Author: Hannah Young

How I dropped the shame when I left teaching

Written by Hannah Young on August 3, 2026. Posted in Real Life and Reflections. No Comments on How I dropped the shame when I left teaching

Leaving teaching was hugely emotional for me.

It was letting go of an identity.

Admitting I couldn’t cope.

Leaving behind the very best bits – like having a class in the palm of my hand, or sharing an in-joke with my Year 11s.

I felt a lot of shame and guilt around it. And I thought that other teachers would view me differently – see me as a failure, as weak. Particularly because I was staying in the same school, so there was no hiding from it.

But one day I had a conversation with someone senior. They were asking how I felt about my decision – if I’d made the right one. I said that yes, I felt like I’d got my life back. And what they said next has really stuck with me…

They were envious. They said they wished they could do the same. That they fell into teaching and then seemed to fall into promotion after promotion. Now, they were stuck – they couldn’t see any career move that would give them the same salary…and they had a family to support, so couldn’t drop their pay. And that they wouldn’t know what to do next anyway.

That one conversation completely changed the way I thought of myself as a teacher who had left. There wasn’t anything shameful about it. I didn’t need to feel guilty. It was a brave decision I took before I was in too deep. And a decision that probably loads of people wished they could take.

If the thought of leaving teaching comes to you from time to time, no-one is asking you to make the decision today. But if it’s the thought of ‘What would people think?’ that stops you from allowing yourself to consider it, it really doesn’t have to be that way. Book a virtual coffee with me to find out how I can support you to get clarity.

Support for burnout and overwhelm for teachers in Leeds

Thinking of leaving education? These are the struggles I didn’t expect

Written by Hannah Young on July 22, 2026. Posted in Real Life and Reflections. No Comments on Thinking of leaving education? These are the struggles I didn’t expect

I left my career in education last year to work full-time on my coaching business. I thought it would be plain-sailing but there were plenty of struggles that took me by surprise. A year in, and I’m still working through some of them.

1. What do I talk about now? Suddenly, I wasn’t that person with all the crazy stories about working in a challenging school. I gave up trying to explain to people that I wasn’t a teacher anymore when I went into pastoral…but when I left altogether I realised how much of myself I anchored around the job.

2. I had no idea how to create a work routine. Erm…I mean, how do people structure their day when there’s no school bell? It took me ages to get used to scheduling based on hours of the day, not lesson start and finish times. And when January hit, I realised I was no longer basing my years on the academic calendar. What.

3. The guilt I feel for being tired. This one I really underestimated. I thought I’d be able to go head-long into building my business, but I crashed pretty quickly. I’d also feel guilty that I hadn’t ‘earned’ the right to be tired. I realised I had this residual exhaustion from over a decade in schools, and I’m still learning that I don’t need to feel guilty for going at a slower pace. My working days and weeks are shorter. But that’s okay. (Really.)

4. My body’s hyper-vigilance for overwhelm. If my calendar starts to fill up, my body screams at me to disappear to a remote place for a week. I reckon this is a result of the lesson it learnt that busyness = stress. So even if my calendar is full of lovely stuff, I still feel anxiety around it.

5. The imposter syndrome I had whilst teaching has returned. Yay. When I was teaching, I used to be plagued by the thought that one day someone senior would see me teach and immediately march me off the premises. That feeling went when I moved into pastoral, but it’s reared it’s head again in my coaching. Except now I’m the one observing and assessing myself – and I’m often super critical.

6. Giving myself an hour’s lunch break. Oh, and a 30-minute afternoon break. I don’t need to say much more about that, do I? I mean. Come on.

7. Accepting that a piece of me lives in education. When I first starting coaching, I wanted to get as far away from education as possible. But it took me nearly a year to come full-circle and realise that I can’t deny how much my time as a teacher and in pastoral has shaped me.

If you’re a woman working in a tough school who’s wondering whether you can sustain it, why not book a virtual coffee to find out how I can support you.

When women in education burnout – when my body said ‘no’

Written by Hannah Young on July 10, 2026. Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on When women in education burnout – when my body said ‘no’

“I’m sitting here with my coat and lanyard on, but I can’t seem to make myself walk out of the door.”

