Wow, what a weekend it was! The last days of school, birthdays, special events, and activities all piled up into one non-stop whirlwind. While I felt fine throughout it all—surviving, you could say—come Monday, I crashed.

While empathy and compassion serve as a beacon of hope and unity, such feelings can also be a source of internal struggle. By the end of today’s newsletter, I want you (and my dear friend) to have more support in handling the big feelings related to witnessing other’s suffering.

Contributing to burnout, helpers also have a tendency to feel the weight of all the world’s problems. Not just focusing on the things they can control, they see the enormity of pain and hurt in the world, oftentimes feeling the responsibility to fix it all, help everyone, and spend a lot of time in despair and worry.

Do you know what you want? Honestly, that’s the first question to ask yourself when you’re feeling stuck.

What do I want and what am I prepared to do to achieve it?

September is a month of many mental health themes: Slow Down September, Self-Care Awareness Month, Suicide Awareness Month, and Sober September to mention a few. September is my favorite time to slow down, and being forced to pause this past week got me thinking about our chronic pace and its implications.

My shape-shifting by the seasons left me feeling shameful. I criticized myself for my lack of consistency and discipline. However, I have learned through the ancient Yoga Medicine of Ayurveda and just general psychology - we’re meant to change with the seasons.

And when I’m tired, I get irritable. Maybe angry. Lose my cool quicker.

And all of this: burnout.

We know that all kids are facing uniquely challenging times too, with more rational fears of systemic violence, comparison, pandemic isolation, disordered eating, and increasing suicide rates.

For me, when I’m struggling with my parenting chops, I scour the internet for resources, books and articles. Lucky for you, my team and I created Parenting Videos so you don’t actually have to do that search for yourself.

I am so tired of hustle culture. I am so tired of telling women to lean in. I am so tired of women making it seem like you can really have it all. Because you cannot.

Many of you will find that it’s natural tendencies/conditioned habits to want to make others happy, to avoid conflict and not have to feel the dreaded guilt.

What if I told you that guilt is not an emotion, but rather, guilt is a story.

Stress happens. It’s inevitable. But how we respond to stress? That’s a whole other story.

All of this decision making and weighing of consequences absolutely creates decision fatigue and burnout. We start questioning our judgement, trust in ourselves and even others.

It’s no doubt that this is an especially stressful time for many. And life without a pandemic can be just as stressful as what we are experiencing now.

With so many weeks in quarantine already, you might have gotten the swing of the new normal with your kids at home and have re-established a new routine for yourself and the kiddos.

Most of us have had our plans for vacation cancelled or postponed indefinitely to help keep ourselves and our community safe. That is completely understandable (and the right thing to do) and it puts us in a situation of trying to manage the new normal without much “reset” time.

Last week I met with my therapist and realized I could finally name my feelings: I was burned out.

I explained my emotional roller coaster to her through tears and she so aptly and with much grace called me out.

As we near the holidays and some of us are experiencing more stress from the expectations than the joys of the season, I wanted to point out a few more resources that might help you through this time.

I’ve been having a really tough time getting a grasp on my life lately. Things seem to be moving too quickly and I can’t find enough energy to keep up with it all.

If you’ve recently reached out to someone for support and received a response along the veins of the second post above, first acknowledge the fact that you were brave to reach out, go you! You took a risk and it just didn’t pay off this time. That is okay.