Devotion or Depletion? How Your Body Recognises Burnout Before Your Mind Does

Dear you, it could be that you already know this sort of tiredness, where a full night's sleep no longer has that needed calming and energising effect. Instead, it follows you into a holiday and only begins to loosen in the second week just as a growing sense of dread at the thought of returning home arrives... Or it's the heaviness that settles into your shoulders and neck at eight in the morning simply at the mere sight of the sink, long before a single dish has been washed…rrrrr...

Many of the women I sit with describe these moments and most of them assume the answer is to rest 'harder', or organise better or finally discover the routine or "balanced-life" that will make it all manageable, whereas what their bodies are so often trying to tell them is something quite different...…their giving has, over time, moved from something they chose into something that is simply expected of them, without anyone ever asking. This happened so gradually and so faithfully that even they stopped noticing it had happened... this is when the devotion turns into depletion

What is the difference between devotion and depletion?

Devotion is service you have chosen, with the awareness of having chosen, whereas depletion is service that has been taken from you... this is often by no one in particular, but simply due to the fact that you were the one standing there when something needed doing. Moreover, research on carers and on burnout suggests that this sense of choice matters a great deal, alongside how much you are carrying, whether you are supported and recognised, whether the arrangement feels fair, and whether you include yourself among the people you care for.

Think of the mother awake for the third night with a feverish child, hollow-eyed and running on empty, who would choose it again without a moment's hesitation, or the painter working until two in the morning because the work is finally coming through her, or the friend sitting up late with someone in crisis because there was nowhere else she wished to be, since all of this costs something, yet something in each of these women remains intact, because she is still the author of her own life even whilst giving it away.

Now think of the emails that arrive on a Sunday evening, the family logistics that landed on you because you were the one who noticed, the care of an elderly parent that became yours through an unspoken agreement between siblings who never once held a meeting about it, or the role at work that quietly expanded without a conversation or a change in pay, none of which was chosen, all of which simply accrued and none of which can ever be renegotiated, since it was never negotiated in the first place.

The invisible load women carry

My mother wanted to be a nun, then a doctor, and then, of all things, a fighter pilot, three vocations that each meant giving a whole life over to something larger than herself, yet she lived none of them, serving instead the people in front of her, raising six children and quietly running a kitchen of volunteer parents at the sports club that was the heart of every expat family's life at my school in Wassenaar…

This kind of labour never appears in anyone's figures nor in any measure of economic growth and therefore it is treated as though it does not exist, whereas if the work of mothers and carers were ever counted where it truly belongs, we would see an entirely different picture of who has been holding this world up all along.

I inherited her phenomenal drive rather than her disappointment, building a life out of service through therapeutic work, circles, ceremony, teaching and retreats, and for many years I believed this was simply who I am, which in the truest sense it is, although what I didn't yet understand is that a calling and a compulsion can adorn precisely the same clothes...

Three signs your body recognises depletion

From the outside, devotion and depletion look identical, with the same reliable woman who always answers, the same holding and the same showing up, whereas your body has very likely been signalling the difference for quite a long time, and we were never taught to recognise, read or heed those signals.

1. Taking rest no longer restores you

After acts of devotion, rest really works. Therefore, you sleep, eat well or lie in the sun or on the sofa for an hour and something within you refills and recharges. However, after depletion, you take your rest and remain utterly tired, because what you are carrying is no longer a simple debt of sleep, but something that has become more structural, woven into the very shape of your days, for instance, the roles that never stop, or the mental load you hold even whilst lying down and a body that has forgotten how to settle down.

2. Resentment you are not allowed to admit

Devotion can be gruelling without ever turning bitter, whereas depletion breeds a resentment that most women are not permitted to name, and it moves towards the people we love most, which is precisely why we bury it, until it surfaces as a flatness or a hardness in the voice when someone asks what is for dinner, or as irritation at a question that did not deserve it, followed by guilt, followed by giving even more to make up for having felt it at all. I have known this dynamic myself and the cost of not being able to see and name it was illness, because the body says no for you.

Resentment isn't that there's something wrong with you (I thought there was you see) as it is usually the part of you that still knows something is not fair and balanced here and that you deserve fairness. The resentment inside of you is protesting about a boundary that's been crossed too many times, and asking you to listen to it this time rather than push it away.

