Balance & Beyond Podcast

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What if the real reason you're exhausted isn't time, but the stories that keep you sprinting?

We shine a clear light on depletion—the bone-deep fatigue that a holiday can’t touch—and trace it back to three patterns we see in brilliant, high-achieving women: over-responsibility, perfectionism and people-pleasing. Together with Sabina, we unpack how these habits sneak in under the banner of competence and care, and why they quietly hijack your nervous system, your calendar and, ultimately, your sense of self.

Across a grounded, practical conversation, we map the invisible trade-offs: picking up what wasn’t asked, delaying until it’s perfect, saying yes to protect harmony, and losing sight of your own needs. We talk about the bittersweet moment when success lands and feels numb, the fear of “Who am I if I’m not busy?”, and the seductive fantasy of blowing up your life for relief. Then we offer a different route—stacked micro-shifts you can start today and deeper inner work that changes how you choose, ask, and rest. Think: one boundary you can keep, direct asks at home and work, “good enough” standards that restore momentum, tiny rituals that let your system land and celebrate.

We also explore why external fixes alone don’t stick without a shift in beliefs, and how community and coaching reveal blind spots you can’t see on your own. If your mornings start with a groan or your patience is threadbare, consider this your nudge: small, honest steps can move you from depleted and reactive to spacious and grounded without waiting for a perfect window. We’re opening new Balance Beyond cohorts to help unwind the patterns behind the pace and build a life that feels as good as it looks.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a woman who needs it, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us. Your shift might be the invitation someone else is waiting for.

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for women who've outgrown the old model of success. The ones who look fine on the outside but know the way they've been living no longer fits. If you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming, this is for you. I honour the space you've created today. Let's dive in!

Jo Stone (Host)

We are in a crisis of depletion. We're not just talking about women being exhausted, but so exhausted that rest doesn't even touch it. You can go to Bali, come back, but then when you come home again, that level of exhaustion that sits in your bones can be devastating. Sabina's joining me today. Hi, Sabina. Hi, Joe. Great to be back. And we are talking all about how do we get out or escape this crisis of depletion? So, Sabina, let's talk about what actually depletes us. What's the deeper root here?

Sabina (Guest)

So, depletion, it's that exhaustion where you're just not able to catch a breath and replenish and refuel. Depletion is about going faster, feeling like the speed dial is being turned up, the volume of what's required of you is turned up, but there's never enough time to catch that breath. And it's a physiological exhaustion, it's a mental exhaustion, it's a nervous system depletion or dysregulation where you're just constantly feeling like you're running on fumes.

Jo Stone (Host)

So, what then is causing this crisis of women who are depleted at this level?

Sabina (Guest)

There are a few common patterns and issues that we see time and time and time again with the brilliant women that we work with. But broadly speaking, there are three main areas. One is being constantly over-responsible and trying to manage everything for everyone, you know, beyond your sphere of influence. And that's just exhausting and it's never-ending, and it's also not possible.

The second area that we see is this need to try and be perfect. The flip side of that is procrastination, because if you can't do something well, you might not want to do it at all. That's something that we see very often.

And the third area is around this need to please or to perform, to be helpful, to be that go-to person. So those are three areas that we know we help clients decondition themselves from.

Jo Stone (Host)

Yeah, and these patterns are long-running and they can have a huge impact on our behaviors, can't they, Sabina?

Sabina (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of the times we don't even know that it's happening, it's happening in the background, and it's become a well-worn strategy that even realizing that this is at play is a bit of a challenge.

With over-responsibility, there's this feeling that you have to step in before something happens, or you can see a crisis looming on the horizon, and you feel like it's your responsibility to save everyone, even if it's not your job in the workplace, at home, socially, it's about carrying the burden or the worry of something that wasn't asked of you.

And there can be this sense of, well, if I don't do it, no one else is gonna do it. And so there'll be consequences, and then that can lead to worries about you know, what's gonna happen to this person, what's gonna happen to me, what's gonna happen to the family, what's gonna happen to this project?

It's really important to sometimes stop and reflect and pause and ask yourself who am I behind this busy armor? If I wasn't rushing to step in and fix things for everybody else, what else is possible?

