Burnout, Anxiety & High Emotional Labour
(London + online)
A trauma-aware space to slow down, regulate overwhelm, and understand the patterns that keep you over-functioning.
When you’re “coping”, but it’s costing you
Burnout and anxiety often show up in people who look capable from the outside: responsible, conscientious, high-performing, emotionally attuned to others. You might be the one who holds the team, the family, or the friendship circle — the one who keeps things moving.
But internally, it can feel like living under pressure: overthinking, dread, tension in the body, difficulty resting, or a sudden shutdown once you’ve pushed too far for too long.
Therapy can be a place where you don’t have to perform strength. We can make space for your nervous system, your story, and the part of you that has been quietly asking for relief.
If any of this feels familiar, a free 30-minute call can be a gentle place to begin.
You might be here if…
You feel anxious, wired, or “on edge” even when nothing is happening
You can’t switch off: rumination, future-planning, doom loops, difficulty sleeping
You oscillate between high productivity and collapse/shutdown
You over-function: people-pleasing, rescuing, explaining, taking responsibility for others’ feelings
You feel stuck in work stress, emotional labour, or micro-management
You’re carrying racialised, gendered, or cultural pressures to be “palatable”, “professional”, or “strong”
You dread conflict, yet you’re simmering with frustration, resentment, or rage
Your body is signalling overload: headaches, gut issues, pain flare-ups, fatigue, dissociation
What we might explore together
Burnout is rarely just “too much to do”. Often it’s too much to hold alone, for too long.
In our work, we may explore:
Nervous system patterns: hypervigilance, shutdown, freeze, fawn/appease responses
Inner roles you’ve had to live from: the rescuer, the competent one, the peacemaker, the strong one
Boundaries and self-protection: what you say yes to, what you carry, what you’re allowed to need
Unconscious dynamics: shame, perfectionism, attachment patterns, loyalty binds
Racialised and gendered emotional labour: code-switching, being misread, pressure to manage others’ comfort
Meaning and values: how to live from what matters, rather than from survival mode
Examples of themes we may explore together
(These are offered to help you recognise your own experience.)
The high-functioning shutdown
You may look organised and capable, yet privately feel brittle — crashing after work, struggling to think clearly, or feeling overwhelmed by basic admin. Together, we map the cycle (overdrive → depletion → shame → more overdrive) and build pacing and nervous system support, so rest stops feeling like “failure”.
The invisible workload of emotional labour
You might be managing not only tasks, but people’s reactions — keeping things smooth, staying calm, editing yourself, making it easy for others. We explore the cost of that labour, strengthen boundaries, and make room for anger or grief that has had nowhere safe to go.
The rescuer who can’t stop explaining
You may find yourself soothing, fixing, over-explaining, or taking responsibility for others’ feelings. We explore what this strategy once protected, and practise new options: pausing, tolerating discomfort, and choosing connection without self-abandonment.
The anxious future-planner
You might be scanning for what could go wrong — finances, deadlines, relationships, health — and struggle to settle. We work with anxiety as a protective response, support your nervous system to come out of threat mode, and build a steadier inner base so planning becomes choice rather than compulsion.
How I work
This is for you if you’re tired of coping alone and want a steadier way to live.
I’m an integrative, transcultural, transpersonal psychotherapist.
Our work is grounded, relational, and trauma-aware, with attention to mind, body, emotions, and relationship patterns. I’m also attentive to unconscious dynamics: the protective strategies you learned early on, and how they may show up now as over-functioning, perfectionism, people-pleasing, self-silencing, or shutdown.
Where it supports your process, we may use gentle parts-work, imagery, symbolism, or dream material to help what’s been hard to name find language and meaning, always with care, consent, and at a pace your nervous system can trust.
Nothing is forced. The work unfolds with steadiness.
What you can expect
Over time, therapy can support you to:
feel more regulated (less spiralling, less shutdown, more breath space and choice)
understand your patterns with compassion rather than shame
build boundaries that protect your energy and relationships
reconnect to self-trust and clearer decision-making
relate differently to anger, guilt, and responsibility (without swallowing yourself)
return to a steadier sense of meaning, aliveness, and inner ground
