The emPOWERed Half Hour

Dysregulation, Burnout, and the Pyramid of Unpotential

• Becca Powers • Season 1 • Episode 98

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In this solo episode, I introduce the core theme for the year ahead and explain how dysregulated nervous systems create dysfunctional results in our lives, leadership, teams, and families. This year, I’m bringing more science, frameworks, and practical tools to help you regulate your nervous system so you can lead and live more effectively.


Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

  • Why dysregulated people live dysregulated lives and leaders run dysregulated teams
  • How burnout quietly begins with feeling unseen, unheard, or undervalued
  • Why overworking is often a sign of unmet emotional needs

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Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Dysregulated people live dysregulated lives and dysregulated leaders. Well, they run dysregulated teams There. I said it. Welcome to the Empowered Half Hour. This is the first show of 2026. I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited to be broadcasting and, Well, this year I wanna talk a whole lot about dysregulation and regulation.

In the years that I have been doing this work, I have approached conversations from place of empowerment, right? This is the empowered half hour, and we've done that through multiple conversations, whether it's overcoming obstacles or moving through trials to triumphs. Gosh, I've had so many different types of conversations happen.

but when it comes down to it, it's about the nervous system. Is your nervous system dysregulated or is it regulated because dysregulated nervous systems create dysfunctional results? That's just how it goes. And in life and leadership, I think it's really helpful to start putting like the science behind it and really.

Putting together the frameworks and the tools for you guys to be able to help regulate yourselves, regulate yourself as a leader, lead better in your homes, and lead better in your families. And so I am just a nervous system nerd as you guys have known through the years of hearing this podcast. But this year, this year, I am putting the flag in the sand and I wanna talk about.

The conversations that are presented to you guys this year, whether I'm having a solo episode like today, or whether I'm having my business partner on Linnae, and she was a former guest. You may have, listened to her episode, which was about the power of and, and, we do a lot of training and coaching and, we certify leaders and trauma-informed leadership.

So we do a lot and there's a lot of conversations and a lot of things. We see that in the type of episodes I've brought to you where I'm only doing guest interviews. I don't get to talk about all the nerdy stuff that can change. Your leadership style, your life, your results. gosh, it's just so amazing.

So I'm gonna nerd out this year and you guys are gonna get to be a part of that. like I said, this year you're gonna hear more solo episodes from me. You're gonna have, more conversations with Lyne and I, which we will Hey girl. Hay in it is what I was gonna say. But we will be, we have, a great dynamic and so I'm sure you guys will get a kick out of some of the conversations plus get in credible content, but they should be fun to listen to.

And then of course, I'm gonna continue to bring you top-notch guests and this year you can expect the conversations to be centered around regulation. I've already hit that. Radiance I talk about a lot. I mean, I wrote a Return to Radiance, so it's kind of like my jam. And then, revived. This is the empowered half hour.

And you know, we have had a lot of conversations around burnout and recovering from that. And this year I really wanna, again, focus through the lens of leadership too, because whether we are leading a team in. Corporate America or in the business world or you know, maybe at a place that we volunteer or we're leading our families, right?

We might have, we might be caretaking, we might be raising a family, and heck, at the end of the day, we're leading ourselves. I kind of wrote the book, harness your inner CEO, right? So, some way or another you're leading. So we're gonna start. Pulling the content through the lens of leading yourself leading your teams.

So, if you are in the business world, which a lot of you and most of you are, you'll start to get some really good tips around how to lead more efficiently and again, life and business. So I'm excited to bring that forward for you and, You know, I'm gonna be sharing a lot of things with you. So I've talked in the past about the, pyramid of UN Potential, which has, ways that you can unwind from burnout, and I'll talk a little bit about that again today just so that we can start the new year off. If you are in burnout, I want you to be able to recognize it. If you're a leader, I want you not only to recognize it in yourself, but be able to recognize it in other people. so that's the first thing we're gonna work on.

