Episode 204
I’ve been talking about burnout for years. So has everyone else in this space. And I’m starting to think we’ve been diagnosing the wrong thing.
Not because burnout isn’t real. It is. It’s serious, it’s widespread, && it absolutely deserves every bit of attention it’s gotten. But lately, when I’m sitting with my clients && really listening, I’m not hearing exhaustion as much as I’m hearing something else. Something flatter. Something harder to name.
They’re not running on empty. They have capacity. What they don’t have is desire.
This Isn’t Burnout. This Is Disconnection.
Here’s the difference, && I want you to really sit with this.
Burnout feels like everything is too much. Your nervous system is overwhelmed. You’re in survival mode. You’re doing the bare minimum because even that takes everything you’ve got. You’re exhausted at a cellular level, && rest is genuinely what you need.
Disconnection feels different. If you really audited yourself, you’d admit you have capacity. You’re busy, yes. Most of the women I work with are holding enormous amounts: kids, careers, marriages, all the invisible logistics that run a household && a business. But they’re functioning. Sometimes they’re even performing well from the outside.
They just don’t feel alive.
They’re going through the motions. Writing the to-do list, getting it done, showing up where they’re supposed to show up. But there’s no passion underneath it. No insatiable energy. No sense that this work, this life, this version of themselves is the one they actually chose.
If burnout is anxiety, disconnection is more like depression. Not clinically, not necessarily, but in the way it feels. Less “I can’t handle this” && more “I don’t want any of this.” Less overwhelm, more flatness.
Why Resting Your Way Through Disconnection Doesn’t Work
I know this one personally. I took a five-month sabbatical. I came back at 50% capacity. I delegated. I minimized my offer suite. I took things off my plate. I did all the things the burnout experts say to do.
And I still didn’t feel like myself.
The same habits started forming again. The same flatness. The same low-grade “meh” energy that I kept trying to troubleshoot by taking more off my plate. What I didn’t understand yet was that I wasn’t taking away too much. I was disconnected from the thing itself, && no amount of rest was going to fix that.
Here’s why this matters: if you’re disconnected && you keep treating it like burnout, you’re taking yourself further from the very thing you need. Reconnection requires engagement, not retreat. It requires leaning back into your life, your work, your ambition, in ways that feel real && alive to you. Stepping back when what you need is to step toward something will just make the flatness worse.
That’s not a fun realization when you’re in the middle of it. I know. But it’s an important one.
What I’ve Been Doing to Actually Reconnect
I want to give you something practical here, because I’m not interested in naming a problem without offering a direction.
Curiosity as a North Star. For a long time I was chasing certainty. I know this is going to work. I know this is the right move. I know this is the right offer. Certainty is seductive when you’re feeling disconnected, because disconnection makes you doubt everything, && certainty feels like solid ground.
But what’s actually given me life back is curiosity. Running experiments with a real end date. Giving something my full commitment for three to five weeks, collecting data, coming back around, && deciding. It creates excitement instead of pressure. It keeps things moving instead of feeling like I’m locking myself into one lane forever. And it reconnects me to the part of myself that genuinely loves figuring things out.
Paying attention to what makes you feel alive. This sounds simple. It’s not. Most of us are so habituated to pushing through that we’ve stopped noticing when something actually lights us up. I had a client recently who said she wished there was more adventure in her life, but she has four young kids && can’t just leave. We talked about micro-moments of adventure. The walk you take without your headphones. The meal you make that you’ve never tried before. The conversation you have that has nothing to do with business. You don’t need to hop a plane to Bali to feel alive. But you do need to notice what gives you that feeling && call more of it in.
The body-brain connection. I cannot stress this enough. If you go straight from sleeping to working, from working to parenting, from parenting to bed, without creating any transition, your body && your brain are just… not connected. You’re operating on autopilot. Even three breaths && a stretch, something that tells your body we’re moving into something different now, changes the quality of what comes next. This isn’t woo. This is physiology. && it’s one of the simplest things you can do to start feeling more present in your own life.
Language as identity. This one is small && massive at the same time. “I’m overwhelmed” is an identity marker. Your brain hears that as a permanent, unchangeable state. “I’m feeling overwhelmed” is information. Your brain hears that as something passing. Same distinction for: “I don’t have any ambition anymore” versus “I’m curious how I can activate a higher level of ambition today.” One closes a door. The other opens one. Pay attention to what you’re saying, because your brain is listening && organizing your reality around it.
The Ambition I Stopped Apologizing For
I want to name something I’ve been sitting with, because I think a lot of ambitious women need to hear it.
For a long time, I tried to manage my ambition down. Not eliminate it, but, like, soften it. I’d hear myself described as someone who goes too fast or takes on too much, && I’d internalize that as: the ambition is the problem. The drive is what’s burning you out. You need to slow that part of yourself down.
And what I’ve come to understand, what has taken me years of genuinely working on this, is that the ambition was never the problem. The disconnection from it was.
When I am passionate, when I am eager, when I am insatiable in the best possible way, yes, I do things ambitiously. I move fast. I want more. I want it to be excellent. And that is not a flaw. That is me, at my most alive. The burnout didn’t come from being ambitious. It came from doing ambitious things in ways that weren’t actually a fit for me, && from losing the connection to why I was doing them at all.
Reclaiming my ambition has meant stopping the constant auditing of whether I’m doing too much && starting to ask whether what I’m doing actually matters to me. Those are very different questions. One tries to shrink you into safety. The other asks you to get honest about what you actually want.
The Season You’re In Might Not Be a Recovery Season
If you’ve been resting && it’s not working, I want you to consider that maybe this isn’t a recovery season. Maybe it’s a reconnection season.
Maybe what you need isn’t a nap or another thing taken off your plate or another week of doing less. Maybe what you need is to find the thing that makes you feel alive again && move toward it. Even slowly. Even imperfectly. Even while still holding all the other things.
You can recover from burnout && still feel completely disconnected from your life. && if the recovery isn’t landing, the disconnection is probably what’s actually running the show.
So what would it look like to reconnect? Not to who you were before, not to the version of yourself that was performing some idea of success. But to the version that is curious && alive && wants things && isn’t apologizing for it.
That’s the version worth finding.
“You can recover from burnout && still feel completely, utterly disconnected from your life. If resting isn’t working, maybe what you need isn’t more recovery. Maybe what you need is to reconnect.”
If MIXTAPE has been on your radar, the waitlist is open September 21st. This is the program I built specifically for the ambitious woman who knows what she wants && keeps getting in her own way. Listen now!
xx, Ash 🖤
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