For a long time, I didn’t really think of myself as someone who was “running on empty.”
I just kept telling myself the same thing:
I’ll rest when this is done.
I’ll slow down after I get through that.
Once this situation settles down, I’ll get back to normal.
The problem was, there was always something else.
The calm never lasted very long. And when there actually was a little space between one crisis and the next, I often didn’t know what to do with myself.
So I kept moving.
I’d clean out a closet. Organize the garage. Find another project. Find something productive to do.
Occasionally, I could pick up a book, get completely lost in it, and let myself disappear for a while.
But most of the time, I just kept moving.
Looking back, I think some of that movement kept me from having to sit with things I wasn’t ready to face.
There were choices I had made in unhealthy romantic relationships. There were parts of my life that made me think, I’m just like my mother.
I didn’t want to be alone.
I carried guilt about whether I had been the kind of mother my sons needed.
Those thoughts were painful. Staying busy gave me somewhere else to look.
And sometimes, after I finally made it through an especially difficult or stressful period, my body would seem to say, “Okay, my turn,” and I would get sick.
I had spent so much time waiting for the chaos to end that I hadn’t realized how accustomed I had become to living inside it.
Sometimes the Problem Isn’t That You Need Better Coping Skills
One of the biggest things that changed my life was leaving environments that weren’t good for me.
Work environments.
Romantic relationships.
Friendships.
Even parts of my 12-step world.
That one is complicated for me because the program itself gave me so much. The principles I learned there are still an integral part of my life.
But at that time, the program was also my social life, my friendships, and my dating pool.
And in one way or another, there was a lot of sickness around me.
Eventually, I had to recognize that sometimes you cannot regulate yourself enough to make an unhealthy environment healthy.
Sometimes you have to leave.
That doesn’t mean everything about that chapter was bad.
It doesn’t erase what you learned.
It doesn’t mean you can’t be grateful.
It just means you are allowed to outgrow places, relationships, identities, and versions of yourself that no longer fit.
Experience Taught Me to Trust Myself
Age has helped too.
There is something about being over 50 that changes the way I see my own life.
I joke that being over 50 makes me an expert.
Not because I have everything figured out.
But because I have lived enough life to know some things.
I have made mistakes.
I have survived bad decisions.
I have loved people I probably shouldn’t have.
I have stayed too long.
I have left.
I have started over.
And all of those experiences have given me something I didn’t always have:
Trust in myself.
I may still have some of the old thoughts.
Maybe part of me still wonders whether I made the wrong choices or whether I failed people I loved.
The difference now is that I don’t give those thoughts the same power.
They can exist without running my life.
Choosing Myself Felt Uncomfortable
When I started deciding what I wanted in my life — and what I no longer wanted — it didn’t immediately feel empowering.
It felt uncomfortable.
For much of my life, I had been used to being what other people needed me to be.
Choosing myself raised all kinds of fears.
Would people think I was selfish?
Would they be disappointed in me?
Would they leave?
The biggest fear involved my children.
My mother left when I was 15. We have essentially been no contact ever since.
So the idea of “choosing yourself” carried a very specific meaning for me.
Somewhere inside me was the fear that if I chose myself, I was doing what she did.
What if choosing me meant losing my children?
They were adults by then — young adults, but adults — and I still had to learn something very important:
Choosing yourself is not the same thing as abandoning the people you love.
Sometimes choosing yourself means you finally stop abandoning yourself.
And as I started making more intentional decisions about what stayed in my life and what didn’t, something slowly changed.
My life started to feel like mine.
I Stopped Building My Life Around Everyone Else
That shift has continued into the life I have now.
Working for myself has been a huge part of it.
I can create systems that actually work for me.
I can structure my day around how I function best instead of constantly forcing myself into someone else’s version of productivity.
I can ask myself:
How do I want my day to look?
How much can I realistically carry?
Where do I need space?
What actually matters today?
That doesn’t mean I never get overwhelmed.
I know one of my warning signs now.
Normally, I sleep well. I may wake up a few times because apparently my bladder has entered its old-lady era, but I can usually go right back to sleep.
When I wake up for no physical reason and my mind immediately starts racing — and I cannot shut it off — I know I have crossed into overwhelm.
That tells me something needs to change.
Maybe I have taken on too much.
Maybe I need to adjust my schedule.
Maybe I need to stop solving a problem that is not mine to solve.
Maybe I simply need to rest.
Learning my own warning signs and developing my own systems has been a game changer.
I have moved from:
I live to work
to
I work so I can live.
That may sound simple, but for me it represents an entirely different way of being.
Rest Is No Longer Waiting at the Finish Line
One of the questions I ask myself now is:
How am I going to show up for myself today?
Sometimes the answer is working on my business.
Sometimes it is doing something that helps me grow.
Sometimes it is handling the responsibilities that need my attention.
And sometimes the answer is resting.
Not because I finished everything.
Not because I earned it.
Not because everyone else is okay first.
Because I need it.
There will always be another thing to do.
Another problem.
Another responsibility.
Another person who may need something.
If I keep waiting until everything is finished before I allow myself to rest, I will spend my entire life waiting.
So if you are the woman telling yourself:
I’ll rest when I get through this…
Here is what I want to tell you:
Girl, sit down and breathe.
You do not have to keep proving how much you can carry.
You don’t owe everyone your exhaustion.
You deserve to rest.
And you do not have to wait until your life falls apart before you give yourself permission to live it.