because I look like a monster. Like, I was completely disfigured straight after surgery, and everything’s red more, all the rest of it. But for me, it was like that was going to be the rest of my future, and I didn’t want him to be stuck with that. And so that was kind of the first reaction. And then I just went into this space where I. I just couldn’t cope with anything other than the absolute basics in life. If there was anything that was complex, if there was anything that was too harsh, if there was Anything that was too loud, I just couldn’t have it in my space. And. And I just remember feeling this numbness like there was nothing. And except if something was just that, you know, too loud. And then it sort of transitioned from there where I just started crying and crying and crying and crying. And actually what happened with that was I experienced my entire lifetime’s emotion in two years because I had compressed it because emotion was dangerous. There was just no emotion because not only can you not show it, you can’t feel it, because if you feel it, you show it. So I’d compressed all of it and. And it all came out in. In a space of two years. So I had to learn to just be in a public space and start crying, and I’d start crying for no reason. And I had to just learn how to sit with that and just let it happen and not worry about what people were saying, what people were thinking, what, you know, what people were looking at. And. Yeah, and then I discovered as part of that process when I started working with a psychologist, that I was absolutely terrified of writing anything personal down because it could be used against me as evidence. I wasn’t perfect. And so I had never, ever journaled or written anything about myself or any of my feelings or any of that sort of stuff. And so then it became my homework because, you know, you have to deal with these things once you identify them. And it took me three weeks to work to write one word on a page. I was terrified of it. And through that starting to journal process, I was just starting to put my foot back in the water, to go back into social situations and start being out in public again. And people hadn’t seen me for nine months, and they were sort of saying, oh, where have you been? What have you been doing? And the only thing I could talk about without completely collapsing into tears was journaling. And so then they started asking me, what have you been journaling about? And I started talking to them about some of the topics. And they. All of them started saying, you have to write a book. The world needs this. You have to write a book. And I was just looking at them going, can you not see I’m broken? Like, how could you possibly expect me to write a book? I can’t cope with the basics in life and you want me to write a book. But what it did was it gave me the opportunity to go back to the middle of the pendulum, because I’d been at one end where every. Every second was triple scheduled. And then when I had my shattering, I’VE gone to the other end of the pendulum where there’s nothing except for me to look at me. And this sort of brought me back to the middle and gave me something to focus on. It gave me a project, but it gave me a project that had no pressure around it. So there was no. There was no one saying, you have to get this done by this time and you have to, you know, have this and you’ve got to have that. You’ve got to write about this. It was really just a project for me. And so I wrote my first book as part of my recovery and. And that was sort of about half. It was about 18 months into my recovery.
Amy Stone [00:21:54]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:21:55]:
And then that went out into the world. People started saying, oh, my God, this is amazing. It’s like, you’ve written it for me. How else can I work with you? And suddenly people are wanting keynotes and leadership development and workshops. And I was sitting there going, I’m still broken. How am I going to deal with this? How am I going to do this? And so that’s where I really built the platform for myself about that real simplicity and letting go of the perfectionism and really just relaxing into I’m me. And that’s enough.
Amy Stone [00:22:22]:
So, yeah, let’s talk a little bit more about that. So we got your experience. One of the things that’s really interesting about, like, this is what you are experiencing and what other people see can really actually be very different. So this is kind of a weird question because it’s like there may not be a great answer, but what do you think? Or what were you aware of the people who were in your life, your friends, your family, your co workers, what would they have noticed when you were going through this, where you were saying, I’m broken, what were they actually seeing? Was it the same? Or were they still seeing somebody who was competent and getting through the day and coping?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:23:07]:
I think in the early stages, no one saw me. So there was, you know, maybe a handful of people who really saw the rawness of the depth of the pit and they just were empathetic. Give her.
Amy Stone [00:23:23]:
Okay. Yeah.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:23:25]:
But when I started going back out into the world around the nine month mark, I think people, what they saw initially was just me.
