How Feminine Burnout Affects your Health and Relationships

You want to have it all – the health, the wealth, great sex and relationships – but is feminine burnout holding you back?

You are a leader and good at what you do. People come to you because they can count on you to get things done. But on the inside, you are feeling disconnected, isolated, and alone, even when you are surrounded by people.

Maybe you cycle through a pattern of stressful or failed relationships. Maybe you don’t enjoy sex the way you once did or perhaps you are struggling with medical concerns behind the scenes.

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Something feels off

You have never been able to crack the code to having it all and you have never been able to figure out why. Until now…

The most common complaints I get from women who want to work with me are “I don’t feel like myself”, “things look great from the outside looking in, but I am not fulfilled”, and “please save my relationship”.

The most detrimental pattern I see in the successful and high-performing women I work with is what I call feminine burnout, and it explains all of this.

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Defining feminine burnout

Most of us know what burnout is in the context of our work and chronic stress. When we become emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted, motivation declines, negative thinking can plague us, and we lose interest in the things that used to bring us joy.

Feminine burnout happens when you are not in touch with and no longer value the feminine nature of your optimal self because your optimal self requires balance and flexibility.

You must balance your masculine energy (doing, working, grinding, giving) with your feminine energy (rest, gratitude, peace, receiving) and the flexibility to shift back and forth as necessary.

Feminine burnout occurs when you get stuck chronically over-functioning and over-giving for everyone around you in the masculine without creating space and honouring the feminine.

This pattern is prominent in our culture due to the way we were socialised and the examples that previous generations modelled for us. We were taught that to be lovable, worthy of space and succeed, we have to work the hardest and be as little inconvenience to others as possible, and that to be valued, we have to be in control.

Our mothers and our grandmothers sacrificed their careers, they took on all the housework, they never asked for help, and most of them never even talked about how much it sucked, because that was just what a good women did. But she carried that weight and passed it on without even realising.

Feminine burnout can be insidious because most who suffer with it keep it together on the outside. And it is exactly why high-achieving women make great CEOs, entrepreneurs, professionals, and managers.

They are still reaching their quotas, crushing their goals, and succeeding, but they are hanging on by a thread while they do it, feeling lost and lonely, and their health and relationships suffer as a consequence. We have to learn to re-balance our relationship to ourselves and others for better sex, better health, and more wealth.

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Do you have feminine burnout?

It’s time to put all the puzzle pieces together. If you have been feeling “off” or you know that you want to feel like the best version of you, it is time to evaluate your relationship to your feminine energy to identify potential feminine burnout.

Physical signs of feminine burnout include:

• Fatigue and lack of energy: Feminine burnout often comes with a chronic and underlying lack of energy. If you find that you lack energy for the things that bring you joy, such as socialising and hobbies, but you maintain your vitality at work, you are over-giving without taking time to care for yourself.

• Repeated injuries or infections: A chronic back injury that flares up and keeps you stuck in bed for a few days or a weakened immune system that results in recurring infections are indicators I look for in the women I work with. These conditions indicate are indicative of someone who is stuck chronically in their masculine energy.

• Hormonal imbalances: Women with feminine burnout notice symptoms like irregular menstrual cycles, hair loss, and mood swings. When your body is over-stressed and inflamed, it impacts your hormone production. This leads to symptoms that you can manage when you reimagine your relationship to feminine burnout.

• Digestive issues: When you are chronically stressed, your body never has time to rest and digest, which can lead to bloating, cramps, and various digestion problems. As such, unexplained digestive issues is another indicator of feminine burnout.

Mindset signs of feminine burnout include:

• Overwhelm: Do you ever feel like one more thing on your plate will finally make you crack under the pressure? Living in a state of constant overwhelm is a recipe for feminine burnout.

• Difficulty saying no: Do you feel like you have to urgently respond to the needs of others, even when you don’t want to? We have been conditioned to put other’s needs before our own, which makes it more difficult to get in touch with our own desires.

• Loneliness: Feminine burnout affects your ability to connect to others. You feel lonely in your relationships and friendships. When you heal your feminine burnout, you have more capacity and energy to connect and foster relationships.

• High functioning anxiety/depression: If you feel like what you present on the outside does not represent the sadness, loneliness, and discomfort or the tornado of stress and overthinking that you feel on the inside, you may have feminine burnout. This is why healthcare professionals often prescribe antidepressants for women who open up about how they are feeling on the inside, when the real picture is much bigger.

• Zero f*cks left to give: When you start to let things slide, you cut off people before making the effort to repair relationships, your negative energy builds and builds and sometimes explodes on innocent bystanders but you don’t have the energy to fix the patterns.

Social signs of feminine burnout:

• Resentment: Is the main emotion in your relationship resentment? If you start to look at your partner like a drain on your energy and resources, and the days of appreciation, gratitude, and trust are long gone because it is easier when you just do the work yourself, then you may suffer from feminine burnout.

• Lack of sex and intimacy: Sex and intimacy are the ultimate acts of receiving, and when you are stuck in a pattern of over-giving, sex is going to suck.

You deserve better

The way we were conditioned makes it easy for us to fall into patterns of feminine burnout and difficult to make the changes we need to stop the cycle.

But you deserve to feel better – you deserve to take up space; you deserve to be taken care of; and you deserve the peace that you crave.

You owe it to yourself to address this issue. If you don’t, your relationships will continue to suffer until you learn to re-balance the polarity of your energy.

When you are constantly in your masculine, you force others into the feminine role (and I don’t mean gender roles, like who does the cooking and cleaning – that has nothing to do with your energy).

Until you find balance and resign some control, your partner is going to feel the same resentment toward you that you feel toward them, at least until you are both in a balanced and healthier place. A true partnership gives, supports and receives. And just imagine how much better the sex will be when this happens.

Learning to receive and opening yourself to the rest, recovery, and relaxation you crave will improve your health and relationships in ways you probably can’t imagine.

You probably feel guarded reading this, but that is your conditioning fighting against everything you’ve done to hold it all together for so long. But it is not all going to fall apart when you let off the gas a little, I promise. And you will feel so much happier and healthier when you learn to trust and feel safe with letting go.

Slow things down

For now, try this: Slow down. Make an intentional and conscious effort to slow down – how you speak, how quickly you respond to emails and texts, how you walk, how you put on your skincare products or brush your teeth.

This allows little cracks to form. allowing feminine energy to permeate the masculine wall you have put up. When implemented with consistency, watch as it transforms your life and love. This is a better way to rebuild.

By Dr. Jordin Wiggins

About the author: Dr. Jordin Wiggins is a naturopathic doctor and feminine burnout and pleasure coach. She is the CEO of the Pleasure Collective, a coaching community for women reclaiming their pleasure. She is also the author of The Pink Canary, an investigation into the hidden secret to optimal women’s wellness, and the podcast host of The Pleasure Principles. She is a regular contributor to articles and TV, including Cityline, Cosmopolitan, and The Washington Post, advocating for women’s health and right to pleasure. Dr. Jordin gets it, because she was there, too. She believes that great sex is just the beginning – everything comes when you learn how to receive: better sex, better health, more wealth. Dr. Wiggins helps entrepreneurs and professional women feel their best and have as much success in their relationships as they do in their careers through learning to receive, trust, and attract. www.thepleasurecollective.com

Author: Pedro van Gaalen

When he’s not writing about sport or health and fitness, Pedro is probably out training for his next marathon or ultra-marathon. He’s worked as a fitness professional and as a marketing and comms expert. He now combines his passions in his role as managing editor at Fitness magazine.

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