Sarah Yovovich: Healing Burnout from Emotional Abuse with Five Element Wisdom and Strong Boundaries

“Part of the empowerment is recognizing that the things that you’re weak in are actually just the flip side of your strengths,” explains Sarah Yovovich, teacher writer and body worker, who joins FRIED to discuss the kind of burnout which results from emotional abuse. The same emotional intuition that kept her empathizing with her abuser makes her a profound healer, deeply tuned into her clients’ emotional, physical and energetic layers through Thai massage--a meditation on loving kindness. Today, she speaks to Sarah Vosen about the five elements of Chinese medicine, how they changed her life and helped her heal from burnout.

They also make her feel more connected to all elements of the world around her, a concept with which Sarah Jovovich, in turn, empowers her clients. She discusses the importance of community supporting each other and working in tandem. She also explains how she learned to set boundaries, for others’ benefit as much as her own.

Join the two friends in a discussion about healing and empowerment, the pitfalls of being a “terminal optimist” and why abuse is like an expressway.

Quotes

• “The way my sister put it was that when you live by an expressway you get used to the noise and the pollution and you don’t realize how much it’s wearing you down until you step away from it. And the stepping away from it was really difficult in this case because the expressway was my co-parent and my roommate in a very expensive city.” (10:22 | Sarah Yovovich)
• “When you’re in an abusive relationship, your nervous system is constantly being attacked. You’re in fight, flight, freeze or fawn all the time. If you’re living with somebody who’s being abusive of you, you never relax, and so your body starts to wear out from that.” (12:28 | Sarah Yovovich)
• “It allows me to recognize just how much I am a part of everything that happens all around me—of the seasons, of the planet, of the flow of energies in the universe, and to create stories around that that help me make sense of my life and my experiences. It’s also been really empowering in my healing work as a way to help other people make sense of what they’re feeling in their bodies and not feel like they’re at the whim of some tyrant body that’s misbehaving, but start to put together authority… to see how all these things are connected and work with them instead of against them.” (27:25 | Sarah Yovovich)
• “That’s actually part of the empowerment is recognizing that the things that you’re weak in are not something to beat yourself up about. It’s actually just the flip side of your strength and that there are four other kinds of elements who have the strengths that you don’t have that are probably part of your community and you can support each other. It just proves to me we’re meant to work together.” (39:17 | Sarah Yovovich and Sarah Vosen)

Links

Connect with Sarah Yovovich:

https://www.sarahpeutics.org

https://instagram.com/acro.mama

www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-yovovich-2124b07

https://sarahpeutics.mn.co/plans/52216?bundle_token=62c36ddc4adc3001097cd7c8962de3f4&utm_source=manual

Connect with Cait:

Cait Donovan is a keynote speaker, author, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast, specializing in burnout, mis/match, and sustainable performance at work. She partners with corporate leaders, teams, and professional associations through keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions that treat burnout as data, not failure, to help organizations reduce burnout without blame or shame and build healthier, high performing cultures.

To bring Cait to your organization or event, book an inquiry call here: https://bit.ly/bookcait

Learn more about Cait’s speaking work: https://www.caitdonovan.com/speaking

Short on time? Watch this 3-min video: https://bit.ly/caitdreel2025

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