Burnout Isn't Just About Being Busy

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

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:

"Because I want to."

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.

---

Finding the Work You Were Intended to Do

You can spend years building a life that looks successful from the outside while quietly wondering why it no longer quite fits on the inside.

Not in a dramatic, burn-it-all-down kind of way. More subtle than that. More like noticing you feel strangely flat after doing work you once loved. Or finding yourself restless in moments that should feel satisfying. Or realising that the thing you keep thinking about — the thing you dismiss as impractical, indulgent, impossible, too late, too risky — keeps returning anyway.

Maybe it arrives while you’re washing dishes. Or driving home from work. Or lying awake at 3am trying to mentally organise your entire future. Maybe it appears as envy when you see somebody else making the kind of work they were clearly meant to make. Maybe it shows up as grief. Maybe it simply sounds like a very quiet voice saying: “There must be something more true than this.”

This week on A Thought I Kept, I spoke to Natalie Lue about people pleasing, creativity, identity, perfectionism, and what it means to finally stop fighting the thing calling for your attention.

The thought Natalie brought to the conversation was this:

“Do the work that you were intended to do, and your money worries will cease.”

What fascinated me about our conversation wasn’t really the money part. It was the word intended.

Because I think many of us secretly wonder this, especially in midlife or moments of change: What am I actually meant to be doing with my life?

And beneath that question often sits another one we rarely say out loud: What if I already know?

Natalie spoke beautifully about spending years trying to make a version of work continue because she had already invested so much into it. The effort. The loyalty. The identity. The expectation. She talked about how easy it is to become attached not just to a career or role, but to being the kind of person who keeps going, who makes things work, who doesn’t let people down.

I recognised so much of that.

Particularly the idea that if we are competent, thoughtful, caring people, we often mistake endurance for alignment. We think the discomfort means we should simply try harder. Be more disciplined. More grateful. More resilient. We tighten our grip instead of asking whether the thing itself still fits who we are becoming.

And because many of us have been rewarded our entire lives for achievement, reliability, or self-sacrifice, changing direction can feel almost morally wrong. Like we are abandoning something. Wasting potential. Failing.

But what if changing is not failure?

What if a version of your life can be deeply meaningful and still not be yours forever?

One of the most moving parts of the conversation was hearing Natalie speak about creativity. About art. About the thing that had quietly kept calling to her for years while she continued showing up for everything and everyone else first. She described the strange habit many of us have of postponing the thing we most long for until we’ve finally “sorted everything else out.”

The problem is, there is always something else to sort out.

Another responsibility. Another deadline. Another financial worry. Another person to care for. Another reason why now is not the right time.

And yet the longing remains.

I think this is partly why conversations about calling can feel so emotionally loaded. Because they are rarely just about work. They are about permission. About self-trust. About whether we believe our desires matter. About whether we are allowed to evolve beyond the version of ourselves that once kept us safe.

For many people — particularly women — there is also a deep fear that choosing ourselves will disappoint other people. That if we stop being useful in the ways we always have been, we might lose love, approval, belonging, identity.

So we stay in roles, routines, relationships, or versions of ourselves that no longer fully fit because at least they are familiar.

We tell ourselves we are being practical.

Sometimes we are simply frightened.

And to be clear, this isn’t really an argument for dramatic reinvention. I don’t think most people need to quit their jobs, move countries, or become entirely different people to feel more alive. Often the shifts begin much more quietly than that.

Taking the class.

Starting the project.

Making space for rest.

Writing the thing.

Applying for the role.

Letting yourself want what you want without immediately dismissing it.

Allowing the possibility that the thing you keep returning to might matter for a reason.

I also think there is something deeply reassuring in realising that we do not have to become entirely new people to move forward. So much of modern wellbeing culture still quietly suggests that confidence, healing, or success require a total transformation of the self. But what if the goal is not to become somebody else at all?

What if it is simply to become more honest about who you already are?

Throughout our conversation, Natalie returned again and again to the idea that we are allowed to change. Allowed to evolve. Allowed to outgrow old identities without those identities becoming mistakes.

That feels important to me.

Because I meet so many people through coaching and through this work who are exhausted from trying to force certainty before they allow themselves movement. They want guarantees before they begin. They want to know the outcome before they trust the instinct.

But perhaps self-trust is not certainty.

Perhaps self-trust is simply being willing to listen when something inside you keeps whispering: this matters.

Even if you don’t yet know exactly why.

If this resonates, you might enjoy listening to my full conversation with Natalie Lue on A Thought I Kept, where we explore people pleasing, creativity, identity, self-trust, and what it means to let yourself change.

And if you are sitting with questions about direction, confidence, emotional overwhelm, or the sense that something in your life no longer fits, you can also explore our coaching sessions. Sometimes it helps simply to have space to hear yourself think again.

Thoughts Kept… About Burnout

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

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

Finding a Better Way to Well Without Trying to Fix Yourself

I still remember standing in the wellbeing section of my local independent bookshop years ago, holding three different books in my hands and feeling completely overwhelmed by all of them.

One promised confidence. One promised calm. One promised a completely new life if I just followed the steps properly enough. Around me were shelves and shelves of answers. Morning routines. Better habits. Nervous systems. Boundaries. Purpose. Productivity. Healing. Manifestation. Rest. Reinvention.

And underneath all of it was this quiet but persistent feeling: if I could just find the right idea, the right practice, the right way of living, maybe I would finally feel okay.

I think a lot of us arrive at wellbeing from this place now. Not because we’re shallow or self-absorbed, but because life genuinely feels difficult. The world feels loud. Work is relentless. Relationships can be complicated. Many of us are carrying anxiety, grief, uncertainty, burnout or a low-level sense that we’ve somehow drifted away from ourselves. And when you feel like that, it makes sense to go looking for answers.

In my recent conversation on A Thought I Kept with Toni Jones, we talked about what happens when you spend a decade immersed in self-help culture. Toni has read more than 1,000 self-help books. She founded Shelf Help, the world’s first self-help book club, after burnout and a growing sense that something in her life needed to change.

What I loved most about our conversation wasn’t really the books though. It was the gentler, steadier framework underneath them.

Because Toni spoke so honestly about how messy change actually is. Not cinematic. Not linear. Not “new life in seven easy steps.” More experimental than transformational. More human than polished.

At one point we talked about the pressure that can sit underneath wellbeing culture now — the sense that we should always be improving ourselves. That wellness can become another arena where we fail, compare, strive or feel behind. And honestly, I think many people feel exhausted by that version of wellbeing, even if they can’t quite articulate why.

There’s something profoundly tiring about approaching yourself like a constant problem to solve.

What Toni kept returning to instead was curiosity.

Not: “How do I finally become perfect?”

But: “What happens if I try this?”

Not: “I must completely reinvent myself.”

But: “What if I treated this more like an experiment?”

That small shift feels important to me. Because experiments allow room for being human. They allow for bad days, contradictions, changing your mind, getting it wrong, trying again. They soften the harshness that so often creeps into conversations about growth.

And maybe that’s part of finding a better way to well.

Not turning wellbeing into another performance of goodness or discipline or achievement. But allowing it to become something more personal. More playful. More forgiving. Something shaped around your actual life rather than the life you think you should be living.

During the conversation, Toni described reading her first self-help book while completely burnt out and desperate for something to change. It was called Change Your Life in Seven Days. Looking back now, she laughs at the urgency of it. The idea that her exhausted nervous system was searching for a quick fix because she simply couldn’t carry on as she was.

I think many of us recognise that feeling.

The late-night googling. The saving of posts we never quite return to. The hopeful ordering of books. The quiet thought that maybe this next thing will finally help us feel calmer, happier, clearer, more confident, less overwhelmed.

And sometimes those things do help. Books can change us. Conversations can change us. Therapy can change us. Tiny rituals and practices can genuinely support us.

But what struck me listening to Toni was that the deeper shift seemed to come less from finding the perfect answer and more from slowly building a different relationship with herself.

One with more compassion in it.

More honesty.

More willingness to be seen.

More permission to need support.

That feels important too because I think a lot of us have absorbed the idea that wellbeing is something we should master privately. Quietly. Alone. We should hold everything together. Cope beautifully. Be low maintenance. Keep functioning.

And yet the thought Toni brought to the podcast — borrowed from Brené Brown — was this: “We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”

I kept thinking about that afterwards.

Because maybe a better way to well isn’t just about what we do for ourselves. Maybe it’s also about who we let sit beside us while we figure things out.

The friend who notices you’re not okay before you admit it yourself.

The conversation that helps you feel less strange.

The book club where people finally say the quiet parts out loud.

The person who reminds you that you’re allowed to need care too.

The older version of yourself who can look back and realise: things did change, slowly, even when it didn’t feel like they were changing at all.

