Burnout Isn't Just About Being Busy
Burnout is about more than being busy. Explore the emotional signs of burnout, why wellbeing isn't a destination, and how to find your way back to yourself.
A few years ago, if you'd asked me what burnout looked like, I probably would have described someone who couldn't get out of bed. Someone who was exhausted. Someone who had simply done too much for too long. And while all of those things can be true, I've started to realise that burnout can be much harder to spot than that.
Sometimes it looks like carrying on. You still show up to work. You still answer the emails. You still remember the PE kit, book the dentist appointment and reply to the WhatsApp messages. From the outside, everything appears to be functioning more or less as normal. But something has shifted.
The things that used to bring you pleasure don't quite land in the same way. The book sits unopened on the bedside table. The walk you've been looking forward to all week suddenly feels like another item on the list. Someone suggests meeting for coffee and, rather than feeling excited, you find yourself wondering whether you can get out of it.
Life starts to feel flatter somehow. Not terrible or dramatic. Just a little more grey than it used to. This was something that really stood out for me from my recent conversation with Dr Jillian Bybee on A Thought I Kept.
Jillian is a paediatric intensive care physician, coach, writer and mother who has experienced burnout twice herself. During our conversation she shared a thought that changed the way she understood wellbeing:
"Wellness is not a state of being, it's a state of action."
We kept returning to that sentence as we talked because it challenges one of the most common assumptions many of us carry around wellbeing. Namely, that it's somewhere we're trying to get to.
If we're honest, many of us live as though wellbeing is waiting for us on the other side of life. It's over there somewhere, beyond the busy period at work, beyond the caring responsibilities, beyond the financial worries, beyond the endless list of things that need our attention. We imagine there will come a moment when life finally settles down and we'll have enough space to focus on ourselves.
Only life has a habit of refusing to settle down. There's always another deadline, another transition, another worry, another season of life that requires something from us. And so wellbeing remains permanently postponed.
What I loved about Jillian's perspective was the reminder that wellbeing isn't something that exists outside our lives. It has to exist within them. Not when things calm down. Now. Not perfectly. Imperfectly. Not as a destination. As a practice.
One of the moments that particularly struck me was when Jillian spoke about how she now understands burnout. Rather than defining it purely through exhaustion or workload, she shared a definition from Duke University's wellbeing research that describes burnout as an inability to feel positive emotion. Which is such a powerful reframe. Because it explains something I've seen in myself at times and in so many people I've worked with.
Burnout isn't always a collapse. Sometimes it's a disappearance. A gradual loss of access to the things that make us feel alive. Joy becomes harder to find. Wonder feels distant. Connection requires effort. Even gratitude can feel strangely out of reach.
We often think of burnout as a productivity problem. We imagine the solution lies in better time management, fewer commitments or a more efficient morning routine. But what if burnout is also an emotional experience?
What if part of what we're grieving when we're burnt out isn't simply our energy, but our relationship with life itself? That idea feels particularly important because so many of us have become very good at pushing through.
We're good at functioning. Good at coping. Good at convincing everyone, including ourselves, that we're fine.
As Jillian pointed out during our conversation, many of us have learned to suppress difficult emotions because they feel inconvenient, uncomfortable or overwhelming. The problem is that emotions don't really work like that. We can't neatly push away grief, anger, sadness and frustration while keeping joy, connection and hope fully intact. Often when we numb one part of ourselves, we numb other parts too.
Which perhaps explains why burnout can feel so lonely. Not because nobody is around us, but because we've become disconnected from ourselves.
One of the stories Jillian shared was about a coaching client who felt completely overwhelmed by the demands of her life. When they began working together, the thing she felt able to offer herself wasn't a wellness retreat or a radical lifestyle overhaul. It was five minutes. Five minutes spent reading in a room where nobody could find her.
I loved that story because it feels so different from the way wellbeing is often presented to us. There was no perfect morning routine. No expensive solution. No dramatic life change. Just five minutes and a growing recognition that she mattered too.
Sometimes I think we underestimate how powerful these small acts can be. Not because they solve everything, but because they begin to challenge the story that everyone else's needs must come before our own.
Perhaps that's why I left this conversation feeling unexpectedly hopeful. Not because burnout is simple. It isn't. Not because five minutes fixes everything. It doesn't. But because Jillian's perspective offers something many of us desperately need right now: a kinder relationship with wellbeing itself.
One that isn't rooted in perfection, optimisation or achievement. One that allows us to ask a different question. Not, "How do I become the best version of myself?" But, "What would help me feel a little more like myself again?" If burnout is the gradual loss of connection to ourselves, perhaps recovery begins there too. Not in becoming someone new. But in finding our way back to the person who has been there all along.
If this resonates, I'd encourage you to listen to my full conversation with Dr Jillian Bybee on A Thought I Kept.
And if you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed or unsure what support might help, you can also explore our Wellbeing Check-Ins and coaching sessions. Sometimes we need another idea. And sometimes we need another person.
The Things We Avoid and the Things We Ache For
Avoidance isn't always laziness. Explore why we avoid difficult tasks, conversations and decisions, how emotions shape procrastination, and what our desires can teach us about what matters most.
We all have something we've been meaning to deal with.
The email we haven't opened. The text message we haven't replied to. The work project that has been sitting in the corner of our desktop for months. The difficult conversation. The bank statement. The decision.
Sometimes it can feel as though there's a monster under the bed. We suspect it's there. We can hear it scratching around in the dark. But as long as we don't look directly at it, perhaps it can't hurt us.
So we keep our heads down. We busy ourselves elsewhere. We tell ourselves we'll deal with it next week, next month, when things calm down.
But whatever it is hasn't disappeared simply because we haven't looked at it.
And often, that's where the exhaustion begins.
What Are We Really Avoiding?
The thing itself is not always the problem.
The unopened envelope might only take thirty seconds to open. The email could take five minutes to answer. The phone call might last less time than we've spent worrying about it.
What we're often avoiding is how we expect we'll feel.
Shame. Guilt. Disappointment. Regret. Anxiety. Self-doubt.
It's rarely just the task.
Many of us tell ourselves we're avoiding something because we're busy, and to be fair, that's often true. Life can feel relentless. There are school runs and deadlines, caring responsibilities and life admin, work demands and household logistics. We are trying to keep a lot of plates spinning at once.
