Awareness and Self-Compassion: Two Powerful Tools for Chronic Pain

“Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the tangle of emotional resistance against what is already happening.” ~Tara Brach

The wooden meditation hall creaked softly as sixty people shifted in their seats, trying to find comfort in the silence. Outside, winter rain tapped against the windows, a gentle metronome marking time. I sat cross-legged on my black cushion, watching sweat trickle down my temple despite the cool air. My legs burned as if I’d been running for hours, though I hadn’t moved in forty-five minutes.

It was day three of my first six-day silent meditation retreat, and I was learning my first profound lesson about physical pain—not from my meditation teacher, but from my protesting body. Little did I know that this experience would become a crucial foundation for navigating a far greater challenge that lay ahead.

The pain started as a whisper in my lower back, a gentle suggestion that perhaps I should adjust my posture. Within minutes it grew to a shout, then a scream. While other practitioners appeared serene, their faces soft and bodies still, I was waging an internal war. Every few minutes, I’d shift my weight slightly, trying to find that elusive comfortable position. The cushion that had felt so perfect during the orientation session now seemed as unyielding as concrete.

The meditation instructions echoed in my mind: “Just sit and observe your breath.” But my body had other plans. Each inhale brought awareness of new discomfort—a sharp knife in my hip, a dull ache in my shoulders, pins and needles racing down my calves. The physical sensations became my entire world, drowning out any hope of focusing on my breath.

I tried everything. Different cushions borrowed from the prop closet. Various positions—Burmese, half-lotus, kneeling. I even snuck to the back of the hall to lean against the wall, feeling like a meditation failure as I watched the straight backs of more experienced practitioners ahead of me.

Then, on day four, something shifted. Perhaps it was exhaustion from fighting my experience, or maybe it was the wisdom of surrender, but I finally heard what my teacher had been saying all along: “Don’t try to change what’s arising; just be with it with kindness.”

For the first time, I stopped trying to fix my discomfort. Instead, I got curious about it. What did the pain actually feel like? Was it constant, or did it pulse? Where exactly did it begin and end? As I explored these questions with genuine interest rather than resistance, something remarkable happened—while the physical sensations remained, my suffering began to decrease.

“In the midst of pain is the whole teaching,” Pema Chödrön’s words would become my lifeline two years later, when a back injury transformed my relationship with pain from a periodic challenge into a constant companion. I would join the ranks of millions living with chronic pain—a silent epidemic that affects more than one in five adults globally.

While medicine can sometimes dull the sharp edges of physical suffering, many of us learn that managing chronic pain requires more than just medication. It demands a complete reimagining of our relationship with our bodies and with pain itself.

The lessons from that meditation hall now played out in vivid detail through every moment of my daily life. Simple tasks became exercises in mindful movement. Getting out of bed required a careful choreography of breath and motion. Picking up a dropped pen became a practice in patience and body awareness. Each movement called for the same careful attention I’d learned to bring to meditation.

The physical pain was just the beginning. In the darkness of sleepless nights, lying on my floor because no other position brought relief, my mind raced with endless worries: Would I ever recover? Could I continue counseling my clients in person? How would I pay the mounting medical bills? These thoughts circled like hungry wolves, testing the limits of my newfound practice of acceptance.

Working as a therapist brought its own unique challenges. I vividly remember sitting across from clients, maintaining my therapeutic presence while searing pain radiated from my tailbone through my entire spine. Each session became a practice in dual awareness—being present for my clients while acknowledging my own experience. Some days, the effort to maintain this balance left me depleted, with barely enough energy to drive home.

There was also the exhausting social dance of chronic pain. The simple question “How are you?” became complicated. Telling people about the constant pain felt burdensome after a while. No one wants to always be the person who’s suffering. So instead, I’d smile and say, “I’m fine,” swallowing the truth along with the discomfort. These small acts of concealment created their own kind of fatigue, a lonely space between the public face and private reality.

I invite you to pause and reflect on your own relationship with pain. When discomfort arises, what stories does your mind create about it?

Notice how your body responds—the subtle tightening, the wish to push away what’s difficult. Consider what it might feel like to create just a little space around your pain, like opening a window in a stuffy room.

Sometimes I think of pain as an unwanted house guest. We didn’t invite it, we don’t want it to stay, but fighting its presence only creates more tension in our home. Instead, we can acknowledge it’s here, set appropriate boundaries, and continue living our lives around it. Some days we might even discover unexpected gifts in its presence—a deeper appreciation for good moments, increased empathy for others’ struggles, or the discovery of our own resilience.

Working with pain mindfully reveals that healing happens on multiple levels. When we respond to physical discomfort with gentle awareness, we start noticing how our thoughts create narratives about the pain, how emotions arise in waves, and how our nervous system responds to kind attention. Through this practice, we can learn to expand our attention beyond the pain, discovering that even in difficult moments, there is also the warmth of sunlight on our face, the sound of birds outside our window, the taste of morning coffee.

Years later, my pain isn’t as severe, but it remains a daily companion. I carry a back pillow everywhere as if it’s an accessory, mindfully choosing which events to attend and for how long. Gardening, once a carefree joy, has become an exercise in presence—each movement an opportunity to listen to my body’s wisdom. Some days still find me lying on the floor, being with whatever my body is expressing in that moment.

But there’s a profound difference now. Where I once pushed through pain with gritted teeth, I’ve learned to respond to my body’s signals with care and compassion.

This shift feels especially valuable as I age, knowing that new physical challenges will likely arise. Each twinge and ache is no longer an enemy to vanquish but a reminder to pay attention, to move more slowly, to tend to myself with kindness.

The clock in that meditation hall taught me about impermanence—how even the most challenging moments eventually pass. My back injury taught me about acceptance and resilience. Together, these experiences showed me that while we can’t always choose what happens to our bodies, we can choose how we meet these experiences with awareness and compassion. In doing so, we discover that peace isn’t found in the absence of pain but in our capacity to be with it skillfully.

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About Katie Fleming Thomas

Katie is a trauma-informed psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and guide who helps others cultivate mindfulness and resilience. She is the creator of Freebird Meditations, offering transformative guided practices, and ZenQuit, a mindfulness-based nicotine cessation program. When not guiding others, she finds meditation in everyday life, gardening, baking sourdough, dancing, and hiking with her husband and animals. She believes true transformation happens when we turn inward with curiosity and compassion.

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How Grieving a Dream’s Loss Built Hope for a New Life

“Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.” –Dr. Edith Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible

The loss of an unrealized dream sent me spiraling down, down into the darkness. A darkness filled with a despair and hopelessness that I had not known before.

It was safer and more comfortable for me to attribute all my grief to losing a loving mother-in-law suddenly in the beginning of 2023. Her abrupt absence not only in my life but also in my husband’s and daughter’s lives was incredibly hard.

Though the loss opened the portal of grief, there was more I hid. When I was still in a tender place, intangible losses and a health scare came.