That was the Whatsapp message I sent to my line manager, Amy, one February morning in 2024. The morning my body finally said a very loud ‘no’. This is what happens when women in education burnout.

I thought I’d left the stress, exhaustion and burnout behind when I left teaching at the end of 2020, but it turned out that I was still struggling to cope in my new pastoral role.

Although I’d reclaimed plenty of time – leaving the building at 4pm instead of 6pm; waking up on a Saturday morning with no work looming over me; no longer feeling the need to get to work an hour early – somehow, the job still consumed me. I just could not seem to regulate my nervous system: I felt constantly ‘on’, always tired, and decision fatigue hung heavy. I’d return from work by 4.15pm, only to scroll on my phone for 2 hours before finally summoning the energy to get up and make dinner.

So that morning in February 2024 was a turning point.

I obviously hadn’t been listening to my body and it was ready to do something drastic to be heard. I’d had a really stressful day the day before – busy in the usual way but with some particularly tricky encounters with dysregulated students – and had ended up in tears in the HR office. And the next morning my body just wasn’t prepared to go out to battle again. I’d got dressed for work as normal and was ready to open the front door to leave…but froze.

I now look back and recognise that I probably was in chronic burnout.

Even as a teacher, there had been times where I felt broken – but only took 2 or 3 days off work. I soldiered on, martyring myself for the cause because I thought that’s just what teachers do. And then went straight into a pastoral role that demanded much more from me emotionally and psychologically. But, I somehow felt I could never ‘justify’ feeling burnout in this new role, because…well…look how tough teachers have it.

The thing is, if you’ve never worked in a school, you just won’t get it. It’s the constant stimulation – stimulation that simultaneously calls for your attention: a decision to be made, a student to help regulate, a bell to respond to, something to add to the to-do list. And something that I never learnt in my teacher training was how to regulate myself. So, I found my nervous system on high alert for at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and, other than doomscrolling, just did not know how to calm it. That’s what it really looks like when women in education burnout.

I had 2 days off work that week. And then went back and carried on. Nothing fixed, nothing improved. It felt impossible, to be honest, and I took it as a sign to move on. That’s when I started exploring how to become a Life Coach…

I sometimes look back and wonder if having the right support at the time would have helped me to stay. I now realise that what contributed to my burnout and overwhelm was my people-pleasing, my leaky boundaries, and this pressure I put on myself to be ‘that’ member of staff who always did everything right; who could always be relied upon; who overperformed. I now know how much of my identity I attached to my job – how I lost myself in it so had nothing left at the end of the day.

The truth is that for me, I was ready for something new. But for so many women in education who are currently wondering if they can keep it up, they just don’t have the capacity to even know what they want. Some of the women I speak to truly love their job but just can’t see how they can sustain it. Others have come to realise that it’s time for a change, but they have no idea to what.

And so that’s where the work begins – creating capacity. Finding the headspace to notice the blindspots, build resilience, and lift the fog on what it is that would truly make her happy.

If you’re ready to create some capacity, book a no-pressure virtual coffee with me to share what’s on your mind.

Burnout in Education – The Cost of Competence

Written by Hannah Young on June 23, 2026. Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Burnout in Education – The Cost of Competence

Have you ever been tasked with some extra responsibility or project at work, and had a sneaking suspicion that it’s been landed on you because of your competence? Not because it falls under your remit; not because you’ve been twiddling your thumbs with nothing else to do; it could even be way above your pay grade.

This is something that seems to happen a lot in education. The brilliant teacher ends up with the trickiest classes year after year. The standout year manager gets assigned the year group with the most safeguarding needs. The TA who puts in her all gets the biggest caseload.

At first, it might read as flattery. It might even be packaged like that: “Oh you were just so good last year with taking on 9B – they made incredible progress…so this year, we wanted to give you 7C!”

But once the thought creeps in – that this might be the cost of competence – you can’t unsee it. Add to this any people-pleasing tendencies you have, or leaky boundaries, and you’ve got yourself a pretty fast-track to burnout. Because often it’s not only the burden of the extra work or responsibility – but it’s the fact you’ve been singled out: those at ‘the top’ have recognised your work. They’ve put you on a pedestal and you don’t want to let them down. That pressure – to hold yourself to an identity that somebody else created for you – is exhausting.

