Strong Women, Quiet Burnout: Why You’re Exhausted and What To Do About It

Strong women are often praised for their resilience — but many are quietly living with burnout, exhaustion, and the pressure to keep going.

In this reflection inspired by Episode 6 of my podcast, Contain Her Magic, we explore what resilience really means for women who have learned to be strong through responsibility, hardship, and leadership — and why redefining resilience may be the key to living with more ease, self-trust, and vitality.

There is a kind of exhaustion many women don’t talk about.

It doesn’t always look like collapse.
More often, it looks like competence.

You show up.
You handle things.
You keep going.

And over time, resilience becomes less of an inner resource and more of an expectation.

In this recent episode of Contain Her Magic, I sat down with resilience expert and bestselling author Karen Dean to talk about how she helps women rise. As the conversation deepened, what surfaced was not only a story of resilience and leadership, but also a tender longing for rest, softness, and support that many women will recognize.

When Strength Becomes a Survival Strategy

For many women, strength is not something they consciously chose.
It is something they learned by necessity.

It formed through responsibility taken on early,
through leadership,
through motherhood,
through trauma or loss,
through being the one who holds everything together.

Resilience became the way through.

And that version of you is not wrong.
She is resourceful.
She is intelligent.
She is wise.

But survival mode was never meant to be permanent.

Instead of asking, How do I want to live?
you start asking, How do I get through this?

This is how burnout becomes quiet.

Not dramatic.
Not obvious.
But constant.

It shows up as fatigue that doesn’t lift,
joy that feels distant,
rest that feels undeserved,
and a nervous system that never quite settles.

You’re still functioning.
But you’re no longer being nourished.

When Strength Starts to Feel Heavy

One of the most honest moments in the conversation was when Karen spoke about her desire to soften without losing her power.

That tension lives in many women:

If I stop pushing, will everything fall apart?
If I soften, will I lose myself?

We’ve been taught that strength means endurance,
self-reliance,
control.

But the body tells a different story.

Resilience doesn’t regenerate through pressure.
It regenerates through safety.

Through rest.
Through boundaries.
Through breath.
Through learning to trust yourself again.

This is where resilience begins to shift
from performance
to sustainability.

A New Way of Understanding Resilience

Resilience that lasts is not built only through effort.

It is built through relationship —
with your body,
with your limits,
with your needs,
and with your inner knowing.

When women reconnect with these signals, they stop living only from habit or survival.
They begin to live from discernment.

Not just, What must I do?
but, What is actually right for me?

A Different Question

Part One of this conversation ends with a question that matters more than any strategy:

How can women reclaim their softness while still honoring their strength?

This is not about becoming someone else.

It is about allowing an identity shaped by survival
to evolve into an identity shaped by choice.

Resilience doesn’t have to mean,
“I can handle anything.”

It can become,
“I know when to stop.”
“I know when to ask for support.”
“I know when something needs to change.”

That is not weakness.
It is wisdom.

If This Sounds Like You

If you’ve been feeling capable but disconnected,
responsible but depleted,
steady on the outside and tired on the inside,

the invitation is gentle.

Start by listening.

To your body.
To your fatigue.
To what no longer feels sustainable.

Burnout is not a failure of strength.
It is a signal that strength needs care.

And sometimes, the most resilient thing you can do
is stop surviving…
and start choosing.

---

An Invitation to Redefine Your Resilience

If this conversation resonated with you, it may be because something in you is tired of surviving and quietly wondering if there’s another way.

You’ve been strong for a long time.
You know how to hold things together.
You know how to keep going.
And part of you is ready to stop doing it all on your own.

My programs were created for women like you — capable, emotionally intelligent, and ready for a way of being strong that doesn’t cost you your body, your energy, or yourself.

This is not another expectation to live up to.
It’s not another thing to push through or achieve.

It’s an invitation to exhale.
To soften without losing your power.
To feel supported instead of solely responsible.
To come back into relationship with your body, your breath, and your inner knowing.

Through gentle, embodied practices, nervous system regulation, and self-trust, this work supports you in moving out of survival mode and back into a way of living that feels more spacious, freer, and more alive.

If you found yourself thinking, finally… someone understands what this feels like,
then this may be the next right step for you.

You’ll find all the ways to work with me — including the Get Your Spark Back and Contain Your Magic program, the 21-Day Starter Challenge for Embodied Joy, and the Contain Her Magic Experience for events and festivals HERE.

This is not about becoming someone new.
It’s about feeling like yourself again.

---

🎧 Listen to Episode 6, Part One of Contain Her Magic:
Redefining Resilience — Strong, Capable, and Exhausted
for the conversation that inspired this reflection.

In Part Two, we explore how softness, embodiment, and self-forgiveness reshape what resilience can be. The second part drops Tuesday, February 3, 2026. Join us there, wherever you listen to podcasts!