The BossBabe Podcast – Episode E479: High-Functioning Burnout Exposed: The Overwhelm Loop

Host: Natalie Ellis
Guests: Alexi Panos, Emily Gallagher
Date: September 8, 2025

Episode Overview

In this powerful kickoff episode of the “Red Flags Every Boss Babe Needs To Know” series, Natalie Ellis is joined by Alexi Panos and Emily Gallagher to pull back the veil on high-achieving women and their normalization of burnout—specifically, the overwhelm loop. With unfiltered honesty, the trio shares their personal paths through relentless hustle, the physiological and emotional cost of always being "on," and the journey towards a new, more sustainable way of defining success. Listeners are not only invited to recognize their own red flags but are guided with tangible tools and mindsets to start breaking the burnout cycle—right now.

Main Theme:
High-functioning burnout among ambitious women—the invisible loop of overwork, anxiety, and the urgent push for “more,” often masked by societal praise for being “high capacity.” The episode explores how to recognize and interrupt this cycle for a more fulfilling, balanced life and sustainable business success.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Hustle to Awareness: Personal Journeys

• Reflecting on 2018 and the Hustle Era

  • All three hosts look back on “peak performance” years obsessed with productivity, business wins, and external validation.
  • Natalie describes herself as being in a “magic carpet ride” of endless opportunities, at a great cost to her health and wellbeing.
    • “Every opportunity I was saying yes to… even then, I was struggling with my schedule, my skin was really bad, my hormones were fully out of whack. I was biohacking within an inch of my life… and had no idea that was really going on in her system.” – Natalie (02:15)
  • Alexi and Emily relate, describing chronic overwork, ignoring body signals, and the LA culture of worth tied to production.
    • “I was working 18 hour days…excited but coming from such a dysregulated place without knowing I was dysregulated.” – Alexi (03:18)
    • “You are what you produce. It was very externally validated and you get caught into that.” – Emily (04:13)

• Transitions: Motherhood and Identity Shifts

  • Alexi shares her struggle to reconcile career ambition with new motherhood and the shock of “split identity.”
    • “I almost felt like I had to clone myself to be fully present for both... I don't think I really nailed that until the twins. When COVID hit, that forced the slowdown.” – Alexi (06:16)
  • Both Natalie and Emily cite becoming mothers as the event that finally exposed the unsustainable cost of “carrying it all,” prompting periods of deep personal crisis and rebirth.
    • “I came home and I had this business… it felt like I was on this train I couldn’t get off. But the anxiety in my body was so big, I couldn’t get out of bed.” – Natalie (10:04)
    • “It was like, I have this baby that I adore but I do not have any clue who I am, what I care about, anything. Because I was so used to running at 100 miles an hour…” – Natalie (10:41)

2. Why High-Functioning Burnout Remains Invisible

• The Overwhelm Loop & Familiarity with Chaos

  • Chronic stress and overload feel “normal” for high achievers, who often gauge their self-worth by what they can handle.
  • This state becomes a safety zone for the nervous system, driving further cycles of overwork and avoidance of emotions or difficult truths.
    • “The same thing that helps us create our success—hustle, push, prove—almost becomes our Achilles heel. The chaos, the anxiety, the overwhelm, the constant feeling that my to-do list will never end.” – Alexi (11:05)
  • New crises (like motherhood or health breakdowns) become unavoidable wake-up calls.

• The Trap of Perpetual ‘Next Thing’

  • The need to “fix” feelings of inadequacy by seeking the next achievement, never allowing for real rest or recalibration.
    • “It’s not getting to the bottom of the list, it’s not the next launch… your system is really looking, so familiar with that setting.” – Emily (12:21)
    • “If I just do more, then I can finally…land.” – Alexi (14:11)

3. Reshaping Capacity: From Hustle to Regulation

• Understanding & Calibrating the Nervous System
  • True increase in capacity isn’t just “adding more,” but actually expanding the nervous system’s ability to hold more through relaxation and embodiment.
    • “If you’re noticing, ‘I’ve got the anxious thing, I’ve got the overwhelm,’ you’ve got to exhale and learn regulation techniques… expand, relax, rest, widen.” – Alexi (15:50)
  • The false binary of hustle or total withdrawal (“soft CEO” era) is addressed; real integration means finding balance between ambition and softness.
    • “How can your ambition and your drive to contribute... still be pursued in a way that feels softer?” – Natalie (16:33)
    • Natalie shares how her business had its best year in revenue after she consciously slowed down, offering proof that less can create more.
    • “Last year was the slowest year I’ve ever had in business…and we had our biggest revenue and profit year of our entire company life.” – Natalie (17:37)

4. The Cost of ‘High Capacity’: Hidden Resentment & Avoidance

• People-Pleasing, Emotional Suppression, and Resentment
  • Using “capacity” as a way to absorb others’ emotions or continually take on more as an excuse to avoid difficult conversations or disappointments.
    • “If I was in a hard professional situation…’I have enough capacity to hold their emotions, I don’t need to bring mine into it.’... All of that was being stuffed somewhere and for me, it was starting to show up as resentment.” – Natalie (32:02)
    • “The resent underneath that capacity is real and it will eat you alive.” – Emily (32:55)
  • This pattern often stems from nervous system wiring that equates doing/controlling with safety.