The loss that completely broke my heart was when my husband and I made the joint decision to end our dream of trying to have a second child. A shared dream since early on in our relationship and a dream of mine since long before.

Neither of us could have anticipated my unexplained infertility diagnosis and the four-year-long, beautiful, broken, and growth-filled road to parenthood. Throughout the entire journey, I still held onto hope that we would one day have two children.

The visceral, raw grief that came after we made the decision shocked me. When we had first honestly discussed this idea, I felt excited to build our life as a family of three. I deeply knew our family was complete.

But once we made the decision, grief I did not want or know how to feel consumed me. Grief for all that had been lost. For all that wouldn’t come into being in the future. Invisible to the outside world.

At first, my negative, self-critical talk took over, giving me a hard time for what I was going through. Full of self-judgment, regret, anger, and shame. Overcome with grief, I had forgotten I didn’t have to believe that voice and could be kinder to myself.

Mornings were the toughest. Each day, I would wake up with the weight of unshed tears under my eyes. Though I had slept well, my whole body was heavy and weary. My mind felt foggy. I’d forget small things, which wasn’t like me. Seemingly simple tasks took so much energy.

After dropping off my daughter at preschool, I would sit in my living room alone. I had no motivation to do anything. If I didn’t have a work meeting to prepare for or immediate deliverables to complete, I’d distract myself on my phone, numbing. This unhealthy morning cycle would continue for a while.

Once I started working, I would get in a rhythm and focus on the projects in front of me, which I did enjoy.

My body and psyche knew what had happened was significant. It would take time for my rational mind to catch up. I would need to allow myself to have my full experience of grief.

An Expanded View of Grief

Developing an expanded view of grief and processing my experience with a grief therapist began to help.

One of the first concepts I learned is that there are different types of grief. Through Atlas of the Heart, a book by research professor, author, and podcaster Brené Brown, I understood I was dealing with both acute and disenfranchised grief.

Acute grief is the intense grief that occurs during the initial period after a loss. I was not familiar with disenfranchised grief.

Brown writes, “Disenfranchised grief is a less-studied form of grief: grief that ‘is not openly acknowledged or publicly supported through mourning practices or rituals because the experience is not valued or counted [by others] as a loss.’ The grief can also be invisible or hard to see by others.”

My grief not only felt invisible to the outside, but also, I hadn’t valued the end of an unfulfilled dream as a loss at first.

A second concept was to focus on integrating grief into my life. My therapist shared that it’s not about moving on after experiencing a loss; it’s about moving forward, integrating our losses with how we live our lives.

A third concept came from psychologist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger’s book The Choice: Embrace the Possible. Though she had been through unimaginable suffering, she gave a message of hope and healing.

She shared, “When we grieve, it’s not just over what happened—we grieve for what didn’t happen… You can’t change what happened; you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.” We could choose freedom, joy, and love over suffering.

What Helped Me Cope and Rebuild

I began to shift my experience from resistance to instead supporting myself during this period of grief. I started to accept that simply getting through my day was enough. These approaches can be beneficial to anyone experiencing grief, especially if it feels invisible.

1. Support myself and be supported

Once I remembered that I could support myself, my entire grief experience became more manageable. I already had tools to be kind and compassionate to myself. It was a matter of intentionally using them.

I began a practice of noticing and bringing in. Noticing my self-critical voice and, instead of getting caught up in it, bringing in self-compassion and kindness. I would say statements to myself like: It’s okay to feel this way. This is really hard. May I be kind to myself. Sometimes, I visualized wrapping myself in love.

I began to turn toward myself with kindness and love. To be there for myself. To process my experience through writing.

I opened up in close relationships and with my therapist, where I did feel listened to and accepted to share my struggles.

2. Feel my difficult feelings and bring in the light

One day, when I was meditating, I noticed what was happening in my body. I opened to the intense sensations. Before I knew it, I’d gone through a shorter version of Tara Brach’s RAIN practice. This had been a fundamental practice of mine when dealing with infertility, but I likely hadn’t done the full practice in years. The practice remembered me.

This framework means:

• Recognize what is happening.
• Allow the experience to be there just as it is.
• Investigate with interest and care.
• Nurture with self-compassion.

Once the exercise came back to my consciousness, I spent time each morning feeling my painful feelings.

One morning, at the end of the RAIN practice, I intuitively brought in light and love. Another time, I started saying a lovingkindness meditation to myself. I began to incorporate bringing in aspects of positivity after feeling my difficult feelings.

3. Go on awe walks

My grief was the heaviest in the darkness of the winter in Colorado. Toward the beginning of spring, still overcome with grief, I started going on awe walks. Awe walks, a term from Dacher Keltner, are walks where you shift your attention outward. Your task is to encounter something that amazes and transcends. Every day, I looked for new signs of spring at the trail near my house.

I would have missed most of the early signs if I hadn’t been seeking them: flower buds, tiny green leaves forming on branches, the first yellow wildflower blooms that peeked out from behind tangled branches. Then one day, I looked up and saw a canopy of green covering the trees overlooking the trail. Spring had fully arrived.

I discovered that growth starts small; it’s barely noticeable at first. Pay attention to changes happening, to what’s building slowly. It’s the foundation for what wants to come forth. And the bigger message is that winter comes first; only after going through winter is spring possible.

4. Embrace fallow time

Toward the end of the spring, I was getting tired of the heaviness of continued grief. I journaled frantically that I wanted a project. Something new to give my attention to. I longed to experience the energy of summer.

Grief still had more to teach me, though. The next day, my deepest wisdom instead shared with me to embrace “fallow time.” The term is from farming. Allowing the land to lie fallow is a technique where nothing is planted for a period of time. The goal is for the land to rest and regenerate.

Fallow time was asking me to continue to honor the nothingness where dreams once were. To rest in the space before building the next beginning.

I opened to allowing the vastness of where there once was something linger without trying to rush to the next thing.

I discovered that this clearing is where the potential for what’s next would emerge.

5. Reconnect with hope

I had attached so much hope to the outcome of having two children. While hope for a realistic outcome is important and kept me going, I found out its limitations when I let go of the dream.

But hope is so much vaster than that.

One day, I unexpectedly felt the energy of expansive hope. Called transcendent hope, it is broad hopefulness that something good can happen. This form of hope reignited a light deep within me.

Hope to build the beautiful life in front of me that I had once longed for, honoring the dreams, losses and imperfectness.

6. Rebuild possibilities and dream again

Grieving and dreaming felt at odds with each other initially. It turns out, grief would create an opening and space for what wanted to emerge next. Grief was my winter season, my fallow time. It was like planting flower seeds in the fall that won’t bloom until the next spring.

I would first need to accept the past and close this chapter of my life. Then, I could connect with the potential of dreaming again.

The dreams I most wanted to nurture in 2023 were coaching and writing. In the first half of the year, the dreams moved ever so slowly or seemingly not at all.

During this time, I was taking the Playing Big Facilitator’s Training coaching program but had no energy or motivation to start building coaching as I intended.

