The Intentional Midlife Mom Podcast | Simple, Practical Life, Home & Mindset Solutions for Moms Over 40

Ep. 167: The Survival Mode Survival Plan

• Season 2 • Episode 167

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"Just rest more." "Set better boundaries." "You need to prioritize self-care."

Oh, that would be NICE, wouldn't it? But what do you do when life becomes a complete dumpster fire and all that advice feels like someone telling you to "just relax" while your house is literally burning down?

This episode is for the woman living in survival mode who is so tired of being told she's doing it wrong. You're not. You're doing what you have to do.

Sometimes you CAN'T step back. Sometimes the season you're in demands everything you have. And everyone telling you that you'll burn out if you don't change something? They might be right—but you can survive this anyway.

In this episode, you'll discover:

  • Why "you're choosing acceptance" instead of choosing burnout
  • The radical permission you need to survive instead of thrive
  • How to lower the bar (way, way lower) without feeling guilty
  • Bare minimum swaps that turn your survival strategies into wins
  • Energy protection scripts that actually work
  • The difference between destructive overwhelm and purposeful intensity

You'll walk away knowing that you CAN make it through this season intact. No shame, no pressure to fix what can't be fixed right now. Just honest tools to help you survive the dumpster fire with your sanity and soul still attached.

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All right, so here's the question we need to talk about. What do you do when your life is in survival mode and all of that advice that you hear people giving you about getting out of survival mode and focusing more on self-care and not forgetting about your own needs, all of that falls flat. And even furthermore, it's completely frustrating because it just does not apply to you. Maybe you're there.

I was scrolling through Instagram yesterday, which let's be honest, it probably wasn't the best use of my limited mental energy. And I saw post after post about morning routines and boundary setting and the importance of saying no. And I thought about the woman who messaged me last week, let's call her Lisa. And she said, Jennifer, I keep seeing all of this advice about protecting my energy and I want to scream. My energy isn't some precious resource that I get to guard.

It is being demanded from me every hour of every day. I went on to learn a little bit more about Lisa. She's juggling a full-time job. She's trying to help manage her mother with dementia. She's got twin eight-year-olds and a husband who works 60-hour weeks. And so her morning routine, it's chugging coffee while trying to put in a grocery order since she couldn't afford to have groceries delivered. But there was certainly no time to shop either.

This is what life looks like for Lisa right now. Her boundaries are keeping everyone alive and fed. Her self-care is crying in the car between errands. And do know what? She asked me if she was broken. She asked me if there was something wrong with her that she couldn't make any of the wellness advice work. She knew it was right, so why wasn't it right for her? And since it wasn't right for her,

That means it must be because something's wrong with her, right? And so here's what no one wants to admit. Sometimes you can't step back. Sometimes the season you're in demands everything you have and everyone telling you that you'll burn out. Well, you're gonna burn out if you don't change something. You're just so tired of hearing that. But in reality, you know they're right. But...

You know what else is true? You truly might not have any other choice right now, but it's also true that you can survive this, even when it feels impossible, even when well-meaning people are horrified by your pace, even when you think, yeah, slowing down would be nice, but that's just not my reality right now. I'm talking to the woman whose husband went back to school in his 40s while she's holding down everything else. I'm talking to the woman who is caring for aging parents while

raising teenagers who need her just as much. I'm talking to the woman who just got handed three more responsibilities at work when her kids started having panic attacks at home. To the woman who looks at advice about work-life balance and thinks, what balance? I'm in full scale crisis mode and there is nothing I can do about it. So this episode is for the woman living in survival mode who is so tired of being told she's doing it wrong. Let me be the first one.

probably to tell you that you're not. You're doing what you have to do. And I'm going to show you how to survive it without completely losing yourself. By the end of this episode, you'll know that you can make it through this season intact. No shame, no pressure to fix what can't be fixed right now. Really just honest tools to help you survive the dumpster fire with your sanity and your soul still attached.

