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

Ep. 190: The Invisible Load Women are Carrying Into 2026

• Season 2 • Episode 190

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A couple weeks ago, I got a voice message at 1:47 in the morning.

From one of my coaching clients. 

She was sitting on the floor of her closet. Door closed. Lights off. Barely breathing.

Not because something dramatic happened. Not because of a crisis or a fight or some catastrophic event.

But because she didn't know where else to put the heaviness she was carrying.

And she said something I've heard dozens of times: "I don't know what's wrong with me. Why can't I just handle my life?"

And here's what I told her—what I'm telling you right now:

Nothing is wrong with you.

Today we're talking about the invisible load women are carrying into 2026. The things we don't say out loud. The struggles we think are "just us." And why Step 1 of changing anything is finally getting honest about what's actually not working.

Let's go.

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Well, let me tell you what keeps happening in the lives of my coaching clients, my friends, women everywhere, smart women, capable women, women who have been holding it together for years. They reach out to me and they say things like, I just feel so overwhelmed. And I ask, what's overwhelming you? And they pause because they don't actually know. Nothing is even that wrong. Life doesn't necessarily feel like it's falling apart. There's no major crisis.

but they feel like they're drowning anyway. And then comes the kicker. I should be able to handle this. Well, let's start by talking about what's actually happening. The first thing I see happening is this, the foggy brain phenomenon. Your brain is so full of everyone else's needs and moods and schedules and crises that there's literally no space left to process your own life. You're not overwhelmed because you're incapable or failing at life or failing at anything.

You're just overwhelmed because you're trying to run a life and a household and relationships, maybe a job, all while carrying the emotional weight of everyone around you. And every day, you wake up feeling like you're already behind. And you go to bed with a mental list of everything you didn't get to. And somewhere in between, you're managing everyone's feelings, anticipating their needs, and making sure that nothing falls through the cracks except you. You fall through the cracks.

So the foggy brain phenomenon. That's the first thing we're dealing with. And then number two, there's the mental deficit. Here's what I see all the time. Women running at a cognitive deficit every single day. Decision fatigue that feels like quicksand. You can't prioritize because everything feels equally urgent. There's the laundry, the groceries, the kid who needs a form signed, the aging parent who needs a phone call, the friend who's going through something, your own body screaming for rest.

It's not that you don't know what to do, it's that your brain literally can't process one more decision. And then you beat yourself up for not being able to, quote, figure it out, unquote. I had a client once, a brilliant woman. She runs a successful business. And she told me that she stood in front of her closet for 15 minutes and couldn't decide what to wear. Not because she cared about fashion, but because her brain was simply maxed out and the day hadn't even begun.

This is not about laziness. This is about overload. And here's why we can't really name what's happening. Here's the thing. We've normalized everything that we're carrying. And we've normalized the fact that we carry everything. We look around and we think everyone else has it together. We scroll Instagram and we see women who seem to be handling it all with grace and a smile. And we compare our insides to everyone else's outsides. Let me say that again.

We compare our insides to everyone else's outsides. And we think that if we can't articulate it clearly, if we can't point to one specific thing that's wrong, well then it must not be real. We must be over-exaggerating. We tell ourselves the lie that if I can't explain it, I must just be being dramatic. There's nothing actually wrong. But here's the truth. Just because you can't name it, it doesn't mean it's not real.

Just because other people look fine doesn't mean they are. And just because you've been holding it together for years doesn't mean you have to keep doing it this way. But here's what I'm seeing after working with thousands of women. There are patterns, real identifiable patterns in what we're all carrying. And when you can name the pattern, you can actually do something about it. So let me walk you through five categories of struggle that show up over and over in my coaching clients and my friends and...

in my life too. And I'm guessing that at least three, if not all of these, are going to sound at least somewhat familiar. Maybe not all familiar right now in this season of your life, but they could very well be things that you can identify with from an earlier season, or maybe it's going to be something that you step into and you're going to remember this episode when you get there and you're going to say, huh, I get what's going on. So

We're gonna talk about the first thing and it's the connection crisis. So let's start here. You're surrounded by people all day long. And I find this the most interesting phenomenon because it has never been easier in history to stay more connected, more plugged in with people. Yet what I see with women is they've never been more isolated. They've never felt more alone. You're having conversations, lots of them.

but they're all surface level. They're the, how was your day? fine sort of conversations. How are you? Good, but busy. Nobody's asking the real questions. And even if they did, you're not sure how, you're not sure you'd know how to answer anyway. You feel invisible in your home, like you're managing everyone else's life, but nobody actually sees you. Could be that your husband asks how you are and you just say fine because the truth feels too heavy.

