The "Triple Burden": Why Burnout Hits Different for Healers 50+ (It's Not Just Exhaustion, It's an Awakening)

Have you ever hit a point where you’re functioning on autopilot while quietly wondering, “Is this really my life now?”

Burnout in high-achieving women healers over 50 isn’t the same burnout you experienced at 30 or 40. It’s deeper. Heavier. More confusing. For women over 50 and healers, this isn't a personal failure—it is a predictable physiological response to the "Triple Burden" of emotional labor, hormonal shifts, and invisible caregiving work. If you feel a sudden intolerance for nonsense or a deep sense of losing myself, your nervous system isn't breaking down; it is waking up.

In this foundational episode, Dr. Juls unpacks the neuroscience behind why your amygdala is overstimulated and your vagus nerve is fatigued. You will learn why feeling invisible at work is a documented phenomenon and why traditional self care fails to fix it. Discover:

• The "Triple Burden": Drawing on research from Hochschild and Figley, we explain why midlife women face a unique storm of exhaustion and overwhelmed states that younger colleagues don't understand.
• Identity Disruption: Why this burnout attacks your sense of purpose and clarity, signaling that you have outgrown the life you built in survival mode.
• The Phoenix Reset: A five-minute nervous system intervention to shift you out of sympathetic overdrive and back into grounded inner peace, reclaiming your energy and authority.

Your system isn't shutting down; it is demanding a new life. Press play to stop the self neglect and answer the call to your next radiant chapter.

This podcast supports women healers over 50 navigating burnout, compassion fatigue, and midlife transitions with strategies for nervous system regulation, trauma-informed boundaries, and chakra alignment to heal resentment and self-neglect while cultivating soul joy, radiance, and a purposeful next chapter of freedom and inner peace.

THE DIAGNOSIS: Are you the Martyr who can't say no? Or the Warrior who fights until she collapses? You cannot heal what you cannot name.

👇 Take the 60-Second Quiz to find your Burnout Archetype: [CLICK HERE TO REVEAL YOUR ARCHETYPE]

Join the Rebellion: If this episode woke something up in you, share it with a colleague who needs permission to stop. We rise together.

Reach out to Dr. Julie

Episodes drop every Tuesday at 5am and every Friday at noon.

Special guest episodes drop the 4th Thursday of every month at 7am.

