How to Care Without Burning Out: Boundaries for Conscious Entrepreneurs with Laura Caruso

Feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to have opinions on everything online? Exhausted from caring so deeply while trying to build a business and maintain your sanity? 

In this episode, I sit down with New York-based therapist and business owner Laura Caruso for a real talk about self-preservation without checking out completely.

We're breaking down what it actually looks like to care deeply while protecting your energy—especially as an entrepreneur, creator, or anyone building something meaningful in today's chaos.

This episode explores:
🧠 Managing information overload while staying socially aware (without the anxiety spiral)
📱 The exhausting pressure to be "activist-y" on social media as a business owner  
🫂 Finding your people and having honest conversations that actually matter
⚖️ How Laura runs a therapy practice AND maintains boundaries without guilt
💡 Practical strategies for showing up authentically without burning out your nervous system

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to All Our Parts. I am so excited for my guest today. She is a New York therapist, private practice owner, Lauren Caruso. Thank you so much for joining me today. Of

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

course. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 0:18

So we were talking a bit offline and I asked her to pivot from the usual, like both of us really cover attachment relational content, like in our social media, through our podcasts, And so I brought up the idea to her to discuss self-preservation in this very unpredictable, chaotic, ever-evolving political climate that we are in right now.

SPEAKER_01: 0:46

We love a good pivot.

SPEAKER_00: 0:53

And I think this is so necessary right now. pieces of our lives while staying engaged and speaking up for what is happening right now, which is absolute chaos.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

To say the least.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15

Putting it lightly. It

SPEAKER_01: 1:17

reminds me actually something that you just said. I saw this post recently that talked about even in the darkest of times, people were still like falling in love, hanging out with their friends, going to work. And it's this weird, like cognitive dissonance type feeling almost where the world is actively feels like it's falling apart. And then you have to get up and go to work the next day.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38

Yeah. Sometimes it feels like dissociative and then other times it feels okay. But I also do the things that we recommend our clients to do, do the things that feel lighter. And I have found myself feeling much more tired lately. Like it just feels like feeling so fatigued and feeling okay. This is what's going on right now. And I want to be aware because also being a practitioner that lives in DC, it's wrong for me to not know. Like I have to stay informed and aware. because so many of who I work with is impacted by this administration right now. And so it's okay. Stay involved. And I have to have the energy to show up for my clients and I've got the energy to show up for myself as a person. And it's toggling this like back and forth almost, but I loved also seeing so many of us pivot our content and make space for the very real catastrophe that is happening right now in this world?

SPEAKER_01: 2:51

Yeah, it's so interesting because I'm a relationship therapist through and through. It's what my content has been about literally since I created the account. And then with everything that's happening and I started becoming more vocal, especially during the election, that's when my account really started to shift. And like now in my bio, it says unapologetically vocal about social issues. So to change an entire platform that I've built over the past few years And then just say, nope, actually, that's not important anymore. It's still important, but it doesn't carry as much weight or value as, for example, the social impact conversations that we're having.

SPEAKER_00: 3:28

What has that been like for you to experience that

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

shift? ran through the analytics and she said, Laura, you were posting like 10 to 15 stories a day leading up to the election and you only lost a thousand followers and you like gained a thousand followers in a matter of 24 hours. So it's like the numbers aren't important, but it's interesting to see how they shift because a lot of people who did have platforms and then suddenly were vocal about politics lost a lot of that fan base and they left and they weren't interested in it. They didn't want to hear it. And they just did their own thing and moved in a different direction or the people who were posting just stopped posting that political content I didn't stop but it also didn't really shift my account that much either because everyone kind of stayed I built that community really brick by brick

SPEAKER_00: 4:32

yeah and I think we can sometimes tell even before you become outright vocal about something you can tell where people are leaning within their content especially as things get more vague or more ambiguous it's okay what's going on here but cultivating that community of transparency very early on allows for us to make shifts as creators and of course there would be people that drop off and goodbye like you don't have to stay and the people who are interested and learning and staying for that part of us is also really important. I actually just recorded with Lauren Larkin last week and we talked about how We as therapists are allowing ourselves the space to have many sides to ourselves, like within the content space.

