When you've spent years appearing self-sufficient, people often assume you don't need much support. You become the person everyone leans on while quietly wishing someone would ask how you're doing.
The Cost of Being The "Easy Child"
Tired Even When Life Slows Down
Being productive or accomplished can become a primary way of feeling like we're enough. So when life slows down, it can really feel like an identity disruption.
Being Liked vs Being Known
You may have learned what to do or say to make things go smoother. You may have learned what behaviors or attitudes made people stay. You learned what made you easier to accept.
And slowly, those lessons became automatic.
Stop Optimizing Your Joy
The moment we pick something up, our brain starts asking: How can I get better at this? How can I optimize this? Is this a productive use of my Saturday? The result? We never actually relax.
How To Set Goals Without Pressure
When we think about goals, we often default to familiar categories: working out more, eating differently, and being more productive. These can be meaningful goals, but they tend to fall apart when they’re too vague or disconnected from who we actually are.
New Year Pressure
So often we hear the phrase “new year, new you”. It creates this inevitable expectation that stepping into the new year should feel like a big change to ourselves, our goals, and/or our habits. For this reason, January is a month that can often hold so many mixed emotions: anxiety, guilt, pressure, shame, etc. We begin to feel more behind than inspired.
Can't Relax?
If you’ve ever wondered, “Why can’t I just relax?”, especially when nothing’s wrong, you’re not alone. For a lot of us, especially those who’ve spent years in go-mode, real rest doesn’t feel natural. In fact, it can feel kind of… uncomfortable.
Supporting Kids: Big Emotions
In my work with children and parent coaching, many of my client’s parents have asked me something along the lines of, “How can I best support my child when they’re feeling overwhelmed or dysregulated?” This question has come up more recently due to the busy season, so here are some effective strategies* to help your child–and yourself– navigate moments of dysregulation with care and connection.
Managing Burnout
Many of us have heard of the concept of “burnout”—yet sometimes it can be hard to identify what it is and isn’t. The phenomenon, which has been silently plaguing many of us, has become more commonly discussed in the past decade, especially since the pandemic of 2020, when people across the globe collectively began taking their mental health more seriously.