But as we progress these conversations, the solo ones and the ones with Lenae and I, we're gonna start bringing you through some of our frameworks so we have. The seven principles of trauma-informed leadership. We have the 13 domains of trauma-informed coaching. So we will have conversations around these things, but the goal is by the end of the year to provide you with some expertise, some things you may not have known, and some perspectives that, quite frankly, I hope they're life altering.

So that brings me to, today I wanna talk about the pyramid of un potential. So you guys may have heard me talk about, on some of the prior episodes, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. So there's five levels that, Maslow said a human needs to, obtain in order to hit self realization or your true potential, or, so many different words used for it, but he uses the word self-actualization and.

these levels need to be hit in order for that to be able to happen. So you have to have your basic needs, met, like food, shelter, stuff like that. And then you need to feel, so, you need your security needs met, you need your safety needs met. Like you need to feel emotionally, safe and you know, clear of threats.

And then you need to have your belonging needs. Like, you know, you're part of a family, part of community, part of a workforce. then once you get that, then your self-esteem needs need to be met. And that comes from accomplishing goals and, using your skills and your strengths and your talents. And I talk a lot about that stuff.

So I love Maslow's hierarchy. And then at the tippy, tippy, top of the pyramid is, self-actualization, where you are in the fullness of your potential and your peak potential. And then I talk about the opposite of that, right? Like, oh, that's all wonderful. I love talking about how to get to the top of the pyramid, the self-actualization, and then I have the power method, which you guys are a little familiar with, but that's another framework that we're gonna bring you this year talk a lot more about.

but as we kick off any of the frameworks, I like to focus on the pyramid of UN potential, which is the. Upside down, and it's, if you guys watch Stranger Things, you know it's the upside down. So it's the upside down version of Maslow's Hierarchy. And, there's five levels to it as well. And there is like a root place where burnout starts.

So I'm gonna walk you through where burnout starts and where your un potential gets. Stuck and you go deeper into your own potential instead of deeper into your potential, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And then we're gonna walk all the way through it. And I like you at the end of this conversation to do a self-assessment to see where you're at.

And then if you lead a team, maybe. You wanna see if there's any of this going on in your team. So let's start this off. how does someone even start to get stuck in their own potential? Or where does burnout take root? Well, you remember just previous in the conversation I was saying, part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is that you need to have, you know, a roof over your head and you need to feel emotionally safe, right?

Those are the first two levels. That's kind of where things can go wonky. So in, I would say for most of the people listening to this, podcast, we have a roof over our head and we have a job. so level one is secure, but if we feel our job is threatened, it's gonna cause issues in that first bucket.

And we also need to have that emotional security. So the very, very first thing, the root problem to burnout or where it starts is, burnout is actually a symptom of dysregulation. So that's where I started the conversation. But where the seed gets planted. For all this dysfunction is what I call the uns.

It's when we, either at home or at work, or if you're a leader and you're looking at this from the perspective of your employee, it's where someone would feel unseen, unheard, unloved, unwanted, unimportant. You can put the UN in front of it. and try to determine what need is not being met.

But let's just say for an example, someone's not feeling, important at work. Maybe there's, you know, someone else that is the go-to person at work for an example, I'm gonna call her Stevie Nicks with a X, but it makes Stevie, I love Stevie Nicks. So we're just gonna use that.

we're, it makes Stevie feel unimportant and if it's just a day, Stevie's gonna shrug it off, right? But if, when things become weekly and then monthly, that feeling of feeling unimportant is going to turn into level one of, The pyramid of on potential, which is the, I call it, stage one of burnout it's called the unders.

And so Stevie's gonna start feeling, undervalued, maybe underappreciated, maybe under recognized heck, she could be getting underpaid. And you start adding these things up and it causes a lot of angst, but. If all of this has just started and say, within Stevie, it's only been going on for a couple weeks, she may not even be aware that all of this is really how she's feeling.