Too complicated, and honestly, you're not even sure he'd know what to do with it if you said it out loud anyway. And then you have friends, but you can't tell them the real stuff because what if they judge you? What if they think you're falling apart? What if they can't handle what you tell them? And so you keep pretending. You keep saying, I'm fine, while you're dying inside for someone to actually see you. Here's what I know. Isolation compounds every other struggle.

When you are carrying it all alone, everything just feels heavier. In reality, you need women who get it, not women who judge it, not women who try to fix you or tell you to just think positive. You need people, your tribe, women who will let you show up messy and honest and love you anyway. These women are there, I promise. You just have to find them. So there's the connection crisis. That's number one. Number two is the clutter paralysis.

Let's talk about clutter. And every single survey that I send out where I ask people to tell me about their struggle or I leave it open-ended, hey, just shoot me an email and let me know what you're struggling with, clutter tops the list every single time no matter what I ask. Because it's a real thing. And I'm not just talking about the pile of mail on your counter or the junk drawer that you've been avoiding for six months. I'm talking about the clutter that lives in your brain, your schedule, your relationships.

The stuff you've been holding onto because you think you should or because it represents something that you're not ready to let go of or because you have no idea where to start. You've decluttered a hundred times in your home, in your brain. You've done these things in spurts. You've tried, but it never sticks. Because here's the truth. You can't organize your way out of an emotional problem. That pile of stuff in the corner, it's not just stuff, it's...

It's guilt, it's unfinished projects, it's the version of yourself that you thought you'd be by now. And the closet full of clothes that don't fit? Well, that's grief, that's shame. That's the body you wish that you still had. Then there's the storage unit full of baby clothes and toys that your kids outgrew years ago. Well, it could be that that's a season that you're just not ready to say goodbye to. And I get this one personally. I have nine kids. I spent...

17 years being a mom to a newborn baby and a growing family. And you know what? My family isn't growing anymore, at least not the same way. And that is emotionally so hard for me. Just last week, my husband wanted to show me a video he found of our now 21-year-old in a play that she was in when she was about six. I turned around and left the room immediately. And I told him I didn't have the emotional capacity to watch that right then.

In reality, I need to be emotionally ready to remember my older kids when they were little. Memories are emotional for me. And what does all the stuff represent but all the memories? And so if you're stuck in clutter, if you can't seem to let things go, it's not because you're lazy or unmotivated or messy. It's because the stuff represents something deeper. And until you deal with what's underneath, until you identify it and then deal with what's underneath, the clutter is just gonna keep coming back.

In reality, you need to understand what I call your clutter language. And there are actually 10 different types that I've identified in nearly 10 years of helping women with this. And you need to know that before you can actually fix it. The external chaos reflects and exacerbates internal turmoil. But you can break the cycle once you know what you're really holding onto. And it's not the stuff. So.

The clutter paralysis, that's the second thing that we're dealing with. The third thing, and maybe it's because I'm in midlife now, maybe it's because I coach a lot of midlife women, maybe it's because the majority of my friends are now in midlife, but I see the third thing surfacing a lot, and women are talking about it now more than I think they ever have. And we're talking about the marriage disconnect. This is really what nobody else wants to talk about.

You've been together for years, maybe decades, but somewhere along the way, you both changed. And now you're operating with a map from 10 years ago. In reality, you're not in crisis. There's been no affair. There's no big blow up. You're just disconnected. You're basically two people living in the same house, passing each other in the hallway, coordinating schedules, managing growing kids, maybe grandkids and aging parents. You're managing life, but you're not really together and you don't know how to talk to them anymore.