Amy Stone [00:23:36]:
Yeah.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:23:36]:
There was no difference to them until I started crying. And then they’re just like, well, hang on, this is not normal. But then that would stop and start so quickly. It was, you know, in some ways for them, like it hadn’t even happened.
Amy Stone [00:23:48]:
Yeah.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:23:48]:
Whereas for me, it was just so personal and so raw. And so in depth, I think I was a lot more aware of what was going on and the impact of people looking at me as opposed to them. They would just go, oh, okay, that’s over now. And we just kept talking sort of thing. So, you know, it’s. And they can’t possibly understand the depth of it, the journey of it, the conversation in the head, the. Any of that sort of stuff. And really even. And John, we always talk about it and we say there’s really three journeys around this for us. There’s my journey, there’s his journey, and there’s our journey. And those are really different things.
Amy Stone [00:24:32]:
Yes, and we’re talking about your story today. But that is true in almost every group situation, in every family, in every school and every work team, in every office and every coffee shop around the world. Everybody is having their own individual and shared experience all at the same time. And if you survey people about it, if you ask them about exactly the same thing, you can get very different answers because people don’t know what other people are going through. People. People. As much as I wish that sometimes people can, you know, read my mind and know the things that are, you know, bothering me and why I’m doing the things I am, they don’t know. They don’t. They have no idea. And that’s one of the things that makes the human experience so infuriating.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:25:19]:
Bio Individuality.
Amy Stone [00:25:21]:
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s just. It can be really, really tough. There’s, you know, there are some things about families where people say every. Even in the same house, everybody has a different childhood experience. You know, like, everybody has a different relationship with their. Their parents, even though they’re happening side by side. So, you know, there are small versions of that and big versions of that. Okay, so now let’s shift and talk about healing and rebuilding after the shattering collapse. You say that the collapse forced you to question everything and then gave you the courage to live on your terms. So the question is, what does this mean in like, practical terms for people who are learning about the story? Like what. What actually changed? And how did you go about figuring out what living on your terms even meant for you?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:26:14]:
So I think there’s two really big things that I sort of look back now and see as really key things that can help anyone at any stage. It’s just that I implemented them after I broke, and everything I do now is about teaching people the little things they can do so they don’t have to break.
Amy Stone [00:26:33]:
Yeah.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:26:34]:
You know, the first one is I heard somebody, I was watching a video and I heard somebody say, you know, the power of asking the question, what if they’re wrong? Okay, so you’ve got all these people around you that say, you have to do this, you need to do that, you have to have this, you’ve got to have, you’ve got to go there. And the power of asking the question, what if they’re wrong? Really gives you that time and space to just stop down any automatic reaction and to really give you the opportunity to make a conscious choice of what you do next and also consciously decide whether or not that particular thing is right for you. Is it, am I, you know, am I drawn to this? Do I want to do this? Is this something that’s going to help me? Is it going to be beneficial for me? Gives you the space to ask all those questions. And the second thing I did was I gave myself permission to put every option back on the table. So you know, you go, you go through life and people tell you you can’t do this or you can’t do that, that’s too woo woo, that’s ridiculous. That’s all things. I actually allowed myself to put all the options back on the table and just say, it’s my choice, I get to choose, what am I drawn to. And I really allowed myself the opportunity to really step into my intuition and just say, oh, you know, I’ve been driving down the road and for the last five days I’ve seen a Bikram yoga sign. I really noticed that I’m going to go and try Bikram yoga. I am really drawn to doing some meditation. Where can I go and find some meditation? I want to go for a beach walk, I want to go for a bike ride. I want it, whatever it is, whatever the thing is that’s coming into your mind and intuition and you constantly find yourself thinking about it. I just step in and try it. And as part of that process I just say, okay, I’m getting rid of the words success and failure and I’m replacing them with adventure and explore. So I’m saying, okay, there is no failure. All there is is immediate messages of something that you don’t need to work out. You know, go down that path any further. You get a, you get a response really quickly that it’s not right for you. Great, that’s just as fantastic as it is right for you. And you can keep going down that pathway and exploring a bit more. So that ability to just put all options back on the table and Go and try different things and find the things that are right for you. Instead of having somebody tell you what’s wrong with you and what you need to fix, you stepping into that really conscious space and saying, I’m going to work out what I need right now, not have somebody else tell me, and then potentially end up back in the same situation that I was before.
