Three Surprising Ways to Recover from Compassion Fatigue When Burnout Won’t Budge

Chronic caregiving is literally disrupting your creativity, your problem-solving ability, and your working memory—and the brain fog you’re experiencing isn’t aging, it’s occupational injury.

If you’re walking into rooms and forgetting why, rereading the same paragraph three times, struggling to think clearly in session, or privately fearing something is wrong with your mind, this episode names what’s really happening.

In this episode, Dr. Julie explains the hidden cognitive cost of compassion fatigue and why chronic psychosocial stress overwhelms the brain.

You’ll learn what the research shows: burnout and compassion fatigue leave a mark on the brain and the body, and chronic stress can overwhelm cognitive skills and neuroendocrine systems. Dr. Julie breaks down what that actually means in real life—why thinking feels exhausting, why you can’t problem-solve like you used to, and why your working memory is failing you.

This episode also explains why the brain fog gets worse over time: your nervous system repeatedly enters a survival response when exposed to traumatic material, your body dumps stress hormones you must metabolize, and your brain tries to function while perceiving constant threat. Clarity and creativity do not thrive in threat physiology.

This episode also reveals where cognitive depletion lives energetically in the body.

Dr. Julie teaches how burnout closes the Third Eye chakra—your Anja—your energy center of insight, intuition, intellect, perception, and clarity. When it becomes underactive, you may experience confusion, headaches, moodiness, reclusiveness, and an exhausting inability to think deeply about anything.

You’ll be guided through an Inner Child practice from Week Nine of In Pursuit of Soul Joy designed to reopen your Third Eye chakra and restore clarity, intuition, and cognitive function. This episode helps you stop blaming your age, stop fearing dementia, and start understanding brain fog as information—something your nervous system and energy system are trying to communicate.

If this episode named your experience, the next step is deeper work.
Read In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue. And if you’re ready for personalized support, you can book a call with Dr. Julie.

Stop trying to "Self-Care" your way out of a physiological crisis.

If bubble baths and deep breathing actually fixed compassion fatigue, you wouldn't still be staring at the ceiling at 2:00 AM. Your burnout isn't an attitude problem, it's a biological pattern. You are stuck in one of four distinct "somatic signatures." Until you identify yours, you are just throwing water on a grease fire.

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Stop guessing. Find the leak. Fix the circuit.

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

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

This podcast is for women healers over 50 navigating burnout and compassion fatigue who want nervous-system-informed insight into exhaustion, purpose loss, polyvagal regulation, chakra healing, and embodied recovery so they can move from survival into clarity, stability, and restoration.

