Burnout, chronic stress and boundaries

Every week, I meet people who are utterly exhausted, not because they or aren’t capable, but because they’re working inside systems with no boundaries left. Restructures, shifting roles, endless “transformations”, it’s like the organisation itself is in permanent fight-or-flight, constantly reacting to the next thing.

Many people finding it almost impossible to get into the ‘meaty’ parts of their role, they are simply skirting along the top, doing the things they have to do to keep functioning. Inside that chaos, people are expected to just keep pushing and pushing until their bodies finally say, no more.

They lose touch with the ability to listen to their body’s boundaries or they notice them and ignore them. When you are bored, exhausted, shutdown or unmotivated, that is a boundary. The body is saying no, not for me.

Chronic stress traps the body in survival states, fight, flight, freeze or eventually collapse. Over time, we lose connection with our most basic autonomic cues, those subtle sensations that tell us when to rest, pause, or say no.

We override those messages so often that “pushing through” becomes who we are. The nervous system becomes so used to being “on” that stillness feels unsafe.

Many of my clients tell me they don’t even know what rested feels like anymore, they only know the space between deadlines. When they start slowing down in our sessions, they’re often deeply moved by the experience. It’s as if their body finally exhales. They realise they haven’t felt that kind of slowness, safety, and presence for years.

The Myth of Resilience

In my experience, most organisations completely misunderstand resilience. They talk about “building resilience” as if it’s about pushing through, grinding harder, or coping better with dysfunction.

But nervous system resilience isn’t about endurance, it’s about return. It’s the capacity to come back into your window of tolerance, that place where you feel calm, connected, and curious, after you experienced hyper or hypoarousal in your autonomic nervous system. That’s where perspective returns, creativity awakens, and we can actually relate to others instead of reacting from stress.

Pushing through isn’t resilience. It’s disconnection disguised as dedication.

Systemic Boundaries and the Body

When an organisation has poor systemic boundaries, no clear priorities, constant change, or unrealistic expectations, people end up carrying the system’s chaos in their own bodies. The organisation offloads its dysregulation onto its people.

A nervous system can’t heal without stabilisation, neither can a culture. We need workplaces that honour pause, stabilisation, containment, and rhythm, the same sequence that helps a nervous system recover from chronic stress. Stabilisation creates the ground. Containment provides safety. Rhythm restores flow.
Without that, burnout isn’t a personal failure, it’s a systemic inevitability.

When Agility becomes agitation

Many workplaces today pride themselves on being “agile”; always pivoting, always moving. But without true systems thinking capability, agility easily turns into agitation. Instead of responding intelligently to what’s happening, organisations start grinding, pushing, and reacting. People carry the cost, through exhaustion, disconnection, and burnout.

So instead of becoming more fluid and responsive, organisations become hyper-reactive. They confuse activity with progress, speed with strategy, and flexibility with chaos. When leaders can’t see the system as a living organism, with cycles, rhythms, and interdependencies, they unconsciously perpetuate stress throughout the whole structure.

Without true systems thinking capability, “agility” gets flattened into constant motion, change for change’s sake, rather than mindful adaptation. When we don’t understand the organisational system as a living system, we keep driving it past its own capacity. The solution isn’t to become more efficient; it’s to become more attuned.

Healing from burnout and chronic stress isn’t about bouncing back; it’s about coming home. It is remembering what it feels like to inhabit your own body again, to breathe, to rest, to notice. It is about understanding what a Yes and a No feels like in your body. It is feeling safe to be slow.

True resilience begins when we stop pushing through and start listening, to ourselves, to each other, and to the quiet wisdom of our own biology.

If you are feeling overworked, overwhelmed or burned out, it is a reminder to take time out for yourself. Take a mini break. Notice your breath. Notice when your body tightens, braces, speeds up, or checks out. That’s your nervous system whispering that you’re at the edge of your window of tolerance.

For leaders and organisations, it’s time to redefine resilience, not as pushing through, but as coming back home to ourselves. Back to stabilisation. Back to rhythm. Back to the wisdom of the body, individual and collective.

Because when the system learns to breathe again, everyone within it can too.