You avoid hard conversations because you don't even know what to say. You know something has changed, but you can't describe what. Or maybe you're having the same fight on repeat, different day, same argument, and you're both exhausted. It's likely that you feel lonely in your marriage, and that's a special kind of pain when you're surrounded by someone and still feeling completely alone. And here's what I've learned. Most couples never update the map for new seasons.

In reality, you got married when you were both one version of yourself, but life didn't stay still. Kids came, jobs changed, bodies changed, priorities shifted, and then there's midlife and perimenopause and menopause and all of that stuff. And you're still trying to navigate with the old map. And in reality, your marriage isn't broken. It's just disconnected. And then there's resentment. Resentment from this disconnect and it...

it kind of builds and snowballs in silence. And then it becomes this big gap between the two of you. But you can't fix what you can't or won't name. If you don't know what's going on, you can't fix it. But when you're willing to get honest, when you're willing to say, this isn't working anymore and I don't know how to fix it, that's when change becomes possible. Because you're open to learning how to fix it.

But the marriage disconnect, that's struggle number three that I see women having. Then number four is the clarity crisis. Let's talk about brain fog, the feeling of walking through life like you're underwater, like you can't make decisions because you can't think straight. You know what you need to do, you just don't do it. And you're not stuck because you lack information, you're stuck because you can't process. Your brain has too many open tabs all the time.

One tab is trying to remember if you paid that bill. Another is replaying a conversation from three days ago. Another is worrying about your kid. Another is planning for dinner. Another is spiraling about something you said in a meeting. And you wonder why you can't focus. Again, it doesn't boil down to laziness or a lack of motivation, and you're not broken or failing either. You're just cognitively maxed out. Here's what I tell my clients. You can't think your way out of this, nor can you continue to ignore it.

Essentially, you need external processing support because when you are this entangled in it, it's nearly impossible for you to see the way forward on your own. You really need someone outside your own brain to help you sort through the noise, to help you prioritize, to help you see what actually matters. And again, that's not a signal of weakness. That's actually wisdom when you realize, you know what? I need someone outside of me. And then because it's the

because we're approaching the end of the year and we already have our sites focused on the new year and all of that promise that that brings. There's the January drop-off cycle. This is number five. And this is if you even try new things in the new year. A lot of women have given up trying and making any new changes in the new year because they don't stick anyway. But for those who do, this situation is really hard to deal with in January.

For most of us, we start the year strong. This is gonna be the year. This is when everything changes. You make the plan, you set the goals, you're motivated and ready. And by week three, you're back where you started. Motivation fades, life gets in the way. You quit and then you beat yourself up for failing again. Does this sound familiar? Here's the truth about this. Whatever you're trying to do in the new year, it's not a motivation problem, it's a support problem.

doing it alone at the exact time of year when everyone around you is quitting too. There's a reason why January is the busiest month for gyms. We see it in my own gym. We used to talk about it, how it's super busy for the first three weeks. And then there is this marked drop-off. And gyms, I've been told, are the emptiest in February. And it's not because all of those people who started, it's not because they don't want change, but because they're trying to white-knuckle their way through

through without a plan for what happens when the motivation dips, because it does, it always dips. And so you need to be prepared for it ahead of time. You need a plan for how to do it differently when you hit the wall, because you hit the wall and it doesn't signal failure, it's just being human. I always say that failure can be data, it's data collection, it's the opportunity for feedback and to say, what can I learn?

The key is in making sure that you don't have to try all of this alone again. And so here's what's really important to understand out of all of this. These are not five separate struggles. They are not five separate problems. They're really five faces of the same core issue. You've been carrying a lot for a long time, likely without enough support, real, genuine support. And the reason that you think this is just you is because we don't talk about this stuff.