One of the things I loved most from the episode was Toni talking about how, years ago, she felt desperate for something — anything — to change. Whereas now, after years of reflection and experimentation and self-discovery, she approaches life with more curiosity than panic. More openness than grasping.

Not because she became a completely different person.

But because she became more connected to herself.

I think that’s the part of wellbeing we don’t talk about enough. That perhaps the goal isn’t becoming somebody new entirely. Perhaps it’s becoming more honest about who we already are. Understanding what supports us. Learning what drains us. Allowing our version of wellbeing to look different from somebody else’s.

And maybe that’s why Amanda and I created the If Lost, Start Here wellbeing journal in the way we did. Not as a rigid plan or perfect prescription, but as an invitation into curiosity. Into experimentation. Into asking better questions about what actually helps you feel more alive, connected, grounded or held.

Not wellness as performance.

Not self-improvement as punishment.

Just a steadier, kinder relationship with yourself and your life.

If this conversation resonates, you can listen to my full episode of A Thought I Kept with Toni Jones, where we explore vulnerability, burnout, self-help, friendship, identity, emotional wellbeing and what it means to stop carrying everything alone.

And if you’re feeling a little lost in your own life right now — unsure what wellbeing even means for you anymore — you’re also very welcome to explore my coaching work or the If Lost, Start Here journal. Not as a way to become someone else. Just as a place to begin listening to yourself again.

Connecting While Human

You’re halfway through a conversation and realise you’re not really in it. You’re nodding, saying the right things, keeping the tone light enough, agreeable enough. You hear yourself laugh at something that isn’t quite funny. You offer an explanation you’ve offered before, one that lands just well enough to move things on. And at the same time, there’s something else happening underneath — a more insistent feeling that says: this isn’t quite it.

You might notice it later, when you’re walking home or making dinner, replaying the conversation in your head. The bit you didn’t say. The way you softened something. The way you tried, once again, to explain yourself into being understood. And then, almost reluctantly, the thought arrives: I don’t think this is about explaining anymore.

It’s a subtle shift, but once it’s there, it tends to stay.

This is the place Jacky Power and I found ourselves in during our conversation — not just the moment of clarity that so many wellbeing conversations promise, but in what comes just after it. The part where you realise something about yourself or your relationships, and then very messily try to do something about it.

Jacky described believing, for a long time, that if she could just say things the right way, people would meet her there. That the gap between her and others was something she could bridge with better words, more careful explanations, a little more effort. It’s such a human instinct — to assume that understanding is something we can earn if we try hard enough.

And sometimes that’s true. But not always.

Sometimes what we’re up against isn’t a lack of clarity, but a difference in direction. A difference in how we see things, what we value, what we’re willing to hold or not hold anymore. And that’s much harder to resolve, because it doesn’t bend as easily.

What follows that realisation isn’t a clean decision. It’s more like learning to walk again on uneven ground.

You say something you’ve been meaning to say, and it comes out slightly wrong. Or it lands in a way you didn’t expect. You question yourself almost immediately. Was that too much? Too blunt? Not quite right? You tell yourself you’ll try again next time, maybe in a softer way, a clearer way. You adjust, you retreat, you step forward again.

Jacky described it as “stumble, trip, stumble, trip.” And it’s exactly that. Not a confident stride into a new way of being, but a series of attempts, some of which don’t go to plan.

There’s a kind of vulnerability in this stage that doesn’t get talked about much. Because from the outside, it might look like growth — becoming more self-aware, more aligned, more boundaried. But from the inside, it can feel uncertain and exposing. You’re no longer fully comfortable in the old way of relating, but you’re not yet steady in the new one either.

And that can feel lonely.

Not necessarily in the obvious sense of being alone, but in the quieter sense of not quite being met. Of noticing that the ways you’re beginning to show up don’t always fit neatly into the relationships you’ve had before. Of realising that not everyone will come with you, or understand you in the way you hoped.

Jacky spoke about this without dressing it up. That there can be grief in it. That choosing your own direction — even gently, even kindly — can create a kind of separation. Not because you want it to, but because something has shifted, and you can’t quite go back to not knowing that.

And still, there was something else in what she said that felt just as important.

That the alternative — ignoring what you’ve noticed, continuing to override yourself for the sake of keeping things smooth — comes at a cost too. A quieter one, perhaps, but one that builds over time. A sense of being slightly out of step with yourself. Of saying yes when you mean maybe, or maybe when you mean no. Of slowly losing touch with what feels true.

This is where connection becomes more complicated than we often allow it to be.

Because it isn’t just about being close to other people. It’s also about how close you are to yourself within those relationships. Whether there is space, even in small ways, to be honest about what you feel, what you need, what you see differently now.

And that honesty doesn’t have to arrive all at once.

One of the things I took from this conversation is that connection doesn’t depend on getting it perfectly right. It might be something much smaller than that. A moment where you say a little more than you usually would. A conversation where you don’t immediately tidy up your feelings. A pause where you notice the urge to explain, and choose, just for a second, not to.

It might be noticing where you feel able to do that, and where you don’t.

Because not every space will hold it. And that, too, is information.

Jacky talks about “human tricky things” — the parts of being alive that don’t resolve easily. The feelings we don’t always have words for. The experiences that sit somewhere between connection and disconnection, between being seen and staying hidden. And what struck me is that learning to connect while human isn’t about smoothing those things out. It’s about finding ways to stay with them.

To stay with yourself when you’re unsure. To stay in relationship where you can, without forcing it where you can’t. To allow for the possibility that connection might look different now — less about being perfectly understood, and more about being real in the places that can hold it.

If you’re in that space at the moment — noticing something has shifted, but not yet sure how to live it — it might help to know that this part doesn’t need to be rushed.

You’re not behind. You’re not getting it wrong. You’re in the middle of learning something about yourself that takes time to settle.

And there is a kind of steadiness that can grow here, even if it doesn’t feel like it yet. Not from having all the answers, but from beginning to trust what you notice. From allowing that to matter, even when it complicates things.

If you’d like to hear more of this conversation, you can listen to my episode with Jacky Power on A Thought I Kept, where we explore emotions, loneliness, and what it means to stay connected — to ourselves and to each other.

And if you’re looking for somewhere to think about your own relationships or feelings a little more gently, explore our coaching and resources here If Lost Start Here.

How to Trust That Things Will Be OK (Even When You Feel Lost)

You arrive a little more tired than you expected, the kind of tired that isn’t just about the journey but about everything you’ve been carrying before you even set off.

The train was delayed, the coffee wasn’t great, and there’s already a message waiting for you from home asking something that requires more of you than you feel you have to give. You hold your bag a little tighter as you step off, aware of that familiar hum underneath it all — the one that says you’re doing your best, and still wondering if it’s enough.

And then, slowly, something begins to shift.

You’re welcomed in, properly welcomed in, with a warmth that doesn’t ask anything of you in return. There’s a cup of tea placed into your hands, a chair that feels like it was waiting for you, and a sense — rare, and difficult to create on demand — that you don’t have to perform or explain or improve anything about yourself in this moment.

You have arrived.

This is the kind of space described in my recent conversation with Tanya Lynch on A Thought I Kept, but more than that, it’s the kind of space many of us are quietly searching for in our everyday lives, especially when we find ourselves feeling lost without quite knowing how we got there. Because feeling lost doesn’t often look dramatic. It tends to look like carrying on, showing up, doing what needs to be done while holding a question in the background about whether this is how things are meant to feel.

When Life Doesn’t Look Like You Thought It Would

Tanya’s work, through journaling, retreats, and bibliotherapy, is rooted in something both simple and surprisingly hard to practice, which is the idea that everything is welcome.

Not just the parts of life that feel resolved or hopeful or easy to share, but also the uncertainty, the heartbreak, the restlessness, and the moments where you don’t know what comes next or how you’re meant to move through them. These are the parts we’re often encouraged to fix or move past, and yet they are also the parts that tend to shape us most.

There is a phrase she returns to, one that you may have heard so many times it risks losing its meaning:

Every cloud has a silver lining.

It can feel too neat for the complexity of real life, too polished for the moments when things are genuinely hard, but the origins of the phrase tell a different story. It dates back to the 17th century, from a line by John Milton in Comus, where he describes a dark cloud revealing a silver edge when caught by light.

It wasn’t written as advice or reassurance, but as an observation, a moment of noticing that even within something heavy, there might be something else present at the same time. And perhaps that is where this idea becomes more useful to us, not as a way of reframing everything into something positive, but as an invitation to look a little more closely at what is already there.

Learning to Stay With the Hard Parts

One of the things that stayed with me most from this conversation is the way Tanya speaks about challenge, not as something to avoid or move quickly beyond, but as something that is woven into the shape of a life. There isn’t a single moment where everything resolves or becomes easier, and there isn’t a version of life that is made up only of blue skies and straightforward narratives. Instead, there are multiple moments, some expansive, some difficult, some that ask more of us than we feel ready to give, and all of them becoming part of the story we are living.