Transcript

0:02

Have you ever had that moment? Usually in the hospital. Or your office between back to back clients where you stop and think. I swear if one more person asked me for just one more thing, I'm going to fake my own death and move to New Mexico. If that's you, congratulations. You are not broken. You are losing it. Not. You are not losing it girl. You're not grumpy or irritable. You are a woman healer over 50 whose soul is done being overused and today. We're talking about what burnout really looks like for high achieving women in medicine, mental health, and caregiving professions. And spoiler alert, it's not solved with bubble baths. And girl, it's not your fault. So here, stay with me'cause here's what you're gonna get outta this episode. By the end, you're gonna walk away with several things. One, a research back understanding of why burnout hits women over 50 differently, and why your 30-year-old coworker. Bouncing around with a Stanley Cup does not understand your level of exhaustion. Two, a practical five minute nervous system. Reset. You can do anywhere, sister, anywhere in the clinic, in the car, bathroom stall, wherever. You can hide from other humans. And third, but not last, a reframe that will change the way you see your burnout forever. Your mind is tired, but girl, your spirit is waking up. So all, let's get into it. Welcome to Soul Joy, the podcast for empowering brilliant women in healthcare over 50, transform burnout into purpose, reignited your spark to create a life that energizes you every single day. I'm your host, Dr. Julie Merriman. Let's get to it. So let's talk about the science of midlife burnout and compassion fatigue. You've heard me say it before, burnout and cf, as I love to call it in women over 50, is not a garden variety burnout, it's identity burnout. So let's break this down briefly and yeah, I'm bringing receipts. So let's do a research snapshot. Number one, the emotional labor load, according to Dr. Arley host child, whose name I just slaughtered. Arley has done research on emotional labor in women, and I'm not talking about having babies, this kind of labor, especially in helping professions. Carry almost three times the invisible emotional workload as men. That's right. Three times by 50. And mind you, that's 25 years of accumulated emotional caregiving. Your amygdala is exhausted. Your vagus nerve is ready to go to Hawaii on a permanent vacation. Your soul is ready to check out. It's tired, so that means you need to wake up and take care of these things. So let's look at the second research snapshot. Compassion fatigue, plus an aging nervous system, much as I hate to admit it, y'all, we are aging. So back to good old Figley who has done a remarkable amount of research for us in compassion fatigue. Fig Lee's compassion fatigue model shows us that chronic exposure to others' trauma without adequate recovery leads to emotional blunting. Exhaustion, irritability and girl shut down. So combine that. My f my friends with menopause. Hormonal shifts, decreased cortisol flexibility, increased life stress, aging parents, adult kids, career stagnation, and you get the perfect storm. There's one more research snapshot I wanna share with you. Number three, women over 50 feel invisible. Ugh. We do A 2023 in NIH study. Found that women over 50 report feeling invisible at work despite being the most experienced and competent. It, it just doesn't make sense. But here's the translation, my friend. You're caring more and being valued less, and that is the emotional violence no one is talking about. I. So let's look at the truth that you, and I don't want to admit, but you and I know it's true. So I'm just gonna say it. You didn't burn out because you're weak. Say that a lot. That could probably be a bumper sticker. You burned out because you were the strongest one in the room for far too long. The healthcare system loves women like you and me. Why you say? Because y'all, we don't complain. We will handle the crises. We know the families, we have the clinical intuition, we manage the chaos like a magician and y'all, we carry the emotional weight of a small village. But then when you do start cracking,'cause we're only human, it's gonna happen when we are exhausted. When your body says, girlfriend, I'm done. Suddenly. Suddenly you become the problem. Maybe she just can't keep up anymore. You know? She's just not as sharp as she was once. Oh, I think this is menopause, or. Maybe she should cut back. No. Hell no. Maybe you should stop running entire departments with zero support. Maybe they should cut back and here's the unpopular truth that will set you free. Burnout. Compassion fatigue is often the first sign of awakening. Girlfriend, it does not collapse. Your beautiful soul is saying, I'm done living like this. Change is coming. Okay, so that brings us to looking at nervous system reset, and this is an activity. This is a five minute intervention you can use anytime, anywhere. I call it the Phoenix Reset because it brings your system back online gently. So here it is. Step one. I want you to exhale that. Well, this is the exhale that tells your body you're safe. And we need that'cause we haven't been safe in our body. Long, slow exhale through the mouth like you're blowing out birthday candles. You know those birthday candles out cake that you didn't want at a party you didn't ask for. You know what I'm talking about, especially at 62. I'm gonna set a room on fire, but that's okay. I want you to blow out those candles three times. Repeat that Three times. Alright, next, let's look at the vagus nerve release. I want you to turn your head to the left. Hold for 10 seconds. Turn your head to the right. Hold for 10 seconds, y'all. This activates the vagal break. Your body's built in, calm the hell down. Switch vagus nerve release then. I want you to look around. Well, this is the three foot rule, sorry. This is the three foot rule. I want you to look around and name three things that are within three feet of your beautiful self. This interrupts spiraling thoughts and brings you into the present moment, easy breezy ride, and step four. The permission statement. And girl, I need you to say this out loud if you have to say it in your mind, but I really want you to say it out loud. I get to rest because I matter. Your amygdala needs to hear you say that. I get to rest because I matter. Amygdala hears you. Amygdala starts to believe you. Most women over 50 have never heard themselves say that. Now, I know a lot of us are healers, most of us are healers. We probably have said that, but we have to believe it and have to continue saying it. Okay. That's the, that's your, um. Nervous system reset activity. Now let's talk about a reframe, my friend, that