Your Body Isn't "Tired." It's Dissociating to Survive Your Job.

And the Healthcare System Is Counting On You Not Knowing the Difference

You're reading this with your jaw clenched, aren't you?

Shoulders up around your ears. Lower back screaming. That low-grade headache that's been there so long you've stopped mentioning it.

And when someone asks how you're doing, you say "fine" or "tired" or—if you're being really honest—"burnt out."

But sweet friend, I need to tell you something that's going to change everything:

You're not burnt out.

You're dissociated.

And there's a profound, physiological difference.

The Thing They Don't Tell You in School

I spent the first 20 years of my medical career as what I now call a "Floating Head of Competence."

Brilliant clinical skills. Advanced degrees. Could manage a code blue while simultaneously de-escalating a violent patient and mentoring a new resident.

But I couldn't tell you the last time I felt anything below my neck except pain.

I had stopped menstruating regularly. My digestion was chaos. My jaw was so clenched I cracked two molars. And I genuinely could not remember what it felt like to want sex—or much of anything, really.

My therapist called it burnout.

My doctor called it perimenopause.

My colleagues called it "the cost of excellence."

But Polyvagal Theory calls it exactly what it is: survival-mode dissociation.

Here's What Actually Happens to Your Nervous System in Healthcare

Let me get clinical for a moment, because this is where the rage starts:

Your autonomic nervous system has three states:

Ventral Vagal (Safe & Social) – You feel connected, present, alive in your body
Sympathetic (Fight/Flight) – High alert, racing heart, scanning for threats
Dorsal Vagal (Shutdown/Freeze) – Numb, exhausted, disconnected, "just get through the shift"

In a healthy nervous system, you move fluidly between these states and return to Ventral Vagal—to safety—regularly.

But in healthcare? You spend 12-hour shifts (or longer) oscillating between Sympathetic hypervigilance and Dorsal shutdown. You never, ever get to return to safety.

Because the system punishes safety.

Lunch breaks are weakness. Bathroom trips are selfish. Speaking up is insubordination. Having feelings is "unprofessional." Needing support means you "can't handle it."

So your brilliant, adaptive nervous system does what it has to do:

It severs the connection between your head and your body so you can keep functioning.

You become a Floating Head of Competence. All cognitive skill, zero embodied experience.

And the truly diabolical part? The system calls this "resilience."

Why Your Jaw Won't Unclench (Even When You Try)

Here's where Western medicine and Eastern energy work tell the same story from different languages:

The Science: When you spend years in survival mode, your body literally changes shape. Your fascia—the connective tissue wrapping every muscle—develops adhesions and restrictions. Your psoas muscle (hip flexor) stays chronically contracted in a protective curl. Your jaw becomes a vault for every truth you've swallowed because speaking it wasn't safe.

This isn't metaphor. This is measurable, physical tissue change.

The Energy: Your Sacral Chakra—the energy center governing creativity, pleasure, desire, and boundary-setting—becomes completely blocked by what I call "sacred resentment."

You've spent decades pouring yourself out for everyone else. Patients. Colleagues. Family. The system.

And somewhere deep in your hips, your body is keeping score.

That resentment isn't weakness, friend. It's wisdom. It's your body's last-ditch attempt to get your attention before complete collapse.

The Moment Everything Changed for Me

I was sitting in my car in the hospital parking lot after a particularly brutal shift.

A patient had died—not unexpectedly, but her daughter had screamed at me anyway. I'd missed lunch again. My manager had "gently reminded" me that my patient satisfaction scores were "trending down."

And I realized: I couldn't feel my legs.

Not numb, exactly. Just... not there. Like I was a head floating in space, operating a meat suit via remote control.

I sat there for 45 minutes trying to "come back into my body." Trying to feel my feet on the floor of the car. Trying to feel anything.

And that's when it hit me:

This isn't burnout. This is traumatic dissociation. And I've been calling it "professionalism" for 20 years.

What Your Body Is Actually Trying to Tell You

Every symptom you're experiencing—the exhaustion, the weight gain, the rage that comes out of nowhere, the complete absence of desire, the feeling that you're "just going through the motions"—isn't failure.