Over time, something begins to build alongside that, and it is not certainty or control but a quieter kind of trust. Not the kind that insists everything will work out exactly as we hope, but the kind that recognises we have moved through difficult things before and found our way, even when it didn’t feel possible at the time.

What It Means to Feel Held

So much of what Tanya creates through her retreats is about this idea of being held, and it’s something that feels increasingly important in a world that often asks us to keep going without pausing to notice how we actually are. Being held doesn’t mean being fixed or guided towards a better version of yourself, and it doesn’t come with a list of things to do or ways to improve. It is something quieter than that, an experience of being seen without needing to justify yourself, of being able to arrive as you are without editing or softening the edges of what you’re feeling.

It’s the difference between being asked what you need to do next and being given the space to sit with where you already are. And while retreats can offer a more intentional version of that experience, the question it opens up feels relevant far beyond those spaces.

Where in your life do you feel held, and where might you need a little more of that than you currently have?

A Way to Begin Again, Gently

If you are in a moment that feels uncertain right now, this isn’t about finding a solution or creating a plan, and it doesn’t ask you to turn everything around or see things differently straight away.

It might begin somewhere much smaller.

The next time you find yourself caught in the noise of everything you’re holding, the questions, the pressure to figure things out, the sense that you should know what comes next, you might step outside if you can and allow yourself a moment to look up rather than down. Not in a symbolic or forced way, but simply to notice what is there.

Clouds moving, light catching edges, space opening up in ways you hadn’t registered before.

This is not about convincing yourself that things are better than they are, but about allowing for the possibility that more than one thing can be true at the same time, that alongside what feels difficult, there may also be something else present that you hadn’t yet seen.

A Thought to Keep

Every cloud has a silver lining may not be something you believe all of the time, and it may not be something you want to hold onto in every moment, but it can sit gently in the background as a question rather than a conclusion.

What else might be here that I haven’t noticed yet?

If you’d like to spend more time with this idea, you can listen to the full episode of A Thought I Kept with Tanya Lynch, where we explore what it means to trust that things will be OK without needing to force that belief.

And if you are finding that you need more support in understanding what you’re feeling or where you are, you can explore our private coaching at If Lost Start Here, where we make space for all of it, not just the parts that are easy to explain.

Sometimes, finding your way doesn’t begin with knowing what to do next, but with allowing yourself to arrive exactly where you are.

“I’m Fine” in Midlife

You wake before the alarm, not because you’re rested but because your mind has already started. There’s a list forming before your eyes are fully open — things to organise, respond to, remember, hold together. The day begins before you’ve even stepped into it.

By mid-morning you’ve answered messages, kept something running that might otherwise have stalled, smoothed over a moment that could have turned into conflict, and made sure everyone else is more or less where they need to be. When someone asks how you are — and they do, in passing, in between everything else — you say, “I’m fine,” and keep moving.

And in many ways, you are. You’re functioning. You’re managing. You’re doing what needs to be done. But somewhere underneath that, something feels different to how it once did.

The pace is the same, or even faster, but your capacity to keep absorbing it without cost has shifted. Sleep doesn’t restore you in quite the same way. Small things feel harder. Your body speaks more loudly, even if you’re not always sure how to listen. Emotions can feel closer to the surface — or, at times, more difficult to access altogether. And yet, the expectation — internal as much as external — is often that you should still be able to carry it all.

This is where “I’m fine” in midlife can take on a particular weight. It becomes the thing that holds together a life that has grown fuller and more complex over time — work, relationships, children, parents, friendships, the quiet accumulation of responsibility, the invisible labour that sits beneath it all.

It can also hold together an identity that has been built over years. If you’ve been the capable one, the one who gets things done, the one who can be relied on, then not being fine can feel like more than just a feeling — it can feel like a fracture in who you are. So “fine” keeps you inside something familiar, even if it’s starting to feel tight.

At the same time, midlife brings its own particular pressures.

Changes in the body — hormonal shifts, disrupted sleep, anxiety that arrives without clear reason, irritability that feels out of proportion.
Changes in relationships — renegotiations, distance, new dynamics that require different conversations.
Changes in perspective — a growing awareness of time, of what has been, of what might still be possible.

And alongside all of that, a question that can be hard to ignore:

Is this still working for me?

“Fine” often steps in right at that point.

Not because nothing is there, but because what’s there feels too big, too layered, or too disruptive to fully open. It protects you from the immensity of it — grief for versions of life that didn’t happen, anger at loads that feel uneven, fear of what change might bring, longing for something more spacious or more aligned. It also protects your nervous system when things have been too much for too long.

So instead of anxiety, you might feel a kind of flatness. A functional steadiness that keeps everything moving, but leaves little room for rest, pleasure, or connection.

You can cope, but you can’t receive.
You’re productive, but not nourished.
You’re calm on the outside, but internally braced.

And over time, that can begin to feel like the place you live.

But midlife also has a way of gently interrupting that pattern. Not necessarily with a dramatic breaking point, but with a steady accumulation of moments where “fine” no longer quite fits.

Where your body asks for something different.
Where your capacity reaches a limit.
Where your desires, long held at the edges, become harder to ignore.

And this is where something else becomes possible. Not a complete reinvention, and not a rejection of everything that has brought you here, but a gradual renegotiation.

Of what you carry.
Of what you expect of yourself.
Of what you allow yourself to need.

Questions begin to surface that cut through the automatic nature of “fine”:

• What am I responsible for that I shouldn’t be?

• What expectations am I meeting that no one has actually asked of me?

• Where have I become the only one holding something together?

• What would change if I believed my needs were legitimate?

These aren’t questions to answer all at once. They’re invitations. Because “fine” in this season of life isn’t something to get rid of. It’s something to listen to. A signal that something is asking for attention, for care, for adjustment. And alongside it, there can be another version of fine — one that feels different in the body. A steadier kind of okay.

Where your mood is mostly stable, even if life is full.
Where problems feel solvable, and support feels possible.
Where you have access, even in small ways, to rest, to pleasure, to connection.
Where your yes and your no feel real.

Midlife doesn’t remove the need for “fine.” But it does offer the chance to reshape it. To let it become less about holding everything together, and more about being in relationship with yourself as you actually are — changing, adjusting, becoming.

And from there, something opens. Not all at once. But enough to feel the difference between coping… and being here, in your life, with a little more space to breathe.

---

Identify the hidden emotion under “fine”

Common ones in midlife:

• Grief (for time, body, dreams, parents, versions of self)

• Anger (from unfair load, invisibility, broken agreements)

• Fear (change, aging, being alone, being trapped)

• Longing (for rest, intimacy, freedom, meaning)

• Shame (for needing, for not coping “better”)

Prompt:

• If ‘fine’ had a feeling, it would be?.

• If ‘fine’ had a message, it would be?

Find the right kind of support

• If it’s hormonal/body-based: track symptoms, consider talking to a clinician, consider sleep support and nutrition.

• If it’s relational: practice direct asks, therapy/couples work, boundary setting.

• If it’s nervous-system burnout: prioritize downshifting (rest, somatic work, less stimulation).

• If it’s meaning/identity: coaching/therapy/journaling around values and your “next chapter.”

How to talk to people when you’re FINE

Scripts to try out:

• “I’m a bit depleted. I don’t need fixing, just you to listen.”

• “I’m not ready to talk details, but I’m not okay.”

• “Can we do a low-energy hang? I need company.”

• “I’m overwhelmed. Can you take one thing off my plate this week?”

• “I’m not fine, but I’m ok.”

---

If “fine” has become the place you’re living from more often than you’d like, this might be a moment to have a different kind of conversation.

In coaching, we explore what’s shifting in this season of life — your needs, your energy, your direction — so you can move forward in a way that feels more sustainable and more yours.

Book a free discovery call and begin to find your way from here.

---

Moving Gently Beyond “Fine”

You’re replying to a message. “How are you?” they’ve asked, and your thumbs hover for a moment before typing, “I’m fine, how are you?” It’s already sent before you’ve really checked in. You notice it though, that slight pause afterwards, that sense that something more could have been said, but didn’t quite make it into words.

This is often how “fine” works. Not as a deliberate decision, but as a well-practised reflex. And once you start noticing it, it can be hard to unsee. Not because it’s wrong, but because you can feel both sides of it — what it’s doing for you, and what it might be costing you.

So the work isn’t to stop saying “fine.” It’s to start relating to it differently. Instead of treating it as something to correct, you can begin by treating it as information. A question, asked internally: what is “fine” doing for me right now?

Sometimes it’s protecting you from a conversation you don’t have the energy for. Sometimes it’s holding together a version of yourself that still feels important. Sometimes it’s simply buying you time — a way of saying, not now. And alongside that, another question can sit gently beside it:

What would become more complicated if I wasn’t fine?

Because that’s often where the truth lives — in the complication. The conversation you might have to have. The need you might have to express. The change you might have to consider.