The journalist Brigid Schulte describes modern life as being made up of "time confetti" — little scraps of time scattered throughout our days rather than long stretches of uninterrupted space. We might have five minutes here and ten minutes there, but not the emotional energy needed to climb the hill of something that feels difficult.
So we choose the easier path.
We check our phones. We reorganise the kitchen drawer. We watch another episode. We answer easier emails first.
For a moment, we feel relief.
But avoidance often comes with a hidden cost.
The thing remains. The emotional energy it requires remains. The quiet hum of guilt or dread remains.
And so we find ourselves carrying it around with us anyway.
When Avoidance Isn't About Time
Sometimes the issue isn't that something feels difficult.
Sometimes it's that it no longer matters.
We can spend months trying to motivate ourselves towards something that simply isn't aligned anymore. A commitment we've outgrown. A goal that belonged to a previous version of ourselves. A project that no longer reflects what we value.
In those moments, avoidance may not be a sign that we need more discipline. It may be information. A gentle indication that something needs revisiting, revising or perhaps even releasing.
Of course, the opposite can be true as well.
Sometimes we avoid something because it matters deeply.
The novel we want to write.
The business idea we can't stop thinking about.
The course we'd love to take.
The conversation we know we need to have.
The dream that feels so important that we become afraid to touch it.
If it stays in our imagination, it remains perfect. Once we engage with it, it becomes vulnerable to disappointment, rejection or failure.
Avoidance and fear tend to keep each other company.
What Helps When We're Stuck
One thing I've noticed is that the things I avoid often become enormous in my imagination.
The task expands. The conversation grows. The consequence becomes catastrophic.
Then I finally look at it and discover it was far smaller than I'd made it.
Not always easy. But smaller.
I've found it helpful to stop asking, "How do I finish this?" and instead ask, "What would fifteen minutes look like?"
The writer Maggie O'Farrell once spoke about writing one of the most painful scenes in Hamnet. Rather than forcing herself through it, she would write for ten minutes, walk around the garden, and then come back. Ten minutes at a time.
Sometimes courage looks less like a leap and more like a series of tiny returns.
I've also found self-compassion matters more than self-criticism. When we're already struggling with something, adding shame rarely helps. Instead, I try to remember that avoidance usually makes sense.
There is often a reason I'm hesitating. A fear. A wound. A protective instinct.
Sometimes I find it helpful to imagine speaking to myself the way I would speak to a friend:
"I know this feels difficult. I know why you're avoiding it. But we'll be okay. Let's take a look together."
Finally, I've learned to notice when avoidance moves beyond procrastination and becomes something else entirely.
There are times when avoidance can be connected to anxiety, depression, burnout or emotional overwhelm. The world becomes smaller. Opportunities narrow. Relationships drift. We stop participating in our own lives.
If that's where you find yourself, it's worth treating that experience with curiosity and care rather than judgment and getting the support that you need to help you move through this.
On the Other Side of Avoidance
On the other side of avoidance sits something else. Wanting.
Not wanting in the consumer sense. Not the endless message that we should always be striving for more.
A different kind of wanting.
The quiet question: What do I actually want?
It sounds simple, but many of us struggle to answer it.
We're often very clear on what needs doing. What is expected of us. What other people require from us.
But what do we desire? That's harder.
Perhaps because wanting can feel indulgent. We learn early that practicality is admirable. Responsibility is admirable. Self-sacrifice is admirable. Wanting can feel frivolous by comparison.
And yet some of the most meaningful parts of life begin there.
Because I want to learn a new instrument.
Because I want to travel somewhere I've never been.
Because I want to spend more time with friends.
Because I want to make things.
Because I want to.
The aviator Amelia Earhart famously answered the question of why she flew across oceans with this simple statement:
There is something wonderfully freeing about that. Not because every desire should be followed. But because sometimes wanting itself is enough..
Following the Threads of Aliveness
I've come to think of wanting as a signal. It points us towards what feels alive. Towards connection. Creativity. Curiosity. Joy. Meaning. Play.
Many of us spend so much time coping that we forget to ask what brings us pleasure.
What delights us.
What energises us.
What makes us feel more like ourselves.
And yet these questions matter. Not because they solve our problems. But because they remind us we're more than our responsibilities.
More than our productivity.
More than our to-do lists.
There is a life beyond coping.
And sometimes our longings help us find it.
What Are You Avoiding? What Are You Wanting?
Lately I've been wondering whether I'm spending more energy keeping things at bay or moving towards what matters.
Perhaps that's the question I'm leaving with you too.
What are you avoiding? And what are you wanting?
Sometimes the things we're avoiding contain important information. So do the things we're longing for.
One points towards what feels difficult, uncertain or unresolved.
The other points towards what feels meaningful, alive or true.
Neither needs to be fixed immediately. But both deserve our attention.
Explore Emotions Coaching
If you're finding yourself stuck in patterns of avoidance, overwhelmed by difficult emotions, or unsure what you want next, emotions coaching can help you slow down and make sense of what's happening beneath the surface.
Together we'll explore what you're feeling, what's driving your reactions, and how you can respond with more clarity, self-trust and choice.
Because sometimes the next step isn't about pushing harder. It's about understanding what's really going on.
Find out more about emotions coaching and book a discovery call.
Thoughts Kept… About Burnout
What does burnout really feel like? Drawing on conversations from A Thought I Kept, this piece explores the signs of burnout, emotional exhaustion, perfectionism, grief, people pleasing, and what sustainable burnout recovery can actually look like.
The first sign was probably the resentment. Just a low, constant irritation that seemed to follow me everywhere. The email arriving five minutes before the end of the day that made my shoulders tense instantly. The friend asking for a favour and my internal reaction feeling disproportionate to the request. Sitting at my laptop already tired before I’d even really begun. Feeling strangely annoyed at tiny inconveniences, while also somehow too exhausted to explain why.
At the time, I wouldn’t have called it burnout. I think I imagined burnout as something more obvious than that, something involving collapse or crisis or the inability to get out of bed. But one of the things I’ve learned from the guests on A Thought I Kept is that burnout often arrives much more quietly than we expect. It can look like functioning. Achievement. Keeping going. Being capable. It can look like replying to emails, meeting deadlines, hosting meetings, making dinner, posting on Instagram, smiling at people in supermarkets, all while feeling increasingly disconnected from yourself underneath it all.