I also kept trying to write a personal essay about aspects of my infertility journey but felt blocked. I started but kept getting stuck. So instead, I journaled, with writing prompts such as a few things I don’t know how to write about.

Something profoundly shifted within me in September 2023. I became drawn to rebuilding what could be possible in my life.

The personal essay I had attempted to write for months flowed. A story about choosing to focus on personal growth and well-being amid the challenges of burnout and infertility. The final piece would later be published in Tiny Buddha in 2024: How I Found the Good in the Difficult.

As Dr. Egar shared in her book, it was about an experience where I had choice.

September was also the month I started a positive psychology coaching certification program. One reason I selected this coaching program is because positive psychology and mindfulness had been so impactful to me while facing infertility and burnout. Simultaneously, I began offering career, life, and well-being coaching.

I had to go all the way through the intensity of the grief to understand Dr. Egar’s wisdom: “Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.”

I received so many gifts when facing infertility and burnout. Transforming my relationship with myself and my life was the most wondrous. This painful time period was the gateway, on so many levels, for me to connect with a greater sense of meaning and overall well-being. To shift to work that felt more fulfilling. To rediscover my creative self-expression, especially writing, which surprisingly impacted my personal life and work. To uncover a dream to coach others in creating change that matters to them.

My experience in a grief cocoon profoundly changed me. On the other side, I have felt more at home in myself. More at peace with my past challenges. I have sensed wholeness. With a deeper appreciation of integrating it all—the grief, pain, gifts, gratitude, and joy. I am choosing to move forward with renewed hope for fully living my life and honoring my dreams.

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About Rachael Gaibel

Rachael Gaibel works as a career, life, and well-being coach who helps others get unstuck and find possibilities so they can create change that matters to them in their life and work. She also works as a leadership development content writer, strategist, and consultant. Outside of work, she is a writer, mother, wife, nature lover, and aspiring creative. Visit her website here. Check out her newsletter here.

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Standing Up for Yourself Doesn’t Make You Any Less Kind

“Being a good person doesn’t mean being a doormat… You can be kind, giving, and full of love, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept disrespect or allow your boundaries to be crossed.” ~Unknown

I can still vividly remember sitting in my seventh-grade classroom, forcing a laugh as my classmates made jokes at my expense. My cheeks would burn red, but I’d smile along, desperately wanting to belong. For years, I mistook my silence for kindness, my nervous laughter for good nature. I didn’t realize that by laughing at myself, I was slowly chipping away at my own self-worth.

Growing up, I was the “nice kid”—the one who never caused trouble, never talked back, and always tried to keep the peace. When someone would make a cutting remark about my appearance or mock the way I spoke, I’d respond with a practiced smile and a halfhearted chuckle. I thought this made me mature, diplomatic even. “Just brush it off,” my mother would say. “They’re only joking.” But deep inside, each laugh felt like a small betrayal of myself.

The pattern continued well into my teenage years. In every social circle, I became the designated “good sport”—the one who could take any joke, no matter how sharp its edges. I wore this label like a badge of honor, never realizing it was actually a shield I was hiding behind. My inability to stand up for myself wasn’t kindness; it was fear dressed up as politeness.

The turning point came during my first year of college. During a group project, a teammate made a particularly cruel joke about my work ethic. As usual, I started to laugh, but something inside me snapped.

Years of suppressed feelings bubbled to the surface, and for the first time, I heard how hollow my laughter sounded. In that moment, I realized I wasn’t being nice—I was being complicit in my own diminishment.

This revelation led me down a path of self-discovery and personal growth. Through therapy, self-help books, and countless conversations with trusted friends, I began to understand the difference between being kind and being a doormat. I learned that standing up for yourself doesn’t make you mean or confrontational—it makes you self-respecting.

Here are the vital lessons I learned along my journey:

The first step was the hardest: acknowledging that my laughter was a defense mechanism, not a sign of resilience. I had to accept that it’s okay to not find hurtful comments funny. Real strength isn’t in laughing off insults; it’s in acknowledging when something hurts and addressing it directly.

I started practicing simple phrases in front of the mirror: “I don’t find that funny,” “That comment was inappropriate,” or simply, “Please don’t speak to me that way.” At first, these words felt foreign on my tongue, but gradually, they became part of my vocabulary. I learned that confrontation doesn’t have to be aggressive—it can be calm, dignified, and firm.

The most surprising discovery was how many people respected me more when I started setting boundaries. Those who truly cared about me adjusted their behavior. Those who didn’t, well, they showed their true colors, and I learned that not every relationship needs to be preserved at the cost of your self-respect.

Today, I still consider myself a kind person, but my kindness no longer comes at the expense of my dignity. I’ve learned that true niceness isn’t about accepting poor treatment; it’s about treating others—and yourself—with respect.

When someone makes a hurtful comment now, I no longer reach for laughter as a shield. Instead, I stand tall in my truth and speak up with compassion and clarity.

To those who recognize themselves in my story—those who laugh when they want to cry, who smile when they want to scream—I want you to know that your feelings matter. Your discomfort is valid. Your voice deserves to be heard. Being nice doesn’t mean being silent, and standing up for yourself doesn’t make you any less kind.

The journey from forced laughter to authentic self-expression isn’t easy. It’s filled with uncomfortable moments and challenging conversations. But with each small act of standing up for yourself, you rebuild your self-worth piece by piece. You learn that the strongest form of kindness is the kind you show yourself.

Remember: You can be both nice and strong, both kind and assertive. The real magic happens when you find that balance—when you can face the world with a genuine smile, knowing you’ll never again laugh at the expense of your own dignity.

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About Kalyani Abhyankar

Kalyani Abhyankar is a professor of law and mindset coach, specializing in administrative law and consumer protection. She is passionate about helping others cultivate a limitless mindset and personal growth through her work on LinkedIn and beyond.

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How to Escape Cycles of Panic, Overwhelm and Dread

“Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.” ~Bessel A. van der Kolk

It’s early morning, and I wake with an intense sensation of foreboding. I say wake up, but really, it’s just coming fully into consciousness, as I’ve been semi-conscious all night. Fitfully tossing and turning, a deep anxiety gnawing at my chest.

My mind has been flipping back and forth—across different subjects, even different times, collecting insurmountable evidence that my life is going terribly, and I’ll always feel like I’m just about hanging on by a thread.

I drag myself out of bed, exhausted as usual, meeting the day with an intense feeling of disappointment in myself. Why am I always bouncing between anxiety and panic? Why can’t I control myself so that I stop being fed a constant stream of fearful, self-blaming, intrusive thoughts?

Why can’t these terrible emotions just give me a break once in a while so I could complete some of the things that I’m so anxious about? Why is my life so riddled with overwhelm, and how on earth do I escape this?

That early morning six years ago was a scenario that had played out on repeat for decades. Different worries plagued me at twenty than at forty. But the texture of my mornings, the texture of my days, was the same. Except that by forty I was more tired—my body exhausted from being in this perpetual state of different flavors of fear. I’d had more than enough. Enough was twenty-five years ago.