You don’t have to go there all at once. Often, the smallest shift is enough. Instead of replacing “fine” entirely, you can add a little more specificity, a little more truth, while keeping the safety that “fine” was giving you.

It might sound like:

“I’m okay, but I’m carrying quite a lot.”
“I’m functioning, but I feel a bit tender.”
“I’m not in crisis, but I’m not feeling great.”
“I’m managing, but I could use some support.”

Or even more simply, noticing where “fine” is and isn’t true:

Fine at work, not fine at home.
Fine in the morning, not fine at night.
Fine physically, not fine emotionally.

These are small translations, but they begin to reconnect you with what’s actually there. And often, the quickest way into that isn’t through language, but through the body. A moment of pausing. A hand resting somewhere steady — your chest, your stomach. A question that doesn’t require explanation:

What’s here?

Tight. Heavy. Buzzing. Numb.

And alongside it, perhaps, a need:

Rest. Space. Reassurance. Warmth.

Even this — just naming a sensation and a need — can begin to shift “fine” into something more alive.

Because underneath “fine” there’s often a mix of feelings that don’t always separate themselves neatly. Grief that hasn’t had time. Anger that hasn’t had space. Fear about what might change. Longing for something more spacious, more connected, more yours.

You don’t have to untangle all of it. You can start with the smallest true thing.

And alongside that, you can begin to make small repairs — not dramatic changes, but deliberate acts that meet you where you are.

A short walk outside.
Water and something nourishing before the next coffee.
A message to someone safe saying I’m not great today.
A boundary you’ve been circling but haven’t yet set.

Because often “FINE” — the version that feels tight and effortful — comes from cumulative depletion.

You can cope, but you can’t receive.
You’re productive, but not nourished.
You’re calm on the outside, but internally braced.

A helpful shorthand can be:

Healthy fine = I’m okay, and I’m connected.
FINE = I’m okay, and I’m disconnected.

And the movement between those two states isn’t dramatic. It’s made up of small moments of noticing, naming, and meeting yourself a little more honestly. Not all at once. Just enough to feel the difference.

---

Healthy “fine” (when you’re genuinely okay)

• Stable mood most days.

• Problems feel solvable; you can ask for help.

• You have access to pleasure, rest, and connection.

• Your “yes” and “no” feel real.

• You feel present in your life (even if tired).

Unhealthy “FINE” (a kind of functional numbness)

• You can cope, but you can’t receive.

• You’re productive, but not nourished.

• You’re calm on the outside, but internally braced.

• You’re “fine” because you’ve stopped expecting support.

• Your life is organized around avoiding collapse.

---

If you’re ready to move beyond “fine,” even just a little, having someone alongside you can make that feel safer and more possible.

Coaching offers a space to find the words, reconnect with what’s going on beneath the surface, and take small, steady steps towards something that feels more like you.

You can start with a free call and see if it feels like the right kind of support.

---

What “I’m Fine” Really Means

You’re standing in the kitchen, phone wedged between your shoulder and ear, stirring something that doesn’t need stirring quite so vigorously. Someone asks how you are — a colleague or a friend, or maybe it’s your partner calling from another room — and you answer without thinking, “I’m fine.” The words arrive quickly, almost before the question has fully landed. You keep moving. There’s dinner to finish, emails to send, a message you haven’t replied to yet. Nothing stops.

That “fine” didn’t come from checking in. It came from knowing what’s easiest. What keeps things smooth. What doesn’t require you to explain why you’ve been waking at 3am, or why that small comment earlier stayed with you longer than it should, or why you feel both exhausted and strangely wired at the same time.

“I’m fine” is often less a feeling and more a kind of agreement. A socially acceptable, low-friction answer that says: please don’t ask more right now.

And in that sense, it works beautifully. It protects relationships, keeps conversations moving, and allows you to stay in the role you know how to play — the capable one, the calm one, the one who can handle things. But when you stay with it a little longer, “fine” starts to reveal itself as something more layered.

It can be a survival strategy — a way of minimising your needs, your visibility, your inconvenience to others. A way of keeping everything steady, even if it means gradually stepping away from yourself.

It can be a kind of freeze state — not falling apart, but not fully alive either. You’re functioning, showing up, doing what needs to be done, but there’s a slight distance from what you feel. A flattening. A sense that you’re operating without full access to yourself.

And often, it’s a negotiation. Between what you can handle, what you are handling, and what you’re not quite letting yourself admit you’re handling.

Because there’s usually something underneath it.

“Fine” can sit over disconnection — from your body, your emotions, your desires, your fatigue, your anger, your grief. It can sit over roles you’ve come to inhabit so fully they feel indistinguishable from who you are: the caretaker, the peacekeeper, the high performer, the low-maintenance one, the strong friend.

If you wanted a shorthand for it, you could think of “FINE” as an internal status message:

System running on emergency power.

You’re neither broken nor in crisis. But you’re also not resourced enough to feel, to pause, to shift.

Fine shows up for good reasons. It protects your place in relationships, where being “too much” might feel risky. It protects identity, especially if you’ve been the one who copes, the one who gets things done. It protects you from truths that feel too big to open all at once — grief, loneliness, resentment, the ever louder question of whether something needs to change. It even protects your nervous system, when things have been too much for too long, and numbness feels safer than overwhelm.

So “fine” isn’t something to dismantle or push past. It’s something to understand. Because from the outside, it can look like everything is working — calm, organised, capable. But inside, it can feel like holding everything in place at once, a subtle bracing that never quite releases.

And that’s where a different kind of question becomes useful.

Not: Is this true? But: What is this doing for me?

Because when you start to see “fine” as information rather than a fixed state, it opens up something else.

A little more awareness. A little more choice. A little more room to move.

---

How to recognize FINE

The emotional / mental kind

• You say “fine” quickly and automatically.

• You minimize: “It’s not a big deal,” “Other people have it worse.”

• You feel flat, bored, cynical, or strangely blank.

• You feel easily irritated—like the smallest thing is too much.

• You can’t access desire (“I don’t know what I want”).

The physical kind

• Tension in jaw/neck/shoulders, shallow breath, clenched belly.

• Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix.

• “Wired but tired,” or heavy/foggy.

• Frequent headaches, gut issues, inflammation flare-ups.

The behavioral kind

• Over-functioning: fixing, managing, planning, caretaking.

• Under-functioning in private: scrolling, zoning out, procrastination.

• Increased people-pleasing or emotional withdrawal.

• You stop initiating joy: hobbies, intimacy, creativity, movement.

---

If reading this has made you pause and wonder what might sit underneath your own “I’m fine,” you don’t have to figure that out alone.

In emotions coaching, we create space to gently explore what’s there — at your pace, in your own words — so you can begin to understand what you’re feeling and what you might need.

Start with a free discovery call and see what support could look like for you.

---

Creativity as a Mental Health Tool: How Art Can Support Wellbeing and Self-Trust

Often when we think about wellbeing, our minds go to the things we’ve been taught to reach for. Yoga classes and early morning runs. Cold water swims, breathwork, journaling practices carefully folded into the edges of the day. There is a familiar shape to it now, a sense of what counts as looking after ourselves and what does not.

And yet, there are other ways of feeling better that sit just outside of that frame. Quieter, less prescribed, often overlooked. Creativity is one of them.

Not because it is unavailable, but because many of us stopped recognising it as something we were allowed to have. Somewhere along the way, it became something reserved for other people. The creative ones. The artistic ones. The ones who knew what they were doing.

So when we find ourselves searching for support, for something that might help us feel a little steadier or more like ourselves again, creativity rarely makes the list. It feels optional, or indulgent, or something to come back to when everything else is in place.

But what if it is not an extra at all. What if it is one of the most overlooked ways we have of supporting our mental health and wellbeing.

This is something that came into sharper focus for me in a recent conversation with Imogen Partridge, a watercolour illustrator and workshop host whose work sits at the intersection of creativity and everyday life. Not in a way that asks us to become more creative, but in a way that reminds us we already are.

What she speaks about is not creativity as output or identity, but as a practice. Something we can return to in the middle of ordinary days. Something that can sit quietly alongside everything else we are holding, offering a different way of being with ourselves when things feel uncertain or overwhelming.

At the heart of her own experience is a thought she has kept for years. A reminder that appears on her phone at the end of the day, asking her to give herself more credit for how hard she is trying .

It is a simple idea, but one that shifts something fundamental. Because so often, even when we are looking after ourselves, we are still measuring. Noticing what we have not done, where we have fallen short, how far we feel from where we thought we might be. And so even our wellbeing practices can quietly become another place where we are trying to get it right.

What happens if we begin somewhere else.

If instead of asking whether something is working, we notice that we are trying. If instead of evaluating the outcome, we stay with the experience of being in it.

This is where creativity begins to feel different.

