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About Dr. Julie Merriman, Ph.D., LPC-S

I work with high-achieving professional women over 50 who are still functioning — but operating past capacity.

These are women who are capable, respected, and relied upon.
Women who have spent decades holding systems, families, and other people together.
Women whose bodies are now signaling exhaustion, disconnection, and shutdown — sometimes quietly, sometimes through loss of desire or intimacy.

My work focuses on burnout, compassion fatigue, and nervous system depletion — and how these states reshape identity, relationships, and aliveness over time.

HOW I CAME TO THIS WORK

I didn’t arrive at this work through trend or theory.

I arrived through decades of clinical practice, counselor education, and close observation of what actually happens to women who carry responsibility for a living.

Again and again, I watched highly competent women do everything “right” — build careers, serve others, stay dependable — and slowly lose access to themselves.

Not because they were weak.
Not because they lacked resilience.
But because their nervous systems had adapted to long-term demand, not lifelong overextension.

Burnout doesn’t always announce itself as collapse.
Often it shows up as:

  • Emotional flatness or irritability

  • Loss of desire or intimacy

  • Identity erosion

  • Chronic resentment or numbness

  • A sense of being trapped by work you once chose

These are not psychological failures.
They are physiological responses to sustained responsibility.

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MY APPROACH

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My work is grounded in a nervous-system-first framework.

That means we don’t start with motivation, mindset, or behavior change.
We start by understanding how your nervous system has been shaped by decades of caregiving, performance, pressure, and emotional labor — and what it needs now.

This approach integrates:

  • Clinical training and counselor education

  • Nervous system science and trauma-informed care

  • Somatic intervention that respects pace and capacity

  • Midlife-specific realities: hormonal shifts, relational strain, occupational entrenchment, and identity transition

The goal is not reinvention.
The goal is restored regulation, clarity, and choice.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

I’m Julie Merriman, Ph.D., LPC-S — a counselor educator, licensed clinician, speaker, and author.

I have spent over two decades working in counseling, clinical supervision, higher education, and professional development, with a focus on women in high-responsibility roles — particularly healers, helpers, and leaders navigating burnout and compassion fatigue.

I am the author of:

In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

I am also the author of the forthcoming book, Are We Gonna Have Sex or What? (Spring 2026), which explores desire, intimacy, and erotic shutdown in midlife through a nervous-system-informed lens.

I also host two podcasts that explore these issues through the same clinical framework:

  • Compassion Fatigue Cure: From Burnout to Radiance for Women Healers Over 50

  • Sexy After 50: Improve Sex and Intimacy by Healing Your Nervous System

These platforms exist because burnout, identity strain, and intimacy loss are often different expressions of the same nervous system overload, not separate problems.

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WHO THIS WORK IS FOR

This work is for you if:

  • You are competent, capable, and still showing up

  • You feel tired in a way rest no longer resolves

  • You notice numbness, irritability, or detachment creeping in

  • Desire or intimacy feels effortful, distant, or absent

  • You suspect burnout or compassion fatigue — but don’t see yourself in collapse narratives

You don’t need cheerleading.
You don’t need another productivity strategy.

You need accurate understanding and a precise intervention.

Work With Us

WHERE TO BEGIN

Most women benefit from starting with orientation, not commitment.

You can begin by:

  • Taking the Somatic Signature Quiz to identify how stress is currently patterned in your nervous system

  • Reading In Pursuit of Soul Joy for a structured, clinically grounded framework

  • Listening to either podcast, depending on where this is showing up most clearly for you

There is no universal starting point.


There is only the one that matches your current nervous system state.

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Take the Somatic Signature Quiz
Get In Pursuit of Soul Joy Book
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This work is not about fixing yourself.

It’s about recognizing how intelligently your nervous system adapted — and teaching it that it no longer has to carry everything alone.

You don’t need to disappear.
You don’t need to push harder.
And you don’t need to become someone else.

You need a calm, competent, respectful approach to restoring capacity.