So what can be done?

Getting to the root of your need to protect that image of yourself over protecting your own boundaries needs to go hand-in-hand with practical tools that can be put into place straight away. You see, capacity needs to be created in order for you to have the headspace and energy to do the deeper work that will make lasting changes in the long run. It might be creating a pause when someone asks you (*tells you) to do something. So the immediate, smiley ‘Yes, sure!’ becomes, ‘Let me just check my other commitments and I’ll get back to you.’ It could be literally rehearsing a response you’ve going to give.

Once some capacity is created, the deeper work can really gain momentum. What’s underlying your need to have everyone think good of you? When did your people-pleasing begin? And what are your leaky boundaries costing you?

It’s time we were allowed to show up as incredibly capable women – without being punished for it.

Feeling Overwhelmed in Education? Learning to Listen to Your Nervous System

Written by Hannah Young on June 5, 2026. Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Feeling Overwhelmed in Education? Learning to Listen to Your Nervous System

How did it take me until my late 30s to really understand what my nervous system was trying to tell me in any given moment?

In the final couple of years of my role as an Attendance Officer in a busy, challenging inner-city school, I would tell my boss I was having a moment whenever I was feeling “fizzy”. This wasn’t a code word; I literally felt fizzy. My body would be sparking, my ears ringing, and my heart – not racing exactly – but certainly getting a bit of a gallop on.

This would often happen after a particularly busy, unpredictable morning. Perhaps there had been a safeguarding issue, a difficult parent conversation, a child in crisis, or maybe a student had told me to F*** off just to round things off nicely. Over time, I learned to recognise that feeling and, importantly, what it meant. I knew my nervous system was overloaded and that if I could take ten minutes in a quiet space, I stood a much better chance of getting through the rest of the day.

The thing is, this awareness didn’t arrive overnight. I’d spent the best part of eight years working in that same school without really being able to tune into what my body was telling me in real time. Instead, I would push through, keep going, and then wonder why I found myself asleep on the sofa at seven o’clock in the evening after inhaling a party pack of onion rings and a couple of iced buns.

Looking back, I can see that my response to stress was both delayed and unhelpful. At the time, though, I think I simply assumed that this was what working in education felt like. I thought it was normal to spend most of the term running on adrenaline and then limp my way towards the next school holiday hoping it would somehow be enough to recharge me.

It’s a pattern I now see in so many of the women I work with. They are often highly capable, deeply caring professionals who have become so used to carrying responsibility that they no longer notice the signs that their nervous system has been struggling for months, or even years. They tell themselves they’re tired because work is busy, overwhelmed because life is demanding, emotional because they’re not coping very well. What they don’t realise is that their bodies have been trying to get their attention all along.

When I eventually moved into a pastoral role, the work was still incredibly stressful, but I had a little more freedom to step away when I needed to. I could leave the office, find a quiet space and actually listen to what was happening internally rather than automatically overriding it. It was probably the first time I began to understand that stress wasn’t just something happening in my head. My body was involved in the conversation too.

That understanding has become one of the foundations of the coaching work I do today with overwhelmed and burnt-out women, particularly those working in education. Before we start talking about goals, confidence, boundaries or life changes, we spend time understanding the nervous system. We explore what overwhelm feels like in their body, how stress responses have shaped their behaviour over time, and why they may find themselves stuck in patterns that no longer serve them.

Because when you begin to understand your nervous system, so much starts to make sense. The exhaustion. The irritability. The emotional eating. The inability to switch off. The feeling that you’re constantly behind, even when you’re doing more than enough. What often looks like laziness, failure or a lack of resilience is, in reality, a nervous system that has been carrying too much for too long.

I’ve found that real change becomes possible when we stop judging those responses and start understanding them instead. Once we can recognise what our bodies have been trying to tell us, we can respond differently. We can begin to meet our needs earlier, create healthier boundaries, and move away from simply surviving each week.