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

Yeah, that's so funny. I just got dinner with Lauren Larkin last week, probably right before or after you guys recorded. No, it's so true. And it's so hard to make that space for ourselves. I don't know about you, but during my grad program, that's like what was drilled into our heads every day. Take care of yourself, have boundaries, work-life balance. What does self-care look like for therapists and now obviously it's so necessary and it was necessary back then too but it's different now we're responding in really different ways like you said fatigued and just exhausted and we don't realize how much exposure impacts us right when we're hit when we open instagram something that used to be fun and light and silly and now we open instagram and it's oh department of education dismantled oh there's just headline after headline and now things that used to be fun and safe and almost stressful Yeah, I was

SPEAKER_00: 6:29

thinking, as I was thinking about this topic, I was like, we live in a world where we are so exposed, like overly exposed. We can open the news app, we can open threads, we can open TikTok, we can open Instagram, we can open Facebook, we can open YouTube. And information is there and it is at our fingertips. And so it is very easy to get down the rabbit hole of, well, I don't know, I don't know. What's going on? What's happening? How can I get involved? How can I stay in tune? And sometimes in order to preserve us as people, in order to persevere this fight, we've got to think about longevity. We've got to think about, okay, what does it look like to sustain ourselves in this world right now? Because we don't want to burn out early on and forget about these things three years later. we want to still be equally as aggravated frustrated fired up four years from now so yeah it's like what does it look like to be engaged keep speaking up and maintain

SPEAKER_01: 7:40

yeah I saw something recently where the advice was to pick one or two things you're really passionate about and focus on consuming that to the degree that you would want to right where you're You're very vocal. You're very active. You're educating yourself. You're very invested in it. And then everything else, don't ignore it, right? But filter through it. So you don't need to deep dive into it because there's too many things to dive deep into right now. And that's impossible. If we try to know everything, we're actually not learning anything because you just can't. We don't have the bandwidth to. And I really liked that. I think the problem with that is right now, it's like, where do you start? Which do you choose there's too many things it's

SPEAKER_00: 8:26

the double-edged sword of you can't be an expert at everything because right now it feels like if everything isn't being spoken up for it will get taken away very quickly and we are watching things get taken away very quickly

SPEAKER_01: 8:41

yeah I love your emphasis too on what is the long-term vision look like right how do we make this sustainable and I always tell clients do really small things One at a time. Right. So you're not going in and doing a whole lifestyle overhaul. That's not sustainable. You're never going to be able to pick up the habit. But maybe that means you're putting on do not disturb while you're at work or like during daytime hours. So you're limiting your exposure. And then you're spending maybe 20 minutes scrolling through and reading headlines and reading articles and educating yourself. And then that's it. You pack it up, put it away, and then you do whatever else you want to do for the rest of the evenings. Yeah, it is. It's

SPEAKER_00: 9:33

going to burn you out and it's going to cause depression. It's going to cause anxiety. It is going to elicit responses that it's going to be harder to regulate as times go on if we're not doing the small, like you said, the small sustainable lifestyle changes that lead to having a more consistent lifestyle. I'm about to lose my mind. Okay. There's protests outside my house. Cool. But being able to say, okay, you know what? I'm going to read the news for an hour and then put the phone away for the weekend. Let Sundays be a full reset day without the internet and just be able to read the news. allowing, I think, real space to slow down.

SPEAKER_01: 10:27

Yeah. Something I'm talking a lot about lately is even just stimulation, right? So it used to be okay to have notifications on your phone because you had capacity and bandwidth. And now if we're running a bit more fatigued, if we're a bit more scattered and have a bit more brain fog, right, you're probably overstimulated and dysregulated more consistently. So think about what stimulation even means, right? I'm sitting in this room and there are three lights that are on. That's three different lights that are stimulating me. There's a lot of conversations online. I don't know if you're on this crazy algorithm like I am, but the like anti-big light where you turn the big lights

