Hey Reader
I started writing this in a departure lounge in Denpasar, Bali, with a chilled Gin & Tonic in hand, a glowing tan, and more emotional than I had the right to be. I’m getting ready for the 19-hour flight back home.
I’ve just had fourteen days of properly switching off. No email, which is why I’ve been a bit quiet; no business calls, just the ability to have some “me” time. Sea swims, lounging around the pools, naps I didn’t apologise for. A husband who got to see me laugh again instead of just function.
As I sat watching the departures board flick over, I found myself doing the maths on how long it’s been since I last felt this rested. The answer made me a bit teary, not because it’s sad exactly, but because I know how close I came to never getting here at all.
Before I started my business “StrongHER” a few years ago, I crashed and properly burned out. If I’m honest, the thing that gets me now isn’t the burnout itself; it’s how long I ignored the signs, because they didn’t look anything like what I’d been told burnout was meant to look like.
So today, instead of holiday snaps, I want to talk to you about the burnout symptoms that don’t make the posters.
Not the “I’m a bit tired” ones
The ones that creep up and make you wonder if something’s actually wrong with you.
Like waking up with an aching jaw, because your body spent the whole night clenched, even though you’d have sworn you were fast asleep.
Or noticing rather more hair in the shower drain than you’d like, and quietly deciding it’s probably always been like that.
Or being cold in the middle of summer, wrapped in a blanket, googling symptoms you’re slightly too scared to read the answer to.
The sneaky mental ones
This part is trickier, because it doesn’t look like falling apart; it looks like flatness.
You do the things you used to love and feel, but now nothing. There’s a name for that: anhedonia; it’s one of burnout’s quietest calling cards. Around this point, the dreams you once got excited about start getting filed under “naive” or “a bit unrealistic now.” I need you to hear this clearly: that’s not clarity; it’s depletion that’s doing the talking.
Some of the women I work with tell me they feel like they’re watching themselves go through the motions from slightly outside their own body. Others run completely out of empathy, not because they’ve stopped caring, but because there’s simply nothing left to give.
And the one that gets me most? The shame that turns up the moment you stop coping. You burn out, then feel like a failure for burning out, which, yep, burns you out faster. I see this constantly in the women I work with, women who have always, always been “absolutely fine.”
Here’s what I want to tell you
This isn’t weakness.
This is what happens when a smart, capable woman has been running on empty for far too long, with nobody stopping to ask if she’s OK.
So, I’m asking you.
Are you OK? Are you REALLY OK?
Not the autopilot answer, the real one. Take a moment to think.
Why this matters to me
This is exactly the work I built the StrongHER FAB Method around. Foundation, Alignment, Breakthrough. Because you can’t think, supplement or hustle your way out of running on empty. You must rebuild the foundation underneath you first, properly, before anything else sticks.
If any part of this landed differently than you expected, hit reply and let me know.
And if there’s a woman in your life currently insisting she’s “absolutely fine,” maybe forward this to her. She might just need someone to ask the question first.
Jo x
My gift to you
With love
P.S. I’ve landed back into reality (and a very full inbox). That was a long flight, but so worth it. Bali is beautiful. If you want help going from running on empty to actually running your own show again, hit reply with the word FOUNDATION and I’ll tell you how we can work together.