Over the past year of recording conversations for the podcast, burnout has surfaced again and again, sometimes explicitly and sometimes hiding beneath conversations about perfectionism, people pleasing, creativity, ambition, neurodiversity, work, identity, caregiving, or the pressure many of us feel to keep performing wellness while privately struggling to cope with ordinary life.
And the thing that has surprised me most is that very few people describe burnout as simply “working too hard.” Instead, they describe years of overriding themselves. Years of separating achievement from joy. Years of confusing resilience with endurance. Years of not noticing what they needed until their body eventually forced the conversation.
Listening back to these episodes, there are five lessons about burnout that I keep returning to, especially because they say something much bigger about how many of us are living right now.
1. Burnout often begins long before we recognise it
One of the most powerful things I’ve learned from these conversations is that burnout is not always obvious while you’re inside it.
Matthew Bellringer described how many neurodivergent people become so used to masking distress and unmet needs that they can function at levels of overwhelm that would feel completely unsustainable for somebody else, until eventually “the system cannot continue doing this.” This explains why burnout can be so difficult to recognise early on. Many people experiencing burnout are still functioning. They are still showing up to work, replying to emails, caring for children, making dinners, meeting deadlines, laughing in meetings, organising birthdays, and keeping everything moving while privately feeling increasingly exhausted, emotionally numb, or disconnected from themselves.
Liana Fricker spoke about realising, after a major burnout in her forties, that she could no longer ignore what her body had been trying to tell her for years. “You can’t fight this anymore,” she said. “You’re going to have to learn new ways.” There was something in that conversation that felt deeply relevant to the moment we’re all living through now, because so many people are trying to cope with a world that feels relentlessly demanding. The cost of living crisis, constant bad news, workplace pressure, caregiving, uncertainty about the future, digital overload, the sense that there is always more to respond to, improve, optimise, manage.
It means burnout symptoms often become normalised. Which is perhaps why so many people only recognise burnout once their body, mind, or emotions become impossible to ignore.
2. Burnout is often connected to grief, loss, and emotional overwhelm, not just overwork
One thing I’ve found myself thinking about while making the podcast is how often burnout conversations are really conversations about loss. Not only the loss of energy, but the loss of identity, meaning, connection, certainty, or the version of yourself you thought you were supposed to be.
In Hiroko Yoda’s episode, she described the period after the death of her mother as feeling as though “the flames of my soul had been snuffed” and “the world had drained of color.” Listening to her speak about grief, spirituality, and slowly finding her way back to herself through nature and ritual made me realise how many forms emotional burnout can take, particularly when we are carrying loss that hasn’t fully been acknowledged.
Similarly, Toni Jones spoke movingly about how much of her life had been spent avoiding her feelings entirely, pushing through burnout during a high-pressure media career before eventually turning toward books, reflection, and self-development as a way of reconnecting with herself.
I think this matters because burnout is often discussed in incredibly practical terms, as though it can be solved purely through time management or better routines. But many guests described something much more emotional underneath their exhaustion. Grief. Loneliness. Emotional suppression. A life lived too long in survival mode.
And when people search for how to cope with burnout, I think part of what they are often really asking is: how do I come back to myself after a long period of disappearing from my own life?
3. Perfectionism and people pleasing are often hiding underneath burnout
Again and again, conversations about burnout on the podcast eventually circled back to approval.
Approval at school. Approval at work. Approval in relationships. Approval online. Approval through achievement.
Matthew described learning early in life to separate what felt intrinsically rewarding from what earned praise and validation from other people.
Liana talked about slowly untangling intuition from perfectionism and people pleasing, laughing as she realised they were “three distinct balls of wool.”
What struck me listening back was how often burnout seems connected not simply to doing too much, but to becoming trapped inside identities built around usefulness, capability, achievement, or being easy for other people to rely on.
For many people, burnout recovery is difficult because the behaviours that created the burnout were also the behaviours that earned love, praise, security, or success.
And that’s why simply telling people to “rest more” often doesn’t touch the deeper issue. If slowing down makes you feel guilty, anxious, purposeless, or unsafe, then burnout management is not just about changing your schedule. It’s also about understanding the emotional engine underneath the overworking in the first place.
Liana put it beautifully when she reflected on her repeated burnout cycles and asked herself: “What is this internal engine that keeps making me run at full speed, ultimately off a cliff?” I suspect many of us are carrying versions of that same question.
4. Burnout recovery is less about becoming productive again and more about rebuilding your relationship with yourself
Something else that comes through strongly in these conversations is that burnout recovery rarely looks like bouncing back quickly into the old version of your life. Instead, many guests described it as a slower rebuilding process that required them to pay attention to themselves in entirely new ways.
Liana spoke about recognising patterns she now calls “burn downs,” smaller recurring cycles of depletion that eventually accumulate into something much larger if ignored. She described reorganising her calendar around her actual energy levels rather than the version of productivity she thought she should be capable of sustaining, deliberately creating more spaciousness during certain periods because she knew her nervous system needed it.
There was something profoundly compassionate in that conversation because it wasn’t about becoming perfect at wellbeing. It was about becoming more honest. And honesty appears repeatedly across these episodes as one of the real turning points in burnout recovery. Honest recognition of limits. Honest recognition of exhaustion. Honest recognition of what no longer works.
Matthew described burnout recovery not simply as reducing stress, but as “getting something back” again. Joy. Playfulness. Meaning. Intrinsic reward. Time spent doing things that actually feel alive rather than merely productive.
That feels important because many people experiencing burnout are not simply tired. They are disconnected from pleasure, creativity, curiosity, and spaciousness, the very things that make life feel sustainable over time.
5. People recovering from burnout are often becoming more curious, not more perfect
Perhaps my biggest takeaway from these conversations is that sustainable burnout recovery seems to involve curiosity much more than self-optimisation.
Not becoming a “better” person.
Not becoming perfectly balanced.
Not finally mastering wellness.
Just becoming more aware.
Aware of patterns.
Aware of emotional needs.
Aware of capacity.
Aware of what depletes you and what restores you.
Aware of the stories you’ve inherited about success, worth, ambition, rest, and productivity.
Liana talked about spending more time in her body rather than only in her rational mind, slowly learning the difference between intuition, perfectionism, and people pleasing.
