The Edge of Burnout: Listening to the Body Before It Shuts Down

What is the Edge of Burnout?

Before we experience the full force of burnout, we often find ourselves in a confusing space. A place where we are feeling the exhaustion and depletion seeping in, but yet, where we are continuing to function. 

We are still showing up and holding everything together, but we can sense that something within us has begun to fray, to erode, to empty. 

If you have been feeling this way, you might be standing at the edge of burnout. 

In our always-on society, where slowing down is perceived to be a personal failing, we keep pushing past our limits, overriding our body’s needs, and powering through fuelled by survival energy. We can sense that something needs to shift, but we don’t feel we have the time to pause, explore alternative ways, and recalibrate. Perhaps we are disillusioned about there being any other possible way.

So while we double down to make sure that the veneer stays put 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, our thoughts are often stuck in infinite loops. 

We feel wired and tired as if we were pressing the accelerator and the brake at the same time.

Our body has been riding the wave of chronic stress for a while and it’s starting to press pause on our behalf.

What’s Happening in the Body and Nervous System at the Edge of Burnout?

When we’ve been carrying so much, for so long, staying on top of everything, coping with life’s curveballs, doing what’s needed and functioning beyond our capacity, our nervous system adapts. 

It learns that being “on” keeps us safe. This state, referred to as sympathetic activation becomes habitual, like a survival rhythm that the body forgets how to switch off.

For a while, it can be manageable. We continue to be efficient, productive, and overfunctioning. But slowly, the relentless strain begins to show. The tension in our shoulders never really leaves. Our breath stays short and shallow as if permanently ready for mobilisation. And the little rest that we do get doesn’t actually feel that restful or restorative. 

The fight-or-flight system, designed for short bursts of action, has become the background rhythm of our life.

Eventually as we reach further and further depletion, the body wisely intervenes. It forces  us to slow down.

Our body’s natural intelligence takes the lead.

This tug-of-war  between our body’s impulse to rest and our nervous system’s compulsion to stay alert is the hallmark of the edge of burnout. 

In polyvagal theory, it is what is referred to as a mixed state, when both mobilisation and shutdown are present at once. You feel wired and weary, agitated and empty, ready to stop but unable to.

Your body is doing its best to keep you safe in conditions it’s no longer resourced for.

Early Signs that You Might Be at the Edge and Approaching Burnout

Burnout isn’t an event that arrives overnight. It’s the body’s last line of defence after a long period of depletion.

Before that point, we meet its edge - think of it as our inner flame flickering, but not yet being completely out.

At the edge, we are still mobilised. There’s still movement, still action, but with less and less capacity underneath. Our everyday tasks start to feel heavier. Our system is running mostly on stress hormones and determination.

By contrast, in full burnout, that energy withdraws almost completely. The body downshifts into a protective state, a sort of biological conservation mode. The system isn’t shutting down entirely but it’s conserving what little energy and capacity it has left, redirecting energy only toward the bare essentials of survival.

Recognising this difference matters. 

Because when you can name the edge, you can respond before your body has to take over completely.

What it Feels Like to be Standing at This Edge

At the edge, our sensations can feel contradictory. 

Our heart races, but our body might also feel heavy. We crave stillness but we can’t stop moving. We might feel moments of panic followed by exhaustion, clarity followed by fog. We might feel consistently overwhelmed, on the verge of tears. Perhaps we struggle to cope with everyday challenges that felt manageable in the past. 

For me personally, it felt like I was constantly running the last half mile of a marathon race - digging deep to keep going but sensing that I was threading on thin foundations. 

It’s so easy to think that something is terribly wrong with us, when we feel that we are losing capacity, or control. But what’s actually happening is our nervous system trying to transition from doing to being, from survival to restoration, and not trusting that slowing down is safe.

The edge of burnout is our body letting us know: I can’t keep doing this the old way.
And if we can meet its cue with compassion, we can reorient and recalibrate instead of slipping all the way into collapse.

The Importance of Recognising the Early Symptoms of Burnout

Many women (myself included), don’t recognise this threshold until they’ve crossed it.

But recognising the early physiological and emotional symptoms of burnout offers an ‘exit ramp’.

This edge is an opportunity. It’s a moment when our body is still reachable, when small acts of regulation and rest can restore balance before we collapse.

Burnout is not yet inevitable.

