Shannon Swales Psychologist

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Shannon Swales Psychologist Burnout Psychologist & Supervisor
🌻 Founder - Midlife Reclaimed
midlife • self-compassion • identity
🧡 Come home to yourself
🎙 Podcaster | 📚 Author Community.

Burnout Psychologist
🔥 Helping midlife women reclaim life beyond burnout.
🌿 Self-discovery. Growth.
🎙️Midlife Reclaimed Podcast host
🥉Award Winning Author: Nothing Left to Give: A psychologist's path back from burnout
👩‍💻Blogger for Psychology Today

Find out more at www.burnoutpsychologysupport.com/about

09/10/2026

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09/10/2026

🌻 You can't solve a garden. You have to keep tending to it.

I've just finished reading Burn Bright by Nick Petrie, a book I've been immersed in over the past two weeks as part of my ongoing professional and personal development.

There is so much I appreciate about this book, but one particular analogy about workload really stayed with me.

We often approach workload as though it's a problem we can solve once and for all.

If we just get organised enough, manage our time better, set some boundaries or find the right strategy, surely we'll finally get on top of everything?

But life doesn't work that way, does it?

Just like gardens, our workloads continually grow and change.

New responsibilities emerge. Existing demands increase or decrease. Our circumstances shift. What worked for us six months ago may no longer be working today.

And for many of us, particularly women in midlife, workload extends far beyond paid employment.

There's the unpaid work, the emotional labour, the mental load, caregiving and the many responsibilities we carry in our everyday lives.

The important message I took from Petrie's analogy is that workload management isn't a one-time fix. It's something we need to continually revisit.

Just as a garden requires regular attention to what is growing, what needs nourishing and what needs tending to, so too do our workloads.

We need to keep checking in, reviewing our demands and making adjustments as our circumstances change.

I think this is such a helpful reminder, particularly for those of us who are accustomed to simply getting on with things.

When did you last stop and review everything you're carrying? 🌻

Inspired by *Burn Bright* by Nick Petrie, p. 225.

Take gentle care of you
Shannon A Swales
Burnout Psychologist and Midlife Women's Coach

Life is messy. Particularly in midlife.I find myself saying this to midlife women often, because it is.Relationships cha...
08/10/2026

Life is messy. Particularly in midlife.

I find myself saying this to midlife women often, because it is.

Relationships change. Bodies change. Careers shift. People disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves. We lose people. We question things we once felt certain about. We outgrow parts of our lives and don't always know what comes next.

And amongst all of that, there is joy and love and laughter and possibility too.

Then I watched the Season 4 finale of Ted Lasso, and Rebecca said this:

“We’re a mess, and that is… fantastic. Being messy just means being alive. And we could all do with being a bit more alive.”

YES.

We spend so much energy trying to tidy up the mess. Trying to get ourselves sorted. Trying to arrive at some version of life where everything finally feels settled.

But I'm convinced that's not the point.

Life is messy because we are living it.

Midlife isn't asking us to finally get everything right.

Perhaps it's inviting us to stop waiting for everything to be right before we allow ourselves to be fully alive.

And I am very much here for that. 🌿

When did joy become something we had to earn?After the work is done. After everyone else is okay. After we’ve ticked e...
07/10/2026

When did joy become something we had to earn?

After the work is done.
After everyone else is okay.
After we’ve ticked enough off the list.
After we’ve been productive, responsible and useful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship with joy in midlife and how easily joy can become something we postpone rather than something we allow ourselves to experience along the way.

And I’m not talking about pretending everything is wonderful.

Joy can coexist with tiredness, grief, uncertainty, stress and all the other complicated parts of being human.

Sometimes it’s simply about becoming more available to the small moments that remind us we are here.

That’s what we’ll be exploring in my next Midlife Reclaimed Teaching session, Coming Home to Joy in Midlife, this November.

It will be a gentle, reflective 90-minute online session combining education, guided experiential practice and reflective inquiry.

If this sounds like something you’d like to know more about or your ready to join, comment JOY below and I’ll send you the details. You can also DM me or email: [email protected] 🤎

Take gentle care of you
Shannon Swales
Burnout Psychologist and Midlife Reclaimed Women's Coach

I’ve been noticing something in myself lately.My capacity feels very low.I’m physically tired. There’s a lot emotionally...
06/10/2026

I’ve been noticing something in myself lately.

My capacity feels very low.

I’m physically tired. There’s a lot emotionally too. And because I’ve experienced severe burnout before, I notice how quickly my mind wants an explanation.

Is this burnout again? Is it perimenopause? Is it because I’ve been sick? Is it stress? Is there something else going on?

The truth is, I don’t know yet.

And perhaps I don’t need to know immediately.

When our capacity changes, it can be tempting to jump straight into analysing, diagnosing, fixing — or simply overriding what we're experiencing and carrying on.

Instead, I’m trying to practise something gentler:

🌿 Notice what is actually happening.