Hiroko found herself reconnecting with the world again through tiny moments of attention to nature, ritual, and spirituality after profound grief.
Toni’s story explored what happens when we stop avoiding ourselves long enough to really ask how we are living and whether it’s sustainable.
None of these conversations offered a perfect formula for how to manage burnout, and honestly I think that’s part of why they’ve stayed with me. Because burnout recovery is rarely linear. It is often messy, cyclical, emotional, and deeply personal. But listening to these guests has reminded me that healing doesn’t always begin with dramatic transformation. Sometimes it begins with finally paying attention.
If this piece resonated, you might want to listen to our special playlist, The Thoughts I Kept… About Burnout, a collection of episodes from A Thought I Kept exploring burnout, emotional exhaustion, grief, perfectionism, people pleasing, identity, overwhelm, and the complicated process of finding your way back to yourself again.
And if you’re feeling emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed, disconnected, or unsure where to begin, you can also explore our coaching sessions through If Lost Start Here.
Our work is not about helping you become endlessly productive again. It’s about understanding what’s happening underneath the exhaustion, reconnecting with yourself more honestly, and building a version of wellbeing that actually fits your real life.
More ways to explore burnout
Living on the Edge of Burnout: How to Recognise the Signs and Find Your Way Back
Exploring burnout, emotional numbness, and the pressure to keep going. Plus some gentle ideas for reconnecting with yourself before you reach breaking point.
Emily goes quiet about twenty minutes into the session.
Up until then she’s been talking quickly, trying to explain why she booked the call in the first place. Work is busy. Home is busy. Life is busy. She keeps saying things like “It’s fine” and “I know everyone feels like this,” while also admitting she can’t remember the last time she felt properly rested. Then she stops talking altogether.
“I just don’t understand why I can’t handle all of this better,” she says eventually. “Other people seem to manage.”
I hear versions of this almost every week.
People arrive carrying so much for so long that they barely recognise the weight of it anymore. They apologise for being emotional. Or overwhelmed. Or tired. They laugh while describing how close to the edge they feel, as though softening it somehow makes it easier to hold.
And usually beneath everything else is the same hope: if I can just keep going, somehow, maybe things will sort themselves out.
I know that place well. When I think back on periods of burnout in my own life, there’s a real sense that I wasn’t fully there at all. I was moving through my days on autopilot. Showing up at work. Meeting deadlines. Replying to emails. Getting through. But I remember so little joy in those years and so little connection with myself or the people around me.
In my twenties, I was so stressed in a gallery job that the highlight of my week became buying myself a Starbucks on a Wednesday lunchtime — a surprising novelty then — because it marked the hump of the week and meant I was inching towards the weekend.
Things got so bad at one point that I remember being wheeled out of work after my body simply stopped cooperating. I had started shaking at my desk. I felt nauseous. Everything hurt. A colleague put me in a taxi and took me home, and I remember lying on the sofa in confusion and shame, wondering whether he’d noticed the awful purple Habitat throw draped across it and how I had somehow let things get this bad.
My boss’s mantra was “Suck it up.” So we did. Until people started burning out completely.
Looking back now, what strikes me is how normal it all felt at the time. The exhaustion. The emotional numbness. The belief that the problem was somehow us. That we weren’t coping well enough. That if we could just work harder, be stronger, manage ourselves better, everything would steady again.
But burnout has a way of hollowing things out quietly. It disconnects us not only from rest, but from ourselves. From joy. From clarity. From the small inner signals trying to tell us something isn’t right anymore.
And increasingly, I see people arriving in sessions already living right on that edge. They tell me they can’t switch off anymore. That they feel strangely flat. That they don’t know what they even enjoy these days. They say things like: “I should be grateful.” “Other people have it harder.” “I don’t have time to fall apart.” Sometimes they’ve become so used to overriding themselves that they barely notice they’re doing it.
There’s often a fog to burnout too. A sense that you can’t properly see yourself or your life anymore because everything is happening at full volume all at once. You’re so busy surviving the week that you lose sight of what’s actually happening to you inside it.
And because so many of our ideas about worth are tangled up with productivity, achievement and being dependable, stopping can feel almost impossible. Rest feels irresponsible. Slowing down feels like failure. Particularly in environments that quietly reward people for overriding themselves.
So where do you start when you realise you can’t keep living like this?
Honestly, I think it often starts smaller than we expect.
Not with a complete reinvention of your life. Not with a perfect morning routine or a dramatic breakthrough. But with acknowledgement.
This is hard.
I’m not coping as well as I want to admit.
Something about the way I’m living right now isn’t sustainable.
There’s something powerful about finally telling yourself the truth.
And then, gradually, there’s the process of returning to yourself by degrees.
A recent guest on my podcast, Hiroko Yoda, spoke about how she came back to the world slowly after an incredibly difficult period in her life. Through walking. Looking up. Noticing trees and skies again. Paying attention to tiny things. In Japanese culture there’s the idea of kami — spirits existing in everything — and I loved that thought of reconnecting first with the small and then with something larger than ourselves.
I think burnout recovery can sometimes look a little like that. Noticing tiny things again. Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald calls them “tiny moments of joy.” Not huge life-changing experiences, but fleeting moments that remind us we are still here somewhere underneath all the pressure. The warmth of tea in your hands. A voice note from a friend. Light through the curtains. A song in the car that briefly returns you to yourself.
And then there’s rest — which sounds obvious until you realise how morally loaded rest has become for so many of us. I’ve had to learn, slowly, that resting isn’t the same as failing. That stopping before collapse is not weakness. That backing away from burnout often involves much smaller, quieter choices than the world tends to celebrate.
Living on the edge of burnout is complicated. There’s never one single reason we arrive there and no universal way back out again. Every person I speak to carries a different story into the room with them. But perhaps this is a place to start:
To notice that burnout is here.
To stop pretending you’re fine when you’re not.
To make eye contact with yourself again instead of endlessly pushing past what you feel.
Not to fix yourself overnight. Just to begin the conversation.
*The story of Emily is not one client’s story, but a weaving together of many experiences I’ve encountered in coaching and in my own life.
If this feels familiar, or if you recognise something of yourself in it, my coaching sessions offer a space to pause before you reach breaking point.