Because here's the truth, and this is what they don't tell you in the wellness world. Sometimes survival is success. Sometimes making it through the day is enough. And sometimes the most revolutionary thing you can do is refuse to feel guilty about it. Let's get brutally honest for a minute. Sometimes life dumps everything on you at once. And all of that self-help wellness advice in the world, it feels completely

useless.

One of my clients, I'll call her Laura, her husband is finishing school while working nights. Her mother-in-law is declining and needs daily check-ins. And her 16-year-old is having friend problems, bully problems at school. The washing machine is broken, work is demanding overtime, and her sister, her sister told her, she quote, just needs to say no more often.

Laura said, I know these people mean well, but they have no idea what my life actually looks like. And when they tell me that I'm going to burn out if I keep all of this up, all I can think is, yeah, I kind of agree. But it doesn't matter because none of that is an option right now.

She went on to say, can't pretend that I don't have a teenager who's struggling. I can't say no to the job that's paying for my husband's tuition. I can't ignore my mother-in-law who doesn't understand why I can't visit more often. And then she said something that really hit me deep. She said, I'm starting to think maybe I'm just not able to manage my own life like ever. That right there.

That's the lie that I need us to take down today because she's not the only one I've heard this kind of thinking from. In reality, there's something that is a hundred percent true about my client. And the only thing that is a hundred percent true is that she can manage her life because she's doing just that because she's living it.

She's showing up every single day for the impossible circumstances, and she's making it work. And so here's what I told her, and it's really what I need you to hear. You're not choosing burnout, you're choosing acceptance. And sometimes acceptance looks like carrying more than you can reasonably handle for a season. But you show up and you do it anyway, day after day.

See, there's this narrative in our culture that if you're overwhelmed, you must be doing something wrong. You must have boundary issues. You must be bad at time management. You must be a people pleaser who can't say no. But what if, and stay with me here, what if you're just in a genuinely overwhelming season? What if the circumstances of your life right now require more than what feels doable? What if you're not broken, but the situation is just legitimately hard, maybe even impossible?

I think about my friend whose husband had a heart attack at age 45. For six months, she was managing his recovery. She was working full time. She was parenting three kids and somehow holding everything together while he couldn't work. Was she supposed to say no to his medical appointments? Was she supposed to say no to the bills that needed to be paid? What about saying no to her kids' emotional needs? And so all of these people who are warning you about burnout, they mean well. They really do.

but they're not living your life and they don't see the whole picture. They don't understand that sometimes the choice isn't between overwhelm and balance. Sometimes the choice is between showing up for what matters and watching everything fall apart. And they definitely don't get to decide what you can handle or what you have to just tolerate even at your own expense because there is just no other choice.

I spent years listening to people tell me that I was doing too much. And do you know what? They were right. I was doing too much. But I was also doing what needed to be done. There's a difference. When my husband went back to school in his 40s, when we had six kids and bills to pay and life kept happening, yes, it was too much for me to carry. But in the overall grand scheme of things, it was also temporary. It didn't certainly feel that way at the time, but it was.

But this was also a purposeful season. There was a reason I was burning myself dangerously close to the ground. And it was also a survivable season. And I knew it. I remember one particularly, particularly brutal week. He had finals. I had a work deadline. Our youngest was sick. Our teenager was having friend drama and my mom called, needing help with something. I was running on about four hours of sleep on the regular.

I was living on protein bars and I was pretty sure I was losing my mind. A well-meaning friend told me, you can't keep this up. You need to ask for help. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry or maybe both. Help with what? Help with my nursing, my husband's nursing school finals, help with my work project that had my name on it, help comforting my sick child, help with being the safe place that my teenager needed.

See, the advice assumes that there are things that you can delegate, that there are boundaries you can set, that there are no's that you can say. But sometimes, sometimes, you're in a season where the only way through is through. The difference between destructive burnout and purposeful survival is acceptance without shame. Destructive looks like this.

