Why Your High Stress Tolerance Is Actually Burnout Trauma and How to Heal Your Root Chakra

Have you always prided yourself on being the one who "handles it well" while everyone else falls apart? You are the rock in a crisis, the calm in the storm, and the one who can endure impossible workloads without complaining. But what if that incredible capacity to endure isn't resilience? What if it is actually a sign that your nervous system is stuck in a permanent state of survival?

For women healers over 50, high stress tolerance is often worn as a badge of honor. However, physiologically and energetically, it is often a symptom of a blocked Root Chakra and a dysregulated nervous system. You aren't "handling it" because you are calm; you are handling it because you have dissociated from your own need for safety. When you normalize chaos, peace feels boring or even dangerous. This isn't strength; it is a trauma response that is slowly eroding your health and your joy.

In this episode, Dr. Julie Merriman dismantles the myth of the "Strong Woman." You will learn the critical difference between true resilience and traumatic endurance. We explore the neuroscience of safety and how to use Root Chakra grounding techniques to convince your body that the war is over. You will discover how to lower your threshold for stress so you can finally stop surviving your life and start actually feeling it.

Stop wearing your exhaustion as a badge of honor. Press play to learn how to rebuild your foundation of safety and heal your Root Chakra.

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.

Burnout isn’t your failure—it’s the cost of caring too long without support.
In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue is written for women healers ready to stop surviving and start living again.

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Reach out to Dr. Julie - Tell her how you're feeling to get a personalized plan to feel alive and thrive.

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

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

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the 12 Days of Radiance Reset. Y'all know all about the 12 days of Christmas here at Compassion Fatigue Cure. We are doing the 12 days of Radiance Reset. Over the next 12 days, we're ditching the holiday overwhelm to take you from exhausted to trapped, to take you from exhausted and trapped to radiant and free. This is your end of year reclamation. So you show up to the clinic, you save lives, you smile at your patients. Everyone thinks you are a superhero, but inside you're screaming. Today we rip off the mask of high functioning burnout. Empowering brilliant women in healthcare over 50 to transform burnout and compassion fatigue into renewed passion. Reigniting your spark to create a life that energizes you every single day. I'm your host, Dr. Jules. Let's get to it. Here's the truth. You are not just tired. You are in a state of energetic depletion that sleep. It's not gonna fix. I need you to listen to this podcast until the very last second for three critical reasons. One, I'm going to prove to you that your high achievement is actually a trauma response that is keeping you stuck. Two. We are going to look at the neuroscience of why your brain perceives rest as danger, causing that anxiety you feel the moment you sit down. Three. I'm going to give you a 62nd nervous system hack that will stop the cortisol dump instantly. Okay, let's do it. Let's start with the research. I wanna discuss the concept of high functioning depression, burnout, the research. Shows how women over 50 in healthcare often have elevated cortisol levels that mimic the fight or flight. Even when you're safe, y'all, that's when the helpers high has worn off and it leaves us feeling exhausted and full of resentment. So the chakra that we can focus on for this would be the root chakra, and for this to help with that exhaustion and that resentment. So when you are in high functioning burnout, your root chakra is blocked, so you're not gonna feel safe unless you're doing. You feel ungrounded and you feel like you're just floating in anxiety. It's just awful. So, to get you past this, I wanna teach you the grounding cord. I want you to do this with me right now. I know you might be driving or cleaning, so don't close your eyes, but imagine a thick. Red cord extending from your tailbone, going deep into the center of the earth. Visualize all that overwhelm all the patient client trauma that you've absorbed today over the week, draining down into that cord. And you send all of that to the earth to be composted. Feel the gravity holding you. You are safe, you are held. So what did we learn? We learned that looking successful doesn't mean you feel joy. We learned that your root chakra needs safety, not more work. And y'all, we learned that you can ground yourself in just 60 seconds before you go. You need to take my, what's your burnout, compassion fatigue, archetype quiz. The link is in the show notes. Go take it right now to understand your specific healing path. Remember y'all, we rise together. If this episode hit home, don't just nod and move on. Give yourself what you actually need. Tap the show notes right now to grab your free Compassion Fatigue Cure Starter Guide, or. The burnout to Radiance Reset. And girl, if you know another woman healer who's running on empty, please share this episode.