Amy Stone [00:29:17]:
Okay, so that is really interesting. And so then there’s. There’s a backstory here, which is that if that was the path out of this, that unknowingly you were taking advice and instruction from people for a very long time and shutting down any signals of if it didn’t match what you actually wanted to do.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:29:38]:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I think that’s what we’re taught, right? We’re taught to squash ourselves into a box. And we sit in that box until it’s too painful, and we either shadow like I did and my mind and my body forced me to stop and do things differently, or we make a change because we have to. And we don’t make changes because we’re scared of them. You know, we’ve been taught it’s hard, but actually it’s really easy when you just give yourself permission to take tiny little steps and try things out.
Amy Stone [00:30:06]:
Yeah, I do think. I think that. I think that modern childhood does train us to look for other people, to tell us what the path is. And there are probably some variants of this, but if you, you know, if you’re in a brick and mortar traditional school system, you know, you are given a syllabus, you are giving a rubric against which you will be scored on, you are trained that there’s a right way and a wrong way to engage in conversation. And one of the things that is tricky when you transition out of that into adulthood is that you learn without even trying that other. It’s somebody else’s job to evaluate how you do things. And then if you ever come into the point where you’re like, oh, no, well, I have to do this. I mean, at first you spend a little bit of time looking at your shoulder, but who’s going to tell me if I did a good job? And so I do think. I think that that’s a challenge for people. I’d love to say that I didn’t think that the people who are growing up today experiencing the same thing, but I do. I think they’re learning the same patterns that we learned 30 years ago, for the most part. And so that’s why it’s important that People who have gone through these are willing to share the information about what it is, how it feels like and how to do the work to hopefully avoid it. I mean, it is definitely. It mirrors my experience in life that 20 years ago it was much more risky to engage publicly in mental health support, especially preventively. It was like it was, it was two kinds of things. It was like we knew people who did it, but there were real consequences if people found out. So there were all these things. Like in the workplace, you know, it was secret, you know, you had like confidential programs to ask for support. But even that you had to ask people they knew, like they really knew it wasn’t actually confidential.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:31:58]:
Yeah, yeah. And also when, you know, even now with the EAPs that we’ve got in place in workplaces, they’re reactive, they’re proactive. So people only access them when they’re so far down the path that they seriously need help. Where really what I want people to understand is that you can actually do the work in tiny little steps in really easy, simple, practical ways that can stop you from ever needing that.