I’d tried lots of different things—did different types of talk therapy, changed my diet, exercised, went on retreats, completed four different types of meditation training, read endless books, removed stressful-feeling friendships, moved several times, left the country… And while so many things gave me some good ideas, took the edge off things for a while, and at times felt really good, I would always return to the same baseline.

When I missed a meditation, left the retreat, or walked out of the therapy office, I would feel just as alone, just as vulnerable to the forces of the world to take me down into pits of dread and despair. A baseline that was sinking from the weight of so much overwhelm and a life lived in a state of panic.

I didn’t want to feel like this anymore. This wasn’t a life. This was living in glue and trying to battle my way through my days.

Over time, I had made my life smaller and smaller so that there were fewer things to be stressed and anxious about. I’d see fewer people who I found difficult. I made my work and home life simpler. But my worries expanded to fit however small I made my life.

I felt so lost, so alone in my struggles, like I was the only one feeling like this. No one else looked like they would panic if things didn’t go how they needed them to go.

One day by chance, while researching something online for work, I randomly happened upon a coach and decided to give her a try. Over the next few months of working with her, I noticed a small but significant shift in how I was feeling.

I felt a lot calmer; I woke up without punishing dread. I started sleeping better and felt less like I needed to carefully manage my life in order to cope.

I was hooked.

What had happened?

My coach explained to me about the survival states of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn—how I’d been bouncing around between freeze and fawn my whole life, and that’s why I felt so terrible.

Survival is a mode our nervous system goes into when there’s an actual physical threat on the horizon or there’s too much emotional pressure that we don’t know how to deal with.

Like emotions are flooding us, and our nervous system says, “No! We need to protect against this emotional flood.” So survival mode gets turned on.

Unfortunately, survival mode doesn’t feel good! It doesn’t help us live in a state where we are thriving, feeling calm, hopeful, productive, and like life is full of possibility.

Living in survival mode feels awful because it’s a state that we aren’t meant to live in for long stretches of time.

It’s a state we’re meant to access when there’s an actual threat to our survival, but because of how much emotional pressure so many of us carry, many of us are living there a lot of the time.

All emotions are natural and valid; we aren’t meant to disconnect from or suppress them. But when we do, emotional pressure builds.

Emotional pressure can come from an array of sources.

1. When we had experiences as children that brought up a lot of emotions but were left alone to deal with them, and it was too much for our child selves.

Experiences like our parents’ divorce, financial struggles, health issues, and alcoholism. Maybe we had an accident or witnessed abuse or experienced bullying or neglect.

2. Any times when we had natural human emotions like fear, shame, guilt, sadness, and anger but received no emotional support to help us process these emotions as children.

When we have families that don’t know how to process their own emotions, then they can’t support us in learning how to process ours.

When we’re left alone to face terror, that terror is never processed, and the memories of it linger in our body, keeping us trapped in cycles of experiencing it without the opportunity for it to release.

3. Or when our parents and families didn’t allow or tolerate our natural human emotions, like fear, sadness, grief, or anger.

So we had to suppress our feelings, to numb against them, or release the pressure from them in unhealthy ways. Lashing out at others or engaging in destructive behaviors.

When we had to be hyper aware of our parents’ emotions more than our own—instead of our parents being aware of our emotions—as is the case with so many people.

These experiences disconnect us from ourselves, our emotions, and our needs. And when we don’t have the opportunity to process emotions and emotionally activating experiences throughout our lives, the emotional pressure builds over the years until, often late into adulthood, it starts to feel way too much. 

What I needed—and what so many of us need—was to release the emotional pressure. To allow the emotions that had been building up to slowly and gently release through my body. And to feel safe to do so.

To show my nervous system how to move out of a state of needing to be in survival mode and into a state of safety.

To be able to feel emotions like fear, anger, sadness, and grief in a way that felt safe so that I wasn’t being pushed into a survival mode every time fear showed up. Or anger, sadness, or even joy.

So where do we start if we want to stop living in survival mode?

Know that it’s not who we are—it’s survival mode. 

For decades I felt, as many of my clients do when they first come to me—that my reactions of panic and overwhelm, of struggling with dread and resentment, of feeling so often on edge, were somehow something to do with my personality.

Oh, I am just a panicky person. 

I am just someone who is very safety conscious and anxious.

I am just someone who struggles to slow down and not be busy.

I am a control freak—it’s just who I am.

None of these things are personality traits. They are merely a reflection of a nervous system that has lived under too much emotional pressure for too long. It has survival mode on speed dial.

Understanding this can give us some space between us and the reaction or behavior we exhibit in survival mode, which can help us support ourselves more effectively.

Attune to ourselves and offer compassion.

When we’ve been encouraged to disconnect from our emotions, or we’ve had too many experiences in our lives that created significant emotional impact that have been dismissed or ignored, one of the first, most powerful steps is to start attuning to our own emotions and needs.

To know that every emotional reaction and survival response we have has a reason.

Many situations, people, and experiences created this emotional pressure that we’re still carrying. And if there is emotional pressure and pain still within us, it means there hasn’t been enough emotional healing.

Period.

The body does not lie.

Our emotions do not lie.

Our feelings of unease, unsafety, and sensitivity do not lie.

When we judge our reactions and our emotions, it feels like putting a stopper on the jar. It blocks our emotional healing.

Instead, when we can turn toward ourselves with kindness, understanding, compassion, and curiosity about why we feel how we do, this is an incredibly powerful first step in healing.

Coming out of long-term survival mode takes time. 

In my experience, there isn’t a quick fix for living through decades of survival in a body that’s been dysregulated by unhealed emotional pain from trauma. Taking a slow, gentle, but consistent approach is what has created the most profound, permanent, and expansive change for me and for my clients.

The nervous system loves baby steps. And when we think in terms of how long we have lived in this state, taking time to unravel and rewire our reactions over months or years—that’s as long as it took to create these responses, right?

Our nervous system has been pushing us into a protective state for a long time, so we want to acknowledge this push into survival and be gentle with ourselves as we emerge from it.

Survival mode is a protective response—it doesn’t feel good, but your nervous system thinks you need to be in this mode because of the emotional pressures from the past.

So we’re taking the long game here. The nervous system loves slow, gentle change.

I love what the teacher Deb Dana says, “We want to stretch our nervous system, not stress it.”

We can start by offering regular cues of safety to our nervous system. 

We can’t generally talk our way out of survival mode; we need to create the conditions for our nervous system to move out of it.

What the nervous system needs is to feel safe. That there isn’t an emergency or a threat to our survival on the horizon.

By regularly doing things that turn on the parasympathetic part of our nervous system, which is the ‘rest and digest’ part, we can start to feel calmer and more grounded. This is the first step in healing. It means that we aren’t always stuck in this urgent state.

Here are some simple ways we can start sending cues of safety to our nervous system so that we can turn down the dial of survival—that intense stress-overwhelm-hypervigilant state.

