Are you feeling exhausted, run down and burnt out? You may feel alone. But I promise you, you’re not.
In fact, data shows that many women are struggling, especially those who are juggling multiple responsibilities, like work or a business and family.
Lisa Corduff, founder of The Change Room, conducted a study in 2022 with 1430 women across the globe, and found that 98.2 per cent don’t feel fully rested, and 56.8 per cent rate their energy five or below out of 10.
My mother juggled it all
Let me start with a story. In the past, my mother juggled it all. She was a mum-of-five during the day, and a night-shift nurse at night. The other mums around her thought she was Supermum; an amazing mother, housewife and working mum, a woman who had it all together.
Yet, inside she was falling apart, silently suffering with anxiety and panic attacks that felt like she was going to die. Fast forward to when I became a mum, I juggled it all. I was a mum-of-two, running a business, doing extra studies, keeping the household going, with a husband who was rarely at home.
I looked around at all the other modern mums on social media ‘doing it all’, living their passions, being a great mum and making an impact outside of their homes, and I felt like I was failing.
Like my mum, I was breaking down inside, struggling with anxiety and panic attacks, and many other physical health issues.
I thought I was alone, but the thing is, research shows that a third of working mums are physically and mentally burnt out, and working mums are up to 40 per cent more stressed than other people.
My story is a quarter of our working mum’s stories. This statistic is not good enough.
Cultural programming
Women are stuck in perpetual burnout because old programming and cultural norms of mothering, nurturing and home building persists in families, even when a woman is running her own business or working full time.
Research shows that, in Australia, women do more than men when it comes to housework and caring for the kids – even if both mum and dad are working full time.
On top of this, so many women are struggling with hidden internal beliefs about themselves. A common one is they are not good enough unless they are achieving in all areas. This leads to over-doing, which results in a lack of time for their own self-care, and therefore burnout and exhaustion.
And that’s a real problem because it not only affects their health, but as research shows, a quarter of working mums are considering leaving their job or quitting their business due to stress caused by the conflict between work and caring responsibilities.
Privately, many mothers whisper to me that they feel like they’re also screwing up their kids, and their marriages.
The problem with the current health industry
So many burnt out, working mums come to my holistic functional medicine practice after trying to resolve their exhaustion and related health issues with medication, natural supplements, diets, or even meditation and breathwork. Yet their health issues still persist and continue to affect their lives.
I saw this personally with myself. I saw doctors, naturopaths, energy healers, osteopaths and physios, and tried all the diets out there to heal my body. And while some treatments helped, my body burnout never resolved. And that was because the root cause of my burnout, like many other juggling women, was not addressed – and that is trying to do everything for everyone, stretching myself thin like a rubber band that was about to snap, and not filling my cup up first.
These root-cause issues are steeped in cultural gender programming, self-limiting beliefs stuck in the unconscious, and in not honouring myself first and foremost as a woman and human being.
To fully break free from burnout, a woman must address all the root-causes – body, mind and environment – so that she can untangle herself from burnout and step into a life that honours herself.
By doing so, she will also change generations to come, so that her daughters and other girls don’t follow in perpetuating the exhaustion cycle.