When Hormones stop hiding the Truth. Perimenopause exhaustion, the reckoning after survival mode

I was having a conversation with one of my sons the other day about parenting now versus what I received. He thought it wasn’t much different accept for the presence of technology and having to navigate the impact of that on children. I said it was different because our parents often had their parents nearby and we were also a part of a community who looked after each other. Today we live in such an individualistic way and whilst in our area we have a strong community, the fact remains that people are really busy and trying to get by the best they know how and having to do it largely on their own.

Then I thought to myself, so many of the women I work with arrive at perimenopause in survival mode. Completely exhausted from all their years of mothering. For many, the years of mothering where we have sleep deprivation, a heavy emotional labour that we carry and years of trying to juggle work and home, the endless giving of energy mean that they live in a constant state of adrenaline and cortisol, just to get through the day. The lack of the ‘village’, of communal nervous system regulation means women are doing it alone all the time.

The workplaces we are in are designed for male bodies that have a linear hormonal cycle, predictable energy no ebb or flow. Not a 28 day cycle that has big fluctuations. Women’s bodies are cyclical, not linear. Energy, focus, and capacity shift across the menstrual cycle, and later in life, across hormonal seasons. But the expectation is “always on,” with no space for luteal slowdown, rest, or recalibration.

As technology innovation, particularly with AI and productivity culture has become the norm we see 24/7 emails and messaging which results in blurred boundaries. The demand is: faster, always available, produce more. Women’s bodies , designed for rhythmic cycles of activity and rest, are being pushed into an unnatural pace. This results in dysregulation, burnout, sleep disruption, and a sense of disconnection from their body wisdom.

As we normalise this we tell ourselves, this is what mothering means today, this is what being an adult woman means today. But the cost is high because our nervous system becomes very frayed and depleted. So by the time perimenopause arrives and estrogen and progesterone are both low, we experience; disturbed sleep, small stressors can trigger big reactions, our emotional regulation is harder, and or body doesn’t bounce back the same way it used to.

Most of us haven’t learned much about the impact of our hormones on our nervous system at all.

So yes, there is a question we have to explore about learning about our hormones and their impact on our nervous system and our behaviour. But for me, the bigger question is; How do we design lives, workplaces, and communities that honour the body, especially the cyclical, relational, deeply intuitive female body? And if you are thinking male bodies aren’t impacted by all of this, think again. Until we address all of this, our health, healing our nervous system, learning to find some regulation, it will all feel like we are swimming upstream.

Perimenopause as Turning point.

The reality is perimenopause often reveals to us the impact of decades living in survival mode. As estrogen and progesterone decline, their buffering affects on the nervous system start to fade. Estrogen is supportive of bonding, it is the soothing and accommodation hormone, it supports oxytocin and the bonding and pleasure from connection that that brings. Progesterone brings us calm. Also these two hormones don’t decline in an orderly fashion during our perimenopause transition. Progesterone declines first and estrogen has lots of ups and downs that makes us feel internally chaotic, as it moves towards its lower levels once we reach menopause. What they do both reveal is nervous system exhaustion and without their support we can no longer mask the cost of being in survival mode.

Oxytocin, pleasure and women’s nervous systems

Oxytocin is a key neuromodulator of the female nervous system. For male bodies Dopamine does this. Pleasure, touch, connection and community increase oxytocin, which builds resilience and vagal tone. Reduced estrogen can reduce oxytocin but pleasure can replenish it. Pleasure isn’t an indulgence, it is biology. Every moment of genuine pleasure — a hug, gentle self-touch, laughter with a friend, being moved by music, lying in the sun, safe intimacy, sexual and sensual pleasure — stimulates oxytocin, the neuromodulator that calms the female nervous system. Oxytocin counters cortisol and adrenaline, it strengthens vagal tone (our capacity to return to calm) and it builds a felt sense of safety and belonging. When you look at from this perspective, pleasure becomes medicine for midlife. It replenishes what decades of survival mode drained away.

Vagal Tone and Menopause

Vagal tone measures the activity of the vagus nerve, which regulates the body's "rest and digest" functions, and it's often assessed through heart rate variability (HRV). So Vagal tone is the body’s ability to regulate stress and return to calm. A lower vagal tone = more reactivity, poor recovery from stress, disrupted sleep. Estrogen decline may reduce vagal tone, making regulation harder. There are practices that help: yoga nidra, breathwork, gentle movement, singing/humming, somatic experiencing, safe touch. Yoga Nidra has been a game changer for me and I have found when I do it consistently, I sleep well. My brain also feels more relaxed. Somatic experiencing has many ways it helps but in this context it helps people build their interoception which is their ability to be with their internal experience - feelings, sensations, emotions. So when we become dysregulated it can be so helpful because we have a connection with all our feelings and emotions and have strategies to be with them and let them move through us. Rather than resisting them. All of this isn’t just “self-care”, it’s rewiring the nervous system for the next stage of life.

