Burn-out is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that emerges when chronic stress overrides your capacity to recover. It's not simply fatigue or temporary overwhelm—it's a fundamental depletion that affects how you experience yourself, your relationships, and your purpose.
For high-achieving individuals, burn-out often develops silently. You're capable of pushing through, so you do. But eventually, the systems that helped you succeed—your drive, your focus, your resilience—begin to work against you.
"Burn-out happens when the nervous system has been in overdrive for so long that it can no longer distinguish between genuine threat and everyday demand. What once felt motivating now feels depleting."
Signs You May Be Experiencing Burn-out
Burn-out doesn't announce itself clearly. It emerges gradually, reshaping how you engage with work, relationships, and yourself. You might notice:
Physical Depletion
Chronic exhaustion that rest doesn't resolve
Frequent headaches or tension
Disrupted sleep patterns
Weakened immunity
Changes in appetite
Emotional Distance
Feeling detached or numb
Cynicism about work or life
Loss of satisfaction in achievements
Sense of helplessness
Decreased motivation
Cognitive & Relational Impact
Difficulty concentrating
Procrastination or avoidance
Withdrawing from others
Irritability or impatience
Reduced sense of accomplishment
Why High-Achievers Are Vulnerable to Burn-out
If you're someone who has consistently excelled—academically, professionally, personally—you likely developed a capacity to override internal signals. You learned to push through discomfort, to prioritize performance, to keep going when others might stop.
This capacity is remarkable. It's also what makes burn-out particularly insidious. By the time you recognize something is deeply wrong, your nervous system has been dysregulated for months or even years.
Common patterns I see in my practice include:
Perfectionism: The belief that your worth is tied to your output, leaving little room for rest or imperfection.
Role ambiguity: When your responsibilities or expectations are unclear, your nervous system stays activated trying to anticipate what's needed.
Lack of control: Feeling powerless over your schedule, workload, or environment creates chronic stress.
Relational disconnection: When you're too depleted to be present with the people you care about, isolation deepens.
How Therapy Addresses Burn-out
Burn-out recovery isn't about time management strategies or pushing through harder. It requires addressing the underlying dysregulation in your nervous system and reconnecting with what genuinely sustains you.
In our work together, we focus on:
Nervous system regulation: Using EMDR, somatic techniques, and mindfulness to help your body recalibrate from chronic activation to a state where recovery is possible.
Understanding your patterns: Exploring how perfectionism, over-responsibility, or need for control developed—and how they now contribute to depletion rather than success.
Restoring connection: Burn-out isolates us. Through relational therapy (EFT), we work to rebuild connection—to yourself, your emotions, and the people who matter to you.
Redefining success: Moving from a performance-based sense of worth to one grounded in presence, authenticity, and alignment with your values.
Creating sustainable structures: Developing boundaries, self-care practices, and ways of working that honor your capacity rather than override it.
This work is collaborative. You know yourself better than anyone. My role is to bring specialized expertise in trauma, the nervous system, and relational healing—helping you make sense of what you're experiencing and find a sustainable path forward.
What Recovery Looks Like
Recovery from burn-out is not about returning to who you were before. It's about becoming someone who can sustain wellbeing alongside achievement—who can be present, connected, and alive in their life rather than perpetually in survival mode.
Clients often describe the shift as moving from feeling like they're constantly treading water to feeling grounded. From disconnection to presence. From performing to being.
This doesn't mean your ambition disappears. It means you're able to pursue what matters from a place of fullness rather than depletion.
You Don't Have to Stay in Survival Mode
If you're experiencing burn-out, you're not broken—you're responding to unsustainable demands. Recovery is possible, and it begins with acknowledging where you are and reaching out for support.
I maintain intentionally small caseloads to ensure every client receives the attentive, personalized care they deserve.