Burnout as Initiation: A Personal Reflection on Burnout, Midlife, and Identity with Laura Cardwell
We come to thresholds throughout our lives where we feel like we or something we love is breaking. Often in these moments, it feels like something is breaking or dying, but its actually an initiation.
It looks like burnout. Or grief. Or a loss of clarity. Sometimes it looks like the quiet, terrifying realization that something you’ve built with love and devotion—a relationship, a business, a career, a friendship— can no longer come with you where you’re going next.
That was the threshold I was standing on when I sat down with my dear friend and colleague, Laura Cardwell, for this conversation on the Jaime Fleres Podcast.
I’ve spent the last two decades building—and eventually dissolving or evolving—creative businesses. I’ve walked through burnout more than once. I’ve had my body intervene loudly, even violently, when I didn’t listen: a life‑threatening heart diagnosis, chronic immune depletion, the unmistakable message that the way I was living and working was no longer viable.
I’ve known dark nights of the soul. I’ve shed identities that once felt like home. And now, once again, I’m standing in the tender space of letting go of something beautiful—not because it failed, but because it cannot accompany me in the same form into what’s next.
So this conversation with Laura wasn’t just professional exploration. It was personal, reflective; a rich mirror.
What follows is both a recap of our podcast conversation and a first‑person reflection on what it means to meet burnout not as a flaw or collapse—but as an initiation.
Burnout Isn’t Just Exhaustion: Understanding Burnout as a Sign, Not a Failure
One of the first things Laura named is something I’ve come to know viscerally: burnout is not simply about being tired.
On a physical level, burnout shows up through the adrenal system—our fight‑or‑flight response stuck in the “on” position. The body was never designed to live there indefinitely. Rushes of cortisol are meant for emergencies, not entire lifestyles.
But what struck me most in Laura’s sharing was how clearly she articulated that burnout is multidimensional.
We don’t just burn out physically.
We burn out emotionally when grief, anger, or resentment has no arc—no place to move or complete.
We burn out mentally when we live in constant urgency, chasing approval, productivity, or the next hit of validation.
And we burn out spiritually when we become disconnected from that which is larger than our to‑do lists.
I recognized myself in every layer.
There were seasons when my body collapsed because my worth had been tethered to output. Seasons when my nervous system never truly powered down. Seasons when I was building fast, passionately, and sincerely—without the structures or rhythms that could actually sustain me.
Burnout, Laura offered, is often the body’s way of saying: something essential is out of alignment.
The Modern Burnout Cycle: Productivity Culture, Dopamine, and Entrepreneurial Exhaustion
As we talked, I found myself wanting to name the water we’re swimming in, because it is easy to gaslight ourselves into thinking its a personal failing, when its actually in the design of our cultural conditions.
We live in a culture of constant stimulation and monetization. Our phones are always within reach. Our work is never truly “off.” For entrepreneurs and creatives especially, the boundary between inspiration and overextension is razor thin.
Laura spoke powerfully about dopamine—the neurological reward system being hijacked by modern life. Every notification, email, scroll, and small hit of recognition keeps us engaged, reactive, and externally oriented.
It’s not a personal failing. It’s design.
While this is by design and not a personal failing, we can suffer as we begin sourcing our worth, direction, and motivation from outside ourselves. We live from the pressure cooker instead of our center.
I’ve felt that pull intimately. The sense that if I just try harder, show up more, refine the offer, clarify the message, everything will stabilize. Until it doesn’t.
Burnout interrupts that illusion.
Nervous System Regulation Before Purpose: Why Healing Burnout Comes First
One of the most grounding aspects of our conversation was Laura’s insistence that when someone is truly burned out, we don’t start with purpose.
We start with regulation and physical body “triage.”
You cannot access clarity, creativity, or vision from a depleted nervous system. You cannot “think your way” into alignment when your body is still in survival mode.
Laura shared about heart‑brain coherence—a simple, research‑backed practice that brings the nervous system back into balance by anchoring attention in the heart and cultivating a resonant emotional state like gratitude or compassion.
This helps guide our drive system in how to turn off—sometimes for the first time in years.
Resilience, Laura reminded us, isn’t about enduring more. It’s about recovering faster. About restoring the natural toggle between activation and rest.
Burnout and Midlife Initiation: When Identity Begins to Dissolve
As the conversation deepened, we moved into what felt like the heart of it all: midlife not as crisis, but as initiation.
There are seasons in life when the identities that once fit simply stop working.
Astrologically, biologically, and psychologically, midlife is designed as a disruptive passage. Not to punish us—but to mature us and to align us to our purpose and guide us to aligned ways of living.
Laura spoke about these cycles as invitations to shed what is no longer authentic. To question the roles we’ve inherited. To let the old strategies burn away.
I felt this deeply. I’ve shed many identities across my life. And I’m shedding one now.
What’s tender about this current threshold is that what’s dissolving isn’t wrong. It was built with love, devotion, and integrity. It served and it mattered. And still—it cannot come with me in the same form. And grief is natural when we lose something.
So is the knowing that something more aligned is asking to be born.
Identity Dissolution and the Chrysalis: Navigating the In-Between
Laura used an image I return to often: the caterpillar and the chrysalis.
What we forget is that the caterpillar doesn’t gradually grow wings. It dissolves. The old form breaks down completely to goo before the new one emerges.
Midlife—and many burnout passages—are exactly this.
We enter the chrysalis without a clear picture of what’s coming next. The familiar dissolves. The structures that once held us soften or collapse. The future remains unnamed.
What steadies me in these moments is remembering that this is not a design flaw. It is the design.
There are imaginal cells at work—codes already present that know how to reassemble us in truer form.
We don’t need to rush the becoming, but we do need to stay with the process, however uncomfortable and strange.
Human Design, Alignment, and Sustainable Creative Work
Another powerful thread in our conversation was around Human Design.
Laura spoke about how many entrepreneurs burn out simply by building in ways that contradict their energetic design. Initiating when they’re meant to respond. Pushing when they’re meant to wait. Carrying systems alone that were never meant to be held solo.
This landed.
Just like Laura, I’ve lived the cost of over‑initiating. Of building fast without sufficient support. Of mistaking effort for alignment.
Laura talked about the 5 main types in the Human Design system, which she outlines and brings to life in her book Unstuck Yourself.
Rest as Self-Leadership: Recovery, Resilience, and Sustainable Creativity
We closed by talking about rest—not sleep, but true rest.
The space between sleeping and doing, as Laura named it. These are the moments when nothing is required of us.
For many of us, rest feels shameful. Dangerous. Unproductive. And yet, without it, nothing new can integrate.
We talked about how rest is a radical act of self‑leadership. A refusal to let worth be defined solely by output. A commitment to honoring the rhythms our bodies require. This allows us to create from a deeper, truer place.
Burnout as a Threshold Invitation
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself—if something in your life is unraveling, softening, or no longer fits, I highly recommend you tune into my podcast episode with Laura. And I want to gently remind you that you are not failing, you are being summoned. Into a more aligned, sustainable, and nourishing life. Something more true to your soul and your next evolution of creative expression.
I invite you to listen to the full episode with Laura Cardwell. And if you’re standing at your own threshold, know that you’re not alone. Both Laura and I serve as guides for those navigating life’s thresholds and identity transitions.