Physiological sigh

One of the simplest ways we can come out of survival or intense overwhelm is with this breath. Take a short, full inhale through the nose and then an extra inhale on top. And then a long, slow exhale. Often, doing this once or twice is enough, but you can do this for a couple of minutes to get to a deeper state of regulation and relaxation.

Orienting to safety 

When we are in survival mode, we get tunnel vision, and our minds loop on one subject. When we notice this tunnel vision or fixations, we can bring a cue of safety to our nervous system by expanding our vision.

We can start, very slowly, letting our eyes drift around our space, turning our necks and looking above us, below us, and behind us. Take a few minutes to take in all of the space we are in. Going very slowly (slowness is also a cue of safety for the nervous system). Looking out of the window, especially if we can see a horizon line. The nervous system finds the horizon very soothing, and looking toward our exit too.

This shows our nervous system there are no threats nearby.

Reconnecting to our body with a body scan

When we are in survival mode, we disconnect from our bodies. We may not realize this because we feel flooded with challenging, sometimes painful sensations. But when we ask ourselves, “Can I feel my feet? My fingers?” We see that we have disconnected from our body.

Survival can feel like a very ‘head’ only experience, as we get locked into the terrible/terrifying/looping intrusive thoughts that survival mode creates.

A simple body scan can help bring us into connection with our body and therefore into a sensation of safety. Gently going through our bodies, noticing each limb or section, wiggling or flexing the area if it feels numb, brings a strong cue of safety to the nervous system so that it can ‘turn off’ from survival mode.

These simple exercises can be a powerful beginning, creating a gentle shift, one step at a time, toward creating a safe anchor within our body in which to land.

Validating our emotions 

This is also an incredibly useful step in this work of healing our survival mode reactions. When we understand that, in fact, all emotions are valid, all emotions are natural, and all emotions are looking to express needs, we can start to change our perceptions of our emotional experiences.

Of course, we don’t want to throw our emotions at other people—shouting in anger or terrifying our kids because we feel scared. We want to take responsibility for our emotions—always.

But we need to know that what emotions are yearning for is to be seen, felt, and heard. They want space, and they want to be acknowledged.

Can we validate our emotions, offering them some compassion and understanding, instead of trying to push them away, suppress them, or argue with them?

It’s in this brave and courageous act of turning toward and accepting our emotions that we get the chance to allow them enough space to release through our bodies—so we stop keeping them suppressed inside.

Change—and rewiring our nervous system responses—is always possible.

What has been the most hopeful and encouraging thing on my journey to release myself from punishing anxiety and persistent survival mode is recognizing that it’s possible for us to reconnect to our natural state of self-healing.

Our nervous system is built to naturally release stress, overwhelm, and trauma. When we can bring safety to our bodies and start to powerfully attune to ourselves and our emotions, offering ourselves compassion and support, it’s possible to start reconnecting to that natural state. To rewire our patterns of overwhelm—from feeling on edge so often, quick to panic or anxiety to feeling calmer, grounded, and confident in ourselves.

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About Diana Bird

Diana Bird is a Neuro-Emotional coach and writer who helps people break free from overwhelm, panic and dread, stepping into calm and confidence. Sign up for her free emotional-processing mini workshop and receive powerful tools, free training, and ongoing support to transform your emotional well-being. Take the first step toward lasting emotional change. Diana lives in southern Spain with her two children and photographer husband.

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How My Dog Became an Unexpected Source of Healing

“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” ~Cheryl Strayed

My memories of my sister are much hazier than they used to be—somehow less crisp and colorful than before. But time has a way of doing that. Images of her that used to show up in bold, bright colors in my mind’s eye have slowly faded to black and white, with various shades of gray and silver popping in from time to time, almost as if to keep me on my toes and keep her memory alive.

I can still remember her last days, the light slowly dimming from her eyes as she lay bound to her bed, no longer able to move or eat on her own, with feeding tubes in her nose and various devices surrounding her for those inevitable—and fear-gripped moments when she needed help breathing.

Like the rest of my family, I would take my turn staying in her room, checking on her to make sure she was still breathing. It was always the same routine. With anxiety creeping into my chest, I would place one hand on her belly to make sure it was still rising and falling while leaning in close to her nose, listening for the soft sound of her breath. A sigh of relief would pass through me every time I heard her gentle exhale.

The night she passed, I had just finished performing that very ritual, rising to leave only once I felt the repeated slow, steady rise and fall of her belly and the soft whisper of her strained breath on my face. I can still remember walking back into the family room and gratefully announcing, ”She’s okay.”

Maybe it was mother’s instinct, but only moments later my mother rushed back into my sister’s room. Her sense of urgency took me by surprise since I had just left the room and everything had been fine. I assumed she didn’t think I could be trusted and needed to see for herself.

It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of my mother’s screams through the thin walls of our small duplex. I knew right away what it meant—my sister had stopped breathing.

For a long time afterward, I blamed myself for not having been in the room when she took her last breath, and for leaving her alone in those last few seconds. If I had just stayed another minute, I could have been with her. Instead, I had left the room right as she had been getting ready to leave the world.

The months that followed were a blur of pain, confusion, and disbelief as I tried to make sense of a world without her in it. At ten years old, I was too young to understand how much my parents were hurting or how deeply my sister’s death affected them. I mistakenly thought their withdrawal and anger were because of something I had done. Maybe I was the one who had messed up—missed the signs that could have saved her night. Or maybe I was the one who they wished had died instead.

Those thoughts became the foundation for years of self-punishment after my sister’s death. I found myself struggling with feelings of self-hatred and inadequacy, which often showed up as eating disorders, self-harm, and feelings of unworthiness.

Survivor’s guilt and the belief that I was the “bad” daughter who didn’t deserve to live only added more shame and self-doubt that I couldn’t shake off. But as I got older, I learned to shut the pain—and the memories—out.

Soon, I stopped thinking about that night altogether. I convinced myself that I had moved past it, telling myself that time really does “heal all wounds.” I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It would take me decades to understand that time hadn’t actually healed anything. I had just pushed the memories so far down that they became buried under layers of guilt, shame, and unresolved grief, waiting to resurface when I was ready to face them.

The truth is, time doesn’t heal all wounds unless we do the work to heal them ourselves.

My own healing came in an unexpected way after years of trying to prove my worthiness through constant people-pleasing, overworking, over-committing, and deliberately taking on more challenging projects and activities, both personally and professionally, just to prove that I mattered and was deserving of my life. I still hadn’t forgiven myself for being the one that lived when a soul as beautiful, bright, and loving as my sister hadn’t.

I finally realize now that it wasn’t even the rest of the world I was trying to prove my worth to—it was myself. And if it hadn’t been for my dog Taz, I’m not sure if I would have ever come to that realization.

When I first rescued him, I was unknowingly bringing Taz into my life as yet another way of trying to prove I mattered. Having been severely abused and fresh off a major back surgery, he could barely walk when I first took him in.

