92. Tired of Being Tired? Here’s How to Feel Inspired Again | My Conversation with Dr. Deonne

Ever feel like you’re doing everything right but still running on empty? 

In this episode, I sit down with transformational coach and author Dr. Deonne Johnson to talk about what happens when you’ve hit emotional burnout and how to find your spark again. We dig into her powerful “Bloomprint” framework, what it really means to take off the Wonder Woman cape, and how to reconnect with yourself (and your relationships) after exhaustion, disappointment, or loss. You’ll walk away with practical steps to feel grounded, re-energized, and inspired again—from the inside out.

You might want to listen if:
• You’re feeling emotionally drained or disconnected in your relationships
• You’ve been over-functioning, people-pleasing, or carrying the emotional load
• You’re craving structure and calm after a season of chaos
• You want to learn how to create space for yourself without guilt
• You’re ready to swap burnout for balance and start feeling inspired again

About Our Guest:
Dr. Deonne Johnson is a transformational coach, speaker, and author of From Tired to Inspired: A Soulful Guide to Reclaim Your Energy, Joy, and Purpose. She helps women move from burnout to inspired living through her membership, workshops and transformational retreats. Known for her warmth, wisdom, and heart-centered approach, Dr. Deonne guides others to reconnect with themselves, their purpose, and what truly matters.

Grab your Copy of From Tired to Inspired

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DISCLAIMER: Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health professionals for specific concerns. Client opinions do not reflect Speak Honest’s stance. We aim for accuracy but are not liable for errors or outcomes from ...