Together, we can gently untangle what’s going on beneath the overwhelm, make sense of what you’re feeling, and explore what support, rest, boundaries or change might look like for you — without judgement, pressure, or needing to have it all figured out already.
You don’t have to keep pushing through alone. Explore emotions coaching sessions at If Lost, Start Here.
More ways to explore burnout
Are You Giving All Your Attention to Negative Emotions?
Discover how to balance emotional depth with lightness. Learn from Amanda’s story and explore emotion coaching tools to feel more resourced every day.
When Amanda Sheeren (co-founder of If Lost, Start Here) joined me on A Thought I Kept, she brought a thought that had stayed with her for years:
“Even in the darkness, there is light.”
It sounds simple but it came from a place of burnout, emotional overwhelm, and the quiet collapse that can happen when we believe we’re doing everything “right.”
In the episode, Amanda shares a moment from early motherhood: two small kids, no sleep, therapy for the first time. She described showing up to those sessions thinking she’d be praised for being emotionally attuned. “I was validating every feeling. I was letting my kids be sad, be mad, feel all the things.”
But then her therapist asked her something that stopped her in her tracks:
“Is it possible that you're giving all your attention to negative emotions?”
That was the pivot point.
When Feeling Deeply Becomes Feeling Stuck
If you’ve ever been told to feel your feelings — and taken that advice seriously — you may know this space. You learn that sadness, anger, and frustration are valid. You work hard not to bypass or brush past what’s hard.
But here’s the catch: when we spend all our energy in the shadow emotions, we can forget to make space for joy, hope, and light. And those emotions need practice too.
In emotion coaching, we talk a lot about awareness, validation, and regulation. But there's a step people often miss:
Attention. Where are you placing it? What emotions are getting airtime?
Validating sadness is powerful. But so is dancing in the kitchen. So is naming a moment of peace, or laughing at the squirrel outside your window — something Amanda shares in the episode that shifted how she related to joy.
Emotions are not just there to be survived. They're part of what makes life meaningful — all of them.
What Are You Practicing
In the episode, Amanda reflects on how her own attention began to shift. Not through gratitude lists or forced positivity, but through tiny joys. A squirrel doing something weird. A rainbow on a grey day. The “glimmers,” as some researchers call them.
And with time, those small practices started to grow into something more sustainable — a full-spectrum emotional life, not just a deep one.
Interested in Emotion Coaching?
We offer 1:1 emotion coaching sessions for people wanting to better understand their emotions — parents, creatives, leaders, those who feel a lot and want to feel more resourced doing it.
Explore our coaching offers here
Feeling Like You’re Not Coping in Midlife? You May Just Be Burnt Out
If you feel like you're losing control of your emotions in midlife, you might be experiencing emotional burnout. Here's what it looks like — and what can help.
You used to be able to handle everything. Deadlines. Family logistics. The never-ending inbox. The emotional temperature of the people around you.
But lately?
It’s taking more energy just to get through the day. You lose your temper at things that never used to bother you. You forget words mid-sentence. You wake up already tired. The tears are always closer to the surface than you’d like.
You keep thinking: “What is wrong with me?”
Here’s what we may need to acknowledge — “this isn’t just the usual stress. This could be emotional burnout.”
When You’re Doing It All — and Still Feel Like You’re Falling Apart
For many women, midlife arrives not as a calm plateau, but as a crash of emotional noise.
You’re managing more than ever — ageing parents, growing children, workplace pressures, your own changing body. All while still holding up the emotional scaffolding for others.
And somewhere in all that care and competence, your emotions started to feel less like signals and more like symptoms.
Emotional burnout doesn’t always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like holding it all together — until one day, you just can’t
What Emotional Burnout Looks Like (Even If You’re Still “Functioning”)
Emotional burnout in midlife often shows up as:
Feeling numb or detached from things you used to enjoy
Mood swings that feel sudden, sharp, and disproportionate
Overwhelm that hits out of nowhere
Irritability and guilt in equal measure
A loss of confidence in your emotional responses
And yes — hormonal changes can absolutely cause and intensify these experiences. Once you’ve checked this out with a medical professional and you’re still feeling burned out, years of emotional labour, invisible caregiving, and the pressure to keep being “fine”, might also be contributing.
When we’re always trying to fine, we lose contact with what’s real. And emotional steadiness starts with giving yourself the space to see what’s really going on.
There’s a Way Back to Yourself — One Feeling at a Time
Your emotions don’t need to be your enemy — even when they feel messy and out of control. They can also be information. And with the right tools, you can begin to steady them again.
That’s why we created a free resource designed just for women navigating this exact moment.
Download the Free Guide: Feel Better in the Middle of Everything..
This contains five practical tools to help you:
Understand why your emotions feel so intense right now
Reclaim your energy and focus, one moment at a time
Shift the emotional stories you’ve been carrying
Feel less alone, more steady, and more like yourself again
Sometimes you don’t need to overhaul your life — just start with a clearer understanding of what’s really going on.
Download the free guide now and start feeling more like yourself again.
Losing Control of Your Emotions at 48? Here's What's Really Going On (and What You Can Do About It)
Feeling like you’re losing control of your emotions at 48? Here’s why midlife hits hard emotionally, what it means, and how to steady yourself again.
You’ve always been the one who kept it together.
At home. At work. In the moments when other people fall apart, you’ve been the calm one. The capable one. The one who handles things.
But lately, something’s changed. You find yourself snapping over small things. Crying in the car. Waking up with dread or feeling foggy-headed in meetings. You’re asking yourself:
“Why can’t I control my emotions anymore?”
And maybe even, “Am I going crazy?”
You’re not. You’re in midlife — and what you’re feeling is incredibly common. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t deeply disorienting. And it definitely doesn’t mean you have to keep silently pushing through.
“I’ve Always Held It Together — Until Now”
Midlife is often described as a "second puberty" for good reason. For many women in their mid-to-late 40s, it’s the first time that emotional stability — something we’ve prided ourselves on — starts to feel elusive. You may feel like you’ve become a different person almost overnight.
The truth is, this shift isn’t just in your head — and it isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a combination of biological, emotional, and psychological factors that hit at once:
Changing hormone levels can affect mood regulation and cognitive function.
Long-held emotional patterns (like bottling things up to stay professional or strong) begin to break down under pressure.
The stress of managing work, relationships, and caregiving responsibilities compounds everything.