In Imogen’s workshops, people often arrive with a certainty that they are not creative. It is not something they have questioned for a long time. It sits quietly in the background, shaping what they reach for and what they avoid. And so there is hesitation at first. A sense of being outside of something. Of not quite belonging in the space.

But when they begin, something shifts. Not because what they create is suddenly good or finished or worthy of being shown, but because they are in it. They are making marks, however tentative. They are noticing what it feels like to try without knowing exactly where it will lead.

There is a vulnerability in that. In being seen trying, even by yourself. In allowing something to exist that is unfinished, uncertain, not quite right.

And there is also something quietly steadying about it.

Because when the focus moves away from outcome, there is space for something else to emerge. A different kind of attention. A moment of calm. A feeling of being absorbed in what is in front of you, rather than pulled in multiple directions at once.

This is where creativity begins to show up as a mental health tool, not in the way we might expect, but in the way it meets us where we are.

It does not ask us to be consistent or disciplined or to improve. It does not require us to share or perform or turn it into something more. It simply offers a place to land. A way of settling into the present moment, even briefly, when everything else feels like too much.

And over time, those moments can begin to matter.

Not because they change everything, but because they offer something different. A pause in the noise. A way of coming back into your body. A reminder that you can be with yourself without needing to fix or move beyond what you are feeling.

I have seen this in small, everyday ways. Children drawing without hesitation, moving from one idea to the next without questioning whether it is good. Adults returning to creative practices after years away, unsure at first, then gradually finding a rhythm that feels their own. A partner coming home from a long day and picking up a paintbrush, not to create something finished, but to let the day settle.

There is something important in these moments. Not just the act itself, but what it represents.

That creativity is not something we have to earn.
That it does not need to be productive to be valuable.
That it can sit alongside the rest of our lives, quietly supporting us in ways we might not have considered.

In a world where so much of wellbeing is shaped by structure and expectation, creativity offers something softer. A way of being rather than doing. A practice that can exist in small pockets of time, without needing to be perfect or complete.

It is not the only way of supporting your mental health, and it does not replace anything else that works for you. But it is one of the tools that often goes unnoticed, even though it has been there all along.

And perhaps that is where this thought continues to land.

Not as something to achieve, but as something to recognise.

That trying counts.
That effort, even when it is unseen, has value.
That you do not need to feel ready or confident to begin.

If you find yourself searching for ways to feel better, it might be worth looking not just at what you can add, but at what you might return to. Something simple. Something small. Something that allows you to be in the moment without needing to change it.

You can listen to the full conversation with Imogen Partridge on A Thought I Kept, where we explore creativity, mental health, motherhood and the quiet power of trying in more depth.

And if you are curious about how creativity might support your own wellbeing, you can explore our wellbeing prescriptions at If Lost Start Here, where we share gentle ways to bring more creativity into your everyday life in ways that feel possible and personal to you

Why Nothing Changes Even When You Try Everything: The Missing Role of Connection

Do you ever feel so frustratingly stuck? And it’s not because you haven’t tried things. If anything, you’ve tried a lot. You’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, saved the quotes, maybe even written things down in a notebook with the hope that this time something might land. And for a moment, it does. Something resonates. Something makes sense. And then, somehow, nothing really changes.

You’re still in the same patterns. Still circling the same questions. Still feeling that low-level sense that something isn’t quite shifting in the way you hoped it might.

It can be easy, in those moments, to assume the problem is you. That you haven’t understood it properly. That you haven’t applied it well enough. That you need to try harder, or find the right framework, or finally come across the one idea that will make everything click into place.

But what if that’s not what’s missing?

In a recent episode of A Thought I Kept, I found myself returning to a simpler idea. That sometimes it isn’t another piece of insight we need. It’s other people.

Not in a dramatic or overwhelming way. Not in the sense of needing a whole new community or a complete change of life. But in the small, often overlooked ways that we are with each other. The conversations that go a little deeper than expected. The moments where someone really listens. The feeling of being alongside someone rather than trying to work it all out alone.

Because so much of what we are trying to understand about ourselves doesn’t fully emerge in isolation.

We can think about something for weeks, months even, and still feel unsure. And then, in the space of a single conversation, something becomes clearer. Not because the other person has the answer, but because they’ve asked a question we hadn’t considered. Or reflected something back to us that we couldn’t quite see on our own.

There’s something about being witnessed that changes the shape of things.

In my conversation with Laurence McCahill, we talked about the role he plays in bringing people together. A friend once told him that he was the glue in a group, the person who connected people who might not otherwise have found each other. It wasn’t something he had consciously set out to be. It was something he recognised in hindsight, something that had always been there.

And I think there’s something important in that too.

That the things that help us feel more connected, more ourselves, are often not the things we need to learn from scratch. They are the things that already exist in us, but only really come into focus in relationship with other people.

Listening. Noticing. Making space. Asking a question at the right moment. Sitting with someone without needing to fix what they’re going through.

These are not grand gestures. They are small, human ones. But they create the conditions for something else to happen. They create the conditions for change.

It also made me think about how much of modern life encourages us to do things on our own. To self-reflect alone. To improve alone. To figure things out internally before we share them with anyone else. Even our versions of connection can become structured or transactional. Networking rather than relating. Updating rather than opening up. And in all of that, we can lose something essential.

The in-between spaces where things unfold more naturally. The conversations that aren’t heading anywhere in particular. The moments where we’re not trying to get something out of the interaction, but simply being in it. Those are often the places where something shifts. Not because we’ve found a better answer, but because we’re no longer holding everything on our own.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, or like you’re circling the same thoughts without anything really changing, it might be worth gently asking a different question.

Not “what haven’t I figured out yet?” But “who might I need to be in conversation with?”

That might look like reaching out to someone you trust. Sitting with a friend a little longer than usual. Joining something where the intention is simply to be with other people, rather than to achieve or fix anything.

It might even be noticing where, in your own life, you are already the one who brings people together. The one who listens. The one who creates space for others. And considering what it would mean to allow that to be something you receive as well as give.

There isn’t a neat formula for this. And it won’t always feel comfortable, especially if you’re used to holding things on your own. But there is a different kind of steadiness that can come from it.

The kind that doesn’t come from having all the answers, but from not having to find them alone.

If this idea resonates, you might want to listen to the full conversation with Laurence on A Thought I Kept, where we explore connection, community, and what becomes possible when we do life together.

And if you’re looking for somewhere to begin, we’ve created a series of wellbeing prescriptions at If Lost Start Here that gently centre connection in everyday life. Not as another thing to get right, but as a way of finding your footing again, alongside other people.

When Grief Changes You But Doesn’t Define You: Finding Your Way Through Loss

Rachel Hart-Phillips is in the car, driving away from the hospital mortuary. It is one of those days that feels almost impossible to hold — the kind where everything is too much, too raw, too real. She has just seen her husband. The future she thought she had is no longer there. And alongside the shock and the grief, there is another feeling beginning to take shape.

Fear.

Not just of what has happened, but of what it might mean. That this could be the thing that defines her. That from this moment on, she might always be “the person this happened to.” That her life might narrow around this one experience, this one loss, this one story.

She says it out loud to the friend driving her home. And he responds, simply and almost casually, “don’t let it.”

It isn’t a solution. It isn’t even something she can fully take in at the time. How could you, in the middle of something so overwhelming? But she keeps it. She carries it with her, even when it feels impossible to believe. And over time, it becomes something she can return to. Not as an instruction to be okay, but as a way of orienting herself inside something that has changed everything.

There is something in that moment that many of us will recognise, even if our circumstances are different. That quiet, often unspoken fear that the hardest thing we go through might become the thing that defines us. It might not be grief. It might be anxiety, burnout, a loss of confidence, a period of feeling lost or stuck. But the shape of the fear is often the same. That this is who I am now. That this is how it will always be.

And yet, life is rarely that singular. It is not one thing, even when one thing feels overwhelming. What Rachel’s story holds, gently and without forcing it, is the idea that we can be shaped by what happens to us without being entirely defined by it.

This is not about dismissing the impact of what we go through. Loss does change us. Grief changes us. The experiences that stop us in our tracks — the ones that make us question who we are and how we go on — they leave their mark. Rachel speaks about the many emotions that came with her grief: sadness, of course, but also anger, guilt, fear, even moments of something like joy returning in unexpected ways And perhaps one of the hardest parts is that these emotions don’t arrive neatly. They don’t follow a clear path. They can feel contradictory, confusing, and sometimes even shameful.

We are not always given space to experience that fully. There is often a subtle pressure, from the world around us and from within, to be strong, to hold it together, to find a way through as quickly as possible. Rachel described being told she was strong after earlier loss, and how that became something she felt she had to live up to — as if showing her grief might mean she was doing it wrong But over time, she came to understand that strength, in this context, looks very different. It is not about holding everything in. It is about allowing what is there to be there.