His (understandable) anxiety had created severely destructive—and, at least initially—fear- and pain-based behavior that made him particularly challenging. I can still remember countless friends saying to me, “You know you can’t do this. What are you trying to prove? He’s too much for you.” But my self-punishment game was strong, and their words only pushed me to try harder.

For his entire first year with me, I would carry him around in his special harness like a suitcase, setting him down for short spurts so he could get the feeling of putting weight on his legs and paws and build enough strength to start walking.

In the beginning, he couldn’t understand that he had to lift his paws and set them down again to walk, so he would drag them instead, scraping his paws until they were raw and bloody within seconds and prompting me to pick him right back up and carry him again. (I can only imagine what others thought when they saw my 5’2 frame carrying a seventy-pound pitbull around like a duffel bag!)

That drill went on for months. Inside the house, I would bring him into the carpeted rooms and teach him how to place his paws—down on all fours and crawling along the floor with him as my other dog, Hope, did her part and pranced around showing him how she did it. Slowly, he started to understand. And even more slowly, he started to walk.

A year later, he was running, which turned into sprinting a few months after that. Another three years after that, he was (cautiously) able to go up and down stairs. And seven years after he came to me, just when it seemed that he was at his strongest yet, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

“He has hemangiosarcoma. The tumor is on his heart, and every pump is spreading it throughout his body. There’s nothing we can do. He has about ten days before his heart will stop pumping.”

What had started as an emergency visit for his stomach issues had turned into a death knell for Taz.

The thought of this being the end of his story, when he had already been through so much and finally made it to the other side, seemed unfathomable. In some ways, it was the biggest challenge I had faced yet, and I was determined to save him.

I didn’t sleep the night of his diagnosis. Or most of the nights after that. Instead, I found myself waking up almost every hour, gazing at him sleeping by my side, tears gathering in my eyes, and wondering how I could save him—and what else I needed to sacrifice to keep him by my side.

I initially failed to grasp that his illness was the beginning of my healing. And the darkness that would ensue was actually the beginning of the light that would start pouring into my childhood wounds.

As the pain eclipsed me in those dark, late-night moments, I didn’t even realize what I was doing at first. What started as just trying to soak in every moment with him had triggered the very ritual I had performed for so long as a child. Only this time, it wasn’t my sister I was watching over—it was Taz.

Every time I woke up and gazed at him throughout the night, I would place my hand on his belly to make sure it was still rising and falling and lean in close to see if I could hear him breathing.

Just like that, I had brought myself right back into the unresolved trauma loop that I had buried and ignored so long ago. When the realization hit me, I immediately felt transported back to that night decades ago—to that last moment with her, the last time my hand had been on her belly.

I understood then that I had never truly healed—I had only learned to suppress it. I also realized that the shame, blame, and guilt I had carried for so long had never really left me and were still huge parts of who I was and had been for decades after she died.

All the unshed tears, anger, and grief that I had never processed came pouring out. I wept for hours. And every time I thought I was out of tears, a new stream would surface.

That ritual lasted every night for thirty-four days. Courageous as ever, Taz had outlived the ten days he was given, and on the thirty-fourth day, my Tazzie Bear left me. Only this time I was in the room.

Somehow, we both knew the time had come, and as he lay his head in my lap one last time, gazing lovingly one more time into my eyes and proceeded to take his last breath, I felt his soul leave his body. And somehow, an unexpected sense of peace seemed to have entered mine.

That beautiful, amazing soul of his had taken my pain with him, and in the process, he had somehow broken the trauma loop I had unknowingly been caught in all those years.

His death had helped me heal years of pain I didn’t even know I was carrying. As I sat there, holding him in his final moments, I realized that his presence had been the biggest gift I had ever received.

For animal lovers, this next sentence will make perfect sense: Taz had been far more than my pet; he had come to me as a lifeline, guiding me into my next chapter of healing and self-discovery.

Because of him, I had officially started a new chapter of my life. One that was free from the debilitating shame, guilt, and pain I had carried for so long. And in that quiet moment, I understood that healing isn’t linear—it’s a journey, often led by the most unexpected teachers.

And I will forever be grateful that I was lucky enough to have him as one of my teachers.

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About Afsheen Shah

Afsheen Shah is a lawyer-turned-life coach who helps women over 40 reconnect with themselves and create a life that that feels more meaningful and fulfilling.  Blending mindset work, spirituality, and intentional lifestyle shifts, she guides women to rediscover their joy, reclaim their voice, and build a life that aligns with who they truly are. Visit her at www.afsheenshah.com and on Instagram @afsheenshah.

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Escaping a Toxic Relationship: My Intuition Was Right All Along

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.” ~Brené Brown

What is the exact point when you realize you are in a toxic relationship? For me, it was a process that took almost a year. I thought I was mindful and “awake.” I did have an internal dialogue with myself, but I had a thick layer of deception around me. Today, I call it a fog because I’m on the other side, and I see much more clearly.

Looking back, I see that my inner voice was guiding me, but I saw it as self-sabotage then because a part of me wanted to prove that I was right, that I was worthy, that I was a good and kind person who only wanted love and family. Unfortunately, the more I looked to get love from the outside world, the further I was from the source.

Today, I can confidently say that I can sense the difference between my intuition and the distracting voice of my ego, who wants to be right. Now I can finally hear what my inner guide is telling me. But it wasn’t always this way.

As a result of the separation from the toxic relationship, I lost everything. I had to give up my old lifestyle to save my soul. I had to let go of my home and all my belongings, escaping with just one bag of clothes and my laptop.

I lost money in a property settlement and had no car or place to live. I found a refuge in a women’s shelter with my eight-month-old baby and started my new life from a humble place. But I found something through all this—a connection to my inner voice, a connection that gave me the strength to accept the loss, own my story, and say goodbye to the old version of myself. And I’d like to share with you the process.

September 2021

Me: Wow, this is beautiful! I’ve always wanted to try new things. I can get used to this kind of life. I feel this thrill in my tummy. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s new! What is this? Love?

My inner self (very quietly): This is a carousel.

Me: Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is fun. He already said he loves me. I told him it’s too early to say that; we barely know each other. So, I asked him why he’s in love with me. And do you know what he said? “Because you are you.” He gets me; finally, someone who loves me for who I truly am. No doubt, no proving. I’m so lucky.

My inner self (very quietly): Watch out—it’s too good to be true.

Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m finally alive again. This is it. I think I’m in love with him too. He already wants to move in together and have a child. He chose me, and I’m so excited. So please stop being so negative and let me lead.

Six months quiet

Me: He’s what I wanted. He’s spiritual and he meditates. He looks after himself, and he’s so assertive and ambitious. He listens to me when I talk. But then when I ask for something, he says, “I think you should check your energy before you speak to me.” It’s really confusing. There are ups and downs, but I guess every relationship is like this… (very quietly): Isn’t it?

My inner self (very quietly): No.

Me: What do you know? You haven’t even had a healthy relationship before, so how would you know?

My inner self (lovingly): Neither have you, sweetheart.