It's brilliant adaptation.

Your nervous system has been protecting you from experiencing the full reality of an impossible job in a broken system. Because if you felt it all at once, you couldn't keep showing up.

But here's the thing they don't tell you about dissociation:

It doesn't stay at work.

That shutdown state you've mastered to survive your shifts? It comes home with you. It sits at the dinner table. It climbs into bed with you. It murders your libido, your creativity, your joy, your purpose.

You've become so good at not feeling that you've forgotten how to feel anything at all.

And friend, I'm here to tell you:

There is a way back.

The Path Home to Your Body

You cannot think your way out of a somatic injury.

You cannot "mindset" your way out of a nervous system that's been trained by decades of workplace trauma to disconnect from your body.

The way back isn't through another online course or productivity hack or "self-care Sunday."

The way back is through your body.

Here's what that actually looks like:

1. Name the Injury

Stop calling it burnout. Stop calling it stress. Stop calling it "just being tired."

Call it what it is: workplace-induced traumatic dissociation.

When you name it correctly, you stop making it a personal failing and start recognizing it as a systemic injury that requires systemic healing.

2. Befriend Your Nervous System

Your nervous system isn't broken. It's exhausted from keeping you alive in an environment that treats your body like an inconvenient attachment to your clinical skills.

Learn to track your nervous system states. Notice when you're in shutdown. Create tiny moments of safety—even 60 seconds—to let your system know: "The shift is over. You can come back now."

3. Clear Your Sacral Chakra

That resentment living in your hips? That blocked creativity? That complete absence of desire?

It's not permanent. It's protective.

Start with the simplest somatic practice: hip circles. Literally. Stand with your hands on your hips and make slow circles, breathing into the places that feel tight or numb or angry.

You're not "working out." You're dialoguing with the part of you that's been silenced.

4. Set Sacred Boundaries

You cannot heal inside the same system that injured you.

I know. I know the guilt that rises when you even think about setting boundaries. I know you're the "Strong One" everyone depends on.

But friend: your body is the boundary your mind won't set.

Every symptom is a boundary violation you've been too trained, too professional, too "resilient" to enforce.

What's Possible on the Other Side

I'm not going to lie to you and promise this work is easy.

Reconnecting with a body you've been trained to ignore for decades is uncomfortable. Feeling your feelings after years of shutdown is overwhelming. Setting boundaries in systems that punish them is terrifying.

But here's what's waiting for you:

A nervous system that knows how to rest. A body that feels like yours again. Energy that isn't just "pushing through." Desire that isn't just a memory. Purpose that isn't tethered to productivity.

A life where you're not just surviving—you're actually alive.

Your Next Step

I created something specifically for women like us—high-achieving healthcare professionals who've spent decades taking care of everyone else and are finally ready to come home to themselves.

It's called the Shadow Healer Archetype Quiz, and it will show you exactly which survival pattern has been running your life—so you can finally, finally break free.

[Take the Shadow Healer Archetype Quiz Now →]

Then come listen to the full episode where I walk you through the exact somatic practices I use to bring women from dissociation back to desire:

[LISTEN: The Body's Silent Scream (Compassion Fatigue Cure Podcast) →]

And if you want the full roadmap—the one that integrates nervous system healing, energy work, and actual sustainable lifestyle change—[download the Compassion Fatigue Cure Starter Guide here →].

A Final Word

Your jaw is still clenched, isn't it?

Unclench it. Right now. Just for 10 seconds.

Feel that tiny moment of release? That microsecond where your nervous system remembers safety?

That's what we're building back toward.

One breath. One boundary. One moment of coming back into your body at a time.

You've spent 30 years saving everyone else, friend.

It's time to spend 30 minutes saving yourself.

Your body has been waiting.

Let's bring you home.

Dr. Julie helps women healers over 50 move from burnout to radiance through nervous system healing and somatic practices. Her podcast, Compassion Fatigue Cure: From Burnout to Radiance for Women Healers Over 50, (Click Podcast in Header) offers practical tools for reclaiming your body, desire, and purpose after decades in healthcare.