3. Dread arrives before the task

This one is a great signal to notice and it's been a great help for me. Devotion can feel heavy on the way in or on the way out, whereas depletion is heavy before you've even begun the task, like the message you have not yet opened but you can already feel it in your shoulders tightening, or the Sunday afternoon that loses its light because Monday is coming. Therefore, when the anticipation costs more than the task itself, something in that arrangement was never truly agreed to by you.

Why the body says no before the mind does

I didn't stop when my body asked me to (I simply had no clue it was flagging me), I stopped when my body stopped me. Firstly, through a long and deep exhaustion that I did not even recognise for what it was and then through an accident, which was my body finally speaking the no I had not been willing to say aloud, in the only language left to it…

As Gabor Maté explores so powerfully in When the Body Says No, the body keeps a real and honest account even whilst the mind explains, rationalises and schedules around what we feel, so it registers the exhaustion we keep pushing past and, sooner or later, presents the bill regardless of how disciplined we have been, which is also, I believe, part of what perimenopause so often asks women to finally notice.

Having been moving through perimenopause myself for nearly ten years now, I've come to realise that my body no longer has the same capacity it once had to hold everything up, and it reminds me of the days around our monthly bleed, when the barrier breaks down and so many of us feel more tired, tender and less able to push through, which I've come to understand as the body showing us, quite plainly, where we've been overstepping ourselves, emotionally or physically.

Therefore, you are not exhausted because you have given too little.. No...you are exhausted because somewhere along the way nobody asked you, and the giving became automatic, and then expected, then invisible, until eventually it was invisible even to you.

Seen through the season of Virgo

I use astrology as a map of the seasons rather than as a means of prediction, and the Virgo season of late August and September carries this teaching more clearly than any other since Virgo is the sign of daily life, of every-day labour, our routines and the care of our body, where the shadow so easily becomes over-service, the relentless inner critic voice we all know and the bar set so high that we fall short of our own lives every single day.

At her highest potential, however, the Virgo archetype is the virgin in the oldest sense of the word, which has nothing to do with whether a woman has been touched and everything to do with her being sovereign unto herself, a woman whose service is given rather than taken. This is akin to the wise woman of the village to whom people came for births, marriages and deaths, whose service was immense whilst her worth was never once in question, because the village held her in dignity for it.

Marion Woodman spent much of her life on this very distinction, writing in Addiction to Perfection of how the drive towards perfection becomes a flight from the wise body, and of how the feminine returns to us through imperfect, ageing and tired flesh rather than through ever greater and even more refinement.

A reflection and a small practice

For a reflection this week, you might sit with this question and let it sit for a moment, since the first answer is usually the one that protects everybody else… "where in my life have I been serving without ever having been asked, and what would it mean, just this once, to be the one who is held?"

I invite you to a small practice:
Receive one thing this week that you haven't earned, perhaps a cup of tea made for you, help you didn't ask for, or a compliment you allow to land without deflecting it... and then notice what moves in your body when you don't immediately pay it back, since that flicker of discomfort holds much wisdom.

When to seek support

When exhaustion persists for weeks despite rest, or arrives alongside low mood, anxiety, changes in sleep or appetite, or physical symptoms you can't explain, seeing your GP (huisarts) is a wise first step, since burnout can overlap with medical and hormonal changes that deserve your proper attention, whilst somatic and depth-oriented work can be a valuable companion to that care, helping you understand the patterns beneath the exhaustion and find your way back into relationship with your body.

Frequently asked questions

Is depletion the same as burnout?

Depletion is often the long, quiet road that leads towards burnout and much like the gradual erosion that happens when giving has stopped being chosen, whereas burnout is the point at which the body and nervous system can no longer keep compensating, which is why noticing the signs of depletion early can make such a big difference.

Can resentment actually be healthy?

Resentment is uncomfortable, yet it is often a healthy signal, pointing towards our needs that have gone unmet or a boundary that has been crossed. Therefore, rather than being proof that something is wrong with you, it can become valuable information about where your consent has been missing.

How can somatic work help with depletion?

Somatic work helps you notice how exhaustion, dread and resentment live in your body, and to listen to those signals with curiosity rather than pushing past them, which gradually strengthens your capacity to recognise your own limits and therefore, to choose your giving, rather than having it taken from you.

Working together

The invisible load rarely lightens through understanding alone, since it lightens when someone takes hold of it with you, and in my 1:1 work, in Amsterdam and online, we explore together at a pace your body can hold, the patterns beneath what you have been carrying, through somatic practices, depth-oriented inquiry, cyclical wisdom and gentle ritual… Explore 1:1 support