Me: Well, to be honest, I feel like I can’t get a word in sometimes. It’s never a good time to mention things that are important to me, or he just dismisses the topic quickly, and I don’t know how to introduce it again.

I guess I just have to get better at communicating. Let’s do some courses for that. I always get this feeling in my stomach—massive pain, like a black hole, when I sense I’m losing him, and I fear that I’ll die not having him in my life. I can only calm down when I know things are good between us and when he hugs me again.

I’ll just lean in with more love and kindness, and I’ll figure it out. He’ll see how much I love him even though he’s stressed and doesn’t have time for me anymore. He’ll see that I’m here for him through good and bad, and then he’ll be here for me when I need it. I’m sure we just hit a rough patch, and all will be good again soon.

Actually, stop being so negative. I have everything I’ve always wanted. Now, with the baby on the way, we’ll make such a wonderful family, and I’ll see what a great father he’ll be and how much fun we’ll have.

Six months later

Me: It’s still kind of up and down, isn’t it? Some days things go well and we’re happy, but then comes a big fall. One day he says that I’m the best partner he’s ever had because all his exes are crazy. Other days, he comments really hurtfully on what I say or who my friends are. And it goes round and round.

My inner self (very quietly): Like on that wheel?

Me: What wheel? The Power and Control Wheel I saw? Nah, not like that. I wouldn’t do that to myself. I was already in an emotionally abusive relationship, and I wouldn’t be so stupid as to repeat it.

Things are fine. I just need to be nicer to him. It’s kind of my fault. It must be my hormones. It will pass after the birth. He’ll be with us at home, and we’ll restore the peace and calm. Easy. I feel so much love for him. I won’t ruin this relationship by being too sensitive. I’ve got this. I’ll do more visualizations and affirmations.

Three months later

Me: Hello, are you there? I’m so confused. I think I’m losing my mind.

My inner self (very quietly): I know, honey.

Me: What’s going on? My life is a mess. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why I’m ruining everything all the time. I used to be fun, happy, and confident… Now all I feel is disoriented and dizzy.

My inner self: A bit like on a carousel?

Me: No, I’m not. I told you—he’s helping me. He’s the best. I want him. I don’t have anyone else. And I love him so much I can’t imagine my life without him. It’s impossible. He’s got all the money, he’s signed on the lease, the car is under his name, and I’m not even employed…

My inner self (patiently): Alright, honey. Go again. I’ll be here when you need me.

Two months later

Me: I don’t recognize my life or myself anymore. Everything is kind of fuzzy. I’ve had this headache for the last week or so. I can’t feel or think clearly; I can’t feel my body. I’m unwell.

My inner self: I know, my dear.

Me: What’s going on? Please help me, someone.

My inner self (very quietly): You are on a carousel.

Me: Why do you keep repeating that? I told you he’s helping. Well, sometimes. He’s just a bit stressed, but it’s also my fault because I’m not as much fun as I used to be. I don’t know why I feel so numb or why I can’t just laugh anymore.

He’s the only person left. I don’t see anyone else anymore. I’m scared to speak to anyone; no one would believe me anyway. My life is so extreme compared to last year, with court cases and police and debts and signing documents I don’t understand. What am I doing wrong? Why is this happening to me?

My inner self (barely loud enough to hear): Have you noticed the same things happening over and over?

Me: Yes. But I’d die not having him. Stop telling me he’s the problem when I know I’m the problem.

One month later

Me: Are you there?

My inner self: Of course.

Me: The same things are happening over and over again. I thought he was helping and that I was crying every night because I’m depressed and I have so much drama in my life, but I don’t bring up any of that. He always talks and talks until I feel like the worst person in the world.

The other day he came to me with an idea to have children with other women because he wants more kids than I can give him since I’m turning forty this year. He claims it’s because more women should have children with such fantastic genetic material. This is too much for me, and it’s not getting better but harder and faster. But how do I get out? Please help!

My inner self: Are you ready?

Me: I think so.

My inner self: Then jump.

Me: Where?

My inner self: Off the carousel, sweetie.

Me: Can you slow it down, please!? This is going to hurt.

My inner self (most lovingly): It will, honey, but you are not alone. I’m here. I will guide you and help you heal.

And so I did.

Four Takeaways from Those Conversations with My Intuition

First: Intuition is usually quiet, gentle, and subtle. I recommend going back in your memory and noticing when you heard your intuition. What was the quality and the tone? What else can you notice and learn about it?

Second: Intuition doesn’t argue. It often disappears when you disbelieve or argue back. It’s very sensitive to criticism and attitude, meaning what seems to be right or more logical or more convenient. If you want to be guided by intuition, you have to let go of thinking that you ‘know.’

Third: It grows stronger if you connect with it like your life depends on it. If you surrender and quiet your overthinking, you will be surprised by how quickly your intuition can guide you to where you need to go.

Fourth: Your relationship with your intuition is like any other relationship; it needs time, care, and attention to build it solid. But once you do, you’ll have an invaluable asset for life.

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About Ivana Care

Ivana is a life and transformation coach and a certified Root-Cause Therapy Practitioner. With a trauma-informed approach, she helps women navigate life after separation or divorce, guiding them to release heavy emotions, reconnect with their intuition, and rebuild their self-worth. By addressing the original imprints of past wounds, Ivana supports her clients in removing layers of self-doubt and shame and gaining the clarity they need to move forward. Visit her at ivana.care.com.

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What I Learned When My Brain and Body Shut Down

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” ~Anne Lamott

I used to believe that success meant always being available. Always saying yes. Always responding immediately to emails, Slack pings, texts, whatever was thrown my way. Because if I stopped—even for a second—I might fall behind. And if I wasn’t working harder than everyone else, was I even working hard enough?

For years, that mindset worked. Or so I thought. Every win, every promotion, every new milestone felt like adding fuel to the fire. The more I ‘succeeded’ by society’s standards—the title, the career, the financial stability—the more I pushed myself to do more, to be more.

My perfectionism kicked in, too. I didn’t just want to succeed; I wanted to be perfect at everything—career, leadership, motherhood, marriage, friendships. And I never removed anything from my plate—I just kept stacking it higher.

I climbed the corporate ladder, became the first female VP in a 300-person marketing org at a Fortune 500 company, and checked every success box that should have made me feel accomplished. But instead of feeling fulfilled, I felt… empty. Exhausted. Like I was running on fumes but too scared to stop.

And then one day, my body gave me no choice but to stop. It wasn’t a slow fade or a warning sign I could ignore—it was like someone pulled the plug. I went from a high-functioning overachiever to someone who couldn’t even form a sentence without feeling mentally drained.

Not just stress. Not just exhaustion. A full-body, full-brain shutdown. Emails didn’t make sense. Conversations felt like static. I couldn’t process thoughts.

My brain hit the off switch, and I didn’t know how to turn it back on. I sat at my desk, staring at my screen, and for the first time in my life, I physically couldn’t push through.

That moment scared me more than anything.