Destructive burnout looks like fighting reality while hating yourself for being tired and doing life wrong. Purposeful survival looks like accepting that this is hard while refusing to feel guilty or wrong about it. Here's what I know. And I tell this to my coaching clients all the time. You can run on fumes for a season if you stop telling yourself that you shouldn't have to.

You can carry a heavy load without breaking if you stop believing that needing to carry it means you're doing life wrong. Because here's what I've learned. The women who break under this kind of pressure and the women who break during survival mode aren't the ones carrying heavy loads. They are the ones carrying the heavy loads while telling themselves they shouldn't have to carry these heavy loads. They're the ones who are in survival mode while believing survival mode means

failure. Okay, let's take a pause because this is a whole lot that I've just dumped on you. And in reality right now, I need to give you some radical permission. And I mean radical. So are you ready? You are allowed to be tired without being broken. You are allowed to carry a heavy load without yourself or anyone calling you a murderer.

You are allowed to feel overwhelmed without fixing it immediately or maybe ever. You are allowed to lower your standards without feeling guilty and you are allowed to simply survive instead of trying to thrive. I know, I know that last one, it's a little bit different, right? We've been so conditioned to think that if we're not thriving, we're failing, but sometimes, sometimes survival is thriving.

So let me tell you about my friend. I'm going to call her Kate. She's got three kids under 10. She works part time as a nurse and her husband travels constantly for work. Last month her dad had a stroke. She's been driving two hours each way to help her mom manage her house. They're getting ready to downsize and move. And so she's been driving to help her mom three, most weeks, three times a week on top of everything else she's already doing.

And when I asked her how she was doing, she said, I'm surviving and I'm trying to stop feeling guilty about that being enough. And again, that's that lie that we need to get rid of. Survival isn't just enough. Survival is everything when survival is what's required. But we live in a culture that's obsessed with optimization, with peak performance, with being your best self. And this is so important. I teach it too.

But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that life isn't a one size fits all. Somehow we've internalized this message that if we're not crushing our goals and living our best life, we're doing something wrong. We take what people say, even people like me, even what I say, and we think it will always apply 100 % of the time. But sometimes it just won't. Here's such an important question to consider.

When did survival become the consolation prize? I think about my grandma, who was one of six kids in her family during the Depression, helping her family run a farm. I think about women during World War II who kept entire communities functioning while the men were overseas. I think about every single mother who's ever worked three jobs to keep a roof over her kids' heads. Were they failing because they were in survival mode?

Were they broken because they couldn't also be optimizing their morning routines and practicing gratitude journaling? No, of course not. They were heroes. They were doing what needed to be done. And then they showed up the next day and they did it all over again. And so are you. But here's what happened in our Pinterest Perfect Instagram optimized world. We've confused thriving with performing.

We think that if our lives don't look curated and intentional and balanced, we must be doing it wrong. I was talking to a client last week who said, feel like such a failure. I haven't worked out in two months. I'm eating whatever's convenient. My house is always a mess and I can barely keep up with the basics. And I asked her, what are the basics you're keeping up with? Well, she said, I'm working full time while my husband's between jobs. I'm taking care of my mom who has Alzheimer's. I'm helping my daughter through her divorce.

I'm managing all the household stuff and I'm making sure that everyone's okay.

Maybe your mind's going where mine did, but I said, stop, listen to what you just said. You're working full time, you're caregiving for your mother, you're supporting your daughter through a major life crisis, you're running a household and you're making sure everyone is okay. And you think you're failing because you haven't been to the gym? In the silence that followed, it told me that she finally felt seen, probably for the first time in a very long time. And so,

your new mantra, if this resonates with you, and I want you to say this out loud if you're somewhere that you can, this season is hard. I'm doing what I have to and that's enough. This season is hard. I'm doing what I have to and that's enough. Say it one more time truly. This season is hard. I'm doing what I have to and that's enough because your soul

needs to hear it because somewhere along the way you started believing that enough wasn't actually enough. But it is, it truly is.