Chapters

• 0:02 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:28 Why Burnout Hits High-Achieving Women
• 4:11 Making Complex Change Simple With Structure
• 6:25 The Power Of Writing And Bullet Journals
• 9:10 Future Self Letters And Inner Wisdom
• 11:04 Rethinking Menopause As A Gift
• 12:11 Coming Back To Yourself Under Pressure
• 16:56 Life Audit And Values-Led Choices
• 17:59 From Burnout To Boundaries At Work
• 19:19 Attachment Styles And Compatibility
• 22:07 When Healing Means Walking Away
• 26:24 Letting Go Without Making Villains
• 28:03 Compassion Practices For Closure
• 31:12 Closing Reflections And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. I'm Jen Noble, your go-to relationship coach. And on today's episode, I am so excited to have a special guest on with us. This is Dr. Dion Johnson, someone I consider not only a colleague, but a good friend of mine. She is a transformational coach, speaker, and author of the most fabulous book called From Tired to No, let me do that again. Sorry. And she is the author of the most wonderful book called From Spy. Oh my God, this is gonna happen today. I've had a long day, Dion. And she is the author of the most fabulous book, From Tired to Inspired, a soulful guide to reclaim your energy, joy, and purpose. Dr. Dion helps women move from burnout to inspired living through her membership programs, her workshops, and her transformational retreats. She is known for her warmth, her wisdom, and her heart-centered approach. She guides women to reconnect with themselves, their purpose, and what truly matters. And I am so honored today to have Dr. Dion on the show with us today. Dr. Dion, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Yes, that's right. We're both authors with Lucky Book Publishing. As very many people know, I've had a lot of people on the show lately with Lucky Book Publishing. These are all just becoming my besties. That's why I have to have them all on. In fact, Dion and I will both be at the LA event in November that I have been talking about for so long. I cannot wait to see you in person and just give you the biggest, tightest hug of all time. And you and I have conversations, you know, on the side all the time. So I thought, what a perfect opportunity to get you to come on the show, come on here and talk to women. Because something it is that you deal with a lot is burnout, right? Tell me a little bit about your own story with that. Okay, great. So I had to go look that up because I was like, what the hell is instructional design? What is this? Can you actually just explain it to us a little bit about what it is that that is? So tell us a little bit about it. Listen, I'm a structure girly at heart. I need structure, I need ideas, and the thing is a scaffolding that'll make total sense to all of the ladies, at least in my membership program, because I say that all the time. My 12-step program in order to become secure and learn how to confidently communicate, is all based on a 12-step scaffolding section. And so when I open up your book and I'm looking through it, I'm reading it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is so easy to understand. This isn't, this isn't all over the place. And like, oh, um, listen, I get it. I have ADHD. I'm all over the place. This is why I like structure. But other books I read sometimes are they're just all over the place and I don't know where to start, where to begin, or nothing draws me into know how to keep going. But your book, it's so special in that way where you're very intentional. You're very intentional about here's this chapter and here's why. And yeah, one of the really coolest things about your book is the bullet journal. I mean, it's so much more than just a book, it's essentially a journal you can use after each chapter or each section to go through and be able to write or, like you said, draw or just doodle your thoughts because it's so important. Ladies, if you are listening right now, come back to me real quick because our written word, our written ideas, our hand to our mind to hand to paper connection is actually incredibly important for our neuroplasticity. It teaches our brain and our body things that typing unfortunately doesn't do. Don't get me wrong, I'm still down for like a notes app in my phone that I keep my journal in and things like that. But this is so, so special. So talk me through a little bit why did you want to add the bullet journals to your book? No way, that's fantastic. Oh my goodness. For anyone listening, she is just opening up her bullet journal, and it is beautiful. Look at you. And this is coming from like your 83-year-old self. Like your 83-year-old self is asking you, it's saying, Dear Dion, that's beautiful because there's so many times, oftentimes, like with the work I do with my clients where we go back in time, right? You know me, I work with attachment styles, and we'll talk on that in just a second. But we go back in time, we heal our inner child or our inner teenager, even our inner 20-something-year-old girl, you know, that's out there clubbing all the time or whatnot, or maybe she wanted to and she didn't get a chance to. And we talk to her as our like 40-year-old self. So what a beautiful opportunity we can have to jump forward and do it in the other direction and have our 80-year-old self looking back on us and say, Hey, dear one, you know, this is like, what would I like you to know? Or, hey, how, you know, this is what we need to be doing today to get where you where you want to go. And I think that's beautiful. Wait, are you sitting here telling me menopause is a blessing? Because I am gonna struggle to have to understand that, but I think you might be right. This is mind blowing right now. It is, it's like it's like our gift, isn't it? As women going into our prime. I'm I know right now I'm paramenopausal. I know so many of my listeners are, and I know there's women in my program that have completely been through menopause and they've gone on to the other side. And it is, it's it's a bitch right now, sometimes. Yeah, and it's difficult and it's hard, but also you're right. Otherwise, what's the alternative? We would be getting pregnant, and some mammals do get pregnant all the way up until the time they're done. And yet we get this gift to to kind of come back to ourselves as this quote unquote middle-aged woman figuring out ourselves, but it's this beautiful opportunity in our lives to to make ourselves in a way where we get to be in alignment with what we've always wanted to be, right? And I know one of the things that you talk a lot about is reconnecting with yourself, is being able to slow down and really get to that place where you are inspired. And so let's say there's a woman out there right now and she's perimenopausal, she's 45 years old, she's listening, and she's like, I am just fucking done. There's just I have too much on my plate, my kids are like just destroying the house, my husband isn't helping, my job is a mess. Like, how does she come back to herself? Yeah, grab your book, open it up, let's see. Okay, so let me can you explain it for everyone listening? Okay. No, it's not, but let's put that much effort that we're giving to some making someone else money, and let's put that effort into ourselves for our fulfillment, our satisfaction, our longevity of our own life. You're absolutely correct. In fact, the very first step of my module system with my ladies is we go through, and I have the eight areas of life, very similar. And this exactly, I tell this to people all the time, y'all, we are not creating anything new. We have not reinvented any wheel. We are just taking the knowledge that is already out there. We are on the shoulders of beautiful, great people that have done the research before us, and we are putting it in words where we understand it, especially us women, especially a lot of stuff out there is written by men and they don't quite understand what it is that we're going through. So we have beautiful flowers, you know, we have what great words to help understand for us like legacy, impact. Those words are so emotional. So they're so important to us. And so, yeah, I go through and I have the lady say, like, we just need to do an audit. We just need to be able to see our lives and see, but so many people, it's actually a lot harder than they realize to sit down and be like, oh shit, wait, I don't feel like I am leaving an impact or legacy. And then what do I do with that big emotion? And