SPEAKER_00: 11:06

off and you

SPEAKER_01: 11:07

hate it. I'm so anti-big light. We're only sitting with low lighting because it's regulating to the nervous system. It's not fueling you with all of this exposure and all of this bright light and all of the senses too. We have the podcast cast going we have the music in the background even I get frustrated now with the dogs moving and like tippy tapping on the ground because I'm just overstimulated it has nothing to do with the dogs

SPEAKER_00: 11:34

that makes me feel like just less alone because I was getting to a point where I was like god I don't want to listen to music maybe I just want to listen to a really funny podcast and or maybe I just want to drive in silence but there were so many things that used to feel like these are things that help us unwind Help us decompress from the day that sometimes start to feel really overstimulating and overwhelming. And that's where being consistent with what our body needs and being okay with that shift, being pretty present with it becomes really important. And it's okay to be like, you know what, today I need an audio book. I just need me and a book and some quiet. I need no overhead light. I need natural light only beat. being able to make those adjustments and seeing the difference that it makes really is amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

I want to reinforce that idea of noticing what your body needs, because we're so disconnected from our bodies and the current society as it's structured, is to disconnect us, right? It benefits from our disconnection, our dysregulation. That's how the systems thrive. That's how they succeed on the oppressive end of it, but we don't thrive. Even being able to acknowledge this is something that I need right now. And then this feels like too much for me live in New York City, I have to walk my dog every day, I can't just open the back door. And I go for a long 30 minute walk at the end of the day. And I usually listen to an audio book or a podcast. And sometimes that's just too much. Having to listen to someone else speak after I just spoke all day or after I was reading all day, it's too much sometimes to consume that much information. And so I'll put on like an instrumental type music or like music that I know the lyrics to and can sing every word and don't have to even think about it. It's just second nature to me, because I'm trying to limit that exposure and give my brain the break and my body the break that it deserves.

SPEAKER_00: 13:35

Yeah, I've definitely been leaning more into like cooking shows, low stakes, high reward, I don't have to pay attention. And I will watch them like while I'm making breakfast, lunch or dinner. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's so exciting. I'm feeling really creative. And it is not overwhelming. It's not too much. And I'm like that's where I am I've had to sideline some of my reality TV that I love so dearly because I'm like I love y'all and y'all are just that's not where I am right now and that's been okay as you were talking I was thinking about as we're creating these more sustainable shifts and we are slowing down maintaining a sense of regulation what does building community look like in this current climate right now? Or what does it look like to maintain community? Because sometimes we use that word and it sometimes can be like a buzzword almost. But what does real sustainable community in a climate that has us tired inevitably and needing to be really conscientious of our consumption in order to maintain and preserve a regulated, balanced nervous system? I

SPEAKER_01: 15:00

think community starts to feel a bit like the other pop psych buzzwords, like boundaries, narcissism, right? They get so twisted that the definition becomes very unclear. And it's influenced then by cultural norms that we have within our society. And we're a very individualistic society, this Western world, right? So it's every man for themselves. You have to take care of yourself, your own individual success. Your individual success is prioritized over the needs of other people. And so this idea of community then has shifted. It's no longer about relationships with other people and maintaining relationships with other people. I feel like community is almost becoming a synonym for connection. And that's not actually what it is. Community is support, right? Unity is care. It's taking care of the people around you, regardless of that connection, because you don't have to like your community. There are people in your community that's going to rub you the wrong way, and you're not going to like them. But it doesn't mean that you don't extend care. You actually grow and expand as a person when you are able to extend care to someone who maybe you don't really want to. Showing empathy, showing care for others makes you feel more fulfilled and more connected, regardless of whether you're connecting with that specific person or not.

SPEAKER_00: 16:17

I love that you mentioned that because yeah, like, community is and can And we confuse it sometimes for this thing that's going to be sometimes easy and seamless and it's like we're all showing up for one another. And yes, and sometimes we've got to put our individualistic mindsets aside and say, okay, what's the best way that I can show up for this person while also maintaining my own capacity?