So let's shift gears slightly and let's talk about standards. Specifically, we need to talk about how yours are probably way too high for the season that you're in. Survival mode, if you identify and say, that's me, I'm in survival mode, and by the way, I have a really awesome freebie for you, I'm gonna tell you about in a minute, that's gonna help you, I've got a survival plan for survival mode. But survival mode, means the bare minimum.

And that bare minimum becomes the goal. And I mean, bare minimum. But here's what I need you to understand. Bare minimum isn't a failure. It's actually a really smart strategy. Because here's what the bare minimum could look like. It could look like daily wins. Daily wins that look like something like this. Everyone ate food. The urgent stuff got handled. And everyone is still breathing. That's it.

That's the list. It could have weekly wins that looks like, you know what, some laundry happened. Some of it's clean, some of it's not. It got moved through the house. You showed up for the non-negotiables and nobody died. Those were your weekly wins. What about monthly wins that look something like this? I made it through another month. The most important relationships are still intact. And you know what? Everyone's still here. And I can hear what some of you might be thinking.

But Jennifer, that's not enough. I should be doing more. And I say, says who? The productivity gurus who don't have your life? The Instagram accounts showing perfect morning routines? The voice in your head that was programmed by a culture that thinks busy equals worthy? Let me tell you what happened when I finally embraced good enough during our hardest season. My house wasn't Pinterest worthy. My meals...

Probably couldn't even be classified as meals sometimes. And my energy wasn't endless, but my family was fed, my kids were homeschooled, the bills were paid, the most important things got done, and I stopped hating myself for simply being human. There were things like good enough meals, cereal for dinner, sandwiches again, whatever felt easy in that moment. And you know what? Sometimes even now, good enough means

I'm eating protein bars for lunch. I'm eating canned chicken straight out of the can while standing in the kitchen and protein shakes for dinner because there is literally no time for anything else for myself. But you know what? I'm hitting my protein goals and I'm keeping myself fed. And I'm not failing at nutrition. I'm actually winning at it because that's what it needs to be in this season. I remember one particularly insane week where I was basically living on

protein bars, protein shakes, and coffee. My husband found me in the kitchen at 11 o'clock at night eating peanut butter straight from the jar and he looked concerned. And I said, don't worry, I had protein bars for breakfast and lunch. This is my healthy fats for the day. Look, was that ideal? No. But was it keeping me functioning during a week where I had a work crisis, a kid crisis, and a family crisis all happening at once? Absolutely it did.

There's also things like good enough cleaning. This is when the dishes get done, the laundry gets shifted from one apparatus to another, and where the visible surfaces are mostly clean. That's what good enough cleaning can look like. What about good enough parenting? Your kids are safe, your kids are fed, and they know they're loved.

I had a mom recently tell me that she felt terrible because her kids had been eating a lot of frozen meals lately. I asked her what else was happening in her life. She said her husband was deployed. She was working extra hours to help make ends meet, and her youngest had been struggling with some behavioral issues that required a lot of attention. I said, while managing single parenthood, financial pressure, and a child in crisis, you've been making sure that your kids have nutritious, convenient meals every day?

That sounds like an excellent parenting win to me. And the relief that she felt, it was visible. We can also strive for good enough relationships. And this means showing up when you can and being honest when you can't. Good enough isn't giving up. It's being strategic about where your limited resources, your time, your energy, your bandwidth, your capacity.

It's being strategic about where all of those things go. And here's the secret that no one tells you. Good enough is actually great because good enough means you're not burning yourself completely out trying to be perfect. Good enough means that you have energy left for what really matters. Good enough means you're still in the game instead of benched by exhaustion. I started thinking differently about this when I realized that

my good enough was probably better than what a lot of people could manage on their best days. When you're functioning at survival capacity, your baseline is actually pretty impressive. When my survival meals are protein bars and canned chicken, I'm still eating more consciously than a lot of people who have all the time in the world. When my bare minimum house cleaning is dishes done and laundry moved, my house is still functional.

