When Helping Hurts: Unmasking the Hidden Trauma Behind Burnout

In this powerful solo episode of Growing Tall Poppies, host Dr. Nat Green uncovers a hidden truth affecting thousands of health and helping professionals: the exhaustion, numbness, and loss of purpose you’re feeling may not just be burnout—it could be vicarious trauma.

While burnout is widely discussed, vicarious trauma often goes unrecognized. It’s the quiet, cumulative cost of absorbing the pain, stories, and suffering of others. In this episode, Dr. Nat explains how vicarious trauma differs from burnout and compassion fatigue, and why so many well-meaning professionals silently suffer without realizing what's really going on.

You’ll hear some more of her own story, gain clarity on the emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and existential symptoms of vicarious trauma, and discover gentle, practical steps for resetting your nervous system and reconnecting with your true self.

This is a must-listen for anyone who feels like they’ve lost their spark, identity, or joy in the work they once loved.

🗂️ Timestamps & Episode Flow:

• 00:00 – Welcome & Why This Episode Matters
• 01:40 – What Is Vicarious Trauma (And Why It’s So Often Missed)
• 03:39 – Signs & Symptoms: Emotional, Cognitive, Behavioral, and Existential
• 05:59 – Why This Goes Deeper Than Burnout
• 12:37 – Dr. Nat’s Personal Story & What She Learned
• 20:55 – Steps to Begin Healing: Regulating the Nervous System, Micro-Moments of Joy & Identity Reconnection
• 25:40 – Final Reflections + Invitation to Go Deeper

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• The hidden emotional toll of working in helping professions
• How vicarious trauma differs from burnout and compassion fatigue
• Why mindset work alone isn’t enough—you need nervous system repair
• The quiet grief of identity loss in your professional role

✨ Mentioned in This Episode:

• 🌱 Learn more about the Rising Phoenix program: DM Dr Nat on socials

💬 Let’s Connect:
If this episode resonated with you, take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories, and tag @drnatgreen—let’s spread this message to every exhausted health professional who needs to hear it.

If this episode resonates with you then I'd love for you to hit SUBSCRIBE so you can keep updated with each new episode as soon as it's released and we'd be most grateful if you would give us a RATING as well. You can also find me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drnatgreen/ or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DrNatalieGreen

Intro and Outro music: Inspired Ambient by Playsound.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be deemed or treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Transcript