It’s no wonder you feel like you’re holding on by a thread. And it’s no wonder you're asking: When will I feel like myself again?
What’s Really Going On with Your Emotions in Midlife
The good news is: there are ways to make sense of all this.
Understanding why your emotions feel so intense or unpredictable right now is the first step to feeling more steady.
You don’t need to meditate for hours or do a total life reset. You just need the right kind of support — practical, grounded, and designed for your life stage. Not one-size-fits-all advice. Not something that makes you feel broken or too much.
You need:
Language to understand what’s going on internally
Tools to respond to your emotions with clarity, not panic
Support that respects your intelligence, your capacity, and your lived experience
How to Feel Like Yourself Again (Even If You’re Not There Yet)
Imagine having a framework that explains what’s happening beneath the surface — so your emotions feel less scary and more manageable.
Imagine learning how to respond to your feelings without judging yourself, spiralling into shame, or snapping at the people you love.
Imagine feeling like yourself again — but with a deeper understanding of who that is now.
That’s exactly why I created So Emotional — a midlife course and community that helps women like you stop feeling out of control and start feeling informed, equipped, and understood.
So Emotional: A Course + Community for Women in Midlife
This is a four-week, expertly guided course to help you:
Understand why your emotions feel different in midlife
Learn tools for emotional regulation that actually make sense
Build emotional resilience without pretending nothing’s wrong
Reconnect to the steady, capable self you know is still in there
Join the waitlist now to get first access to enrolment and early bird bonuses.
What if feeling is the way through, not the problem?
If you're feeling emotional exhaustion or disconnection in midlife, maybe your feelings aren’t the problem but rather a path back to yourself.
For a long time, I thought the goal was to feel less.
Less overwhelmed. Less anxious. Less reactive.
Less emotional, less sensitive, less tangled up inside.
Because that’s the message we so often receive — that feelings are inconvenient, messy, indulgent, or something to be managed, tidied, improved.
We learn to ask: What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just feel better? Why do I keep reacting like this?
We get good at staying composed.
We learn how to keep the peace, keep the plates spinning, and keep functioning — even when something inside us is quietly aching, aching, aching.
And yet… the more I tried to control how I felt, the more disconnected I became.
Not just from other people, but from myself.
Because somewhere along the way, I’d started treating my feelings as problems. Something to get past. Something to rise above. Something to fix.
But what if they weren’t?
> What if feeling is the way through, not the thing to push past?
What if that low hum of irritation has something important to say?
What if the teariness isn’t weakness, but a signal that something in you still longs to be seen?
What if the numbness isn’t failure, but the body’s way of saying this has been too much for too long?
What if our feelings aren’t dysfunctional — but direction?
What if they’re maps, not mess?
And what if the only thing we need to do is listen?
Not fix. Not perform. Not perfect.
Just pause long enough to name what’s actually there.
I’ve started doing that more often. Just naming the emotion — even quietly to myself.
Not the surface-level one (“I’m stressed”), but the real one underneath.
I use a simple practice: naming the layers of what I’m feeling.
Sometimes what I call “busy” is really anxious.
Sometimes what I call “flat” is actually grief.
Sometimes what I call “nothing” is just too much noise in too many directions.
And every time I name it, something softens.
I don’t suddenly feel amazing.
But I feel real. I feel here. I feel true to myself, even if I’m still in the middle of something I can’t quite explain.
And maybe that’s the point.
Not to get rid of our feelings.
But to walk through them, with gentleness, and find our way to ourselves again.
Because you don’t need to be less emotional.
You just need to be allowed to feel — in your own time, in your own language, in a life that’s allowed to be complex and layered and messy and still deeply beautiful.
You’re not broken because you feel everything.
You’re not behind because you feel nothing today.
You’re not wrong for needing more softness, more space, more time.
You’re human. And you’re allowed to feel all of it.
That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.
Our Emotions Coaching for Midlife Sessions
Unsure of what you’re feeling in midlife? Our 1:1 emotions coaching session offers a supportive space to explore all your emotions — whether that’s anxiety, sadness, or something else.
Learn how a greater understanding of your emotions can help with shifts in relationships, career, self-identity, and more.
Discover how our emotions coaching sessions for midlife can help you make sense of all you’re feeling, or even resisting, right now.
If you’re struggling with all you are feeling in midlife (or trying not to feel), subscribe to our newsletter for practical skills and new perspectives on navigating this time of your life.
The Lost Art of Reaching Out (Especially When You Don’t Feel Like It)
Feeling disconnected but too overwhelmed to socialise? Here’s how to gently rebuild your sense of community and connection — even when it feels like too much.
Sometimes, connection feels like a beautiful idea that belongs to someone else’s life.
You want it — the warmth, the welcome, the sense of being seen — but everything in your body says not now.
You're burnt out. Anxious. Tired from holding too much for too long.
And instead of reaching out, you slowly slip back. Into silence. Into solitude.
You tell yourself that it’s just for now. But now has been a while.
If that’s you? You’re not failing. You’re human. And you’re not alone.
Many of us are here right now, wanting to connect but not quite knowing how to.
Why We Pull Back When We Most Need People
When life overwhelms us, our nervous systems do something wise: they protect.
They shut things down to help us survive. Socialising — even with people we love — can feel like one demand too many.
The problem is: we still need people. We are hardwired for connection.
It’s a core human need — not a nice-to-have.
But the modern world hasn’t made that easy.
Loneliness is rising, even as we become more digitally connected. According to the Mental Health Foundation, 1 in 4 adults in the UK feel lonely some or all of the time. And among those dealing with burnout, that number climbs even higher.
And yet, when we do connect — even briefly — we feel the shift.
Tiny interactions can co-regulate our nervous systems. A nod from a neighbour. A friendly moment with a stranger in a queue. A text back from someone we haven’t heard from in a while.
The secret is this: connection doesn’t need to be big to be meaningful.
What If We Started Small?
The invitation here is not to “join a group” or “go to more things.”
It’s to experiment with connection that fits you now.
Maybe that looks like:
Sitting in a café instead of scrolling at home — just being in proximity to others.
Texting one person to say: thinking of you, no need to reply.
Wandering a local bookshop or museum, where other quiet people gather.
Volunteering, not for the social aspect, but because doing something small that matters feels grounding.
Attending a gentle yoga or movement class where connection is built through shared breath, not small talk.