Lean in close. You're good enough is somebody else's aspirational goal. So let's get practical. When you can't take a real break, you must create tiny pockets of peace. I call these micro moments of sanity and they take just 30 seconds or less. But before I give you the list, I need you to understand something. These aren't going to change your life. They're not going to solve your problem.

But what they're going to do is remind you that you are still human in the middle of all of the chaos. And they are going to help you embrace the mantra that I told you a long time ago, which is the only way through is through. So here are these micro moments for your daily sanity. While you're doing unavoidable tasks, take three deep breaths before opening your laptop.

Actually taste your coffee instead of chugging it. Feel the warm water on your hands while washing dishes. Notice the texture of the clothes while you're folding laundry. These are some ways to tap into and ground yourself when you're doing all of these unavoidable tasks. I was folding laundry last week, again, and feeling frustrated about how much time it takes to do this. Then I remembered my own advice and I actually started paying attention to what I was doing.

The clothes, they were still warm from the dryer. The smell of the detergent. The satisfaction I gained from making order out of chaos. And for maybe 30 seconds folding laundry, it wasn't a chore anymore. It was that grounding moment that helped me feel like I had it in me to go a little bit longer that day. Did it solve my overwhelm? No. Did it remind me that even mundane tasks can have moments of peace if I let them?

Yes. You can also kind of reground yourself between activities. You can do things like pause at doorways and take one conscious breath as you walk through. You can look out a window for 15 seconds. You can stretch your neck while walking to the car. You can text one person, a simple thinking of you text. That doorway thing, it has been a game changer for me. Every time I walk from one room to another,

At least I try and I take one intentional breath. It's like a tiny reset button that takes zero extra time. These things, they're not life changing. They're life sustaining. They're tiny reminders that you're still here, that you're still human and that you are still deserving of small moments of peace, even though it looks nothing like what the wellness and self-care experts tell you it should.

But here's what's even more important about life and surviving in survival mode. Here's what's most important. It's more than finding those micro moments. It's protecting the energy that you do have. When you're running on fumes, you have to guard what little energy you have. You have to guard this like your life depends on it because to some extent it actually does.

And this is where I see women making the biggest mistake. They're already stretched thin, really too thin. And then they say yes to the committee at school. They're already overwhelmed and then they volunteer to help with the church potluck. They're already exhausted and then they agree to watch their neighbor's kids. Sometimes you just need to stop.

Here are some things that you might want to consider cutting immediately if you are in a survival mode season where you need to preserve your bandwidth. Group chats that drain you. Man, these do just that sometimes, don't they? What about social media that makes you feel behind? What about limiting your exposure to people who need you to be on all the time?

What about commitments that truly are optional? And yes, I said optional. I know sometimes things don't feel optional, but ask yourself, what would actually happen if I said no to this? I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I was drowning in responsibilities and I was still saying yes to extra opportunities because I felt guilty saying no.

One day my husband said, what's the worst thing that would happen if you didn't get any of the cleaning done this week or maybe for two weeks? And I said, it wouldn't get done. And my husband said, and would that be so terrible? I realized that I had been operating under this assumption that if I didn't do something, I wasn't doing life well, but that's not true. And sometimes when you're not doing something, someone else can do it.

And either way, the world keeps spinning. So how do we protect our energy that is stretched so thin right now? How do we start to make cuts to some of the things that we're doing? If your cuts involve talking to other people and saying no to other people, here are some creative ways to do that. I can't take that on right now. That doesn't work for me in this season. I'm not available for that. And then...

There's the good old no. That's it. It's a complete sentence. No explanation needed. And really that last one, the no, it's the hardest for most of us. We feel like we owe people an explanation, but you know what? You don't. No is a complete sentence. I had to practice this, truly. I literally stood in my bathroom mirror and I practiced saying no and being done talking.

