Dr. Julie Merriman on Why Midlife Women Feel Exhausted Even After Rest — From Guilt to Good with Jeanette Yates

Dr. Julie Merriman explains why so many midlife women feel exhausted in a way rest no longer fixes.

In this episode of From Guilt to Good, Jeanette Yates talks with Dr. Julie Merriman, a counselor educator, licensed clinician, speaker, author, and podcast host who works with professional women over 50 experiencing burnout, compassion fatigue, nervous system depletion, disconnection, and shutdown.

Julie’s work focuses on women who are high-achieving, high-responsibility, and still functioning — but operating far beyond capacity. These are women who have spent years holding families, workplaces, caregiving responsibilities, and entire systems together, often while ignoring the signals from their own bodies.

Together, Jeanette and Julie explore why chronic exhaustion in midlife women is often not a time management issue, a mindset issue, or a failure of self-care. Instead, it may be a sign of a nervous system that has been shaped by years of caregiving, performance pressure, emotional labor, and over-functioning.

Julie also shares her own caregiving experience, including caring professionally as a therapist for 30 years, helping her mother navigate health challenges, supporting her husband through brain cancer, and living with her own breast cancer diagnosis. Her story gives the conversation a deeply personal lens, not just a clinical one.

Jeanette and Julie discuss what most productivity hacks and self-care advice miss, why women are often socialized to live over capacity, how resentment can become important information, why midlife can be a homecoming instead of a crisis, and what it means to take a nervous-system-first approach to healing.

This episode is for midlife women, caregivers, women over 50, adult daughters caring for aging parents, professional women carrying too much, and anyone who has ever wondered why they are still exhausted after doing “all the right things.”

In this episode, we talk about

Why midlife women can feel exhausted even after rest
The difference between being tired and experiencing nervous system depletion
Why productivity hacks and mindset advice often fail burned-out caregivers
How women are socialized to over-function and tie their worth to performance
What “nervous system first” actually means
Why resentment can be a sacred signal instead of something to shame
How menopause, caregiving, family responsibility, and work can create a perfect storm
Why “should” and “must” can reveal old rules that no longer fit
Small ways women can begin coming back into their bodies with curiosity and compassion

Connect with Dr. Julie Merriman:
Website: juliemerrimanphd.com
Book: In Pursuit of Soul Joy
Book: Are We Going to Have Sex or What?
Podcast: Compassion Fatigue Cure
Podcast: Sexy After 50

LISTEN TO THIS NEXT
Recommended because this episode also explores how caregivers can stop blaming themselves and begin understanding what their bodies are trying to tell them.

Support the show

NOW AVAILABLE! From Guilt To Good Enough: A Caregiver’s Journey of Overcoming Burnout Through Healing Childhood by Jeanette Yates. Having been a caregiver for her mother since childhood, Jeanette knows firsthand the emotional toll caregiving can take. In this memoir-turned-self-help guide, she shares her journey of healing, setting boundaries, and reclaiming her life. Click here to purchase your copy!

At The Self-Caregiver LLC we guide women caring for their aging parents overcome burnout and release guilt to create more freedom and fulfillment in their life.

We believe you cannot give more of yourself until you heal the wounds, replenish your being and reconnect to the fullness of who you are, embracing the purpose you‘ve been called to live.