She's more confused and just maybe kind of pissed off a little bit. Right. so when that happens, so we just talked about like the seeds of burnout. Where does it start? And, it activates level one. stage one of burnout. Level one of the pyramid. Same. Same. And that's the unders. And when someone feels the unders, they're going to start They're going to start overworking, overstressing over. Analyzing. Overthinking. Overcommitting. Overextending. Um. Overloading their work like overloaded, and eventually they get over it. there's, you can be, as a leader, if you are looking at this through the lens of a leader and you're looking at your team, you can also notice signs of like maybe over-reporting or, over speaking or oversharing.

that's a sign that someone's foundation is rattled and. I'm gonna share the other three, the other three levels here in a second. But if you master the unders, the overs, and the uns, you will keep yourself and or your team and family out of burnout. cause if you can recognize the overs in yourself, Hey, I'm overdoing it right now.

I'm overworking, I'm overcommitting, I'm like all over the place. Why am I doing that? Oh crap. I feel undervalued at work, so it's making me prove that I'm valuable. And I'm gonna pause real fast just to teach a little bit more in this intersection. So. When someone feels undervalued for an example, they will.

Then, from a psychology standpoint, when anybody feels an under, when I feel an under, when anyone feels an under, they're going to overcompensate. So let's just say Stevie's at work and all the attention is going to Samantha. And so she's feeling unimportant, unseen, undervalued, all of those things.

And, she starts overworking and doing this. The reason she's doing that is because she's trying to prove that she's valuable, right? She's trying to prove that like, Hey, I'm worthy of the attention and. If the overs are caught, if Stevie catches them in herself or her leader's like, oh my gosh, Stevie's overing.

Like, let me pull her aside and kind of just figure out what's going on. And then if Stevie starts talking and saying, you know, you're giving Samantha all this attention and. Which is fine. I know she's great and blah, blah, blah, but I have so much to offer and I don't feel like I'm tapping into my skillset and I don't feel like I'm tapping into my strengths as a leader, you can be like, that's great.

I'm so glad we had this conversation. I don't wanna see you spiral out. I actually do value you a lot. I just thought you were good. It could just be an honest like, mistake, but like, An honest miss because in business there, our attention's going so many different directions.

but if you're a leader again in your household or in business and you're paying attention to the overs, you can catch your employees. Before there's a real problem, and if you can catch it in yourself, then you can pull yourself out of burnout without going into the next phases, because then it gets pretty tough.

 So let's just pretend that, Stevie's overs are unaddressed and she is still continuing on. After a while, Stevie's gonna go into level three, which is questioning, belonging. Again. If we're relating it to burnout, then it would be stage three burnout, which is questioning your belonging. The narrative in your head starts going like.

Speaker: Should I stay or should I go? Should I stay or should I go? I would think of the class song like, should I stay or should I go now? Like if you start hearing that in your head, then you know you're in stage three. You've bypassed, You're overs, you haven't unpacked what's really happening. So you're unaware that you're actually feeling undervalued or unimportant.

and there's no plan in place to resolve that. So then you start questioning your belonging. At this stage, most people, especially when it's tied to work, they don't, have the agency to. Leave or to have the courage to have a conversation, and I'll tell you why. ' cause it goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of need.

When there's money attached, the fear of having a conversation is attached to losing the job. And it that makes someone's security gets shaken and then they start thinking they can't put a roof over their head and voila. You stay stuck in a situation that isn't aligned to your highest good, right? And, it's so important to be in spaces where you feel you belong.

'cause then again, as we. Pivot back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You're gonna be able to be like, oh my gosh, I belong here. This is so great. I can accomplish my goals, which is the fourth level of self-esteem. And oh my God, I'm accomplishing my goals. Look at this. I found out who I really am. I'm contributing at the highest level that I can.

I feel fulfilled. I feel joy. My relationships are great. That's not what's happening. When we start questioning our belonging and we stay stuck. So what happens next? Like, oh, let's just say Stevie is like, oh man, I don't wanna have a conversation with my boss. What if they fired me? I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut.