I practice saying no without following it up with a justification, just a no, period.

And I will say, the first few times I used it, it felt kind of rude. But you know what? People respect it. Because when you don't give a long explanation, there's nothing to argue with. You also need to make sure, in addition to cutting some things out, that you protect your sleep, even if it's less than ideal. Protect basic nutrition, even if it's simple. Protect one supportive relationship, just one supportive relationship.

Protect five minutes alone in your car after you pull into the driveway, even if that's all you get. These aren't luxuries. These are survival tools. I do have a friend who sits that car trick. It wasn't mine. I have a friend who sits in her car for five minutes after every grocery store trip, just breathing. She does whatever. She calls it her decompression chamber. Her kids think she's checking her phone. She's actually just being human for five minutes.

before going back into the manager mode. And that's not sad. She's not doing something wrong. She's actually smart. There's actually one last thing that we need to conquer. If we're going to take this lie that survival mode is the booby prize, if we're going to take that lie down, and if we're going to keep, if we're going to take down this assumption that survival mode is something to avoid at all costs, we need to talk about that voice in your head. You likely know the one that I mean.

It's the one that's been telling you you're not doing enough, you're not strong enough, you're not organized enough or whatever enough. That voice, we need to take it down because that voice is lying. But here's the thing about that voice. It's not going away just because I told you it's lying. It's been with you for years, maybe decades. It's gonna take some intentional rewiring. Instead of telling yourself things like, I should be able to handle this better, try,

I'm handling an understandably difficult situation. See the difference? The first one assumes you're the problem. The second one acknowledges reality. I caught myself just last week saying, I should be able to keep up with everything better. Then I stopped and asked myself, according to who? Who decided that one person should be able to manage a full-time career, the life and needs for eight kids who still live in my home, managing menopause? I mean, this is a full-time job on its own.

maintaining a household and somehow also having the energy left over for personal growth. When I actually thought about it, I realized how ridiculous that expectation was. Instead of everyone else has it together, try everyone else isn't carrying what I'm carrying. And this one hits us hard because we're constantly comparing our behind the scenes to everyone else's highlight reel. But even beyond that, we're comparing our full plate

to someone who might have completely different circumstances. Your friend who always seems so calm and organized, maybe her husband shares the load equally. Maybe her kids are older and more independent. Maybe her parents are healthy and self-sufficient. Maybe she doesn't have the financial pressures that you have. You don't know what everyone else's full picture looks like, so stop using their partial picture to judge your whole life.

Instead of I'm failing everyone, try I'm doing the best I can with what I have and put that on a sticky note. This is probably the hardest reframe because when you're stretched thin, it feels like you're letting everyone down. Your kids aren't getting the attention you wish you could give them. Your partner isn't getting the support they need. Your parents aren't getting the care you want to provide. But failing implies that you're not trying. And that's not what's happening here.

In reality, you're trying with everything that you have. You're just trying to do more than any one person should reasonably be expected to do. There's a difference between failing and being overwhelmed by circumstances. Instead of this is unsustainable try, this is temporary and I can survive temporary. I love this reframe because it acknowledges two truths. Yes, this is hard and yes, you can handle it.

Unsustainable, it really makes it sound like you're gonna break. But what if you're not going to break? What if you're gonna bend and flex and adapt and make it through? I think about times in my life when life felt unsustainable. My husband's nursing school years, the season we had four kids in four activities or teams with four different schedules. The time when a couple of close friends and family members needed help right when it felt like my business was all consuming.

At the time, each one of those seasons felt impossible, but I sustained them. I made it through, not unchanged. I definitely learned and grew and probably aged a few extra years, but I made it through. You see the difference? We're not lying to ourselves. We're not pretending everything is fine. We're just telling ourselves the truth instead of the worst possible version of the truth. Last week, I was having one of those days, you know the kind, everything felt hard. I was behind on everything and that voice started up again.

