Beth Ruffin on Balancing Work Life With Health Challenges

Beth Ruffin owns a consulting business that teaches diversity, equity and inclusion in professional spaces. She focuses on self-empowerment, helping people learn to include themselves. Although Beth is extremely passionate about her work, finding the right work-life balance has been challenging since she lives with three chronic health conditions: fibromyalgia, anxiety and depression. Getting a fibromyalgia diagnosis was a frustrating journey for Beth. After three years of dealing with symptoms, she ended up traveling to the Mayo clinic where she was eventually diagnosed. Her doctors told her to lose weight and stop consuming alcohol and sugar, then sent her on her way. It wasn't until Beth joined support groups online and discovered a sympathetic local doctor that she finally started to make progress, learning to accept her disease and integrate it into her life. In this episode of the Major Pain podcast, Beth discusses her chronic illness journey and balancing her professional life with her health challenges. She says the best thing she's learned to do is listen to her body, tracking how much work she can handle and enforcing limits on her work hours. She opens up about her challenges with anxiety and depression, including panic attacks that require medication. Beth also discusses the idea that rest is revolution, and the importance of focusing on impact versus productivity. Discover Beth's diversity, equity and inclusion practice at https://bethruffin.com/