Many women who work in caring roles find themselves exhausted, lost, and feeling disconnected from themselves and the world around them.
This is something I’ve related to many times in my own life. And I say many times because I’ve lost myself, found myself again, lost myself again… and come back.

For those of us who find it natural to be there for others, it can be surprisingly easy to completely lose sight of ourselves.

When Caring Comes Naturally, Burnout Can Go Unnoticed

Caring, nurturing, supporting, and giving come so naturally to many sensitive women that we often don’t even realise how much we’re doing, until we reach emotional burnout.

One day we feel exhausted. Emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually drained. We may notice our mood has dropped, anxiety has crept in, or we’ve lost interest in life altogether. This kind of empath exhaustion often builds slowly, quietly, over time.

Emotional Burnout in Sensitive Women and Empaths

Many of the sensitive, empathic women I work with come to me feeling exactly like this - disconnected, depleted, and unsure how they got there. I recognise it not just through my work, but through lived experience.

When caregiver burnout sets in, something deeply uncomfortable can happen. We no longer want to help anyone. For caring people, this can feel shocking or even shameful - yet it’s often a sign that we’ve been carrying too much for too long.

Caring Professions, Covid, and the Cost of Holding It All Together

I often wonder how many women in caring professions are still carrying the impact of Covid. While the world slowed down, many people in health services and caring roles continued working, supporting others through crisis after crisis, often without the space to recover.

For some, this pattern didn’t begin with work, it began much earlier in life.

Losing Yourself When You’ve Always Been the Strong One

Many sensitive women found themselves in caring roles from a young age, emotionally supporting a parent, another adult, or a significant caregiver. Often because we were emotionally strong, resilient, and perceptive.

Others sensed this and leaned on us. They placed on us what they didn’t feel able to carry themselves.

Sensitivity Is Not a Weakness - It Is Strength

I mention strength and resilience because this matters. I’ve come to truly recognise just how strong and resilient I am, and my work now helps others to see this within themselves too.

Sensitivity is still so often misunderstood as a weakness. In reality, sensitive people are some of the strongest beings on the planet. Partly because we’ve had to be. We’ve learned to be.

And strength does not mean tolerating others’ projections, expectations, or emotional weight at the expense of ourselves.

In my work, I support sensitive, caring people to reconnect with themselves and find their way back to their own inner strength and resilience. This isn’t about fixing or forcing change, it’s about creating space to gently release what’s been carried for too long, rebuild trust in yourself, and reconnect with who you are beneath the roles you’ve been holding.

Sensitivity isn’t something to overcome. It’s something to understand, honour, and use as a source of deep, embodied strength.