Writings & Musings
Rested. Rooted. Radiant.
Insight and inspiration on living unhurried lives, overcoming feminine burnout, reclaiming our radiance and self-sovereignty and embracing our brilliance.
Burnout Begins Long Before it Happens : When Women Don’t Have a Village
Recently, I’ve been immersed in a lot of films, books and content that speak to the early days of motherhood. I’ve been viscerally reminded of the immense rush of love and care we often experience at this life-changing threshold. But also of the less spoken about raw exhaustion, tender hormonal rollercoaster and emotional fragility that so many of us experience concurrently.
It got me reflecting on my experience of profound burnout over ten years ago …
We often think of burnout as a switch that is flicked quite suddenly.
And in truth, it often presents this way.
Many of the women I have supported over the years feel like they were coping, functioning, managing one day, before seemingly ‘crashing’ through sheer exhaustion the next.
But in reality, burnout begins long before it happens.
In the many seasons of carrying too much without being properly held.
A Softer Way to Begin the Year: Gentle Nervous System Support for More Peace and Less Pressure
There’s an energy to new beginnings that’s incredibly compelling - it’s fresh, vibrant and exciting.
So many of us start the year feeling the pressure to sprint right out of the gate.
Yet, we might still be digesting the past year, and our nervous system might still be trying to soften the survival energy that has kept us going, perhaps for months.
One key ingredient to embracing what is new and unfamiliar, which is often overlooked is this: having enough capacity and stability to move from comfort to stretch, from familiarity to newness, from what has been to what could be, from where we are to exciting new possibilities.
Nature teaches us that we cannot plant new seeds in arid soil.
For us, it means starting with tending to our body and nervous system, so the soil becomes enriched, fertile and supportive of growth.
The Edge of Burnout: Listening to the Body Before It Shuts Down
Before we experience the full force of burnout, we often find ourselves in a confusing space.
We are still holding everything together, but beneath the surface, we sense that something within us has begun to fray and to deplete.
Even if a part of us knows that something needs to shift, we don’t feel that we have the time to pause, explore a more sustainable path, or recalibrate.
So while we double down to make sure that the veneer stays intact on the outside, on the inside, our heart races for no clear reason, our sleep doesn’t seem to restore us in the same way, and we wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts racing in infinite loops.
If this feels familiar, you could be standing at the edge of burnout.
Beyond Learned Helplessness: A Somatic Path For Women to Reclaim Their Energy, Voice, and Agency
When I look back on my experience of burnout, one of the most profound parts of that experience was the sense that no matter what or how much I did, nothing seemed to make any difference.
My efforts felt futile.
I was expanding every ounce of energy I had, and yet it felt like pushing against an immovable wall.
Most of the time, I felt like I was drowning.
For a long time, I gave increasingly more, believing that eventually, things would shift.
But over time, the ‘fight’ energy that initially mobilised me into action started to dwindle, and slowly I fell into what psychologists call ‘learned helplessness’. A subtle erosion of hope, an insidious and devastating settling in my heart that said: “What’s the point anyway?”.
Understanding the Mind–Body Connection and How to Shift Old Patterns by Working Somatically
So many of the patterns we live with, like the endless late-night thinking loops, the automatic “yes” when we mean “no,” the crushing feeling of self-doubt, are often considered to be mindset problems.
But if you have ever tried to think your way out of them, you will know that reframing our thoughts can offer relief, but doesn’t address what might lie beneath and causes these thoughts to arise.
That’s because these patterns don’t begin in the mind.
They begin in the body.
Before these patterns became habits, they started as survival strategies. Unconscious, protective responses to moments when something in our world felt too overwhelming for our system to cope with: too much, too fast, too soon - or conversely, not enough.
Anxiety Relief for Women: Why Somatic Approaches Are the Key You May Have Been Missing
Anxiety has been a companion of mine for many years.
One I have learned to relate to differently, over time - and to develop a gentler relationship with.
I know I’m not alone in this.
So many women, especially as we begin navigating the hormonal shifts of perimenopause, or the identity transitions that come with midlife, find themselves living with an invisible undercurrent of anxiety.
Beneath the surface is a nervous system that is carrying too much activation, and is struggling to find a place to land.
If that’s you and you have tried all the tools, read all the books, but still find yourself struggling to feel more grounded, present, and at ease, I want to offer a different perspective.
One that goes beyond traditional ways of coping with anxiety, and begins in the body.
The Invisible Giver: Why Emotional Exhaustion Comes from More Than Just Doing Too Much
We naturally assume that exhaustion comes from doing too much. From overcommitting, overextending, and carrying too much on our plates.
And of course, this absolutely contributes to a sense of feeling physically exhausted and depleted.
But often, there is a deeper layer to our exhaustion, which we may not perceive.
It comes from giving without being met.
Pouring out without being poured into. Offering support without being acknowledged.
It’s the emotional exhaustion of being so reliable and endlessly available that our giving becomes invisible.