The bigger question: Lifestyle and systemic change

The real problem isn’t our biology - it is the culture we live in. Lack of community, unsupportive workplaces, and unrealistic expectations push women into survival mode. Women’s cyclical bodies need rhythms of rest and renewal, but society doesn’t recognise or honour them. We are made to feel like something is wrong with us. We are made to feel we are not resilient enough. Menopause is clever in many ways, It is a truth teller that often opens our eyes to dysfunction in our facets of our life. Culturally it reveals this mismatch. It’s not a personal failing; it’s a cultural design flaw. I wonder what would happen if work hours were designed around the rhythms of a female body?

Post Menopause brings Sovereignty

Menopause is not just loss, it’s an initiation into a new stage of power. With nervous system healing, women can access deeper calm, intuition, and authority. Post-menopause can be a time of reclaiming sovereignty, no longer running on survival mode but living in alignment with what nourishes us. Menopause is the autumn season of our life and often involves lots of reflection and review where we are called to let go of what we don’t need anymore. Many women often find their physical and mental health creates a strong impetus for all these changes to happen. It is hard to ignore what no longer works for us.

Menopause is not a medical “problem”it is a cultural opportunity: a chance to change how we live. Every time a woman honours her cycle, chooses rest, or reclaims pleasure, she disrupts the old patriarchal model and helps build a new one. So here we arrive with an invitation. What would it look like if we built a culture that truly supported women’s bodies — not just to survive, but to thrive?

For me the bigger question here is It’s not women’s bodies that are broken. It’s the systems we’re forced to live in that ignore how women’s bodies actually work.

Constant Striving, the hidden fawn behind 'not enough'

So many of my clients arrive with heavy hearts masked by impressive resumes. They're driven, capable, endlessly striving. And quietly, they carry a question they rarely say aloud: ‘Why do I still feel like I’m not enough?

Often what brings them to me is they desperately want something in their life and the way they currently orient in the world is not helping them get there. So whether it is a healthy conscious relationship where they can be their true selves, or wanting to overcome burnout, or to find more meaning or purpose in their life; what sits underneath all of this is a body in desperate need of rest and a new way of showing up in the world. They are so used to pushing their way through life and they have will power in spades, that fuels that constant striving toward their goals. They are so wired for productivity and to keep on going, that it does not feel safe in their nervous system to slow down.

Striving can be a survival strategy. It looks like lots of ambition but underneath it is actually an adaptation, as the nervous system has wired itself to fawn, seeking safety through performance, achievement, pleasing and perfecting. So it is just not about saying yes to others, it is about proving your worth to stay connected to them.

Where does this strategy arise from?

It often comes from having caregivers who were conditional in giving us their attuned presence, where love or safety and connection were conditional. Often we received the love we needed when we did something brilliant, or we were easy to deal with, ‘good kids’. This is not a flaw we have but actually a rather brilliant adaptive response by the body to keep us safe. The belief system that is created is “If I can just be good enough, useful enough, impressive enough—maybe then I’ll be safe, loved, or chosen”.

It’s survival through self-erasure. And it’s so deeply ingrained in many of us that it can feel like “who we are,” when it’s actually a brilliant adaptation.

How does culture reinforce the need to strive?

This isn’t just personal it can also be cultural. I also believe that productivity culture has been a major influence on this response in many adults. It’s not just personal history that shapes the fawn-strive pattern—it’s cultural, systemic, and reinforced daily in many workplaces. Productivity becomes a proxy for worth. And in that system, rest feels risky.

Productivity culture has institutionalised the fawn response. It rewards over-functioning and punishes rest. In many workplaces, people have internalised the belief: “My value is in what I produce.” “If I slow down, I’ll fall behind, or be seen as lazy, dispensable, or weak.”

So even outside of trauma histories, entire cultural systems are designed to keep nervous systems in a low-grade state of doing to survive. Especially in organisations where performance is tied to identity, job security, or belonging.

How does this striving response show up in adults?