This is a different kind of orientation to the one many of us are used to. Rather than asking “how do I fix this?” or “how do I stop feeling like this?”, it becomes something more like “how do I stay with this, without losing myself inside it?” It is slower. Less certain. But also, perhaps, more human.

Rachel spoke about grief as something that lives in the body, not just the mind. Something that needs to be felt and moved through, rather than thought away And that might look like very ordinary things. A walk. A song. A moment of crying that comes out of nowhere. A small flicker of light that catches you by surprise. None of these are solutions. But they are ways of staying connected to yourself, even as everything shifts.

There was something else in our conversation that stayed with me, and it sits alongside that original thought. The idea that when something hard happens, we don’t just struggle with what we’re feeling — we also struggle with how to be around each other. The not knowing what to say. The fear of getting it wrong. The way we can sometimes back away, even when we care deeply.

Rachel has built her work around this space — around helping us find words when words feel impossible. And what she returns to, again and again, is that it doesn’t need to be perfect. Often, it is the simplest expressions that matter most. A message. A card. A “I’m here.” A “love you.” Not to fix anything, but to sit alongside it.

Because when life becomes difficult, what we are often looking for is not a solution, but a sense of not being alone in it.

And maybe this is where that original thought — don’t let it — becomes something softer, something more spacious. Not a demand to overcome or to move on. But a quiet reminder that even when something changes you, it doesn’t have to take everything with it. There can still be other parts of you. Other moments. Other possibilities that sit alongside the hard.

Rachel speaks about the metaphor of a disco ball — something made up of broken pieces that still reflects light. Not in spite of what it’s been through, but because of how those pieces come together. It feels like a more honest image of how we live. Not perfectly put back together. Not untouched by what has happened. But still capable of reflecting something back into the world.

If you are in a moment where things feel uncertain, or heavy, or difficult to name, it might not be about finding a way to change yourself. It might be about staying close to yourself, even here. Allowing what is present to be present. And trusting, even if only a little, that there is more to you than the thing that has happened.

If this feels close to home, you can listen to the full conversation with Rachel on A Thought I Kept.

---

And if you’re looking for a steadier way to navigate what you’re feeling, or to find your footing again, you’re always welcome to explore the coaching and resources here at If Lost Start Here.

---

For now, perhaps just this thought to carry gently with you:

What is the thing you’re afraid might define you?

And what might it mean, in your own time, not to let it?

Feeling Lost, Disconnected, Overwhelmed, or Lonely? Here’s How to Find Your Way Back to Yourself

Life can feel heavy when you’re navigating overwhelm, loneliness, or a sense of disconnection. Maybe you feel stuck in routines that don’t nourish you, struggling to find clarity, or simply wondering what’s missing. Instead of trying to force yourself into generic self-care routines, what if you could create a wellbeing practice that fits you? That’s where our Wellbeing Prescriptions come in.

Inspired by social prescribing, our approach blends Culture Therapy, carefully chosen places from our Guide to Life, and an understanding of what you actually need. Most importantly, it starts with how you feel right now. This personalised approach helps you feel grounded, connected, and emotionally well on your own terms.

What is Wellbeing?

Wellbeing isn’t just about ticking off a to-do list of meditation, journaling, and yoga. It’s about finding what genuinely supports you—mentally, emotionally, and socially.

At its core, wellbeing is about:

• Emotional health – Learning to navigate your emotions with self-compassion rather than resistance

• Mental balance – Managing stress, uncertainty, and change with more ease

• Connection – Feeling supported by people, places, and experiences that align with who you are

But here’s the key: wellbeing is personal. What works for someone else may not be what you need. That’s why our approach is bespoke.

---

How We Create Your Bespoke Wellbeing Prescription

Your wellbeing prescription is built around you, using three core elements:

1. We Start with How You Feel

Before prescribing anything, we begin with your reality today. Are you feeling:

• Lost? Unsure where to go next or what’s missing?

• Disconnected? Feeling detached from yourself or others?

• Overwhelmed? Struggling to manage stress, burnout, or emotions?

• Lonely? Longing for deeper relationships or more meaningful experiences?

These sessions first help you understand what’s happening beneath the surface—so we can tailor your wellbeing prescription to what will truly help.

2. We Look at What You Need

Everyone’s wellbeing needs are different. Some of us need more space, others need more connection. Some need creativity, others need calm.

Through our framework, we uncover what’s missing or what you’re craving right now—whether it’s:

• Rest – Slowing down, prioritising sleep, and reducing stress

• Clarity – Finding direction and making sense of where you are

• Purpose – Reconnecting with what feels meaningful to you

• Play – Bringing more joy, creativity, and fun into your life

• Connection – Strengthening relationships or finding community

3. We Curate a Wellbeing Prescription Just for You

Once we understand how you feel and what you need, we create a bespoke wellbeing prescription that may include:

Culture Therapy – A handpicked selection of books, podcasts, and creative resources designed to support your emotional wellbeing.

Places from our Guide to Life – Beautiful, thoughtfully designed spaces that foster connection, creativity, and mental wellness. Whether it’s an awe-inspiring museum, a community garden, or a cosy bookshop, we recommend places that help you feel at home in the world.

Practical Tools & Practice – Small, actionable steps that fit into your life, including journaling prompts, breathwork exercises, creative rituals, or moments of connection.

One-on-One Support – If needed, we offer coaching sessions to explore emotional resilience, purpose, and how to build a wellbeing practice that feels true to you.

---

Why This Works for Anyone Feeling Lost, Lonely, or Overwhelmed

• It’s personalised to you – Instead of generic self-care tips, you get a wellbeing prescription that meets you where you are.

• It helps you navigate uncertainty – Using curiosity and self-acceptance, it guides you toward what feels good for you.

• It’s practical and flexible – No rigid self-care routines—just real-life wellbeing that evolves with you.

• It connects you to the world around you – Through culture, creativity, and inspiring places, you gain experiences that nourish rather than deplete you.

• It transforms your relationship with emotions – Instead of seeing emotions as something to ‘fix,’ you learn how to work with them.

What Is Emotional Fragmentation? How to Spot It and Start Healing

You can talk about your emotions. You might even do it brilliantly. But when someone asks how you feel, there’s a pause. A quick internal scan… then a neat answer. The right words. Not the felt experience.

This is emotional fragmentation.

It’s not about being broken—it’s about being disconnected. From the felt, embodied experience of your own emotions. Noticing this pattern is the first step toward something more integrated, more whole.

When Talking About Emotions Isn’t the Same as Feeling Them

For a long time, I would have described myself as an emotional person. I could talk about feelings with fluency—mine, yours, fictional characters’—with nuance and detail. But somewhere in my 40s, I realised something new. I wasn’t actually feeling those emotions. Not in my body. Not really.

I’d say “I’m feeling anxious” while my body remained in neutral. I’d discuss heartbreak with all the right language but none of the actual ache. I was, it turns out, managing emotions from a safe cognitive distance. Naming them, analysing them, talking about them but not letting them land.

Emotional fragmentation often shows up like this:

• You can describe emotions, but you rarely feel them.

• You feel detached from your own reactions, like you’re watching them through glass.

• You judge yourself (and others) for being "too emotional."

• You feel overwhelmed when multiple emotions appear at once.

It’s a form of self-protection. Often developed early, in environments where feelings weren’t safe, welcomed, or attuned to. Over time, your body learns: Feelings are too much. Think instead. And so you become a master of emotional language, but a stranger to your emotional landscape.

---

What Happens When We Don’t Feel What We Know

Why does this matter? Because emotions are not just thoughts. They’re not just moods or concepts. Emotions live in your body. They are sensory, energetic experiences designed to move through you. To guide you, inform you, protect you, and connect you to others.

When emotions are kept at a distance—intellectualised but not embodied—they don’t go away. They get stuck. They pile up. And they often show up later as confusion, overwhelm, low-level anxiety, fatigue, or shutdown.

You can be emotionally articulate and emotionally distanced at the same time.

---

How to Gently Reconnect With What You Feel

So how do you begin to shift from fragmentation to connection?

Not with force. Not by “feeling harder.” But by gently rebuilding the bridge between your emotions and your body. Here are a few practices to try:

1. Ask your body, not just your mind

The next time you notice an emotion, pause and ask:

• Where do I feel this in my body?

• What sensation is here—tightness, heat, hollowness?

• Can I stay with it for a few breaths, without needing to fix it?

2. Feelings first, labels later

Instead of rushing to name the feeling, start by noticing it. Is it heavy? Sharp? Expansive? Let the body lead; let the words come later.

3. Try micro-movements

Shake your hands. Stretch. Rock. Sometimes the body knows how to move emotion through, even if you don’t know why you’re feeling it. Movement invites release.

4. Be curious, not correct

You don’t need to get it right. You’re not looking for perfect self-awareness—you’re practicing presence. Emotionally fragmented people often value precision; try valuing curiosity instead.