changes everything. I want you to hear this with your whole being, every piece of it, burnout, compassion, fatigue is not the end girl. This is your turning point and what this means. Well, it means the old life doesn't fit. The old identity is too damn small. You've outgrown the role of everyone's everything. You are transitioning into your Phoenix era, and this is the season where you reclaim your creativity. You discover. Well, you rediscover your desire, your passion. You choose you. You finally stop abandoning yourself to be the good one. Burnout and compassion fatigue are indicators that your inner brilliance wants out. This my friend, is your return to soul joy. Not the fluffy kind, not the just think happy thoughts kind. Toxic PO positivity. No, but the deep, grounded, fierce joy of a woman who knows who she is and refuses to shrink from anyone. Anyone at all. Whew. Okay, so drink that in. Let your soul feel that. See which chakra is lighten up as you say that because that's the one you probably need to balance. And I've got lots of podcasts on that. I'm gonna give you the plot twist that no one has told you so far the uncomfortable truth about self-care. Okay. I'm about to say something that might make you uncomfortable, but I care, and I believe you need to hear it. The wellness industry is banking on your compass fatigue and your burnout. So let me explain. Every time they sell you another self-care course meditation app subscription. Just rest, I'm sorry, I can't pronounce my words. Just rest. More advice. A gratitude journal, essential oil. Or a weekend retreat, although I'm for all of those, and I'm gonna give some retreats, I hope you'll come to, but every time that wellness industry sells that to you, they're keeping you in the loop because here's what they don't want you to know, your burnout, your compassion fatigue isn't a personal deficit that needs more products to fix it. Your burnout is a data point. Your compassion fatigue is a data point showing you that the system is broken. That's right. The system. So I'm gonna give you one more research snapshot to back this up. I've had some shows on this, it's worth mentioning, mentioning again, the recovery paradox. A 2024 study from the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that women in healthcare. Who engaged in more traditional self-care activities, bubble baths, spa days, relaxation techniques without changing their work condition, actually reported higher burnout scores six months later. What? Yeah, and I'm gonna tell you why. Because they were using self-care as a bandaid on a flipping bullet wound, they were trying to recover from a system designed to deplete them without ever addressing the depletion source. Here's the real recovery formula. Self-care, my friend, is not the answer. Self-preservation is self. Pre self-preservation means setting boundaries that make people uncomfortable. Saying no without explanation. It's a full sentence, complete no period. Leaving jobs that are slowly killing you. Disappointing people who've gotten used or use to you overgiving disappointing people who are just expecting you to overgive and restructuring your life around your energy. Not everyone else's, and not around everyone else's needs. The question no one asks, what if I am not supposed to recover back into the same life that broke me? What if burnout is your soul's emergency broadcast system saying, Hey girl. Hey girl, we need a completely different life. Not a tweaked version, not a slightly better schedule, not the same job with more vacation days, a different architecture entirely, and that's groovy. This is what I call the radiant chapter. Let's go be radiant, and most women over 50 don't even know it's available to them. It is, it completely is. I have a whole system built to help you see this. It's not quite ready for eyes yet. Got people working on it, but it's written and I can't wait to get it out to you. So lemme tell you what you learned today first. Burnout. In women over 50, compassion fatigue in women over 50 girl. It's not a personal failure. It's a systemic overuse and emotional labor overload, and there's nothing wrong with you. You didn't do anything wrong. Two, your nervous system isn't broken. It just needs support. It needs some TLC. The Phoenix Reset gives your body an immediate on-ramp back to safety, and I went over that with you three. Traditional self-care might keep you stuck because it focuses on recovery instead of redesign. Self-preservation is greater than self-care. And finally, burnout is your turning point. Compassion fatigue, turning point, not your decline. You, my friend, are entering your Phoenix era. You're rising. You are becoming more it. You're becoming more you than ever before. That is so exciting. Girl. If this episode spoke to you, please share it with a woman healer over 50 who needs to hear that she's not alone, she's not crazy, and girl, she is not done. So here's your next step. Next step, your Radiance Chapter starter guide. Here's the thing. Everything I just shared with you, that's just the beginning. If you're sitting there thinking, okay, Jules, I hear you, but how do I actually start building this different life? Where do I even begin? I created something. Well, I've created lots of things just for you, but this Radiant Chapter starter guide is just for you, and it's the beginning. And it's free. It's, it's not another self-care checklist. It's not another 10 ways to prevent burnout, PDF that you'll wanna download and never open. This is a strategic roadmap for women, healers over 50 who are ready to stop recovering into the same broken life and start redesigning from the ground up inside the radiant chapter. Starter guide, you're gonna get, um, all kinds of good things. An energy audit, a decision matrix, um, a quick start action plan. Uh, you're gonna get all kinds of yummy things that are gonna help you start thinking around this idea of compassion, fatigue and burnout aren't the end. It's the beginning. And I am gonna rise from the ashes, this resource. Is what I wish someone had handed me when I was standing in. Huh. But in the hallway between back to back clients at 52, wondering if I had anything left to give? So to download your free Radiant chapter starter guide, just head to the show notes. I have a link in the show notes, and if you follow me on any of my socials, Facebook, Insta, or LinkedIn, I drop that guide into most of the posts that I put out there because my friend. My brilliant female healer, you are not meant to just survive the rest of your career, the rest of your life. You are meant to thrive in your radiant chapter. This is your season for Soul Joy Rising, and I'm right there with you. Thank you so much. Adios.