You're a life coach and you can't even manage your own life. And then I caught myself. And I said out loud, I am a life coach and I'm a human being having a hard day. Because you know what? Both of those things can be true. And that shift from but to and, it changes everything. You're overwhelmed and you're doing your best. You're tired and you're still showing up.

You're struggling and you're stronger than you think. Both things are true. Here's something crucial. You need at least one person who gets it. You need someone who doesn't try to fix your situation, who doesn't judge your survival choices, and who validates that this is genuinely hard, and who can remind you that you're stronger than you think. And if that's me today, hey, nice to meet you. I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad to be that person for you.

You need a person who isn't just your friend telling you to just hire help, because maybe that's not reality for you. Maybe you're barely making ends meet. Maybe your person isn't going to be your sister who suggests that you take a vacation when you can't leave town because of your responsibilities. Your person is not going to be the co-worker who thinks you should just quit and focus on family, when quitting would mean losing health insurance.

You need someone who understands that sometimes the advice to just say no is about as helpful as telling someone with a broken leg to just walk it off. Avoid people who offer unsolicited advice about what you should do. And the people who make you feel guilty for your choices, who compare your situation to others, or who tell you, just trust that it'll all work out. You'll know your people when you find them. They're the ones who say, that sounds really hard. And then there's a period.

They tell you how much it sucks and maybe even how unfair or unhealthy it is instead of at least, and you fill in the blank. They're the ones who bring you coffee instead of advice. They're the ones who offer to help in specific practical ways instead of saying, let me know if you need anything.

I have a friend who, during one of our hard seasons, would text me every Friday. What's one thing I can take off your plate this weekend? Not, how are you doing? Which requires me to process and respond with words that I just didn't have. It was a simple, specific offer. Sometimes I'd say nothing but thanks. But you know what? Sometimes I'd say, could you pick up my prescription? Sometimes I'd say, could you take my kids for an hour? She never made me feel guilty for asking.

She never made me feel guilty for not asking. That's a person who gets it.

So the last thing I want to leave you with is really kind of a mindset shift into what I call the survival season mindset. Know that it isn't forever. But while you're in it, while you're in survival season, your job is to just keep the most important things moving. Protect your core relationships, maintain basic self-care, and refuse to hate yourself for being human.

Your job is not to prove you can handle everything perfectly. Your job is not to make everyone comfortable with your choices. Your job is not to fix everything that's broken or be grateful for the struggle. You do not have to be grateful for the struggle. I see so many women trying to force gratitude when they're drowning. I should be grateful I have a job, even though it's killing me. I should be grateful for my kids.

even though I'm exhausted. I should be grateful for my parents who are alive, even though caregiving is overwhelming. Here's the truth. You can be both grateful for your blessings and acknowledge that your circumstances are hard. Both things can be true. You can be both grateful for these things and acknowledge that it's wearing you. Some seasons require everything that you have. It's not a character flaw. It's not

a series of bad choices. It's life sometimes. I think about my friend whose son is deeply entrenched in self-harm. I think about my friend whose husband is deployed. I think about every woman who has ever had to carry more than it felt like she could. They don't have productivity planners, nor do they have the time or even the bandwidth for meditation apps. These women, they just have grit and they have love.

and they have the knowledge that they could survive more than they think they can. In reality, you can too.

Here's what we have also somehow lost. We don't need to expect to thrive during survival seasons. We need to make sure that we are not thinking that something is wrong with us if we're tired, if we're stressed, or if we're barely keeping up. We need to understand that some seasons, they are for surviving, and others are for thriving, and both are necessary parts of a full life.

We've somehow gotten confused and think that we should be thriving all the time, but that's not how life works. That's not how humans work.