5. Replace "I am" with "I'm feeling"

Instead of “I am angry,” try “I’m feeling anger right now.” It’s a subtle shift, but one that reminds your nervous system: this is an experience, not an identity.

Does this sound like you? Or someone you love?

You’re not cold. You’re not broken. You’re just used to living with your emotions at arm’s length—and maybe, now, you’re ready to bring them closer.

Stress Isn’t the Problem: When There’s Simply Too Much to Carry

We often think of stress as something that comes from chaos or crisis, but what if it’s also connected to competence.

It can belong to women who are good at things. Women who care. Women who hold the threads of their lives — and often other people’s lives — quietly and reliably. Women who show up, remember birthdays, keep projects moving, make dinners happen, check in on friends, plan ahead, stay present, stay kind, stay capable. Women who are praised for “managing it all,” even as something inside them tightens a little more each day.

If this sounds familiar, you may have wondered — at some point, usually late at night — Why does everything feel so hard when I’m doing everything right?

This is often where stress gets framed as a personal problem. Something to manage better. Something to calm down. Something to fix.

But what if stress isn’t the problem at all?

What if stress is simply the body and mind responding honestly to a life that’s asking too much?

When stress makes sense

Many of the women I work with arrive believing they are stressed because they’re not coping well enough. They talk about poor boundaries, busy minds, anxious tendencies, the feeling that they should be more resilient by now. And yet, when we slow down and gently look at their lives, something else becomes clear.

They are juggling multiple roles that each carry real responsibility. They are doing emotional work that is rarely named or shared. They are living inside systems — workplaces, families, cultures — that still quietly expect women to absorb more, adapt faster, and complain less. They are trying to be present and productive, nurturing and ambitious, grounded and forward-looking, all at once.

Stress, in this context, isn’t a failure of mindset. It’s information. It’s the nervous system saying: this is a lot.

---

A quieter kind of burnout

This kind of stress doesn’t always look dramatic. There may be no breakdown, no obvious crisis. Instead, it shows up as a low-level hum: tight shoulders, shallow breaths, a short fuse, constant tiredness, the sense that even rest requires effort.

You might still be functioning — showing up, delivering, caring — but with less joy, less ease, less connection to yourself.

This is why so much stress advice misses the mark. When the message is “slow down” or “do less” or “think differently,” it can feel tone-deaf. As if the reality of your life hasn’t been fully seen.

Because often, there is no simple “less.” There is just what needs doing, and the quiet knowledge that if you don’t do it, it may not get done at all.

---

The question we rarely ask

Instead of asking, How do I get rid of stress? A more honest question might be: What is my stress responding to?

When we treat stress as the enemy, we turn against ourselves. We add another layer of pressure — to be calmer, better regulated, more together — on top of an already full life.

When we treat stress as a signal, we begin to listen. And often, what we hear isn’t a demand to change who we are, but an invitation to relate to our lives more honestly.

You don’t need to be less sensitive, less caring, or less capable. You may need more support, more honesty, and more permission to stop carrying everything alone.

This isn’t about lowering standards or giving up on what matters to you. It’s about recognising that sustainability is not the same as endurance.

A life can be meaningful and still be too heavy. You can be strong and still need support. Both can be true.

---

Small ways to begin listening to stress

Rather than offering a long list of things to do (because that’s rarely helpful when you’re already overwhelmed), here are a few gentle places to start:

You might try reflecting on one or two of these, slowly, over time:

• Notice where stress shows up first. Is it in your body, your thoughts, your energy? This isn’t about changing it — just noticing earlier.

• Name what feels genuinely full. Not everything. Just one area of life that feels particularly heavy right now.

• Ask yourself what support would actually look like. Not in theory, but in real, practical terms. Less advice. More presence? Fewer expectations? Shared responsibility?

• Pay attention to self-blame. When stress appears, do you turn it into a story about what you should be doing better? What happens if you pause that story, even briefly?

These are not tasks to complete. They are ways of standing beside yourself with more kindness.

---

A different way forward

If stress is not the problem, then the work is not about erasing it. The work is about changing your relationship to it — and, often, changing the conditions that keep it alive.

This can include practical changes, yes. But it also includes deeper questions about worth, responsibility, and the quiet agreements many women have made with the world about what they will carry without complaint.

This is not work that needs to be rushed. It’s work that benefits from patience, warmth, and support. And it’s work you don’t have to do alone.

Stress doesn’t have to be something you battle in private. Emotions coaching offers a place to slow down, make sense of what you’re carrying, and explore more sustainable ways of living — without pressure to fix yourself or have it all figured out.

If you’re curious, you can find out more about working together through one-to-one coaching, where we gently untangle stress, responsibility, and support in a way that fits your real life.

How to Have a Better Relationship with Your Emotions (Without Trying to Fix Them)

Ok we need to talk about emotions because there can be so much going on with that aspect of our lives — much of it unseen. Maybe there’s a sense that we should be handling them better. That we should feel calmer, clearer, more in control. That if anxiety shows up, or grief lingers, or something in us feels heavier than it “should,” then something has gone wrong.

So we try to manage what we feel. We minimise it, move past it, explain it away. We tell ourselves we’ll deal with it later, or that it isn’t that big a deal, or that other people have it worse. We learn, often without realising it, to close the door on parts of ourselves that feel inconvenient or uncomfortable.

And yet, for many of us, that doesn’t actually make things easier. It just makes us feel more disconnected. From ourselves, from other people, from what’s really going on.

In a recent conversation on A Thought I Kept, I spoke with Dr MaryCatherine McDonald about this — and in particular, about a simple but quietly radical idea: that our emotions might not be something to fix or control, but something to relate to.

She shared a poem by Rumi that has stayed with her for years, about being human as a kind of guest house, where emotions arrive as visitors. Joy, anxiety, grief, irritation. Some welcome, some less so. All of them coming and going, whether we invite them in or not .

It’s such a different way of seeing things.

Because many of us have been taught to do the opposite. To decide which emotions are acceptable and which need to be shown the door. To believe that if something uncomfortable is present, then something must be wrong — and the goal is to get back to a more “acceptable” state as quickly as possible.

MaryCatherine described living like that for years. Feeling as though she was at war with her emotions, trying to control them, contain them, make them behave. And underneath that, a quieter belief: that if anxiety or grief were there, they would take over. That they might ruin everything.

It’s a feeling I recognise, and one I see often in my work. That fear of what might happen if we really let ourselves feel what’s there.

But what if the work isn’t to get rid of what we feel?

What if it’s to sit down with it?

To offer it a chair, rather than pushing it out of the room. To get curious, even gently, about why it’s here. Not because we want to analyse it or solve it, but because we’re willing to be in relationship with it.

That idea of relationship feels important.

Because emotions don’t arrive neatly, one at a time. They overlap. They contradict each other. We can feel anxious and hopeful, tired and grateful, grieving and still find something to laugh at. And yet, we often try to simplify that complexity into something more manageable. I am anxious. I am fine. I am coping.

But that can leave us feeling stuck. As though we’ve become the emotion, rather than someone experiencing it.

What I found grounding in this conversation was the idea that we don’t have to identify so completely with what we feel. We can be in it, without it being all of us. We can let something move through, rather than holding onto it as a fixed state.

And that matters, particularly when things feel heavy.

MaryCatherine talks about something she calls “rehearsing loss” — the way our nervous system, often shaped by past experiences, tries to protect us by anticipating what might go wrong. Imagining endings before we’ve fully lived the beginnings. Bracing ourselves, just in case.

It makes sense, when you see it like that. It’s not weakness. It’s protection.

But it can also make it harder to access the moments that are here. The small, ordinary experiences that carry something lighter in them. A conversation that lands. A moment of connection. A flicker of joy that doesn’t erase what’s hard, but sits alongside it.

This is something else she reframes beautifully — the idea that joy isn’t something we reach once everything is sorted, but something that appears in the middle of things. Not fluffy or superficial, but steady and tenacious. Something that helps us stay, rather than escape.

And maybe that’s part of what a different relationship with our emotions can offer.

Not a life where we only feel the “right” things. But a life where we feel more of what’s real, without it meaning something has gone wrong.

Where we can notice when we’re trying to push something away, and instead soften, even slightly, towards it.

Where we don’t have to be at war with ourselves.

If you’re someone who has been trying to manage or control what you feel, it might be worth asking a different question.

Not “how do I fix this?”

But “what might it be like to sit with this, just for a moment?”

There’s no perfect way to do that. No right or wrong response. Just a gradual shift, over time, from resisting what’s there to being alongside it.

And if that feels unfamiliar, you’re not alone in that either.

---

If you’d like to explore this idea further, you can listen to my full conversation with Dr MaryCatherine McDonald on A Thought I Kept. It’s a thoughtful, honest exploration of emotions, grief, joy, and what it means to be in relationship with what we feel.

