Unpopular Opinion: Burnout Recovery Can Make You More Exhausted

If you've done the work — therapy, retreats, coaching — and still feel an exhaustion you can't explain, this one's for you. Renae breaks down why burnout recovery can feel like it's making things worse before it gets better, what hypervigilance and nervous system dysregulation actually have to do with chronic exhaustion, and why "trying harder" to heal is often the exact thing keeping high-achieving women and overachievers stuck.

In this solo episode, Renae shares what happened when a retreat she expected to leave her rejuvenated instead hit her with months of unexplainable, existential exhaustion — and the moment her coach's blunt feedback cracked open a decade of patterns she didn't know she was running.

You'll learn why your nervous system can't just switch off hypervigilance overnight, the real difference between burnout and nervous system depletion, why discipline and effort can't fix this particular kind of tired, and what it actually takes to let your body — not just your mind — feel safe enough to rest.

If this hits home, Burn the Blueprint is where we do this identity work in a structured way.

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Transcript

Stop Trying So Hard

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All I felt was exhaustion, and she said, Stop trying so hard. I legit wanted to punch her in the fucking face. Just kidding. Violence is never the answer. But it did make me stop and think, why as overachievers and hustlers do we always have to burn ourselves to the ground, even in the name of healing? This is Hustle Rebels. I'm Renee, your host, and this podcast is for people who still want to win, but aren't willing to burn themselves down to the ground to do it. Now, if you've pushed yourself through every kind of tired there is and then hit a wall that didn't quite feel like tired at all, stick with me. Because by the end of this episode, you'll understand why your body keeps scanning for danger long after the danger is gone. Why working harder can't fix this particular kind of exhaustion, and what it actually takes to let yourself take your time. And real quick, if this is already hitting close to home, hit subscribe. This is how we start to dismantle the hustle culture without opting out of ambition. So

A Decade on High Alert

SPEAKER_00 1:05

this one's a little personal. For the last few months, I have been sitting in an exhaustion that I really don't have a name for. And figuring out where it actually came from cracked open about 10 tiers of patterns I didn't even really know I had existing in the background. So for the last decade, I trained my nervous system to run on hypervigilance like it was my full-time job. Anyone who has worked as a first responder has known the drill. A 24 turns into a 72 because the snow won't stop and neither will the call volume, and people keep calling in. 10 dunks cold brews deep, running on adrenaline, a little bit of Adderall, and the promise that overtime check is going to look sweet enough to justify it all is the kind of exhaustion I know intimately. I've really never been a stranger to tiredness. But this was different. I went to a retreat,

When Relief Feels Heavy

SPEAKER_00 2:02

did some real deep inner healing work, and honestly, I expected to come out on the other side lighter, rejuvenated, recharged, even have some business networking, whatever that brochure usually promises. But instead, I kind of got hit with this crazy heaviness I didn't really have a name for. Exhaustion that almost felt existential. I brought it to my coach and walked her through every single thing I've been doing to try to fix it. And she just paused and said, Stop trying so hard. And honestly, I wanted to fight her on it. My brain went straight to how am I supposed to stop being tired if I don't find the root cause to fix it? That's how I've solved every problem in my life. Find it, fix it, push through it. But that comment kind of cracked something open for me. Here's what I began to realize. For 10 years, I had trained my reticular activating system, that part of your brain that decides what's worth your attention, to constantly scan for danger all of the time. I mean, I still find myself facing the door in any room that I walk into, map out the exits before I sit down. I'm clocking the drivers on the highway when which one is about to do something stupid and moronic before they even know it themselves. I'm reading rooms, reading people. I try to be two steps ahead of a threat that most days is not actually there. I never let my nervous system stand down, not once, in the last 10 years. So when I finally felt real relief in my nervous system this past March, for the first time that I can remember, it was honestly like a dam had been broken. Ten years of exhaustion I had been holding back on pure adrenaline came rushing through all at once. And then this small moment happened. I got out of the shower and instead of doing what I think a lot of women listening could actually probably relate to, slapping lotion all over my face and my arms and calling it a day, I actually put lotion all over my body for the first time. And I actually looked at it. This body that has survived a near-death experience that came back from surgeries that should have slowed me down for a very long time. And the thought that came was take your time. Three words. And it kind of wrecked me a little bit because I realized I had no idea what that actually meant. Here's the

Hustle Culture’s Big Lie

SPEAKER_00 4:33

lie that the hustle culture sells all of us. When you're exhausted, the answer is to do something about it, optimize, biohack it, push through it. That instinct, the one that says fix it now, isn't ambition. It's hyper-vigilance wearing a fancy blazer. We live in a go-go go society that has trained us to forget what it actually means to just enjoy something. Walking my dogs and actually hearing the birds instead of mentally drafting my to-do list and listening to another masterclass to learn something new. Which there's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes it's nice to just enjoy the outdoors. Driving somewhere without treating the commute like a hostage situation. Cooking a meal with whole, real ingredients and actually tasting it with Nick instead of inhaling it standing up. I mean, I once timed myself eating a full fucking steak and it took me 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Sitting on a patio, I finally felt well enough to clean this weekend. And just talking. Maybe smoking a little joint, you know, you never know. Not productively, just talking. And here's what matters from all of this. Most people think exhaustion is a problem to solve. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's your body finally feeling safe enough to hand you the bill it's been holding for a decade. What actually changes things isn't more effort. It's proof. Real, repeated proof that you're finally allowed to stand down. Your nervous system doesn't take your word for it. It needs actual evidence that it can. And here's the part that I really need you to hear. You cannot hustle your way out of nervous system depletion. Trying harder to rest is still the same type of pattern. It's just wearing a wellness costume. I have fallen victim to it so often. I know that was a lot that

Recap and Take Your Time

SPEAKER_00 6:40

we discovered, so let's recap a little bit. I mentioned a pattern. For me, it was a decade of training my body to live in a fight or flight response and never letting it land anywhere else. So I want you to ask yourself, where in your own life are you doing the same thing? Running on alert and just calling it ambition. And I talked about a cost. For myself, an exhaustion that no supplement, no sleep, no strategy could even touch. Because effort was the disease, not the cure. So what have you been trying to fix with more effort that might actually need a little less? And then you had the shift. Safety has to be proven to your body, not argued into it with friction. So I'll ask you what I had to ask myself. What would it actually take to prove to your own body that it's safe enough to stop? And once it feels that safety, you get to relearn something most of us never learned in the first place. How to take your time and just enjoy this life. It's a novel idea, but we're allowed to enjoy this life. If this episode lits something up inside of you, this is exactly the work that I do inside Burn the Blueprint, which is a four-week identity reset for people who have built a life on hypervigilance and are ready to finally find out who they are without it. And right now I'm giving away the first week for free to all the listeners. So the link is going to be in the show notes for you to download that for free. And if you want more of this, I actually wrote about the patio and all of this shit in this week's weekly recharge newsletter. So you can read it, subscribe to it, or watch it and listen to it as well. And the links are going to be below for that, along with other ways to support the podcast and follow along on the socials. Just a reminder you don't need to heal faster. You just need to take your time. See you guys next week.