For many women experiencing burnout in education, that shift is where recovery begins. Not by trying harder, becoming more productive or finding a better planner, but by learning how to listen.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted or stuck in survival mode, coaching can help you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface and reconnect with the version of yourself that feels calm, clear and capable. I offer life coaching for women in education both online and in Leeds, supporting clients to recover from burnout, rebuild trust in themselves and create a life that feels sustainable again.

Why You Still Feel Burnt Out Even After Leaving Teaching

Written by Hannah Young on May 6, 2026. Posted in Mindset and Patterns. No Comments on Why You Still Feel Burnt Out Even After Leaving Teaching

Even after leaving teaching, I still felt it’s impact in my nervous system

Walking out of the school building at 4pm on the first day in your new pastoral role, having left teaching, is a pretty odd feeling.

That nagging sense that you’ve forgotten something. Your brain starting to plan the work you’re doing this evening. Mentally preparing for the next day.

…and then remembering: Nope, there are no books to take home. Nope, there’s no planning to do tonight. And tomorrow? Well, why worry about that now?

You’d think the feeling would be liberating.

But actually, it’s closer to guilt.

Like you’ve somehow cheated the system.

The Subtle Signs of Burnout and Overwhelm That Don’t Just Disappear

It started with the 4pm nag.

That feeling on the drive home — trying to convince my brain that it really was okay to switch off. That there was nothing I should be doing. That I actually had the evening ahead of me.

Then came Saturday mornings.

It’s no exaggeration to say it took me about six months to stop waking up with that familiar dread: “When am I going to do my work this weekend?”

The internal battle between procrastination and pressure. The sense that it would be more responsible to just get everything done now.

Eventually, I began to convince my nervous system that we really could just rest. That there was nothing to catch up on and nothing waiting for me.

Why Your Nervous System Stays in “Work Mode”

I noticed something else too.

I’d get ready for work and drive to school with this intense sense of urgency.

During my teaching days, if I arrived later than 7:05am, I’d panic:

the photocopiers would be taken
I wouldn’t have time to set up
I’d miss something important

Even after leaving teaching, my body didn’t catch up.

Even though my new role started at 8am, if I arrived later than 7:30am, I’d convince myself the whole day would go badly.

This is what burnout and overwhelm can look like. Not just exhaustion, but a body that has learnt to stay constantly “on”.

What It Took to Actually Feel Calm Again

There was no quick fix.

My nervous system had learned:

to anticipate pressure
to stay alert
to believe I should always be doing something

So it took time.

It took self-talk — actually saying out loud: “It’s okay. We don’t have any work to do this weekend. You can relax.”

It took intentional slowing down. Small resets. Letting my body experience something different.

Why the Feeling of Overwhelm Can Linger

Even now, sometimes, it still shows up.

A full weekend of plans can bring a flash of panic.

I’m transported back to a time when a busy weekend meant weeks of preparation.

The hangover from teaching lingers.

If You’re Still Feeling Burnt Out or Overwhelmed…

This isn’t just about teaching.

I speak to so many women who feel:

constantly “on”
unable to switch off
like they should be doing something all the time
disconnected from themselves

Even when their circumstances have changed. Burnout and overwhelm don’t just disappear when your situation changes. Your nervous system needs time — and support — to catch up.

Support for Burnout and Overwhelm in Leeds

If this feels familiar, this is exactly the kind of work I do.

I offer in-person wellbeing coaching in Leeds for women who feel overwhelmed, burnt out, and stretched too thin, even if they’re no longer in the situation that caused it.

These sessions are a chance to:

slow down properly
understand what’s going on beneath the surface
start feeling like yourself again

You can book a Reset Session or a virtual coffee to see if it feels like the right fit.

Woman enjoying sunshine and rest after overcoming overwhelm

Burnout in Teachers: Why You Can’t Relax (and How to Recover)

Written by Hannah Young on April 24, 2026. Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Burnout in Teachers: Why You Can’t Relax (and How to Recover)

If you’ve experienced burnout as a teacher, you might recognise this feeling…

The other evening, I was sitting in the garden enjoying the sunshine…reading, sipping a cold drink, catching a squirrel in the act of trying to steal the bird feed…

And I remembered a time when I hated the sun coming out. Not because I don’t like the heat (though I do love embracing the cosiness of winter), but because a sunny day made me feel like I ‘should’ be doing more.