5. Recognizing Functional Freeze

• Definition & Physical/Emotional Symptoms
  • Functional freeze is when a high achiever’s body goes numb or “freezes” but the mind insists on pushing ahead due to responsibility.
    • “Some of us burn for decades in hypervigilance… at some point, all the reserves run out. Now we enter freeze… functional freeze is where your body’s pumping the brakes but your mind is like, ‘I can’t stop’.” – Alexi (26:10)
  • Signs include heavy fatigue, numbness, lack of joy, and feeling disconnected or “walking through mud.”
  • Ignoring these signals leads to serious health, relationship, or existential crises.

6. Actionable Tools for Breaking the Overwhelm Loop

• Reframing the Red Flags as Invitations

  • Shift from “what’s wrong with me” to “what is this calling me to change?”
    • “The activation is the invitation… What’s showing up is a beautiful invitation. Can I give it some space, not make it a problem to fix, and see it as part of the initiation?” – Emily (35:24)
  • Softening into the discomfort and allowing rather than fighting or running from it is the first step to change.
    • “I just stopped fighting it. That was the thing that got me to walk through the door, and then the work begins.” – Natalie (38:28)

• Quick Regulation Practices

  • Simple Tools:
    • Havening (light touch/soothing touch)
    • Double inhale / extended exhale (breathwork)
    • Short movement breaks (walk, shower, stretch)
    • “The pause is enough… even if it’s three seconds. That pause is enough to interrupt the pattern and start to break the cycle.” – Alexi (36:55)
  • Consistency and seeing these practices as ongoing (not quick fixes) is key to nervous system change.
    • “Whilst it may sound…simple, if you make them a commitment and a practice, it will fundamentally change your experience of your life. Guarantee.” – Emily (38:06)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Natalie on Overwork:
  “I was up at 6am every day before I had kids. Now, I’m like, ‘why was I doing that?’” (02:15)

• Alexi on Burnout Culture:
  “We were ignoring every signal my body was sending me that, hey, you’re pretty close to burnout… it wasn’t until it hit me in a hard way that I knew I had to do something different.” (03:47)

• Emily on LA Success Culture:
  “You are what you produce…it was very externally validated.” (04:13)

• Natalie on the Ego Death of Motherhood:
  “My entire life came crumbling down over the span of 12 months…it was the hardest period in my life, because… I was so used to running at 100 miles an hour and putting brakes on, my entire life shattered and my life’s never been the same since.” (10:04–10:41)

• Alexi on the True Nature of Nervous System Capacity:
  “The hustler mentality is work harder, go harder, but really, from a nervous system perspective, it’s: how can you exhale, expand, soften, widen your perspective…?” (15:50)

• Natalie on Needing Evidence for Change:
  “I needed the proof. Honestly, I needed the profit proof, I needed the proof in the way my marriage felt, the relationship with my daughter, to see it actually worked.” (18:03)

• Alexi on Avoidance and Functional Freeze:
  “Some of us burn for decades in hypervigilance… at some point all the reserves are going to run out… We enter functional freeze. My body’s pumping the brakes, but my mind is saying, ‘I can’t stop.’” (25:41–26:10)

• Emily on the Invitation of Red Flags:
  “The activation is the invitation. Instead of pushing past, can I soften into this, give it some space, and see it as part of my initiation?” (35:24)

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment/Topic | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------------------------- |:----------:| | Series Overview & What’s Coming | 00:00–02:15| | The Hustle Years (+ Health Consequences) | 02:15–05:09| | Motherhood, Identity Crisis & Forced Slowdown | 05:09–10:41| | The Overwhelm Loop & Systemic Burnout | 10:41–14:11| | The Nervous System, Capacity & Regulation | 14:11–17:37| | The ‘Soft CEO’ Era & Integration | 17:37–22:31| | Ignoring Red Flags, Avoidance & Functional Freeze | 22:31–29:45| | The Work: Feeling vs. Fixing & Bodily Integration | 29:45–33:04| | People Pleasing, Capacity, and Resentment | 32:02–34:00| | Functional Freeze—How to Recognize + Invitation to Change | 34:04–37:06| | Practical Regulation Tools and the Power of Pausing | 37:06–38:44| | Relearning Ease, Permission, and Practicing a New Way | 38:44–39:24|

Summary Takeaways

• High-functioning burnout is insidious because it’s praised, normalized, and self-perpetuating.
• True transformation begins with awareness—seeing overwhelm and anxiety as invitations, not failures.
• Developing a practice—however small—of nervous system regulation (pause, breath, self-tenderness) disrupts the survival cycle and opens the door to real capacity and joy.
• The path to sustainable success is not either/or (“all hustle” vs “all softness”), but integration: ambition and vitality grow together from a well-nourished center.

Resources Mentioned

• Soft Success Masterclass: A 60-minute, live event on nervous system safety and sustainable success (details at bossbabe.com/softsuccess)
• 7-Figure CEO Operating System: Free masterclass and system available for listeners who leave a podcast review (instructions at bossbabe.com/review)

For any ambitious woman who has ever wondered, “If I slow down, will I lose everything?” this episode is a gentle but firm call to step off the overwhelm loop—and discover that real wealth is found in replenishment, not depletion.