And at that point. She's moving to level four of her UN potential, which is disharmony of the bodies or stage five of burnout or stage four of burnout, disharmony in the bodies, and you'll find this harmony in your physical body. Your mental body, emotional body, spiritual body and financial body. It could be all five, it could be one, it could be multiple.

It's your job to do the exploration. I remember, before I had, you know, you guys have listened, heard me talk about the my bathroom floor moment. Many times. And, but if I'm thinking about, and I was in stage five burnout. I was in stage five at level five of my own potential when I hit the bathroom floor.

So you're gonna see this progression go, but if I'm really getting real with myself, I was questioning my belonging six months into the three year job that I had, and I stayed and I pushed through. But a year into it I started getting, Like this, nervous, it's not a nervous system.

A hook, like a pain hook that went behind my left ear and hooked, below my shoulder blade and came out to the front. And I said for years that I did that at the gym, but I didn't. It was stress, right? So. That's what I'm saying in disharmony of the body is you could be clenching your teeth, you could be getting migraines, you can be getting like stress, related pain in your back and your shoulders and your lower back.

so many physical things happen. Joint pain, like. So many things happen. but if you start paying attention to those type of things, you might be like, oh my God, I did start clenching my jaw, like clenching my teeth or grinding my teeth at night a couple months ago, but I didn't think I was that stressed.

You know, we rationalize a lot of things, so, Anyhow, you'll find physical discomfort. You'll find, you know, mental and emotional disharmony. You start feeling very overwhelmed. Anxiety starts, stress starts. You are having, problems being emotionally stable and or like even emotionally present.

Like that's the one thing that burnout or unpotential robs from you is your presence. Man, that's I remember being there, but not being there. And that's kind of what's going on in disharmony in the bodies. as women, specifically men, you're a little more lucky, but this happens in men too. disharmony in our finances start to happen because guess what we do as women, we go to shop therapy, you know, we're like, we're gonna start shopping.

We start building debt it's kind of funny, but also unfortunately true. And, we'll also start to see spiritual disharmony. We'll start to lose hope. We start feeling like this is happening to us, and we can't get out of it. So we start losing hope, and faith. And that's really dangerous because those are really important things just in life to have and have a belief that things are gonna work out for you.

so when your beliefs start to get rattled, it's really not a good spot. but let's just say that Stevie was feeling all those things and she was shopping and she was feeling starting to lose hope, and she's like, I'm just gonna deal with this and I'm just gonna, like, bear down and, do what I gotta do.

I can't lose my jobs. you start losing, your ability to have healthy solutions and think outside the box by the time you're getting stuck and questioning your belonging. So again, if you can catch stuff in the overs, you can solve things really, really quickly and before they get hard.

but let's just say that she, Stevie stayed stuck and she then, Goes into level five of UN potential or stage five of burnout, which is devastation of the ds. Listen guys, I'm gonna be straight up with you. This is where freaking chaos happens. When I opened this up and said, dysregulated people live dysregulated lives and dysregulated leaders run dysregulated teams, like there is no way you can get good results when you're living in.

Stage five and people do for a really long time. I did. And it took me a long time, two years to clean up my life. So, you know what happens in stage five is disease. I ended up getting autoimmune disease, but in working professionals, cancers up, heart, diseases up, autoimmune is up, way up in women, specifically, but up in men too.

And so all these diseases. Are becoming much more, present. you know, youi can even call, whether you wanna call it, I call it like drinking and drugs as far as listing the ds. But that's a disease too. A lot of people are turning to alcohol to cope with the pain. This is leading to a lot of prescription use, prescription drug usage. And not necessarily like, in an illegal way or anything, but people are medicated because another big one is depression. We start getting into major depression in level five. So we're using medicine to cope with the anxiety, to cope with the stress, to cope with the depression.