We don't talk about the closet floor breakdowns or the brain fog or the loneliness in our marriages, the clutter we can't let go of, the cycle of starting and stopping and starting and stopping and beating ourselves up every time. We just keep pretending we're fine. But here's my question. What if we stopped pretending? What if we get honest, really honest about where we're actually at? Well, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to figure out how I can best support women in all the places I show up.

right here on the podcast, on YouTube, on my blog, on Instagram, my daily emails. And to do that, I need your help because I've put together a survey and I would love to invite you to join. It's called the Heart of the Matter and it's the Women of 2025, actually Women of 2026 survey, because that's what we're focused. And here's what it is. It's a survey that'll take you about four to six minutes and we've linked it down in the show notes.

It might take you a little bit longer if you really sit with the questions, but these are questions that you've been too overwhelmed to ask yourself. Questions like, what's really draining you? Where do you feel the most stuck? What do you actually need? This is a safe place to tell the truth without having to filter it, wondering about who's gonna read it without pretending. Nobody's gonna judge you.

It's an opportunity for you to actually say out loud and maybe even to have someone put into words what you haven't been able to say out loud. So we have this survey open for about a week and then we're gonna compile the data. After a week of gathering all the responses, we're gonna put together a full report. We're gonna send out a findings report and you'll be able to see what women are really carrying into 2026. You'll get validation, I promise you'll get validation that you're not alone.

you'll get clarity on your own patterns and you'll feel the relief that comes from, it's not just me. And there's gonna be insight into how to actually start moving forward, data that shows how these things are happening and proof that we need to be having more of these conversations. Because here's the thing, I can guess what you're struggling with, but I don't wanna guess, I wanna know. So that,

I can meet you exactly where you are at. So the survey closes Sunday night, November 16th at midnight. Well, it doesn't close, but that's when we're gonna stop gathering the data. We're gonna start compiling the data on Monday morning, November 17th. So the first report that we put out is going to be with the data we have through that time. We might open it again just to see how things change, but.

For this reason, you don't wanna wait. Don't tell yourself you'll do it later. You know you won't, right? If you're waiting for the time to have time, we know that won't happen, right? You barely have time now, but this could be four to six minutes that could change the trajectory of your entire year because you're gonna be helping to shape what I put out here on this podcast and in all the other ways that I serve women.

In reality, you can keep saying, I'm fine. You can keep white-knuckling your way through another year, hoping that something will change. You can keep pretending that if you just try harder, it's all going to click into place. Or you can take five minutes right now, tell the truth, and let that honesty be the starting point for something different. Because here's what I know. You can't fix what you don't know is wrong. And step one is actually naming what's not working. And it's not to beat yourself up.

It's not to prove you're failing, but to finally see clearly where you're at so you can figure out what needs to change. So again, there's a link to the survey in the show notes if you're listening to this on the podcast. So take the survey, tell the truth, let's figure this out together. So after the survey closes and after I've had a chance to go through all that data and we compile that report.

we're gonna be sending that out to everyone on our email list. So if you're not already on our email list, make sure you get on it. We'll post a link for that in the show notes as well. And then next week, right here on the podcast, I'm gonna be coming back to share the full findings with you, the data, the patterns I see, the common threads. And through that, you're gonna see exactly where the gaps are, where women are struggling most, what we're all carrying that nobody's talking about. And I'm not doing this so that you can feel bad about yourself.

doing this so that you can finally see clearly where you're at. Because that's always gonna be step one in learning what needs to change. When you can see the patterns, when you can name what's actually going on, you can stop spinning and you can stop blaming yourself for not having it all together. And you can start moving forward with clarity. And that's what this is all about. It's not about shame, it's not about guilt, and it's not another list of things you're doing wrong. It's about clarity.

real honest clarity about where you are and what you actually need to move forward. So here's what I want you to do right now. Follow the link that's down in the show notes. If you need to get on my email list, make sure you do that too so that you can get a copy of the printed report. Take the survey and then next week, make sure that you come right back here. Make sure that you subscribe to the podcast if you're listening and you haven't done so already because when those survey results drop, you're not gonna wanna miss it.

This is gonna be so powerful and it's not because I'm gonna tell you what to do, but because you're gonna be able to see yourself in the data. You're gonna be able to see that you're not alone and you're gonna start to understand what's really going on. And that's when change becomes possible. So don't skip this. Take the survey, come back next week. Let's do this. Until then, happy surveying.