Transcript

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In this episode, you'll discover chronic caregiving is literally disrupting your creativity, your problem solving ability, and your working memory and the brain fog. 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. Whew. You're experiencing this girl. It isn't aging, it's occupational injury. By the end of this episode, you're going to understand the brain devastation, research, the third eye chakra crisis and the inner child practice. Okay, y'all, can we take a hot minute to talk about something? You're probably too ashamed to admit if you're anything like me, and here it is, you can't think straight anymore. Okay? So you walk into a room. And you know, you forget why you're there. You can't remember your patient's name, your client's name, your student's name. Oh God, help me. Even though you've been seeing them or with them for six months. Six years, you read the same paragraph three times and still don't know what it says. You can't solve problems that used to be easy for you. You can't think of creative interventions. And you can't, you're not able to remember basic knowledge that you've known for decades and you tell yourself, well, hell, I'm just getting old. My brain is aging. Maybe I'm getting dementia. I've thought that a time or two sweet soul that is not aging, that's chronic caregiving. Over-functioning, taking care of everyone else's needs before you even think about yourself. And it's destroying your brain and the research proves it. So in my book, in Pursuit of Soul Joy, I write about what the research actually shows. Integrative research teams have demonstrated that burnout and compassion fatigue leave their mark on your brain and body. This research shows that chronic psychosocial stress not only impairs personal social functioning that can overwhelm cognitive skills and your neuro doctrine systems. So let me translate that from academic speak because it is such a mouthful. So y'all chronic stress from caregiving and that comes in a lot of flavors. I, I know my husband just came through brain cancer. That was a whole different kind of caregiving. I've been a elementary school teacher. I've been a, a college professor, I've been a therapist. Uh, caregiving has a lot of different flavors, okay? So chronic stress from caregiving doesn't just make you feel stressed. It literally overwhelms all capital letters, your brain's ability to think, process and function. Your cognitive skills and that's your ability to think, reason, remember, problem solve. Your neuro indoctrine. Systems, hormones, stress response, entire nervous system, overwhelmed, devastated, broken. And here is the specific way it shows up. And as I write in the book, left Untreated, this leads to a disruption of your creativity, your problem solving, and your working memory. compassion fatigue disrupts three critical brain functions. First, your creativity. You can't think of new inter interventions anymore. You feel like you're running the same session, the same class, the same whatever, over and over. You've lost your clinical intuition and that creative spark that made you good at this work. And your problem solving ability. Let's look at that. Situations that used to be easy for you. Clinical decisions, crisis management, treatment planning, lesson planning. Now feel big. Almost impossible. You freeze. You second guess. You can't see solutions that are right in front of you. Oh girl, your work in memory. Shall we talk about that? Ugh. I know how it was for me. I couldn't hold information in my mind long enough to use it. I would forget what my patient had just told me. I couldn't even remember what I was charting. See, you lose track of conversations mid-sentence, and y'all, this isn't failing. This is what chronic psychosocial stress does to the human brain. And as a clinician with years of experience helping others by deeply empathizing with clients, you my friend, are extremely vulnerable to being impacted by burnout. Your overall health is at risk. Body, mind, soul. Here's what makes this so insidious. Burnout and compassion fatigue create a state of re-experiencing negative events, increased arousal avoidance symptoms. Think PTSD. And this is from exposure to traumatic life material, not ours, but our whoever we're working with and flat out exhaustion. And the crazy thing about all of this is that your brain, any brain cannot discern between. Your trauma and your clients, your students, whoever you're working with, trauma, your body's response is the same. A triggered polyvagal system. Think, fight or flight, and you kick into survival mode, dumping all kinds of wicked hormones into your body that you have to metabolize. And over time, this relentless cycle devastates. Your mind, body, and soul. So every trauma story you hear triggers your stress response. Every crisis you manage floods your brain with stress hormones. Every session where you deeply empathize, activate your polyvagal system, girl like you're the one in danger. Crazy, right? And your brain, it's trying to function in a constant state of perceived threat. And of course you can't think clearly, of course you can't be creative. Of course you can't remember things. Your brain. Is in survival mode, not thriving mode. And when that love, lovely brain of yours is in survival mode, the very first thing that's gonna go because your brain wants to conserve energy is any kind of pleasure, any kind of creativity, any kind of yumminess. So y'all, in week nine of my book, in Pursuit of Soul Joy, I write about. What this actually feels like when you're impacted by burnout and neglected self-care, your thinking becomes foggy. And frankly, it feels exhausting to have to think deeply about anything because our tolerance is shutting down, and at our age, our estrogen is limited, and that used to be our lovely buffer that would give us a lot more tolerance for things. Does that resonate? That brain fog that never lifts that exhaustion, that makes even simple thinking feel like a marathon. Here's the kicker. Fear creates even more brain fog, and this leads to showing up small and not believing in you. Fear that big fat liar. It's fear that you're not good enough anymore. Fear that you're going to miss something critical. Fear that you are not good enough anymore. Fear that you're going to miss something. Critical. Fear that you're failing Your patience. Fear that people will discover. You can't think straight. You're an imposter. That fear creates more brain fog, which creates more fear, which creates more fog. Horrible system. Horrible. And you're trapped in a cognitive death spiral and nobody taught you this was going to happen. So big deep breath. Get ourselves centered and grounded. I wanna talk to you about. Where this is living in your energy system because brain fog, fog isn't just neurological, it's an energetic crisis happening in your third eye chakra. So in week two of in pursuit of soul joy, I explain the third eye chakra. And it is centered between your eyebrows. It's the sixth chakra, and it is the first chakra related to our mental self, our soul. And this chakra represents your insight, your intuition, your intellect perception and psychic awareness, your insight, your intuition, your intellect, your perception, all of that lives there, right between your eyebrows and. When you're experiencing compassion fatigue, this chakra is gonna shut down. It goes dark. It's trying to protect you from having to process one more thing. And girl, if this is underactive, you might be experiencing headaches, eyesight problems, moodiness, reclusiveness, or complete confusion. Huh? Does any of that sound familiar? The headaches that won't quit? The vision problems. Your eye doctor can't explain the moodiness. Where you snap at everyone. The way you isolate because you can't deal with. People any more. Everything's way too peopley and that constant confusion where nothing seems to make sense, it's not because you're being difficult. That's an underactive third eye