Let the moment be enough. You don’t need to stay long.
Just notice how your body feels before and after. Maybe a little lighter?
Rebuilding Trust in People
Reconnection isn’t just about other people. It’s about learning to trust that it’s safe to be seen again. To believe that the right people will meet you where you are.
You don’t need to fix your burnout first. Or wait until you’re “back to your old self.”
The act of connecting — even in the smallest of ways — is part of the healing.
And connection doesn’t mean constant availability.
You can have boundaries. You can take breaks. You can be someone who dips in and out, without explanation.
Because community isn’t a performance. Its presence that you can choose.
What If You Tried One Tiny Reach?
What would your version of a gentle reach look like?
A walk with someone you enjoy talking to?
A visit to a familiar café?
A class where no one expects anything from you except that you try?
Try just one. Let it be small. Let it be enough.
When you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can help you:
1. Join us on Substack – Become a paying member and we’ll gift you our Spring Everyday Retreat right now so you can focus on how you like to connect even when life does its thing.
2. Book a wellbeing coaching session – If you want company while figuring out your next steps, let’s chat. Book a free consultation to see how we can help you connect in ways that feel good to you.
3. Sign up for our newsletter – Receive real-life tools, everyday insights and tiny reminders that you’re not alone in this. We’re all yearning to connect while also finding it easier to binge-watch Netflix.
The Weight You’re Carrying Isn’t Just Yours
Navigating the emotional labour, burnout and midlife overwhelm — and understanding why the load you’re carrying might not be all yours to hold.
There’s a kind of tiredness that doesn’t go away with rest.
You can sleep, hydrate, do your yoga, take your magnesium, go for a walk.
And still, it lingers — that low, heavy weight that sits behind your eyes or beneath your ribs. The kind that doesn’t show up in test results, but feels like it’s etched into your bones.
It’s not just physical. It’s not just emotional.
It’s a kind of invisible load — one that builds quietly over time.
And so many of us are carrying it.
Especially in midlife, especially as women, especially in lives that look “fine” on the outside.
We carry the decisions. The dynamics. The moods. The mental load. The silent remembering. The keeping-track-of-everything-and-everyone.
We carry the birthdays and the groceries and the dentist appointments.
We carry the emotional climate of our homes.
We carry what’s going on with the kids, what might be going on with our partners, what we’re starting to see happening with our parents.
We carry our friends, when they’re falling apart. We carry their fears, gently, quietly, alongside our own.
We hold it all. And then we wonder why we’re tired.
For a long time, I didn’t realise I was carrying anything extra.
I thought I was just tired because I wasn’t getting enough done.
I thought I needed to be more organised, more balanced, more productive.
I thought maybe I was weak. Even lazy. Possibly undisciplined.
But I wasn’t. I was just human. I was just heavy with things no one could see.
It wasn’t until I stopped — properly stopped — that I realised just how much I’d been holding. How much space it had taken up inside me. How much I’d quietly internalised as mine to carry.
The emotional labour. The mental noise. The weight of trying to be all the things to all the people, all of the time.
And the truth is: it wasn’t all mine.
It never was.
Some of it belonged to expectations I didn’t set.
Some to roles I inherited, but did not choose.
Some to a culture that praises women for being tireless, generous, and self-sacrificing — but never asks what it costs them to keep showing up that way.
And some of it, most painfully, was weight I carried simply because no one else thought to hold it for me.
If any of this feels familiar, I want you to know this:
You’re not imagining it.
The weight is real.
And you don’t have to keep carrying it all.
You are allowed to lay something down.
You are allowed to ask for help.
You are allowed to stop trying to be the steady one, the good one, the one who always has it together.
You don’t need to earn rest.
You don’t need to justify your tiredness.
You don’t need to explain why it feels so hard — even when your life looks okay.
Sometimes the most radical act of care is simply to say: This is too much for me.
And let that be reason enough.
There’s no perfect solution. No five-step fix.
But there is a beginning.
And it starts with naming what you’ve been holding — gently, kindly, without judgment.
Because once you can name it, you don’t have to carry it alone anymore.
Our Midlife Coaching Sessions
If this resonates, learn more about our coaching sessions for midlife and beyond. Explore everything from emotional labour to midlife burnout, and discover small ways to feel more connected again.
If you’re in midlife, these sessions will help you have a better relationship with this time. You’ll identify your needs and desires, bridge any gaps between where you are and where you want to be, and cultivate strategies for making it all that much better.
You’ll discover how to navigate midlife and beyond in ways that feel more intentional and even positive.
Need more guidance as you navigate midlife? Subscribe to our newsletter about the messy bits in the middle.
Hi There, About Those Emotions You’ve Been Putting Off...
Feeling emotionally overwhelmed but too busy to process it? Learn why emotional postponement may not be working for you—and how to start paying attention to what you’re feeling again.
…You meant to get to them, didn’t you? The tightness in your shoulders, the lump in your throat, the exhaustion you can’t quite name. But there were emails to send, dinner to cook, a child to reassure, a parent to check in on. There was a day to get through.
So, you did what you always do. You told yourself: later.
Later, when things slow down. Later, when work isn’t so demanding. Later, when the kids don’t need you as much. Later, when there’s finally space for you to feel whatever it is that’s been hovering in the background.
But here’s the thing about later: It keeps moving.
The Habit of Emotional Postponement
Somewhere along the way, we started treating emotions like a luxury—something we’ll get around to when everything else is handled. We file them away under “To Be Dealt With", telling ourselves that now isn’t the right time. We think we’re being practical, responsible, even strong.
And yet, emotional postponement might not be doing all the things we hope it is.
The feelings don’t disappear. They show up in different ways:
In the way your body holds tension that no amount of stretching seems to release.
In the numbness when someone asks how you really are, and you don’t even know where to start.
In the way small inconveniences—traffic, a forgotten password, a misplaced set of keys—feel like the last straw.
Even though we’re too busy to acknowledge all we’re feeling, often our emotions are there anyway, just under the surface coming out in other ways — we’re just not noticing.
And sometimes, when we’re too busy to feel what’s really happening is that we’re afraid to. Because what if we start feeling and don’t know how to stop? What if we unravel? What if it’s just… too much? What if we don’t have the time to deal with all that comes up?