And really it's because we've allowed ourselves to get into this horrible, dysregulated state. So. more Ds are divorced. You'll see a lot of divorces happen, whether they're divorcing their job or divorcing, a spouse. You'll see. Big, big changes. Big changes. As a result of things kind of falling apart, you'll see a lot of disconnected relationships.

people may have lost their presence as I was talking about. So they have dysregulated and, disconnected relationships with loved. So there's just so much that happens in the devastation of the ds, but it takes a long time to clean it up. And in my case, like I got, my marriage was on the edge of divorce.

thankfully, like that was eight, nine years ago. Still married, so I made it through that. But, I had 40, $50,000 worth of debt I had to pay off. That took years. I gained. So gaining weight is happens too, but I gained weight. I had another debt, right? I had to learn how to lose that, autoimmune disease.

That was awful. That took two or three years. Lots of supplements, lots of pain, lots of learning and discovery and slowing down, which I wasn't very good at. And, I disconnected relationships with my kids. So I had to rebuild those. I mean, my whole life was. A damn disaster that needed to get rebuilt.

So, using myself as an example guys. Pay attention to this stuff when it's in the overs because although I don't regret my experience for the world, it led me to everything that I'm doing and is why I am super passionate about it. And so I do say that if you're listening to this and you're like, crap, I'm in one of those really rough spaces, know that you can get through it and know that there is a reason, some reason that you're going through it.

There is a reason, that you're going through and that you'll learn something. There's a gift in just about everything. Once enough time passes, like sometimes it's not right away because what we're going through is really terrible. but a gift normally does present itself at some point.

So chin up if you're really going through it. If you're in devastation of the D is, start reaching out for help. Get a therapist. Go. Grab a friend, like get it off your chest. Just say the truth, like, this sucks. This is what I'm going through. I don't even have any answers of how to solve it. Go to your boss if you are the boss, you know, maybe you need to do some honest self-reflection and go to your boss.

so you know, if you're in a spot of devastation with the des, you need help. So I just wanna say that as a responsible practitioner on this side, if you're listening to this and you're in devastation of the ds, you need help. If you're in disharmony of the bodies, I would also reach out for help, whether that's, again, like therapist or you're starting to go to the doctor to help the pain.

If you're experiencing like muscle pains or emotional pain or whatever it is, you know, four and five is really where you need to build professional support. three and below, questioning, belonging. you're in a real good place to get on track. That's a great place to have a mentor or a friend, to come in and just help you, you know, work through your thoughts.

if you have a trusted advisor, whoever that might be, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's, you know, someone at work. and then the overs, again, if you're a leader. I want you paying attention to the overs in your team and maybe right now kind of think, Hey, is anyone overing? maybe they're not.

Okay. Maybe you need to have a conversation. You can be like, Hey, I listened to this podcast and. It made me think that I've been watching you over work for the last two or three weeks. Is everything okay? or if that's yourself, then maybe have a conversation with yourself like, am I feeling unimportant or am I feeling undervalued, underappreciated, or under recognized anywhere in my life, at home or at work?

Hmm, yes I am. Who is it? Like who is it and why is it? And what am I feeling? Oh my God, I'm feeling unimportant and it's my boss that's making me feel this way. Well, your boss really isn't making you feel this way, but it's that, thought of like, Hey, all that attention is going to Samantha, and it's making me feel this way.

So just kind of taking ownership and awareness to where you are that my friends. Is wrapping us up to about this 30 minute mark. So again, I wanted to talk to you straight out of the gates about regulation dysregulation, the pyramid of un potential. The conversations that are gonna come, the guests are gonna be great this year.

The solo episodes are gonna be. Kind of meaty like this. The episodes with nne are gonna be very meaty with good, good content too. But we'll also probably have a lot of laughs and, it'll be a good time. We're gonna have a great time this year. And I just, again, wanna thank you for your listenership Out, look at this stuff. Where are you overing and where are, people in your life, overing? And, I'll catch you next time.