chakra from chronic stress. Your nervous system is completely dysregulated and worn out. So I want you. To understand what happens when this chakra is balanced.'cause when balanced, you're able to see patterns, solve puzzles, see the truth, fantasize, perceive lies, focus, and see things clearly as they truly are. And you're able to be very intuitive. You, you see those patterns. You focus, oh, everything is so clear and that is everything compassion fatigue has stolen from you. Your clinical intuition, your ability to see patterns of behavior, your capacity to. Complex problems, clarity, your focus, your ability to perceive what's really happening beneath the surface. And when your third eye is balanced, you're that clinician that you've always strive to be sharp, intuitive, clear, creative. Instead of that foggy, confused, slow, and doubting. Person that we become when our nervous system is so dysregulated. And I talk about this in week nine of my book this week, is about unearthing and reviving your intuition, and I invite you to dig into crevices of your memory to find time where you trusted your intuition without question. I don't know if you were anything like me when I was in my absolute burnout stage, I couldn't even remem Remember the last time I trusted my intuition, or the last time I just knew what inter intervention to use, or the last time I knew how to read a room instantly, or the last time I knew my clinical gut instinct was guiding me. So losing trust in yourself is not your fault, sweetness at all. You've been taught since you were a little wee one, not to trust your intuition. Adult adults in our lives poo-pooed our efforts. Friends probably laughed at us at some point. Our intuition became buried under shame and adulting, and then compassion fatigue and burnout came along and buried it even deeper. Under brain fog, fear and cognitive overwhelm. So to get to the other side of burnout, you've got to be able to think clearly with an open mind that is fear free. Now, let me halt here, girlfriend. You're not gonna think your way out of this shit. We need a clear mind, but you've gotta do the physical work, the embodiment work to get out of this. But we've gotta get past fear because fear is only gonna increase that brain fog, and that's only gonna lead to showing up small where we don't believe in ourself. And when we lack clarity, we're gonna choose to be overwhelmed and we don't even realize we're doing it. Because choosing to be overwhelmed, and that could sound harsh, but stay with me. When your third eye chakra is closed, when your cognitive function is completely disrupted, your brain is flooded with stress hormones, overwhelmed becomes the default setting until your brain goes your or your nervous system goes to complete freeze, and that's a sucky place to be too. But wherever it goes, the message here is you're not weak. We're just in a place where we cannot process clearly enough to know what to do, and I'm sure. You've tried all the things that you've been told to do that's gonna help your brain fog, more sleep, better nutrition, brain games, supplements, probably even medication, but none of those really work like we hoped they would because at the end of the day. The problem isn't that your brain needs more fuel or training. The problem is your third eye needs to reopen and your inner child needs to feel safe enough to come back. In week nine of my book, I'm gonna teach you a practice that changed everything from my recovery inner child work to restore intuition and clarity. And you can do this. So your inner child, that part of you that knew things before, you learn to doubt yourself, needs unconditional love, so your intuition can return and here's how you do this. Step one. Find your inner child, close your eyes, take deep breaths, and you ask yourself, how old am I in my mind's eye right now? What age appears for many of my clients experiencing burnout? Their inner child is somewhere between five and 10 before the world taught them not to trust themselves. Step two, notice how you feel toward her during this inner child work. Reflect on how you feel towards yourself at all ages. Are you able to love yourself and accept yourself exactly as you were, are, and will be? Can you look at that little girl with compassion or do you judge or do you shame? Or do you blame? Third, offer unconditional love. Your inner child needs this type of love so you're able to thrive, and this work helps you to grow love. Four, your inner child unconditionally in spite of problems and faults, giving birth to trust. Your instincts and clarity. So you tell her sweetness, you are safe, you are loved, you can trust yourself. Your intuition is real and valuable, and I'm here for you now. And step four, you listen to her wisdom'cause she is so wise, she understands your life history. She has been there for all the things that created the narrative of your life. This is the real you, the inner child is your best friend. So you ask her, what do I need to know right now? What am I not seeing clearly? And then you listen again without judgment, just curiosity. Don't dismiss, receive. See consistent inner child work is gonna lead to the opening of that third eye, and this is gonna allow you to fully see yourself once you begin the work. You recognize the messy layers created by life, feelings of being a victim, ways judgment is projected, insecurities, assumptions so much more. But when your third eye is fully balanced, you are going to become aware of all the roles you play. And this my friend, is how I recovered my clarity. After my burnout crash, I saw that my behavior was in response to others' assumptions about who I was. Once my inner child felt nurtured and my third eye opened, I moved past the illusions that I had let define my existence. I trusted myself. And you know what? That house of cards fell. Good. And here's what happened to my brain function. The gift I did not expect from my crash is getting reacquainted. With my intuition and my clarity, my creativity came back. My problem solving ability returned, my working memory improved. And that wasn't from supplements or brain games. It was because I healed the energetic wound that was causing my cognitive disruption. I realized the depth I kept skipping in my burnout crash and that recovery path. I was not making time for deep self-reflection. I realized I had to stop the harsh judgment of myself and others as it was blocking that third eye. And through this work I achieved emotional regulation. Self-reflection cannot be skipped, y'all, you've gotta do it. So I invite you to get a journal and start writing to your inner child and keep. That conversation going. Okay, so here's what we talked about today, the brain devastation. Chronic caregiving causes psychological stress that overwhelms your cognitive skills and neuro doctrine systems. Third, eye chakra closure. It closes when you're experiencing compassion fatigue and when you're impacted you, you just can't think, right? You're foggy and you're exhausted and inner child work. You've got to get reconnected with your inner child and offer her unconditional love so that that third eye will open. Consistent inner child work leads to the opening, and that's gonna restore intuition, clarity, and your cognitive function that burnout stole. So y'all, we rise together, girl. Your brain is not broken. Your intuition, she's still there. Clarity isn't lost. Compassion, fatigue and burnout have closed that third eye, but you can reopen it and speak your truth and honor that inner child and never apologize for needing to do so. I'll see you next week. Your intuition is waiting for you to trust it again. Sweet soul. Give yourself what you actually need. Tap the show notes right now to discover your somatic signature because if bubble baths and breathing exercises could fix this, you'd already be back to your radiant self. You need the right map. Let's find out which of the four somatic signatures your body is using. Girl, this isn't homework. This is a homecoming. I.