Midlife, Overwhelm & The Fear of Feeling
This emotional deferral becomes particularly acute in midlife. By now, we’ve learned the mechanics of coping: We smooth the edges, take the sting out, keep ourselves functioning. But at what cost?
The cost of feeling emotionally disconnected—not just from others, but from yourself.
The cost of waking up one morning and realizing you don’t quite recognize the person you’ve become.
The cost of knowing something needs to change, but not knowing how to start.
Women in midlife often find themselves in a paradox: feeling overwhelmed, yet somehow also feeling numb. The weight of responsibility, constant decision-making, and emotional caretaking leaves little space for their own emotions. The more they push them aside, the more distant they feel from their true selves.
And emotions? They don’t disappear. They wait. They show up as tension, exhaustion, irritability, or a vague sense that something is missing.
As Dr. Sharon Blackie writes, midlife is “a profoundly alchemical process, designed to transform us from the inside out.” But we can’t transform if we don’t allow ourselves to feel.
So, Where Do We Begin?
Maybe the answer isn’t about finding more time for emotions, but recognizing they’re already here. Woven into our everyday moments. They’re in the tightness of our breath, the way we move through our days, the things that irritate us, the things that bring unexpected tears to our eyes.
Maybe the question isn’t whether we can afford to feel.
Maybe it’s whether we can afford not to.
If you’ve been feeling emotionally overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck, emotions coaching can help you navigate this phase with clarity and confidence.
Find out more about this month’s Midlife + Emotions Sessions here.
How to Manage Holiday Burnout and Embrace Seasonal Self-Care
Feeling stressed or overwhelmed this holiday season? Discover practical self-care habits, ways to connect positively, and tips to manage emotions and end-of-year burnout.
Last December, I found myself sitting in my car outside a crowded shopping centre, utterly drained. I had just spent hours rushing from one errand to the next, trying to make everything perfect for the holidays.
Instead of feeling festive, I felt a deep sense of resentment—toward the season, the expectations, and even myself for not being able to keep up.
It wasn’t until I stopped and asked, “What do I actually need right now?” that I realised I wasn’t failing; I was simply running on empty. That moment shifted how I approached the rest of the holidays.
The holidays bring a mix of joy and chaos— it’s a season to celebrate, yet one that can also push us to our limits. Between endless to-do lists, more complicated family dynamics, and the pressure to make everything perfect, it’s easy to feel stretched thin. Add in the emotional weight of year-end reflections, and burnout can quickly take hold.
But what if we could shift the focus this season, embracing a gentler, maybe even messier, approach that prioritizes your well-being? Here are some ideas for avoiding, or navigating, holiday burnout.
First, How to Identify Holiday Burnout
Holiday burnout can creep up on us, often disguised as everyday stress. It might feel like constant exhaustion, even after a full night’s sleep, or irritability over small things that wouldn’t normally bother you.
Physically, it can show up as tension headaches, a racing mind, or a sense of being on edge. Emotionally, you may notice feelings of detachment, overwhelm, or resentment toward tasks and traditions you once enjoyed.
Pay attention to the signals: are you losing your patience more easily, withdrawing from loved ones, or struggling to keep up with your usual energy levels? Recognizing these signs early is the first step in addressing burnout and finding ways to restore your capacity during the season.
Just know that burnout during the holidays doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong; it means you’re human. And if holiday burnout does show up use it as a reminder to pause and reconnect with what truly matters.
Second, What to Do If You’re Feeling Burned Out This Holiday Season
Here’s how to manage holiday burnout while embracing seasonal self-care and meaningful connection:
1. Pause and Identify Your Emotions
When emotions feel overwhelming, we often want to avoid them at all costs, but paying attention to them could be the key to feeling better. Take a moment just to name your emotions. Saying (to yourself perhaps) “I feel anxious” or “I feel overwhelmed” helps reduce the intensity of an emotion and gives you clarity on what you need.
2.Incorporate Seasonal Self-Care
Self-care doesn’t have to be elaborate. Embrace small habits like enjoying a quiet cup of tea, stepping outside for fresh air, or saying no to an unnecessary task.
We often think this is the part that’s “indulgent” or that can be pushed back to later, but it’s often these small practices that can create the breathing room we most need amidst the chaos.
3. Build Positive Connections
Instead of focusing on what’s expected, look for authentic ways to connect. Share a meal, have a heartfelt conversation, or take a moment to thank someone you appreciate. Small, genuine interactions can uplift your mood and theirs.
This might mean that you don’t make three stuffings, or that you don’t pack in multiple events in one day, or that you buy one less perfect gift. Sometimes paring back or even shifting our expectations, can give us what we most need: time with the people we love and value the most.
Shifting the focus from perfection to presence can help transform the season into something meaningful, even amidst the busyness.
4. Set Boundaries for Your Emotional Capacity
When you feel your mental and emotional reserves depleting, give yourself permission to step back. Decline obligations that don’t serve you and focus on what truly restores your energy.
You don’t need to be “on” the whole Holiday Season: you can still honor your energy and it’s still ok to rest. It’s winter after all, a season that demands something quieter of us and invites us to retreat into cozy.
5. Reframe Your Perspective
Challenge the holiday “shoulds” and ask yourself, “What do I truly need right now?” Maybe it’s a moment of solitude, a conversation with a loved one, or just letting go of perfection.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that holidays are only successful if they’re flawless. But the truth is, the most meaningful moments often come when we let go of the pressure to do everything and focus instead on what we truly value.
When you start to feel burned out, try to connect back in with yourself and discover what you really need from this season so it can stay joyful and magical to you.
This Holiday Season give yourself permission to rewrite the rules. Focus on what feels good to you, whether it’s embracing rest, creating space for joy, or finding new ways to connect with others. Start small, and remember: it’s okay to prioritise yourself in the midst of everything else.
What emotions are showing up for you this holiday season? How are you balancing connection and self-care?
Feeling stressed, overwhelmed or a little burned out this Holiday Season?
Here’s how we can help:
1. Book a personalized Emotions Coaching session.
2. Join our Bath Workshop on Navigating Holiday Emotions.
3. Subscribe to our newsletter for our Well-ish Guide to the Holiday Season
Avoidance isn't always laziness. Explore why we avoid difficult tasks, conversations and decisions, how emotions shape procrastination, and what our desires can teach us about what matters most.