Amy Stone [00:32:26]:
Yeah, no. And the. Yes, it’s a whole thing. I can rail on that at least in the mental health system where I am. And also the medical system is also reactive where live. So it’s like you don’t, you can’t, you know, they don’t want to talk to you about what to do to prevent it. They want to talk to you after you’ve broken your leg or after you’ve had a full breakdown. And if you are trying to get somebody’s attention and say, hey, I need support now, it’s really hard. It’s really hard. The system is not actually designed for that. Which sucks in my non professional, non. Nobody should be taking my. It’s not advice, it’s just commentary. I am not qualified to have an opinion. No one should listen to me. All right, so this question has a couple of things, like a couple of parts. So you are strong, capable, you had a high power job, a lot of stress, you were making things happen, doing all the things for all the people. You experienced this like really, really, really immense shift in your life. A physical symptom erupts and you have to deal with it. The, your body says, no, we’re not doing anything else. You’re going through this rebuilding process. What support? I’ve heard you talk about your husband, so I’m betting he’s on the list. But what support did you have in the process? But then the second part of that is Looking back, is there support that you wish that you had had, that you didn’t have?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:33:46]:
I think I was really lucky. The hospital that I went through has a whole, like, holistic. There’s a. There’s a not for profit that sits within the hot with the hospital side by side. And they offer things like Reiki and all sorts of things for free as part of the treatment that you can access afterwards. There was a. There was a counselor there that I could access as well, and she was amazing. She really helped with, you know, John and I, because John’s an engineer, so for him it’s all about the detail. And because I couldn’t cognitively process, I couldn’t. I couldn’t access details to give him. So he was sort of floundering around trying to grab on things that would fix the situation, and it was making it worse because it just wasn’t what I needed. And the counsellor really helped us by just saying, you know, he’s. He’s all about the details. So you have to give him three things that he can just do all the time. And she, and she said, it doesn’t matter how simple those three things are. It’ll be three things that he can do and he doesn’t have to think about it. And he’s not sort of flounding around. He just knows these three things. And so that made a huge difference for us because he could just focus on that. And I knew that I was getting things that I needed, so. So that really helped my animals. So my. I had my cat at the time, you know, she. She was amazing. And really, that was the nucleus of the support that I had. And I didn’t need any more than that because I was. It really was about the basics for me. The basics is what supported me. What, what really helped me was stepping into, like, I would get in the kitchen and I’d be really creative and I would make all sorts of. Sorts of different things, and then John would take them out and give them to people because it was just too much for us. But that was my way of staying connected with the world. So I would make stuff, he would take it out, and it would just be me sending love out to people around me. So that was kind of it for me. I didn’t feel like I needed anything more than that. I had. You know, we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. So, you know, I could go for walks in nature and I could go for walks at the beach really easily. And so I had that nature Support. And I would sort of delve into different meditations and those sorts of things at the same time as well. So for me, that was perfect. For me, that really provided a solid platform for the work that I needed to do. Anything more than that would have been really distracting for me, I think, for the depth of the work I needed to do.
Amy Stone [00:36:20]:
I can understand that. Okay, so we talked about earlier that I used the word self awareness to describe kind of what you were doing. But it sounds also like. And it makes sense that you, you were really creating and stepping into and dealing with an identity shift. So your concept of self when you saw yourself in the mirror and what does it mean if I have this scar on my head? And then identity tied very deeply to self worth, like, am I worthy of. Of the life that I have? Am I worthy of the love of other people? Does that sound right?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:37:00]:
Yes. But I think really what I see it as is really coming home and a reclaiming. Reclaiming me because I had, you know, I’d almost created three different versions of myself. And this is something I talk about in one of my books. There was prominent work, Bronwen at home, and then there was Bronwena. And Bronwena was the social party, entertain everyone.
Amy Stone [00:37:23]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:37:24]:
You know, Bronwen at work had a different surname to Bronwen at home. And it got so complex. The girls at work used to put things under my nose to be signed and they’d have to remind me who I was because, you know, if I was traveling, for example, I had to do that under my legal name. But for work, I had an identity before I got married. And so I kept that. And then it just was so difficult, you know, they, they’d have, you know, I would travel and the, the travel had been paid for by another organization and I was going to a conference or something and I’d get there and they’d have it under Brahman Parsons, but my. All my identifications under Brahma Sciortino. And I’d turn up and I couldn’t prove who I was, so I had to pull out a business card. And then they’d be like, well, I don’t know if we can accept that. And so it was so complex, you know, I really lost who I was in the process of being what everyone expect, what I thought everyone expected me to be. And so really the process that I went through was about reclaiming me and actually being able to really step into who I am and really own the perfection of who I am as an individual. You know, and that bio individuality and what I need for me to be okay on an ongoing basis and how I can create that platform and that structure that really holds my life up no matter what’s going on.