Dr Nat Green: 0:01

Welcome to the Growing Tall Poppies Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nat Green, and I'm so excited to have you join me as we discuss what it means to navigate your way through post-traumatic growth and not just survive, but to thrive after trauma. Through our podcast, we will explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater purpose, self-awareness, and a deep inner peace. Through integrating the many years of knowledge and professional experience, as well as the wisdom of those who have experienced trauma firsthand. We'll combine psychology accelerated approaches. Coaching and personal experience to assist you, to learn, to grow and to thrive. I hope to empower you to create deeper awareness and understanding and stronger connections with yourself and with others, whilst also paving the way for those who have experienced trauma and adversity to reduce their suffering and become the very best versions of themselves. In order to thrive. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. Hello, beautiful souls and welcome back to Growing Tall Poppies. I'm Dr. Nat Green, and today we're talking about something I know many of you have felt, even if you haven't known what to call it or haven't had the words for 62% of health professionals. Are burnt out and 74% report experiencing compassion fatigue and health professionals are leaving the professions in droves. Yet, what if the exhaustion you feel isn't just burnout? What if the heaviness you're carrying isn't laziness or lack of resilience? What if it's not about your mindset or how resilient you are? We know that we are not leaving because we don't care. It's because we've cared too much for too long with without being taught how to process it. What if it's not burnout, that it's actually the result of something far more common and far less spoken about? What if you are actually carrying someone else's pain in your body? This is vicarious trauma. This episode is all about vicarious trauma, the hidden toll of helping work. We are not just gonna name it. We're going to talk about what it really is and how to start to heal it gently, compassionately, and practically. So if you are someone who shows up. Every single day. For others, if you're the therapist, the coach, the nurse, the doctor, the allied health professional, first responder, social worker, or perhaps teacher, the person who holds space for pain and walks people through their pain, then this episode is for you because helping is beautiful. It's brave and it's sacred work, but sometimes helping hurts. And today we're gonna talk about why and most importantly, what to do about it. So if you've ever felt like you're surviving more so than living, then this one's for you. Maybe you used to love what you do. You were inspired, you felt clear on your purpose, and you knew that you were helping people. Most likely you felt that that was what you were born to do, but somewhere along the way, and you're probably not even sure where something shifted. Let me ask you something. Have you ever said to yourself, I used to love this work, but now it just feels like I'm in survival mode? You're drained, you're on autopilot. You feel numb or even overly emotional, and you're starting to wonder what's wrong with me. Maybe you're still showing up. You're doing everything you should be doing from the outside. You look capable. You might even look like you're thriving'cause maybe you haven't even told anyone that you feel this way because you are the one that people count on. The one that they come to constantly. You are the strong one, the capable one, but on the inside you are quietly unraveling. You're numb, you are tired. Deep, deep in your bones. You dread the next client, the next shift, the next ask. And worst of all, you feel guilty for feeling this way. And if that's you take a deep breath. You're not alone. I hear this from helping professionals all the time. Things like, I don't recognize myself anymore. I should be able to handle this. Oh, maybe I'm just not cut out for this work anymore. It's the truth. You haven't failed and you sure as heck are not broken. You've been absorbing and carrying more pain than any human nervous system was designed to hold. So let's talk about what's actually happening. We've all heard the term burnout. Yes, burnout is real. It's a result of chronic stress, often workplace related that hasn't been managed well. It's talked about in workplaces, in leadership circles, and let's face it, it's all over social media right now. What I'm seeing more often in health and helping professionals is something deeper. Far, far deeper from my decades of experience as a health professional. I've worked with thousands of clients and colleagues who've experienced exhaustion, mental health issues as a result of things that have been happening within their workplace, and they're feeling totally depleted and done. And they accepted that they had burnout as they're often dealing with the unmanageable workloads. Reduced resources, perceived lack of support, poor work life balance, or systemic issues like, lack of autonomy or recognition. But they were frustrated that the usual recommended approaches were not working. And that's because I firmly believe that for the majority, burnout is not the root problem. Of course, whilst many may have experienced all of these things and undoubtedly had burnout, they also had the added layers of indirect exposure to trauma through hearing their client's stories. Day in, day out through dealing with hearing these stories repeatedly and engaging empathically with their trauma experiences and pain. And this then served to also alter their worldview, their trust, and often their identity. And came with significant symptoms that they've kept to themselves, not game to share, and maybe not even recognized that these things were going on. Firstly, emotional symptoms such as guilt, sadness, anger, and helplessness, not being able to offer their clients