But unless we have the opportunity to do that, things will just continue and that leads to more depletion. I think it's partly about being a woman, being female, we are at our core, very nurturing. And so we have this natural propensity to want to care for others, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's right. We need this in this world, and men obviously care as well. But when it becomes habitual and you're overextending yourself, and you're actually leading into resentment and neglecting the needs of your own body, the needs of your heart, the needs of your mind, these basic human needs for you to be able to give care for yourself.

When your care for yourself and for your needs and your desires and your hopes and your dreams isn't even in the picture, that's something that really has to be addressed because that has an impact on everybody, on everyone in your influence. If you are running from depletion, you are not giving your best to anyone.

But if we're working as well outside of the house, there needs to be a moment of saying, well, something needs to shift because I do have to care for myself. It's no one else's job to care for me and my basic needs.

Jo Stone (Host)

Really interesting when we start to create the space in people's lives through the work we do, Sabina, whether it's stopping the procrastination or helping them with their perfectionism, put down some responsibilities, a whole lot of fears tend to emerge on the other side of that, don't they?

Which when we start digging in, we go, oh, that's why it's just easier to stay busy than actually sit with what might be the cause of your busyness in the first place.

Sabina (Guest)

Yeah. There's this often we hear that women worry about, well, if I'm not being helpful or achieving or uber productive. If I'm not being helpful, if I'm not achieving, if I'm not being uber productive, what value do I bring? Sometimes they haven't stopped to think, who am I behind the busyness?

Because their identity is often associated with what they do and how much they do and what they do for work and their status, but not for who they actually are at their core. And there can be this deep down question of am I enough if I'm not being busy?

And that's a really deep moment of reckoning to be able to have a look at well, what is driving my behavior? What am I secretly believing about myself that has me running at a million miles an hour? What am I secretly worried about? And that's really important to address. And that's some of the work that we do.

Jo Stone (Host)

And those questions can show up in interesting ways, can't they? Some people hit the escape button and go to Bali and then come back and go, Oh my gosh, what am I doing with my life? But there are other more sinister ways that this deep question you're saying that plagues us starts to play out. What are other ways we can see this?

Sabina (Guest)

Yeah, well, I think there's this question of, well, as I said, I don't know who I am if I'm not busy. What do I do with myself? Well, what do I do? What's going to happen? You know, the household's going to fall over, the kids won't get to school.

They're all stories, but underneath it, it might be really important to ask, you know, what are the uncomfortable feelings in my body or in my nervous system that if I actually stop and slow down, maybe there's something I don't want to feel, or there's something I don't want to hear.

Or if I sit down, I'll never get up again because I'm just so tired. It really depends on each individual woman. But what we know for sure, Jo, is that there is such commonality behind the scenes of these high-achieving women that we work with. And having the opportunity to stop and reflect and contemplate what else might be true or what else might be possible is really powerful and it's a real game changer.

Jo Stone (Host)

And even we see some questions that can show up even before the oh my gosh, who am I? can become the what's it all for? Their successes can feel hollow. They get a promotion or there's a celebration and they go, "Eh, nice." Next, this numbness is a really interesting entry point to this work, isn't it?

Sabina (Guest)

Yeah. And again, things that we often see is when a big goal is achieved or a lifelong dream is achieved. As you say, sometimes when you reach that finish line, it's not the finish line because you're either on to the next thing on the massive to-do list, or there's this self-talk which is, "Oh, I should have done it sooner, I could have done it better, or everyone else has done it."

Not stopping to really breathe in and celebrate your success or your achievements means that you are always chasing more and doing more and wanting the next promotion or wanting the next whatever it is. There's nothing innately wrong with that. That's fine.

But are you actually stopping to breathe in the wonder or the pleasure of having created something for yourself? And so when we miss that, we hurry up and we go on to the next thing. And honestly, it takes the sweetness out of life. And we need more of that.

Jo Stone (Host)

It is ironic, isn't it, that we try to outrun depletion while being depleted. It's just this crazy treadmill. Everyone says, I know this isn't sustainable. I know I can't keep living this way. My body's starting to break, my relationships are starting to break, I don't know who I am.

And the temptation can be, "I just want to blow it all up." "I just want to go and move to the country." "I'm going to go a palazzo in Italy, and that's it." That's where I'm going. It can feel really, really seductive.