At that time, I was so overwhelmed and burnt-out that I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than sit in front of the TV. Even getting changed after returning home from work felt like a huge effort. And the weekends would pass by without me leaving the house – just getting up, getting settled on the sofa…and staying there. So if the sun came out? I would fight this inner battle with myself: I should be going out for a walk; I should be getting some Vitamin D; I should be out meeting friends for coffee in the sunshine; I should be doing some gardening…the list went on.

But I just couldn’t summon the energy. I would long for winter and the dark nights – where my desire to be indoors could be excused.

This went on for years. And I put it down to just being pretty ‘normal’ for a woman working in education; even though I knew other people managed to live some sort of life outside of school, there was just enough chat about burnout in teachers, about being exhausted and surviving till the school holidays that I could brush off the nagging doubt that this was certainly NOT how I should be living.

When I left teaching and moved into a pastoral role, things eased slightly. I left work behind at 4pm (no longer bringing piles of work home to do well into the evenings), so I could recuperate enough to find some enjoyment outside of the house again (or at least, not just parked permanently in front of the telly). But there was still something taking charge of my body – something that still made me panic if my half-term holiday calendar started to fill up with plans or ‘stuff’ I needed to get done.

I realised my nervous system hadn’t caught up – it was still braced for survival; for just getting through a day at a time. Having to deal with anything else (like the thought of going for a healthy walk in the sunshine) was still too much.

And this is what I see in so many of the women I work with – stuck in survival mode. Scraping through to the weekend or the school holidays – but crashing when they get there. And of course the irony is that these things I avoided (like going for a walk in my sunnies) would have been just what my body needed. So, the work starts with creating just enough safety in the body (and a healthy dose of gentle accountability) to introduce these healthy, healing habits. This, along with reconnection with the self – our needs, our boundaries, etc., is the beginning of a path out of burnout and overwhelm. And, along the way we find clarity and direction.

So if you’re a woman in education who’s struggling with burnout, overwhelm – and you just want to feel like yourself again – you’re in the right place. I offer face-to-face burnout reset coaching sessions in Leeds and online – arrive as you are, and leave with a sense of calm and just a little more headspace.

If you’re interested, or want to know more about my full overwhelm to clarity coaching programme, you can book a virtual coffee with me here.

Why are so many women on the edge of burnout?

Written by Hannah Young on April 13, 2026. Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Why are so many women on the edge of burnout?

Why is it that there are so many women who seem to always be on the very edge of burnout?

I’ve been there…

And I always thought that just ‘pushing through’ to complete my to-do list would fix things…

‘If I can just get through this list, then I’ll have time to relax and finally feel at peace.’

But the truth is, your to-do list is infinite. It’ll never be done. And even if you somehow managed to complete it, I can tell you now that the void…that numbness you feel at the end of the day…it’ll still be there.

I speak to so many burnt-out, overwhelmed women who describe life as being sort of ‘flat’, even though on paper they have it all.

And they’re feeling guilty for feeling ungrateful…they’re wondering what’s wrong with them and if they’ll ever feel ‘normal’. Add to that the weight of all the things they ‘should‘ be doing, and they’ve got the perfect recipe for just scraping through each day in survival mode.

What these women come to realise through our work together is that the external accomplishments and productivity they’ve grown up thinking are the key to happiness…just, aren’t. In fact, the to-do list has simply been yet another tool of distraction:

Distraction from their authentic selves

Distraction from their natural feminine cycle and rhythm

Distraction from their calling and innate wisdom

So the answer isn’t in yet another productivity or time-management tool. The answer is in stillness. In turning inwards. In reconnecting with your own self.

If you’re a woman feeling like you’re always ‘on’, I can help. I offer face-to-face burnout reset sessions in Leeds: Come as you are, and leave with a weight lifted and practical tools to support you.