Here's what the you'll burn out people don't understand. You're not burning out, you're burning bright. There's a difference between destructive overwhelm and purposeful intensity. When you're carrying a heavy load by choice for people you love for a season with an end in sight, that's not burnout, that's heroic. Burnout happens when you hate what you're doing and see no purpose in it. When you feel trapped with no end in sight, when you're carrying a load,

that isn't yours to carry. But when you're carrying your own load, even if it's heavy, even if it's hard, that's different. That's love. That's love and purpose and action. That's strength being used for its intended purpose. You can survive more than you think. You can carry more than feels comfortable. You can make it through this season completely intact. The key isn't avoiding the hard season, it's refusing to hate yourself for being in it.

I remember a conversation with my husband during one of our most intense seasons and I was complaining about how tired I was, how much I was doing, how unsustainable it all felt. And he said, but this is what we chose. And I got defensive because I didn't choose to be overwhelmed. But as we continued to talk about it, he said, we chose the things that are making us overwhelmed. We chose for me to go back to school. We chose to have this many kids. We chose the job.

We chose the house, we chose the life. None of it was forced upon us. And at first, I was so angry. I was so annoyed at what he said. But then I realized he was right. And that actually made the hard season easier to carry. When you remember that you're not a victim of your circumstances, but someone who made choices based on your values, it changes how you experience the hard seasons. And if you take nothing else away from this episode, I hope it's that.

You didn't accidentally end up in survival mode. You chose to love. You chose responsibility. And you chose commitment. And sometimes those choices require more than feels comfortable for a while. It's not a problem to solve. It's a season to survive. So to every woman who's been told she can't keep doing this, I'm here to say yes, yes, you can. Maybe not forever, but for this season, absolutely you can.

I'm also here to say you're not broken. You're not doing it wrong. You're not a cautionary tale waiting to happen. You're a woman who shows up when life gets hard. And that's not something to fix. That's something to honor.

I want to tell you about my client that I told you about way back in the beginning, the one whose sister told her to just say no more often. She texted and she said, I'm still in the thick of it. My husband is still in school. My mother-in-law still needs my help. My teenager is still struggling. But something shifted when I stopped thinking that I was supposed to be handling it all gracefully. I'm surviving and I'm not apologizing for it anymore. And that, that's the whole point.

You don't have to handle this gracefully. You don't have to make it look easy. You don't have to pretend you're not tired or that you have it all figured out or that you're grateful for the opportunity to be so overwhelmed. You just have to keep going. And you are. Every single day, you're making choices to show up for the people and responsibilities that matter to you, even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. And if you're that woman, if you're the woman who needed to hear this today, know this. I see you. Your load is heavy and you're carrying it.

with more grace than you realize. You're doing better than you think. To the woman like me, who sometimes is eating protein bars for dinner while managing a crisis at the same time, you're not broken. You're resourceful. What about to the woman who's crying in her car between errands? I want to tell her that's not weakness. That's you being human. To the woman who can't remember the last time she had a real conversation with a friend because they're

up to their eyeballs in pure logistics and execution mode, I want to say you're surviving a season that requires all hands on deck.

If this episode resonated with you, I want you to do something. Send it to the woman in your life who needs permission to survive her impossible season without apology. Send it to your sister, send it to your friends, send it to your coworker, send it to whoever has been caring too much for too long. And if you're that woman, if you're the one who needed to hear this today, I've created something for you. It's called the Survival Mode Survival Plan. And it's free and it's full of bare minimum swaps.

that will help you reframe what you're already doing as the daily wins that they actually are. Because here's the truth, you are already winning. You just haven't been counting the right things. When you're running on fumes but still showing up for the people who need you, that's winning. When you're eating whatever's convenient because convenience is what your season requires, then that's a win. When you're lowering your standards to match your capacity, instead of burning yourself out trying to maintain impossible expectations,

That's a win too. You can grab the plan down in the show notes. It's my gift to you because you deserve tools that meet you where you are instead of where someone thinks you should be. For now, remember this. This season is hard. You're doing what you have to do and that's enough. It's more than enough. It's everything. And one last thing. You're not surviving despite your strength. You're surviving because of it. That's what I had for you this week.

Let's make it a great one, everyone. We'll talk again soon.