Five years before my full breakdown, I had already been on a collision course. In that short span of time, I became a mother, got promoted to director, took on more teams and responsibilities, lost my sister and grandmother, and moved into a new house—which promptly caught fire.

But I still kept pushing, still kept performing, because slowing down wasn’t an option. Until my body made it one.

I remember sitting in my car after work, gripping the steering wheel, staring blankly ahead. I had nothing left.

It wasn’t just exhaustion; it was something deeper, something that made me feel like I had lost control over my own mind and body. I had built my entire identity on being productive, on being the go-to person, the one who always delivered.

But now I had nothing left to give. And I had no idea how to fix it.

What I Learned from My Breaking Point

But how did I get to that point?

How did I go from thriving on the hustle to completely shutting down?

Looking back, the signs were all there—I just ignored them.

The late nights, the skipped meals, the creeping exhaustion I kept brushing off as ‘just part of the job.’ My body had been warning me for years, and I didn’t listen. Until I had no choice.

That breaking point forced me to ask myself something I had spent my whole life avoiding:

What am I chasing, and at what cost?

Here’s what finally made me realize I couldn’t keep going like this (and what I wish I had figured out before I hit rock bottom):

1. Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a requirement.

For the longest time, I thought sleeping more would fix everything. I watched a MasterClass with Dr. Matt Walker (a sleep expert) and learned all about chronotypes—morning larks vs. night owls. I knew I was a morning lark, so I figured, Great, I’ll just get to bed earlier, and that should do it!

Except, it didn’t.

I’d lie there at night, my body still, but my brain running marathons.

• Did I give my kiddo his medication?
• Did someone feed the dog?
• Is my team member feeling better after being out sick?
• Crap, I forgot to move the laundry. Now I have two choices: leave it and deal with the stink tomorrow, or drag myself out of bed to fix it.

That’s when I realized that rest isn’t just about sleep. It’s about giving your mind and body a real reset.

I found that when I spent time in my garden, I had more patience with others.

I picked up crocheting for the first time in twenty-five years, making beanies like my life depended on it. They were adorable—and it brought me a peace I hadn’t felt in years.

I started playing board games with my kids, laughing around the table instead of rushing them to bed just so I could jump back online and “get ahead.”

For years, I treated parenting like a responsibility (which, to be fair, it is), but I never just let time be. Everything had been a task to complete, a schedule to follow. But slowing down, being present, laughing with my family—THAT felt like true rest.

Rest isn’t just about stopping. It’s about resetting in a way that actually fuels you.

2. Ambition and balance can co-exist.

Let’s be real—I’m still a work in progress when it comes to boundaries. But one of the biggest shifts I made was realizing that everything in life is a season.

I used to overthink every decision. Saying no felt heavy, like I was closing a door forever. But once I started thinking in seasons, everything changed.

• Instead of “no,” I started saying “not right now.” This made boundaries feel lighter and easier to stick to.
• I got clear on my non-negotiables. If something filled my cup, it got priority time. If something drained me? It was time to let it go.

For years, I was the kind of leader who said things like “I support your decision” when someone needed time off—but the undertone was always “but we really need you here.” The unspoken pressure to overwork was real.

Now, I build my life around people who encourage me to invest in myself—not just support it, but push me to do it. And that makes all the difference.

3. If stopping feels scary, that’s a sign you need to stop.

I was terrified to slow down. I had built my entire reputation on:

Always being available (Praised!)
Always performing at the top (Praised!)
Living every aspect of hustle culture (Praised!).

It was my identity. So, if I stopped… who even was I?

What if I had worked my butt off for nothing?
What if people stopped seeing me as “successful”—would they think I was a failure?

I’m still in this transition, and honestly, it’s still scary. But leaning into the unknown is part of redefining success. That’s what makes it feel less terrifying.

I used to believe success = status, power, money.
Now, I see success as something bigger—health, joy, presence.

And while I won’t pretend it’s easy, I can tell you this: it’s worth it.

What This Means for You

If you’re reading this, wondering why—despite all your effort—you still feel exhausted, stuck, or empty… I get it. I’ve sat in that same place, running on fumes, convinced that pushing harder was the answer. But it’s not. It never was.

You don’t have to break before you start making changes. Small shifts—pausing, setting boundaries, rethinking what success actually means—can save you from ever reaching that breaking point.

Take the break now. Reclaim your energy now. Redefine success now. Because the life you want isn’t waiting on your next achievement—it’s waiting on you to stop running long enough to actually live it.

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About Kris Licata

Kris Licata is a former corporate leader who knows firsthand how hustle culture disguises itself as ambition. Now, she helps high-achievers break free from burnout and redefine success on their own terms. As the founder of Break & Bloom, she creates experiences that help overachievers reset through creativity, connection, and humor—because success should fuel you, not drain you. Follow her journey and get real, relatable insights at krislicata.com.

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Get Happier Meditation’s FREE Mindful Menopause Guide

Honestly, it’s hard to believe I’m at the age for perimenopause. I feel young in many ways, despite the exhaustion of parenting two young kids. And I’ve always felt somewhat eternal, doing whatever I want to do at any age, without regard for what other people think or believe.

But here I am—forty-five, dealing with all kinds of hormone-related symptoms, including brain fog, mood swings, and most recently, anemia from heavy bleeding.

I haven’t yet experienced most of the physical issues that plague many women at midlife, like hot flashes (fun!), sleep disturbances, and weight gain. But I’m deep enough into the start of the change to recognize that I need a plan and tools to navigate this new chapter without losing myself or my mind.

That’s why I was thrilled to learn that Happier Meditation recently partnered with mindfulness expert Diane Winston to create The Mindful Menopause Guide—a free resource designed to help you move through this transition with more clarity, steadiness, and self-compassion.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Guided mindfulness sessions tailored for menopause
• Personal notes from Diana Winston on navigating change
• Reflective prompts to help you connect with yourself
• Meditation practices to support stress, sleep, and emotional balance

People don’t always want to talk about menopause. It can feel embarrassing, and it’s a confession of aging, which society tends to view negatively—despite it being inevitable for many and clearly better than the alternative!

None of us wants to be seen as weak, deteriorating, or less than. But avoiding the conversation just makes us feel more alone, and it prevents us from getting what we need to thrive as we age, which I fully intend to do.

If you’d like to do the same—if you’re determined to embrace your changing body and reclaim your calm and confidence as you navigate the emotional rollercoaster of your shifting hormones—I highly recommend that you check out The Mindful Menopause Guide. It’s totally free and absolutely invaluable.

We can’t change what we’re going through, but we can choose to meet it mindfully to reduce stress and feel more at home in our bodies.

I hope the guide is helpful to you!

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About Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha. She started the site after struggling with depression, bulimia, c-PTSD, and toxic shame so she could recycle her former pain into something useful and inspire others to do the same. You can find her books, including Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal, here and learn more about her eCourse, Recreate Your Life Story, if you’re ready to transform your life and become the person you want to be.

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