This kind of exhaustion is rooted in a lack of reciprocity, and beyond leaving us tired, it leaves us feeling hollow…
Recovering From Burnout: A Somatic Approach To Healing And Flourishing Again
Burnout doesn’t come crashing down on us all at once. It’s more like a tap dripping - slow, steady, almost imperceptible - until one day, the tank is empty. It’s a gradual wearing away of our energy, our capacity, and our vitality. And because the slope is so gentle, we may not even realise how far we have gone until we are completely depleted.
For women, who often juggle caregiving, demanding careers, and conflicting responsibilities, burnout can feel like an inevitability - almost a byproduct of constantly holding multiple strands.
Burnout can often be accompanied by a sense of shame or a feeling of inadequacy, but it isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s our body’s intelligence at play saying “It’s time to stop, I can’t keep going like this”. Wisely, our body pulls the emergency brake on our behalf to stop further depletion.
Burnout is our body’s way of protecting us, asking us to pause, rest, and recalibrate.
Breaking Free from Overgiving: Including Ourselves in Our Circle of Care
Do you tend to be the last person on your list of priorities?
Do you consistently put others’ needs above your own, sometimes at the expense of your own wellbeing?
This way of being is so ingrained in many of us that we have stopped noticing it, let alone, questioning it.
Overgiving is something I am very familiar with - so are many of the women I support. How often do we tell ourselves, “I will get to me when everything else is done” or “It’s easier if I just handle this myself” or “I’ll make time to look after myself later.”
But later never comes, and each one of these small moments where we give beyond our capacity is an act of self-abandonment. It erodes us by chipping away at our energy, our joy, and ultimately our sense of self.
For so many women, this self-sacrificing narrative feels normal. As women, our culture praises us for how much we give, how much we do, and how little we ask for in return.
We need reminding of this fundamental truth: others matter, but we do too.
Finding Inner Rest in an Unrested World: How to Reclaim Stillness When Everything Feels Too Much
There is no denying that we live in a world that often feels deeply unrested.
The pace of our lives is relentless, the state of the world may feel overwhelming, and our attention seems pulled in a myriad of directions from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep at night.
The world beats to the rhythm of urgency.
So it’s likely that we all experience moments where it feels like we are living on fast-forward, feeling overstimulated, thinly stretched, and out of sync with our own pace and rhythms.
One of the themes that arises most often in my conversations with women is a deep and almost vital yearning for a sense of ‘inner rest’: a way to exhale, catch our breath and integrate moments of stillness and peace in our lives. An ability to anchor in a sense of stillness within, regardless of the storms constantly playing out in the outer world.
In this blog post, I explore the body’s natural tidal waves of action and rest and why they get interrupted, why cultivating inner rest is vital for us in an unrested world, different flavours of rest, and how we can integrate them in our life to resource ourselves in an unrested world.
From People-Pleasing to Sovereignty: A Guide to Setting Compassionate Boundaries
Have you ever felt the pull to say “no” but heard yourself say “yes” instead?
Are you familiar with that subtle moment of override - the moment where we ignore our inner voice and abandon ourselves to keep the peace or make others feel comfortable.
As a recovering people pleaser, I spent years overruling my needs, desires, energy and capacity - in service of ensuring that the needs, desires and capacity of those around me were honoured and met.
Leadership, Redefined: Why Feminine Leadership Is Powered By Rest
We live in a world that measures success by productivity, achievement, and the ability to keep pushing forward at all cost.
The more we do, produce, deliver - the greater our success, even if it means deprioritising our wellbeing, and abandoning our needs and sense of purpose as we climb ladders.
For women, this model of being and leading seems to ask that we sacrifice ourselves, conceal parts of who we are to fit into a mould that was never shaped for us, and that we chronically overachieve, overextend and overgive - often leading us to constantly hover over exhaustion or to oscillate between chronic stress (being ‘all on’) and burnout (being ‘all off’).
But what if we’re missing something crucial in the conversation about leadership?
What if true feminine power doesn’t come from pushing harder, but from resting deeper?
Overcoming Feminine Burnout: How to end the perpetual quest towards being enough
Over 10 years ago, I experienced a severe burnout. It left me feeling utterly broken, raw, cracked open - hanging on by a very fine thread. My sense of identity was shattered, I felt completely empty, and simply moving through each day was incredibly challenging.
I felt lost: I had no idea how to move forward, and my inner critical voice was relentless.
The Courage To Slow Down And Reclaim Sovereignty Over Our Life
The pace at which we live our lives seems to be constantly accelerating, and it’s easy to get swept up in the forward moving current that we are all swimming in.
It’s as though we are pulled by an irresistible urge to be doing more, moving ever faster, pushing ourselves further.
This forward motion is often driven by a desire to feel fulfilled, happy, and at peace.
The Truth About High Functioning Anxiety - And How It Causes Burnout In High Achieving Woman
High functioning anxiety is a sneaky type of anxiety. It often goes unrecognised, because of its high functioning nature.
On the surface, you appear together, grounded and in control.
You overachieve at work, and are often admired for your hard-work, commitment, and attention to detail.
You have a successful career and seem to have an incredible ability to juggle a high level role with the demands of everyday life.
You seem to 'have it all'.
But it comes at a cost.