🌿 Get curious about what might be contributing — recognising that we're whole human beings and many things can be true at once.

🌿 Honour capacity rather than continuing to expect the same output from ourselves regardless of what is happening.

🌿 Respond rather than override.

Right now, I know I’m tired. I know I’m craving simplicity. I know I have much less to give than I usually do.

So perhaps I don't need to have the rest figured out just yet.

Sometimes the starting point isn't:

“What’s wrong with me?”

But:

“What’s happening for me — and what do I need given the capacity I actually have right now?”*🌿

Take gentle care of you
Shannon Swales
Burnout Psychologist | Midlife Reclaimed Women's Coach | Author

05/10/2026

Birthday morning tea… take 2 🎂☕️

Three weeks ago, the plan was to celebrate my 47th with a lovely morning tea. Instead, I was really sick and definitely not feeling much like celebrating.

So today, we tried again. 💛

A slow Monday morning, yummy sweet treats, and time with my love celebrating another trip around the sun.

47. ☀️

A little later than planned, but very grateful to be feeling well enough to enjoy it this time.

#47

03/10/2026

I scribbled this in my journal after a little market date with Hana this morning. 🌻

Yesterday, I found myself bored. Plenty of things I could do, but absolutely nothing felt right. Everything felt like effort.

What shifted things wasn't finding another activity. It was asking myself a different question: What am I actually needing?

Sensory. Outside. Connection.

Yesterday, that became a family walk. This morning, it became wandering the markets with Hana.

I'm not even sure whether this is a poem exactly — a little narrative poem, perhaps. But I'm discovering that I quite like telling small stories from ordinary life and noticing what they reveal.

And this one reminded me that sometimes boredom isn't asking us to find something to do.

Maybe it's asking us to listen a little more closely to what we need.

02/10/2026

Three years ago, I put a very personal story into the world.

Nothing Left to Give: A Psychologist’s Path Back from Burnout.

The words in this image were originally written in my journal on 24 August 2021:
“My burnout crisis showed me I was off course and needed to make corrections to improve my health and well-being… I’m still in the process of righting this course, but I’m getting there.”

Reading that as 2026 me, I find myself drawn to those last four words: I’m getting there. I think 2021 me imagined there was a “there” to get to. That one day I would have recovered, corrected the course and arrived. I don't see life that way anymore.

I did get through burnout. I did rebuild. But what came next wasn't arrival. It was evolution and I hope I never stop evolving. Life remains mysterious. It continues to surprise, challenge, delight, hurt and change us. I can't know everything that's coming, and I no longer need to.

What I carry with me now is more wisdom for navigating the unfolding. I listen to myself differently. I trust myself more. I recognise when something needs to change, and when I don't know what comes next, I'm much more willing to let the path reveal itself as I walk it.

Three years after sharing this story, perhaps that's what I most want to say back to the woman who wrote those words:
There isn't a “there” you need to reach.
Keep living. Keep learning. Keep evolving. 🌻

Happy 3rd birthday, Nothing Left to Give.

And if you’ve read Nothing Left to Give, I’d love to hear from you. Maybe there was a passage that stayed with you, something that made you feel seen, or simply a feeling you were left with. Whatever it is, I’d love to hear it.

Take gentle care of you
Shannon Swales
Burnout Psychologist | Midlife Women's Coach | Author

01/10/2026

What brings you joy — right now, in this season of your life? 🌻

If you find yourself struggling to answer, you're certainly not alone.

It's part of what inspired my next Midlife Reclaimed Teaching, Coming Home to Joy in Midlife — a 90-minute online space to explore what joy is, what gets in the way, and how we can become more available to it.

DM me or email [email protected] for details and to reserve your spot.

🌿 The latest on the Midlife Reclaimed blog: Reclaiming My Body — Learning to Listen in MidlifeFor much of my life, I exp...
30/09/2026

🌿 The latest on the Midlife Reclaimed blog: Reclaiming My Body — Learning to Listen in Midlife

For much of my life, I expected my body to keep up. Keep working. Keep moving. Keep carrying me through whatever I decided life required of us. Midlife — alongside burnout recovery, perimenopause and a changing body — has challenged that relationship.

In my latest blog, I'm reflecting on what it means to reclaim my body. Not by trying to get my younger body back. Not by fixing her or turning her into another self-improvement project, but by learning to listen.

I share some of my own history with body image, food and exercise, the ways my relationship with my body has changed, and what I'm learning about paying closer and more compassionate attention to what she needs now.

And, as always with Midlife Reclaimed, there are some questions for you to sit with too. Perhaps the biggest one is:

What is one way your relationship with your body might be asking to change in this season of your life?

🌻 Read the latest Midlife Reclaimed blog here:
https://www.shannonaswales.com/blog/reclaiming-my-body-learning-to-listen-in-midlife

Take gentle care of you,

Shannon
Burnout Psychologist and Midlife Reclaimed Coach

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