Support for women who are overwhelmed and burnout

The Freeze Response Behind Burnout

Written by Hannah Young on March 31, 2026. Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on The Freeze Response Behind Burnout

The ‘freeze response’ is the sneaky nervous system behaviour that might be sitting behind the fact you feel on the edge of burnout.

We all know from secondary-school science that, when faced with a threat, our bodies can go into ‘fight or flight’. But what I never remember being taught about in school is the freeze response. It was only really when I got to A-Level and Degree Psychology that I learnt more about the lesser-known siblings of fight/flight – that is ‘freeze’ and ‘fawn’.

To ‘freeze’ is a pretty good survival instinct for your nervous system to have developed. Faced with a sabre-tooth tiger, your cavewoman ancestors may have survived by ‘freezing’ – making themselves hidden, smaller (think ‘playing dead’).

But when our modern-day threats are no longer the sabre-tooth tiger, but instead often a cumulative build-up of pressures – at work and in our personal and social lives – that lead to feelings of emotional overwhelm, the freeze response doesn’t feel too helpful. In fact, it can lead to us feeling numb, dissociated, anxious or unable to participate in life.

Feeling overwhelmed and burnout is something I experiencing myself during my teaching career.

And it literally felt like I was going about my days in a trance. I was still functioning (we now know about functional freeze), but I wasn’t participating in life.

And something that I completely abandoned (and I see many women I work with doing the same) was a connection with my self. As well as being numb to the world, the volume on my own needs turned down too. Nutrition, exercise, time in nature, engaging in conversation about how I was feeling – I didn’t do any of it. Until one day I literally could not open my front door to leave for work.

When life feels overwhelming, disrupting the pattern of life in a small way can be a good place to start. I found such relief in stepping out into nature, booking a massage, or speaking to one of the amazing women healers I had around me at the time. It was connection I needed – and a space just for myself.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed and teetering close to the edge of burnout, start small. Why not make today the day you begin to reconnect with yourself. Step out into nature – feel the grass underfoot, observe the new buds of spring – heck, hug a tree! – and by doing so, you’ll feel yourself gently stepping back into your self.

And, if you’d like a space to escape to, my in-person Reset Session might be just what you need.

Happiness in Ordinary Moments: Feel More Grounded

Written by Hannah Young on March 29, 2026. Posted in Real Life and Reflections. No Comments on Happiness in Ordinary Moments: Feel More Grounded

Is it just me, or does everything feel a bit off right now?

There’s a lot of uncertainty in the air. And when life feels like that, it’s easy to look outward for something bigger, better, or more certain to hold onto. But more often than not, what steadies us is much simpler than that.

Happiness in ordinary moments is easy to overlook, especially when comparison is constantly pulling our attention elsewhere. We open our phones and within seconds we’re measuring our lives against someone else’s highlight reel. Even when we know it’s not real life, it still has an effect.

So before anything else, it’s worth gently stepping back from that. Not forever, just enough to create a bit of space. Enough to notice what’s already here.

Because when you do, you start to see that your life is not behind. It’s just quieter.

The conversation you spoke up in. The small step you finally took. The way you’re handling things now compared to a few years ago. That is progress, even if no one else sees it.

This is where happiness in ordinary moments really begins to land. Not in big milestones, but in the details you would usually rush past.

Instead of listing the same gratitudes each day, try noticing something more specific. The sound of birds before your alarm. A message from a friend you hadn’t heard from in a while. Even the satisfaction of getting something slightly more right than you did yesterday.

These moments are easy to dismiss, but they are often the ones that stay.

The same goes for the things we think we need to upgrade. We’re used to chasing the next version of everything, but the feeling rarely lasts. What does last is a quieter kind of contentment. The kind that comes from realising what you already have is enough, for now.

And maybe most importantly, the relationships that don’t look perfect on the surface are often the ones that matter most. The ones that pick up where they left off. The ones that don’t need constant attention to still feel solid.

So if things feel unsettled at the moment, come back to what is steady.

Happiness in ordinary moments is not about lowering your expectations of life. It’s about noticing that your life is already happening, in ways that are easy to miss if you’re always looking for more.

And when you start to see that, things don’t feel quite so off after all.