Modern Women Are Not Okay
Everywhere I look, I see women who are struggling. Whether I’m perusing comment sections on social media, working with clients, or reading through feedback from my community, the overarching story is that modern women are just… not okay. You see, we as women were promised that we could “have it all.” The college degree, the big career, the man, the wedding, the house, the kids… fill in the blank. But in our pursuit of “having it all,” we’ve kind of lost the plot. We’ve gotten so caught up in the conflicting voices that tell us who we need to be and what we need to have in order to be happy, that now we’re just completely miserable and burned out.
Our bodies are tired and sick
Our minds are overwhelmed and overstimulated
Our hearts are bitter and sad
Our dreams are lost and forgotten
We have at our fingertips all the information that we could ever hope for or need, and yet we’re so overwhelmed that we can’t actually do anything with it. I like to say that we’re overfed but undernourished, because the more we put on our plates that doesn’t actually nourish us, the “hangrier” we’re going to feel. I mean this literally of course, but also figuratively. We’ve filled our “plates” up with all the tips, tricks, diets, routines, protocols, therapies, information, opinions, expectations, products, beliefs, and rules that we can possibly find, but we’re still not satisfied.
Now you may be sitting there thinking, “I’m not miserable!” and maybe you’re not. But I bet you will be able to find at least some part of yourself in the story below, so let’s take a closer look at what’s going on.
The state of women’s health
While it’s true that I have mountains of anecdotal evidence for how unhappy and unhealthy women are right now, I’ve also collected just a little bit of data on how this is being expressed in our society and our bodies.
Social statistics show…
70-90% of women express dissatisfaction with their body across all age groups
The phenomenon of “female breadwinner burnout” is on the rise
Female dissatisfaction with life has increased significantly since 1972
86% of cosmetic procedures are done on women
17.7% of women use antidepressants (compared to 9% in men)
Women initiate divorce in 69% of cases and report more dissatisfaction in relationships
But let’s not stop there, I’ve got a few health statistics too…
Fertility rates are at a historical record low
75% of autoimmune disease occurs in women and continually rises every year
Gut and gallbladder disorders are more prevalent amongst women
Brain and nervous system disorders are more prevalent in women
5-10% of all women will be diagnosed with PCOS or endometriosis
Women are 5-8x more susceptible to thyroid disorders than men
Now, can we blame all of this on just physical issues like the chemicals in our air, water, food, and soil? Sure, and those are definitely contributing factors. But what if we’re looking at this all wrong?
The Stress Cascade
Right now, women are stuck in a state of hyper-vigilance. This means our nervous systems are trapped in fight or flight (or sympathetic dominance), which makes our bodies brace themselves for an attack. Our alertness is turned all the way up, we’re looking for danger everywhere, and we have a really hard time resting or relaxing. To put it simply, we’re stressed. We’re overwhelmed with both internal (trauma or inner voice) and external stressors.
The famous stress researcher Hans Selye defined stress as, “A response of the body to any demand, whether it is caused by, or results in, pleasant or unpleasant conditions.” I appreciate how his definition makes room for pleasant results from stress. Remember, stress itself isn’t bad. In fact, it’s a normal and necessary part of growing and creating resilience.
However, it’s the chronic, prolonged stress (chronic demand) without proper replenishment of resources that leads to collapse and depletion. This prolonged activation of both the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) and the SAM (sympathetic-adrenal-medullary) axes causes a whole host of problems in the body. It disrupts the immune, metabolic, and cardiovascular systems, leading to issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety, poor sleep, and digestive problems. The body doesn’t get a chance to return to baseline, which increases the risk of disease.
This then changes how our body uses resources. We start to see signs of burnout through disruption of things like metabolism, digestion, our wake and sleep cycles (releasing wake and sleep neurotransmitters like histamine and glutamate), mast cell histamine response, our reproduction, blood sugar response (by raising blood sugar, causing insulin resistance), the immune response, lymph (by slowing it down), and collagen and elastin proteins (by breaking them down). It also disrupts our ability to retain or use the necessary vitamins and minerals needed for health. To boil it down, chronic stress is slowly killing us.
What’s Causing The Stress
What I’ve come to realize is that women are not aware of when they’re in this state of survival (or chronic stress). They’re not aware of their very nature, so they try to fit themselves into the physical and physiological boxes that have been created by men for men or by hormonally masculinized women. And when that doesn’t work, they think there must be something wrong with them and that they need something outside of themselves to fix it. They believe that if they can just find the right protocol or the best health and wellness rules to follow, then things will finally click into place.
So they jump on the hamster wheel of wellness and begin their endless search for their “root cause.” Is it diet or toxins? What about carbs, seed oils, macros, plant toxins, or oxalates? Could it be supplements, minerals, circadian rhythm, or blood sugar spikes? Is it adrenals, thyroid, gut, or microbiome? What if it’s blue light, histamine, heavy metals, estrogen dominance, PCOS, or insulin resistance? Could it be mold or lyme?
Women have finally reached the downward slope on the bell curve of wellness. They’re crushed by the mental load and experiencing a burnout so deep, they can feel it in their soul (what I call soul-deep burnout). They think something’s wrong with them, but really their body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. The overwhelm and the burnout signs are just signals their body is using to let them know what it actually needs.
So What is Your Body Asking For?
Your nervous system is the command center of your body. Every system and symptom we’ve talked about today is downstream from this command center. So when we trace our overwhelm, crippling mental load, and soul-deep burnout back up the stream, we find our nervous system as the source. But what exactly is the problem here? Do we just need to “regulate” it in order to heal?
Not in the way you might think. You see, the root of your nervous system dysfunction is disconnection. Our nervous system requires connection in order to feel safe. And the ultimate connection that provides that safety is connection to yourself. It’s being able to see yourself clearly and be in tune with your body’s needs and what it’s communicating to you. But you’re going to have a really hard time doing that when you’re trapped in a state of survival.
This is why I created the Feminine Survival Archetypes. They’re a powerful starting point to begin to build your awareness of your nature and your perception of yourself. Because you cannot get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re starting from, what you want, or where you’re headed. Soul-deep burnout is an invitation to return home to your true self and remember who you really are. And the Survival Archetype framework can give you the structure you need to start this journey back to yourself.
Stay nourished,
Jess
Resources:
Study on Happiness of Women, Double Duty
Female Breadwinner Burnout, Female Breadwinner in Relationships
Happiness With Body Study, NOW Happiness with Body Report
Plastic Surgery Statistics: Report 1 Report 2
Anti-Depressant Statistics: Report
Divorce Statistics: Report
Birth Rates: CDC Data & John Hopskins
Prevalence of Autoimmune Disorders in Women & Women and Autoimmune Disorders
Gender Differences in IBS,
Why Women are More Likely to Have Gut Disorders,
Digestive Disease Burden in Women
Gender & Metabolic Differences in Gallstone Disease,
Gallbladder Disease in Young Adults,
Gender Based Differences in Cholecystitis
Women and Neurological Disease,
Sex & Gender Differences in CNS Based Disorders,
Neuroscience Gaps, Sex Gender & The Brain
PCOS & Endo Co-occurrence,
PCOS Stats, PCOS Global Stats,
Endometriosis Stats
Thyroid Statistics, Autoimmune Thyroid Statistics