So, how, if we are feeling this way and you're resonating with everything that we're sharing, what actually changes this depletion if a bubble bath or a trip to Bali is not really going to get us the results that we're looking for?

Sabina (Guest)

Yeah, I think it's really a combination of things. There's no magic wand, but it's about looking at small, simple things on a daily basis, the choices that you make, the behaviors and habits that you have, but then also some of that deeper thinking, deeper contemplation, your beliefs about your value or your place in the world.

It's also about the conversations that you have, about whether you are asking for help, whether you're connecting with people. So there's no one big solution, but if you make small tweaks along the way in different areas of your life, it can add up to huge change, which may not seem possible from a place of depletion, from a place of running at 100 miles an hour.

But we've seen time and time again with hundreds of women that stacking very small um habits and shifts in your mindset and your thought and shifts in the way that you communicate can really turn the dial and move you from a state of depletion to a state of feeling more spacious, more grounded, and more confident.

Jo Stone (Host)

Can that happen, Sabina, even within a busy life? Because the context we often have women share with us is well, I've got this job, I've got the kids, I've got my parents, and they feel like they have to make a change to the external world in order for them to have that space. What becomes possible when you put that down and perhaps become open to a different perspective?

Sabina (Guest)

For sure, there has to be some external changes, but a lot of the women that we meet, their lives are Tetris-ed and time blocked to within an inch of their life. And so that is not always the answer.

Some things need to change externally, but you also have to do the inner work that helps you question what is driving your behavior because your beliefs are driving the way in which you fill up your life and where you place your attention and what you do and how busy you are and what activities you believe are important for your children, or the volunteering that you think is important to do beyond your full-time job.

If you are feeling this push, this crisis, this pinch point to actually take a step back and instead of looking at everyone else or everything else outside of you, is to go internal and say, What am I creating within my own beliefs that is now playing out that isn't serving me anymore? And is it time to do something different within and without?

Jo Stone (Host)

Absolutely. A powerful reframe that is the perfect segue into what we do best. We love little tiny steps and we love big impact, which is why Balance and Beyond is opening its doors in a brand new, simplified structure in 2026.

We are going to help you unwind some of these patterns we've been talking about today, whether it's the over-responsibility, the perfectionism, the procrastination, the constant doing, the inability to actually take care of yourself and find that spaciousness that you need to answer some of those big, big questions.

We have it reimagined this year and we'll be starting with cohorts. So we're looking for 20 women who are ready to stop living this way and are ready for a different way to do it. Sabina, how does somebody know if they're ready to step into a container like this one? My life is too busy. I'll wait until XYZ is usually the response we get. I know I need it, but how do we overcome that thought?

Sabina (Guest)

I think a really good indicator is your level of happiness. How much are you enjoying your day-to-day life? It is really, really important to get honest with yourself. If your day-to-day starts with a groan or stress or anxiety or irritability and thinking, I don't know how long I can do this, do something about that.

So if you're having ruminating thoughts about this isn't working for me, that is a cue to act. Now, if you're someone that's been doing a lot of self-help or talks to their girlfriends a lot, but you still feel like you're spinning your wheels, that can get you so far.

We do need to do personal growth. We do need to speak to trusted people in our inner circle. But sometimes you need to do work that helps you see your blind spots so that you can literally stop, turn on the light bulb, and go, I didn't realize I was thinking this way, and it was having me but behave this way.

And then you can do something different. But if you're ready, I would say you're sick of feeling the way that you are feeling. You're fed up of being irritable, or you're fed up of not connecting with your partner or your loved ones in the way that you want to, or you're sick of not delegating and feeling resentful at work, they're all telltale signs that something needs to change.

And that tape in your head is a guidance system, and your body and your depletion is a guidance system to say, uh-uh, you're going in the wrong direction, pivot. What else needs to happen?

Jo Stone (Host)

Absolutely. So we start on the 9th of March. We are very excited to see which women are ready to find the opposite of depletion, to leave that behind and find an alternate way of living. So thanks for joining me today, Sabina, and we look forward to seeing who steps in, don't we?

Sabina (Guest)

We do, absolutely.