Amy Stone [00:38:46]:
All right, so when you talk about reclaiming, you had created these multiple adult identities. So is it reclaimed? Was it, was it reclaiming a younger version of yourself or reclaiming the version of yourself that had aged where you are now?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:39:04]:
I think it’s just the truth of who I am.
Amy Stone [00:39:06]:
The truth of who you are. All right, so because they use that like we use this like reclaiming for like a lot of mid mid life type stuff and it’s like confusing because it’s like, well, I’m not actually. I don’t want to be the person I was when I was 25.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:39:19]:
No, that’s right. But there’s a truth of who you are.
Amy Stone [00:39:22]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:39:23]:
And there’s an alignment that goes with that. When you align the truth of who you are to the way that you live your life and the choices that you make for your life and the things that you do and the way that you are in life, there’s. That’s, that to me is really reclaiming you as opposed to going and saying, I want to be 25 again or. It’s not about that. It’s just about really 100 knowing who you are and really consciously moving through life in a way that’s aligned with that.
Amy Stone [00:39:51]:
I get it. All right, so one more question and then we’ll get move through to the final questions. Okay, so this event that happened to you with the diagnosis and the surgery, that’s a giant event. Sometimes people look back and they can see that there were other life events trying to get their attention beforehand. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that. This does fall into the woo spectrum of like things that can happen. So people will be like, now I can see that there were signs. If you ignore the signs, you get like, you know, progressively tougher. Do you have that when you look back now? Can you see that there were things that, that were maybe signs that you were off in a non aligned direction for your life?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:40:31]:
Oh, there’s so many.
Amy Stone [00:40:32]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:40:33]:
So many. You know, I was constantly in pain, okay. Physical pain. I was always exhausted. I could never sleep. I ended up having double knee surgery. I mean, I literally couldn’t walk, I couldn’t move forward. You know, I had to have double knee surgery to realign my knees. And you know, if that’s not a signal that things need realigning nothing is. You know, there’s so many different things that I could tell you that were signs. But one of the big ones was I remember I used to always think multiple times a day it must be easier to just go and sit on a banana lounge in one of the mental health clinics and just be drugged into oblivion. I used to think that multiple times a day because life was just so hard and I was so tired and I just did not know how I was going to keep going.
Amy Stone [00:41:24]:
Wow.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:41:25]:
Many things that you just go, yeah, but I’m strong and I have to keep moving and I’ve got so many things that I have to do for everybody else. I can just. I’ll deal with all that later, you know, and. And John came up with the most brilliant line and he just goes, yeah, but later’s a lie. Later never happens, you know. And so I use that all the time now. I just go, yeah, later is such a lie. We never get to it. We just always push it to the bottom of. I’ll deal with that later, you know. So, yeah, I just, I absolutely believe that there are just signals and we just don’t listen.
Amy Stone [00:41:56]:
Yeah. And I ask about that not to like put any judgment on missing them because I do think that they are much easier to see in the rearview mirror after you’re looking for them. And, you know, we all miss them all the time. Sometimes if we’re lucky enough, somebody else will call, will reflect it back to us and bring our attention before something goes really dramatically wrong. But I think that very easy and human to miss them and so no judgment there. All right, so I want to give you a chance to tell people about what you do. You’ve mentioned your books, but tell people what you do and how you want them to connect with you after they hear the show.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:42:40]:
Yep. So on a day to day basis, I’ve got my books that I’ve written and there’s four of them. I also write for Forbes. I’m a member of the Coach Forbes Coaches Council. So I write regularly for them. I write for Brains magazine, for the industry leaders and also often the interviews for the, the Authority magazine. So I’m always putting stuff out into, you know, the, the world that people can access really easily. And the easiest way to access is that, you know, through socials, so LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram are my primary ones. And I also have an email that I send out a couple of times a week that’s just got like Monday motivations and just some little things because around perspective and different Perspectives and ways to think about things a little bit differently so that you can start to really open up how you see the world and start to think about things from a different angle. Find simple little steps forwards that can really make a difference in life. I also do some exec coaching and just do little different levels of that. So the, you know, sort of the, the reset session that we will talk about in a minute but also sort of 6 month and 12 month programs with individuals as well. And I do a little bit of consulting work with organizations to help them to actually start to really work with their people in a different way as well.
