Having been a therapist in the Silicon Valley area for 21 years I have witnessed a lot of burnout. I have seen men and women work themselves into exhaustion, illness, accidents, and emotional illness such as severe depression and post traumatic stress. Living in San Carlos for 21 years, I have also seen women burn themselves out with far too many child based activities, raising kids, being on numerous committees and generally being on the go 60 or more hours per week. This is the quintessential area for humans that do versus humans that know how to and prioritize being. Male or female, we have a feminine and a masculine component to our make-up. To simplify, the masculine aspect of ourselves is about action, execution, protection, decision making and being direct. The feminine side of ourselves, on the other hand, is about reflection, connection, receptivity, intuition, creativity and sensuality. When we as women or men reside almost entirely in our masculine or feminine side we are way out of balance. We feel drained, irritated, have no time for being present or intimate with our friends, children or spouse, we have no time or energy to play or create and we are completely out of touch with our spiritual and emotional nature. How long can we do this without getting stressed out, sick or loosing important relationships in our lives? Work, productivity or constant busyness is not synonymous with worth, but in this area of the country and others I am sure it is easy to get seduced into believing it is so. The scary thing about workaholism or burnout is usually people don't change it until they have problems, symptoms, addictions that are out of control. Like any addictive process you have to want to change and hopefully you enter coaching before you are in a crisis. The coaching journey is a process of re-balancing the male and female energies. When you make contracts to back down the male energy, the feminine side of you emerges and begins screaming at you about what "she wants". The feminine side wants intimacy, time to rest, to remember how to play, to tune in and be present with people and live in the moment. The feminine side wants to reflect on your successes and your mistakes and find the beauty in all of it. The child side who gets no attention if we work to much wants to rest, be outrageous, be a brat, be silly. In the case that a mom or other caregiver is in burnout it is the masculine aspect that wants attention. The masculine side wants to take action, impact society, get things done versus constantly tuning in to others needs and being fatigued. The cure here is to give up care-giving in the extreme and tune into ones own needs to express her talent and passion out in the world. The journey back to balance though potentially uncomfortable at first is ultimately a very deep and satisfying life review, a re-designing of life's journey to reflect who you truly are now. It is step by step and you define discovery of all the keys to restore your life force energy to you and keep it that way! For further information and appointments, contact Jenny at (650) 595-3343 or email her at jennyengland77@gmail.com.