And if you’re looking for a little more support in understanding your own emotional world, you can also explore my emotions coaching sessions — a space to gently make sense of what’s going on, at your own pace.

How We Learn to Cope Without Alcohol

Rethinking emotional regulation, drinking, and the stories we inherit about coping

There are moments in life when something quietly stops working.

Not dramatically, not all at once, but gradually, almost imperceptibly. A glass of wine at the end of the day that once felt relaxing begins to feel necessary. A way to soften the edges of stress, to slow a racing mind, to take a brief step away from the feelings that have been gathering in the background.

For many people, alcohol becomes woven into the way we cope with everyday life. It sits comfortably in the rituals of the evening, the social rhythms of weekends, the celebrations and the commiserations. It promises relief, connection, relaxation — and often, at least for a while, it delivers.

But sometimes there comes a moment when the question begins to surface: Is this actually helping?

That question was at the heart of a recent conversation on my podcast A Thought I Kept with sober coach and writer Ellie Nova. Ellie spent more than a decade feeling trapped in a relationship with alcohol that was increasingly tangled up with shame and self-judgement. And the thought that ultimately helped her begin to step away from it was surprisingly simple:

There is nothing wrong with you.

At first glance, that might not sound like a thought powerful enough to change a life. But the more we talked, the clearer it became just how radical it can be.

Because when people begin to question their relationship with alcohol, the story they often tell themselves is one of personal failure. Why can everyone else seem to drink normally? Why does this feel so difficult for me? Why can’t I control myself?

But what if alcohol was never really the problem in the first place?

What if, instead, it had simply become a way of coping with emotions that felt too big to hold?

---

The quiet role alcohol plays in emotional regulation

One of the things Ellie and I explored together was the role alcohol can come to play in regulating our emotional lives. Not because we consciously choose it as a coping strategy, but because many of us grow up without ever being taught how to sit with difficult feelings.

Anxiety, loneliness, grief, pressure, shame — these emotions can be uncomfortable and confusing, especially if we’ve learned, consciously or unconsciously, that they are not entirely welcome. Perhaps we were told we were too sensitive, or that we needed to toughen up, or that certain feelings were inappropriate in certain situations.

Over time, many of us become quite skilled at pushing emotions aside. We distract ourselves, we stay busy, we find ways to numb what we’re feeling just enough to keep moving.

In that context, alcohol can begin to make a certain kind of sense. It offers a socially acceptable way to soften emotions that feel sharp, to quiet thoughts that won’t settle, to step briefly outside of the intensity of being human.

And because alcohol is so culturally embedded — in celebrations, socialising, relaxation, and even self-care — it can take a long time before we start to question the role it’s playing.

---

When drinking stops feeling like relief

For some people, that questioning begins when alcohol stops delivering the relief it once promised. The drink that once helped take the edge off anxiety begins to bring its own kind of discomfort. The sense of escape becomes tangled up with regret, exhaustion, or a quiet awareness that something isn’t quite right.

At that point, it can be tempting to interpret the problem as one of discipline or willpower. Perhaps I just need to be stronger. Perhaps I need more control.

But Ellie’s experience — and the experiences of many of the women she now supports — suggests something quite different.

If alcohol became a coping strategy, it likely did so because something inside needed support. Something needed soothing, or understanding, or simply space to be felt.

And when we begin to look at our relationship with alcohol through that lens, the conversation shifts.

Instead of asking What’s wrong with me?, we begin asking more curious questions.

What am I actually feeling?
What have I been trying not to feel?
And what might help me cope in a way that truly supports me?

---

Learning to cope without numbing

Letting go of alcohol can feel daunting not simply because it is a habit, but because it has often been doing important emotional work behind the scenes.

Without it, many people suddenly find themselves face to face with feelings that have been carefully managed for years — anxiety, grief, loneliness, stress, even the quieter emotions like disappointment or regret that are easy to push aside in a busy life.

Learning to cope without alcohol, then, is rarely just about stopping drinking. More often, it becomes a process of learning a new relationship with our emotional lives.

That might involve recognising emotions earlier, before they gather into overwhelm. It might involve paying attention to the physical sensations that accompany anxiety or stress in the body. It might mean finding other ways to regulate ourselves — movement, conversation, rest, time in nature, creative expression.

But perhaps most importantly, it involves replacing judgement with curiosity.

When we stop seeing emotions as problems to eliminate and begin to understand them as signals, something shifts. The very feelings we once tried to escape can begin to feel more manageable, even informative.

---

A different understanding of self-care

In our conversation, Ellie and I also reflected on the way self-care is often presented as a form of escape — a brief pause from the pressures of life, a small indulgence designed to help us get through the week.

But real emotional care often looks quieter and deeper than that. It might mean slowing down long enough to notice what is actually happening inside us. It might mean allowing feelings that are uncomfortable rather than immediately trying to distract ourselves from them.

Sometimes it means asking for support.

For many people, learning to cope without alcohol becomes part of a broader shift toward self-trust — a growing sense that our emotions are not something to suppress or manage away, but something to understand.

And that shift often begins with a simple but powerful idea.

There is nothing wrong with you.

---

Listen to the conversation

If this perspective resonates with you, you can listen to the full conversation with Ellie Nova on the podcast A Thought I Kept.

In the episode How We Break Free From Alcohol, Ellie shares her own experience of stepping away from alcohol and the thought that helped her begin to see her emotions, and herself, in a different way.

Looking for support with your emotions?

If you’re navigating emotional overwhelm, anxiety, or simply trying to understand your feelings more clearly, you might also find our emotions coaching sessions helpful.

These sessions offer a calm, thoughtful space to explore what you’re feeling and to develop ways of working with your emotions that feel supportive rather than overwhelming.

You can learn more about emotions coaching with Claire here.

How to Create an Everyday Retreat at Home: Small Ways to Care for Yourself Each Day

Retreats, holidays, or even a quiet weekend away can be wonderful and exactly the reset we need. And for a little while everything softens. We sleep more deeply. We notice things again. We remember what it feels like to move through the day without quite so much pressure.

And then we come home. The inbox fills up again. The washing basket mysteriously multiplies. Work, care, responsibilities and the endless small decisions of modern life return to their usual volume.

That contrast can make wellbeing feel like something that lives somewhere else. Somewhere beautiful, slower, quieter — somewhere we occasionally visit rather than something that belongs inside our real lives. But what if the question isn’t how to recreate retreat conditions perfectly at home? What if it’s simply about making a little more room for ourselves inside the life we already have. Not through grand gestures or perfect routines, but through small moments that gently interrupt the pace of the day.

Sometimes that might look like taking a few breaths before you open your laptop in the morning. Or stepping outside for ten minutes of air and sky between meetings. It might be writing a few lines in a notebook before bed, or sitting in the quiet of the house before everyone else wakes up.

None of these things are dramatic. But they are ways of reminding ourselves that our days can hold small pockets of steadiness, even when life is full. At If Lost Start Here we often think of this as an everyday retreat. Not something that requires travel, time off, or a perfect environment, but something we create in ordinary spaces — kitchens, gardens, desks, walks around the block.

Moments where we pause long enough to reconnect with ourselves. Because wellbeing rarely arrives all at once. More often it grows slowly through the small ways we choose to care for ourselves inside the lives we’re already living.

One way to think about an everyday retreat is simply this: small moments of care woven through an ordinary day. The kind of day where the alarm goes off earlier than you’d like, the kettle needs refilling again, and someone has already asked you a question before you’ve even had your first sip of coffee.

Sometimes the retreat begins there. A few slow breaths before you open your email. A page of journaling while the house is still quiet. Or simply drinking your tea without doing three other things at the same time.

Later in the day it might appear as a small corner of calm. Not a perfectly styled meditation space, just a chair by the window, a step outside the back door, or five minutes sitting on the edge of the bed before the next thing begins.

Technology tends to follow us everywhere now, so another small act of care can be letting parts of the day remain screen-free. Leaving your phone on the kitchen counter while you walk around the block. Eating lunch without scrolling. Letting your mind wander for a few minutes rather than filling every space with information.

And then there are the tiny resets that help us keep going when the day becomes full again. A stretch between meetings. Fresh air after too long indoors. A quick walk where you remember that the world is larger than your to-do list.

By the evening, when the house is quieter again or the day finally loosens its grip, another small moment can appear. Writing a few lines about the day. Noticing something that went well. Letting yourself acknowledge that you carried a lot and made it through.

None of this is dramatic. It’s simply a way of remembering that wellbeing doesn’t have to live somewhere else. It can move with us through the ordinary, messy, human shape of our days.

Over time, these small daily actions will build up to create lasting wellbeing. You’ll feel more grounded, less overwhelmed, and better able to handle life’s challenges. It’s about making wellbeing part of your everyday life.

Want help making these changes stick? Join the Everyday Retreat, where we’ll explore these practices together through daily lessons and community-meet ups.