more. Despite doing the best that they could, cognitive symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, they couldn't switch off, wanting to continue to work out what else they could do for their clients to make a difference, and sometimes even hyper vigilance. Then there's the behavioral symptoms such as overworking. Just keep pushing through. Keep working hard, keep working, you'll feel better. And that then led to avoidance and often isolation as a result of feeling that others wouldn't understand. Then we have the fourth area of existential and spiritual symptoms such as a loss of meaning in their careers. Their lives and they were left questioning their values as a whole. If you can relate to any of these, then this is vicarious trauma. It's insidious, and this is the deeper issue. It's the unspoken shadow of the helping professions when you work. With people who've experienced trauma, deep hurt, and pain, whether as a therapist, a nurse, a doctor, a coach, a social worker, or allied health professional, you are exposed to their pain, their stories, their grief and vicarious trauma happens when you're exposed over time to the stories of others. Especially the trauma stories. You are not the one who directly experienced the traumatic event. But through witnessing listening, supporting and holding others' pain, your brain and body begin to experience it too. And the neuroscience backs this up. Now. When you sit with someone in distress, your brain mirrors theirs. Your stress response, your amygdala fires up, your nervous system prepares for danger even though the threat isn't yours, and your nervous system doesn't always know it isn't happening to you. So over time, your brain and your body absorbed the emotional residue. And if that trauma energy isn't discharged, then you carry it and you continue to carry it within your nervous system. And if you don't have a way to release that activation, then your system stays stuck, hyper alert, hypervigilant, and emotionally drained it's trauma by proximity. Vicarious trauma, and no one talks about it. This is why you can feel exhausted even after a quiet day. It's why small things trigger big emotions. It's why your sleep, your joy, and your clarity start to erode. You are not overreacting. You are overloaded. Let me share a bit of my own personal story. As you know, I'm Dr. Nat Green, post-traumatic growth expert founder of the ABS Method and the Archetypes of Transformation, and after 35 years. Working as a psychologist on the front lines of trauma, including a year at Port Arthur Post Massacre and the North Parkes Mine collapse. I was depleted, exhausted. I gave everything to my clients and I had nothing left for myself or for my family. I thought I was probably burnt out and just pushed through. Thinking of course, that I just had to keep going'cause that's what you did. I didn't want to acknowledge what was really going on below the surface for fear of being seen as impaired or having something wrong with me. So I just kept going. I did all the clinical supervision, the self-care work, everything that I was supposed to do, and it wasn't until many, many years later, another 20 years actually, of some of my most significant trauma work when I experienced facing my own mortality and another significant trauma and. Autoimmune disorders and chronic illnesses surfaced and I finally stopped because I was forced to, not because I chose to, let's be honest. And I took some time out and recognized that vicarious trauma was what was actually underlying my burnout and my PTSD. And I absolutely had to do the deeper nervous system work that I'd been avoiding all these years. And here's the part that's both frustrating and hopeful. Your nervous system is beautiful, intelligent system inside of you. It's trying to protect you when it senses emotional danger. It goes into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And this might look like emotional numbing, trouble concentrating, compassion fatigue, hypervigilance or irritability, avoiding your own feelings or the people that you love. And most helping professionals try to mindset their way out of this. So if you've tried all the self-care tools, if you've gone on holidays, meditated, journaled, practiced mindset work, and you still feel off, it's not because you're doing it wrong. It's because mindset doesn't heal a dysregulated nervous system. You don't need more affirmations. You don't need another productivity hack. You need your body to feel safe again, because if your body doesn't feel safe, and no amount of positive thinking will shift it. The body simply must lead the way. So that means learning how to downshift from fight or flight and into regulation, gently processing the emotional residue of other people's pain and coming back home to yourself'cause you deserve it. And I wanna say this really clearly. You are not weak for needing this. You are not selfish, and you are certainly not broken. You are human and the work you do requires you to feel, which means it also requires you to heal. So it's our responsibility. To do the work that we need so that we can continue to do the work that we choose to do if we choose to do it with others. And one of the hardest parts of vicarious trauma is the identity loss. You start to feel like you're wearing a mask just to get through the day. Oh, I know that. Well, you start forgetting who you are outside of the professional role. You pull away from your hobbies, your relationships, even your joy, and all you are left with is the question, where did I go? You can't remember what lights you up anymore. You pull back from friends, from fun, from the little things that once made life feel like yours. Let's be honest, this is a form of grief. It's the loss of self. It's not loud or dramatic. It's quiet, subtle, but it's there the grief of losing yourself in the work that you once loved. And I wanna name it because when we don't name grief, we internalize it as shame, but you haven't failed. You've