so I get it, it's difficult, it's hard, but at the same time, it's so necessary. So listen to Dr. Dion and this, you know, grab her book. If what I do isn't resonating, go to Dr. Dion, what she's doing. If what Dr. Dion is doing isn't resonating, go find someone else. But live your life in a way where you're gonna fulfill yourself and be satisfied. As I don't believe in the word happy, that's my big thing. So I always have these other words. I want us to all do that. So, with all of that said, I want to transition slightly, just looking at everything we're talking about, and I want to talk about relationships. You mentioned before that your relationship, one of the things that was the cause of your burnout back, what was it, 13 years ago now or something like that? Um, tell tell me where you are today with all of that. Mm-hmm. Yep. Let's see, let's let let's step, let's uh like uh can we stop down into this a little bit? Would that be okay? Yeah, okay, great. Because this is actually such a good point. First off, I'm very impressed that as an avoidantly attached man, he was the one to tell you about attachment styles. Gosh, is that rare? It's usually the other direction. The anxious person wants to tell the avoidant, look, this is what you are, see why you're the problem. So that was just really like shocking to me that he did that. So I was like, that's cool. I love hearing different experiences because people always come to me like, is this possible? Always. Everything's possible. We're humans, we're not, you know, code. We're not just gonna like be one way all the time. And then yeah, when you're in that space and you guys are getting counseling and you're talking about all this, and he's not able, it's sounding like I'm hearing, he's not able to step up into the leadership role. Is that right? Yeah, and this is why not only are anxiously attached people attracted to avoidantly attached people because they kind of reinforce this wound and this belief that I'm not good enough and you know, I need to earn my worth and all these things on the opposite direction. See how good anxiously attached people are for avoidantly attached people. And right now, let's even just talk about it in terms of men and women. Again, spectrum everywhere, but research does dictate that anxiously attached individuals typically predominantly tend to be women and avoidantly attached tend to be men. We don't know why this is. Personally speaking, my professional personal opinion, it's not biological, it's just how we're raised in a society for emotions and all that stuff. But you see in this moment, he kind of like needed you to be that person, to stay on him, to plan things, to do this kind of stuff. That's why he's attracted to you. But at the same time, oh, it's too much for him, or you're too clingy, or you're too needy, or you expect too much out of him. And it's like, yes, of course you do. You want a relationship. But I bring that up so women can hear themselves in the story to say, look how good you were for him. And at the same time, yeah, unfortunately, sometimes we even when we're healing, we cannot always level up the other person, even though we level up. So, what was that like for you becoming secure and learning? Oh, we're just not compatible. She's good because it's so true. Oftentimes we want to save them, don't we? But that's not our job, unfortunately. It's not our responsibility, and we need to let them figure their shit out. We need to let them, like you said, hit rock bottom. And also, it's really hard. Let's just be very honest about that. It's hard to watch them. Exactly. I would say it's in like an attached way, because yeah, you know, healthy, unhealthy comes with a lot of like connotations, but there's absolutely an attachment wound there of saying, Oh, if he needs me, then he won't leave me, then I'm needed, I'm important, I'm wanted, yeah, all of these things. And that's those wounds often come up in anxiously attached women. It's where we feel like we need to be everything for everyone. I you talk about this in your book, like you said, the Wonder Woman Cape. We have to be all the things all the time. And it's like, no, we shouldn't have to. We should be able to be in a relationship where we can be imperfect. We should not have to carry the weight of the emotional load of this relationship. And that means sometimes the most secure thing I think you did was probably walking away from that relationship. That's the hardest part. That's secure because people say, I'm I'm healing, I'm becoming more secure. But now I kind of see all of his issues. Wait a second, I feel like I'm I'm worse, I feel like I'm avoidant now, I feel like I'm creating problems, and I'm like, no, sweetheart, there was already problems there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and what's often happens in that relationship, and and maybe you can speak on this a little bit, is we stay in these relationships because we think, oh, if I am good enough, he'll change. If I love him enough, if I work hard enough, if I say the right thing, if I just get us the right counselor, he'll change. And then I will get that life I want when I'm eighty-three. And instead, that holds us back, doesn't it? Yeah. This could be a a partner, a husband, a boyfriend. It could also be a family member, a friend. We're not creating them as a villain. We're not putting them down. We're not, you know, listen, I love a good trash talk session with the girls and a glass of wine. We can always have that. But generally speaking, we come back to this moment of it's just we're not right for each other right now. Like he wants something different, and you want something different. And neither of you are right or wrong. You're just not compatible right now. And you can feel that in the love that you speak of towards him, even now, the healthy space that you're in, of saying you're just lovingly letting him go. And that's that's hard, but it's also freeing. Can you just talk me through what that feels like in your body, being able to truly speak from that place in your heart? Yay! Listen, I am friends with all of my exes. So people know that all the time. So, like, because that's it. It's about just loving them. And it it takes a weight off of your body. So when we talk about reconnecting with ourselves, when we talk about living in alignment with our values, do you want to be the type of person that's talking shit about somebody else? You know, oh, he did this and he's a douchebag, and you know, he's a dickhead and he's this and he's that. Or do we want to be the type of people that are coming at it from a place of love and saying, like, okay, he just needs to go figure himself out? And that's that's where I want to get us with. So that is so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that as well. I know with attachment styles, it is what I do. Uh I wrote my own book, right, with Lucky Book Publishing, Dance of Attachment. And you can grab both mine and Dr. Dion's book on Amazon at any time and just go in there, type in our names, type in our book titles, and you guys can get them. I'll also make sure I have them in the show notes. As we're wrapping up here today, Dr. Dion, is there one last thing you would love my listeners to know? Talk me through it. That's so beautiful. And this is not something you have to actually say to them. They don't need to hear it, do they? No, this is just for ourselves. Can we do that real quick together? What were they again? It was I'm sorry. Um, it's supposed thank you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. All right. So if anyone, let's let's wrap up this way. Everyone listening, I just want you to kind of take a moment, whatever it is you're doing, whether you're driving, whether you're falling asleep at night, whether you're doing the dishes, whether you're walking your dog, you're hanging out with your kids, wherever it is you listen to this podcast. I just want you to take a moment, maybe put a hand on your heart if that feels good to you. Think of somebody who kind of makes your body feel a little bit icky when you think about them, makes you feel just like, oh, I just, oh, I don't want to do this prayer for them. That's the exact person we're going to do this prayer for. And we're just going to hold our heart. And Dr. Dion, can you just say the four words again, please? So powerful. And thank you so much for coming on the show today, Dr. Dion. And I will speak with you next time. Take care.