Amy Stone [00:44:15]:
Right. Because the, there is some truth to the fact that the, these there can be, if anybody’s ever worked for a startup, like there can be conditions that are conducive to like there’s just a never ending amount of work and you know, people, people can be pushed pretty far. All right, so Nate, you do have a special offer for the audience. I’m going to share it. You call it the reset session. It’s a one hour reset session to help you pause, reflect and take the first step towards a life that feels clearer, lighter and right for you. Value of the product offered $597. Is that, is there a currency that, is that US dollars or Australian dollars? That’s Australian dollars. Okay, so for. People are on their own for this conversion, but Australian dollars special offer 400. 400 Australian dollar coupon it’s with the link and so there’s a link in the show notes wherever you’re listening to watching this that you can apply the coupon. And the easiest way to get these links is always to be subscribed to the imperfect adulting email list because then it just comes right to your email box and right from within your email. It’s so easy. I highly recommend it. It’s a great place to be. Bronwen, I want to thank you very much for that very generous offer. Are you ready for my three final questions?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:45:30]:
Can’t wait.
Amy Stone [00:45:33]:
I love these. All right, so I write these before I talk to people and I don’t know. So I wrote I don’t know if you like the outdoors, but now I know that you do like the outdoors. What is your favorite outdoorsy activity?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:45:44]:
Oh, I like so many. Like going for a walk, walking at the beach, walking in the water, at the beach, going for a bike ride. Just sitting, just sitting under a tree is amazing. Going for hikes, like I love them all. I’m an outdoorsy person.
Amy Stone [00:45:58]:
All right, very good. Okay. So you write books. Do you also read or listen to books? And if so, do you want to share a recent book that you’ve read?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:46:07]:
I, over the years, have been an avid reader, and I’m got a bit of an acclaim Eclectic Soul. So I love reading all different, you know, industry spectrums, focuses. I haven’t read a lot recently because I’ve been struggling a little bit with chronic fatigue. So the concentration of reading a book hasn’t really worked all that well. Probably one of my favorite books is Outliers.
Amy Stone [00:46:36]:
Oh. By Malcolm Glabel.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:46:38]:
Yep. I love Mistakes Were Made, but not by Me.
Amy Stone [00:46:42]:
Okay.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:46:43]:
And also, the Soul of Money was a really interesting read as well.
Amy Stone [00:46:47]:
Very nice. Very, very nice. All right, this one’s more fun. Okay. If you won a $10,000 gift card, you can do it in your currency of choice, but you can only spend it. These are the rules for the gift card. You have to spend it in one place and all at one time. So it is one store, but it doesn’t need to be a. A brick and mortar store. It can be like an online store. So where would you go for this spending spree?
Bronwen Sciortino [00:47:11]:
I’d donate it.
Amy Stone [00:47:12]:
Oh, all right. To anything in particular.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:47:16]:
I’d use it to help probably women access something that they needed for education or something like that, so. Or there’s an organization that I do a lot of work that does a lot of, you know, backpacks for kids going to school so that they’ve got, you know, a new backpack and they’ve got all the books and pens and texters and whatever else that they need so that they’re not disadvantaged when they go to school. So I’d probably spend it towards something like that.
Amy Stone [00:47:45]:
Brilliant answer. That’s it. Bronwen Sortino, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today on the Art of Imperfect Adulting.
Bronwen Sciortino [00:47:54]:
Thanks so much for having me, Amy. I’ve loved our chat.