Striving isn’t just a fawning response that is about people-pleasing in obvious ways—it can look like:

Overachieving to be seen as valuable or loveable,
Taking on too much to avoid being abandoned or criticised,
Hustling for worth, because rest feels dangerous or "lazy",
Always being the one who fixes, leads, or holds it all together,
Adapting your identity to meet what others need or expect,
Over functioning in relationships.

In essence, striving is a fawning nervous system response. It says: If I can just be good enough, useful enough, impressive enough—maybe then I’ll be safe, loved, or chosen.

Cant Stop, won’t stop

We joke about ‘can’t stop, won’t stop,’ but for many, it’s not a quirky motto—it’s a trauma response. It’s the body never having felt safe enough to slow down and rest. We wear it as a a badge of honour, or even an odd personality trait—but underneath it, for so many, it’s the body saying:
“If I stop, it might all fall apart.” “If I rest, who will I be?” “If I slow down, will the pain catch up with me?”

It’s not hustle culture—it’s hypervigilance dressed in productivity. It’s a nervous system that has never known true safety, only safety-through-doing. This is so deeply woven into high-functioning, heart-centred people who’ve built their worth through care-taking, fixing, over-responsibility, and striving to be irreplaceable.

The laugh we attach to “can’t stop, won’t stop” is often a nervous system trying to normalise its own exhaustion, because admitting we’re tired or scared feels too vulnerable.

Striving is often the voice of a nervous system that never felt safe to simply be.

What are the costs of constant striving?

The costs are high for many people. They include: Transactional relationships that are based on performance not presence and this leaves many people feeling lonely and disconnected from their peers at work, feeling like they are misunderstood or that they don’t fit into the organisation they work for. This sense of belonging is not there. It is also the body never getting to rest, and after many years, we see that manifest in burnout, health issues, anxiety and disconnection from the self.

What are we really longing for?

Contentment and belonging are the deep yearning we are searching for when we are striving, So often, we think we’re chasing success, or mastery, or healing—but underneath it all, we’re chasing that feeling:
That feeling can be: The deep exhale of contentment; the relief of being with people who see us, know us, and don’t need us to be any different, the safety of not having to perform, strive, or explain ourselves, the belonging that whispers: “You are enough, just as you are, and you always have been.”

It’s the nervous system’s longing to come out of hypervigilance and into co-regulation. To be met, not managed. Held, not judged. Loved, not evaluated.

And it’s not a small thing. That kind of contentment rewires us. It gives us a new blueprint for what’s possible in connection—with ourselves and with others. It helps us to feel safe enough to slow down

Where do we start with healing?

Striving may have kept us safe, but it’s not the same as being truly seen. Slowly, we begin to rebuild safety in being, not just in doing. We need to titrate our experience of slowing down because it will feel unsafe for the nervous system to just stop. So our path is to move from fawning to feel comfortable just being. This is somatic work working deeply with the autonomic nervous system because we are dealing with unconscious trauma imprints.

Imagine your body as a riverbed that has been carved deeply by years of rushing water—this water is your striving. It’s fast, focused, and relentless, always moving toward the next bend. The river believes if it can just keep flowing fast enough, it will reach some final place where it can finally rest.

But the riverbed is tired. It longs for a gentle stream. For stillness. For the moss to grow again on its rocks. It longs for a pause so life can return to its banks.

Some things you could try on your own:

The micro pause

This is a micro-practice to do anytime you feel the drive to prove, do, or fix surging up. You can try it right now if you like.

Settle – Let your body arrive where it is. Feel the weight of gravity. Feel the support of the earth or chair beneath you.
Place a hand on your heart or belly – Choose what feels most tender or accessible.
Say softly, either out loud or silently:
“Right now, in this moment, I am enough.”
(Even if part of you doesn’t believe it—just let it land and see what happens.)
Notice what shifts – Is there any softening, resistance, warmth, tears, numbness? All responses are welcome.
Stay with the sensation for 30 seconds or so. No need to fix or change it. Just witness your being—not your doing.

When your body is giving you signs to slow down, know that you are not broken. Trust the innate wisdom and intelligence of your body and what it is trying to say to you. You have adapted brilliantly but now your body is ready for something new. If you would like to explore your pathway to slowing down, to being more present, to stop being everything to everyone, to stop hustling, come talk to me about somatic experiencing or coaching.