simply lost your reflection in the mirror of your mission, and now it's time to find your way back. You are allowed to want yourself back. You don't need to abandon your purpose. But you do need to reclaim your place inside of it. Healing from vicarious trauma doesn't mean you have to quit your job. It doesn't mean you have to stop being the incredible caregiver leader or helping guide that you are. But it does mean putting yourself back into the equation. It means reclaiming your identity, releasing the emotional burdens that you've been carrying for others all these years, resetting your nervous system and reigniting your spark. And this is the work I do with my clients. Inside My Rising Phoenix program, and I promise you, it is possible to feel grounded again, to feel joy again, to feel like yourself again. There's a version of you on the other side of this who's more clear, more connected, and more powerful than ever, and I developed the Rising Phoenix program. After working out exactly what was required and putting myself through the process and then testing it on many, many others individually and now as a group program, because being part of a community of like-minded people who truly get it is key. All right, so let's talk strategy. How can you make a start on moving through vicarious trauma if you are not yet ready to join my Rising Phoenix program, or you just wanna sit with what could actually be going on first, if you are feeling this episode deep in your bones. Here are five gentle, powerful steps that you can take today to begin healing from vicarious trauma. Firstly, vicarious trauma thrives in silence, so I want you to start by simply acknowledging what you're experiencing. Name it. Talk to a trusted colleague, a friend, a coach, a therapist speaking about it and languaging it alone brings relief. Secondly, I want you to regulate before you reflect, before you try to make sense of your feelings, regulate your nervous system. There's a number of different processes that you can do whatever works for you. It might be box breathing, which is inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold for four. You might be someone who gets benefit from tapping EFT. You might prefer something like I do, which is TRE, and I know that I talk about that a lot on these episodes. It's because I know that that is an amazing process that truly works, a process to evoke neurogenic tremors that will start. Allowing the body's natural shaking and tremoring process where we release and process our stress, our anxiety, and our trauma. It might be something like running cold water on your wrists or putting it on your neck. It might be gentle stretching with deep breaths. Any of these can start to help you regulate your nervous system. Number three, I want you to create micro moments of joy. You don't need a full week off to reset. Try 15 minutes of intentional pleasure. It could be a song that moves you sitting in the sun just soaking up the beautiful warmth, a short walk in nature. It might be something creative like coloring, in, drawing, painting, baking, moving your body to music. Whatever you can do to bring the joy back to you 4 emotional discharge rituals. Don't just absorb the emotions. Learn to release them. So set a timer and try journaling for five minutes, unfiltered. Just writing, seeing what flows through. You could try shaking out tension from your body, standing up, moving around, shaking your whole body out, dancing, doing whatever it is you wanna do. Or it might be screaming into a pillow. Yes, really, whatever it is that works to help you discharge and release the emotions, make it safe and intentional, and let it move through. And number five, reconnect with who you were outside of work. Who were you before you were a helper or health professional? What brought you alive? It's time to reintroduce yourself to yourself. Start small. You don't have to change the world. Just choose one tiny thread to pull. Just pull it and follow it. So as we wrap up this episode, just wanna check in with you. If this episode spoke to you and maybe even made you feel seen, then I would absolutely love to hear from you. DM me, connect with me on socials. My new rising Phoenix program is almost here, but I don't want you to feel any pressure that you need to do that. I'd just love for you to connect with me on socials, and if you are really ready to truly reclaim yourself, reach out. Or you might wanna get on the wait list for my full online program where I walk you through how to release the emotional residue. Reset your nervous system and reconnect with who you are beyond the burnout and help you to truly heal. Until next time, keep growing. Keep shining brightly, keep reclaiming you, and never, never let anyone dim your light or dull your shine. You are so worth it. Take care. Bye for now. Thank you for joining me in this episode of Growing Tall Poppies. It is my deepest hope that today's episode may have inspired and empowered you to step fully into your post-traumatic growth, so that you can have absolute clarity around who you are, what matters the most to you, and to assist you to release your negative emotions. And regulate your nervous system so you can fully thrive. New episodes are published every Tuesday, and I hope you'll continue to join us as we explore both the strategies and the personal qualities required to fully live a life of post-traumatic growth and to thrive. So if it feels aligned to you and really resonates, then I invite you to hit subscribe and it would mean the world to us. If you could share this episode with others who you feel may benefit too, you may also find me on Instagram at Growing Tall Poppies and Facebook, Dr. Natalie Green. Remember, every moment is an opportunity to look for the lessons and to learn and increase your ability to live the life you desire and deserve. So for now, stay connected. Stay inspired. Stand tall like the tall poppy you are, and keep shining your light brightly in the world. Bye for.