Its protective response can be prevented when we begin to listen to the body’s early signals and when we honour its intelligence instead of overriding it.

It offers a doorway to reorient, recalibrate and adjust our path towards tending to our nervous system and replenishing our capacity.

The Pathway Home: A Somatic Approach to Recovery

Recovering from the edge of burnout isn’t linear and is an individual journey.

It’s a pathway that unfolds in phases, each one necessary, each one asking something slightly different of us.

Phase One: Returning to Safety

The journey home begins with tending to our nervous system, orienting towards safety, and replenishing what has been lost.

When our system has been on alert for too long, stillness can feel dangerous. It can lead to a feeling of panic, restlessness, or the sense that everything might fall apart if we stop.

This first phase starts with safety: helping our nervous system remember that the present moment is not a threat.

Safety is cultivated in micro-moments: following the rhythm of our breath, feeling the weight of our feet on the ground, orienting in nature, returning to our own sensations, integrating small moments of pause and realising that we can pause without the world collapsing.

When our nervous system is ready, we bring in deeper rest and restoration. And we begin to reclaim supportive rhythms.

Physiologically, our body is shifting from sympathetic overdrive toward more stability. 

This is how healing begins : by letting your body feel safe enough to soften.

Phase Two: Unwinding Old Patterns

As the body trusts safety again, it softens and begins to release what it has been holding.

The patterns of overdoing, over-caring, and over-carrying start to loosen.

With compassion, presence and attunement, we can hold space for the body to complete the stress responses that were once interrupted.

It can feel messy and uncomfortable as we navigate the liminal state between where we have been and where we desire to go. But this is the work of deepening the roots that hold us, composting the old and letting it become fertiliser for the new.  This is where we reclaim sovereignty. 

Old protective patterns are dissolving, and new pathways of stability are forming.

In this phase, we learn to meet ourselves with compassion instead of judgement.
We learn that softening towards the parts of us that need tending to isn’t a sign of weakness, but an invitation to reorient our life from a place of truth (rather than returning to the blueprint that led us here).

Phase Three: Reclaiming Aliveness and Alignment

When safety and rootedness are established, energy begins to flow again.

This is the phase of reawakening aliveness and finding alignment.  

Vitality, wonder, joy, and creative energy begin to re-emerge. 

We recalibrate and choose to cultivate a greater sense of alignment in our life.

We begin to move from obligation to choice, from depletion to devotion, from survival to alignment.

There is more coherence in our system: our energy, rhythms, values and expression move in greater harmony.

It requires creating a new compass and making choices that orient us towards its north star.

Trust Your Pace and Meet Yourself With Compassion

Recovering from the edge of burnout isn’t linear and each of us walks this path at our own pace.  Remember to meet yourself where you are, not where you think you should be.

Try to suspend judgment and offer yourself self-compassion.

Remind yourself that burnout isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign that you have been operating beyond your capacity for too long. 

Consider the idea that the edge of burnout offers a precious opportunity to reorient towards a life that feels more aligned, alive and sustainable.

The Way Forward

If you recognise yourself somewhere on this path, perhaps standing at the edge and aware that something has to change, please know: there is a way forward.

What feels like a complete unraveling is your body’s intelligence asking for a different rhythm, a more sustainable way.

The truth is, your body has never stopped trying to protect you.
It’s doing exactly what it is designed to do: conserving your energy, guarding what’s sacred, guiding you back home to yourself, inviting you on a new path.

When you meet yourself and your body with curiosity and compassion (rather than criticism) the fight between pushing and pausing begins to soften. A sense of inner harmony can slowly return. And you can begin to explore new ways.

The edge of burnout is an invitation to stop seeing our body as a problem to solve, to listen to the wisdom it holds, and to see it as a doorway towards a whole new blueprint.

How Can I Support You?

If you feel like you might be on the edge of burnout and would like to be compassionately and skilfully supported to reorient towards a life that feels more sustainable and soul-giving, Tending the Self might be for you. A somatic sanctuary, where together we will replenish your nervous system, soften the long-held patterns of overdoing and overgiving that have kept you in survival, rebuild your capacity for joy, presence and aliveness, and craft a new path.

If you would like to train with me, The Wisdom Within™ Practitioner Training is a professional training for women who desire to reclaim their own power and to ripple this tender but hugely potent work into the world.

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