Labor Day Reset: The Invisible Labor of Women, Neurodivergence, and Setting Boundaries

Labor Day wasn’t created for mattress sales or backyard barbecues. It was born out of blood, sweat, and struggle. Workers took to the streets in 1882 to demand dignity, fair wages, and humane hours. That history matters, because even today, so much labor still goes unseen, unpaid, and unacknowledged—especially the labor carried by women, neurodivergent women, and women living with invisible disabilities.

This post is for you if you know the exhaustion of constantly over-functioning, masking to survive, or giving more energy than anyone sees. It’s time for a Labor Day reset.

What Is Invisible Labor for Women?

When we talk about labor, it’s not just about what earns a paycheck. Labor also includes the unseen and unspoken work it takes to move through the world every day. For women, this invisible labor is everywhere. It’s so normalized that it’s like fish trying to see the water they swim in.

Six Types of Invisible Labor

• Emotional Labor: Soothing conflict, holding space, keeping the peace—sometimes while your own nervous system is on fire.

• Cognitive Labor: The endless mental to-do list. Remembering deadlines, school forms, birthdays, groceries, and the small details that keep life afloat.

• Workplace Labor: Taking notes, rewriting emails so you won’t be misread, re-explaining assignments. Doing the unacknowledged extras that smooth things over at work.

• Masking Labor: Suppressing stims, forcing eye contact, rehearsing words in your head. Hiding the ways your brain and body naturally express themselves just to make others comfortable.

• Advocacy Labor: Fighting for accommodations, explaining your needs again and again, educating managers or professors just to be included.

• Care Labor: Tending to children, partners, households, friends, or coworkers in ways society dismisses as just “being a good woman.”
  
  

Why Neurodivergent Women
Carry More Invisible Labor

If you’re neurodivergent or living with an invisible disability, the burden is often heavier.

• Masking drains energy. Every choice to appear “normal” takes energy you don’t get back.

• Over-functioning to prove worth. Many neurodivergent women over-give to avoid being seen as lazy, unreliable, or incapable.

• Hyper-awareness. Picking up on everything—emotions, tension, sensory details—that others miss.

• Advocacy fatigue. Fighting the same battles for access every semester, every job, every new environment.

• Fear of being misunderstood. Pushing yourself harder just to avoid being labeled “too much,” “too sensitive,” or “crazy.”
  
  

This is labor. And it is not sustainable.

How to Do a Labor Audit

Awareness is the first step to change. You can’t reclaim your brilliance until you name what’s draining it. A Labor Audit helps you identify and shift invisible labor.

Steps to Run a Labor Audit

1. Notice your labor. Track everything for a day. Not just tasks, but the tone-softening, the reminders, the masking. All of it.

2. Name the responsibility. Ask: Whose responsibility is this really? Mine, or something I’ve been conditioned to carry?

3. Value the labor. If this were worth $500 an hour, would you keep doing it?

4. Decide what to do. Sort into three lists:

   • Stop: What can you put down?

   • Share: What can you delegate or redistribute?

   • Sustain: What will you choose to continue because it nourishes you?
     
     

Boundaries for Women as Reclamation

Boundaries aren’t walls. They’re reclamation.

They’re you saying:

• “I’m not available for that.”

• “That’s not mine to carry.”

• “I trust you to handle it.”

• “I won’t be taking that on.”
  
  

Every “no” to invisible labor is a “yes” to your creativity, your sovereignty, and your leadership.

Try this: for seven days, pause before giving an automatic yes. That sacred pause is the doorway to reclaiming your energy.

Somatic Practice:
Releasing Invisible Labor

If it feels safe, place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Breathe deeply and say:

I release labor that is not mine.
I reclaim the energy that belongs to me.
I choose to sustain only what nourishes my brilliance.

Your body remembers what it feels like not to carry everything on your back.

A Labor Day Reset for Your Sovereignty

Labor Day began with workers declaring enough is enough. Now it’s your turn.

Enough over-functioning.
Enough masking to survive.
Enough carrying invisible labor that drains your brilliance.

Your energy is sacred. Your brilliance is not negotiable. Honor yourself by putting something down.

Private Coaching for Women Ready
to Reclaim Their Energy

If this resonates, share it with another woman who is carrying too much. And if you’re ready to go deeper in reclaiming your boundaries, energy, and leadership, I invite you to book a private coaching session with me.

👉 Book your session here 

Because Play Big Queens don’t labor indefinitely or invisibly.
We thrive. We lead. And none of us do it alone.