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

Yeah, like those are

SPEAKER_00: 16:49

the two questions we've got to balance while doing it. a lot of us have had to be more conscientious of the community that we surround ourselves with, of the conversations, what consistent communication looks like, what quality time even looks, balancing all of those things and being like, okay, if this isn't a space that feels good for me right now, I don't necessarily need to cut it off. I can actually just create a different parameter about this circumstance. Your DMs for example you

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

my dms for example let's talk about the dms oh man it's so true you don't get to choose who's in your community right i get dms from anyone and everyone and not everyone is happy right especially if i'm talking about social issues and the funny part is the people who are unhappy in my dms are the people who don't follow me the people who aren't actively a part of my communities They just want me to know how they feel. And you don't have to take care of everyone, but you do have to take care of your community. And that's why communities tend to be smaller, right? Society is the larger scale version of that. Community is your immediate surroundings, right? It's your people. And obviously we talked about how it doesn't always include people that you love, right? But you can engage with that community and even the larger society. And you're supposed to engage differently as your needs start to shift, like how we engage with self-care differently. We're going to need different things at different times. And that's our responsibility to notice when we're going to need to adapt or change something, right? Same for community. You don't have to be fully invested every single day, putting their needs before yours. You get to decide, is this something and someone that I really need to show up for right now? Or is it just me? do I need to really prioritize myself right now or is there a combination of both right it doesn't have to be so black and white either we tend to always say this or that's why I love when you said yes and right two things can be true at the same time I

SPEAKER_00: 19:08

live I try to live in the yes and as somebody who can get really stuck in all or nothing thinking and even in relationships I used to very much function in a space where we're either in it or we're not and there's There's no in between. And as I think as we get older, as life happens, as we evolve, you realize actually there is a slew of gray that can exist in relationships, connection and community. And the person that you see a couple times a year and the person that you talk to a couple times a year, all of those people like get to be a part of your community. Because your needs will shift, what you need out of your relationships will shift. Therefore, like being able to evolve with your relationships is like a really valuable thing.

SPEAKER_01: 20:22

any room for change. We become way too rigid. And then that hurts our relationships. I'm guilty of that. I think that ended all of my relationships in the past where I was too rigid. It happens, but we have to own that as humans and be able to identify when that's happening and playing out in real time and adapt.

SPEAKER_00: 20:40

My brain's like, this is where attachment wounds come in. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 20:43

the relational therapist in us. Here we are. You

SPEAKER_00: 20:48

can tune in to all our parts and the safe space if that is so think you are interested in learning more about both of our podcasts we love to yap about it to dive deeper into attachment styles how they are not fixed and all the great things little podcast plug while we're here love

SPEAKER_01: 21:07

it women supporting women

SPEAKER_00: 21:09

and that is becoming I'm watching the new season of White Lotus right now

SPEAKER_01: 21:15

okay I haven't watched any of White Lotus

SPEAKER_00: 21:19

so there are three women on the latest season where they are long-term friends. And when one leaves the room, they make these snide comments. She's a narcissist, isn't she? And the other friend will think about it as to not engage, but then they say, oh, she's so into her vanity. And I'm like, gosh, that is how a lot of, sadly, how a lot of women friendships are. They are celebrating you in your face and then they either in the long run want something from you or there is some envy some jealousy or they're just not really supporting you and so watching their dynamic it's because when they're together they're like you're just the best I love you you're everything and then when they ultimately separate or someone leaves the room it's like she's having a divorce happen right now and that shady shit is so I watch it and I'm like guy, but that's not uncommon.

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

Yeah. It's those are the most unhappy people, the ones who immediately have to jump into a different alliance with someone else just so that, you know, you can ostracize someone else. It's like that desire or need for connection to feel aligned with someone so desperately that you're willing to throw someone else under the bus. It's I don't even have a word to describe it. It's just that's the word that comes up.

SPEAKER_00: 22:51

That's one of my hard lines I will say as yeah learning over time it I'm like yeah It's like the world is hard enough as it is. Women supporting women, like if you're just in this for something or there's some envy, it's I'm okay. I am, I've been in those spaces and I believe it takes a lot of inner work to be someone where someone else's success is not a determining factor on your success and recognizing there's enough space for everybody. I recognize the work that that it takes to get there. And because I know I'm continuing to do the work that it is valuable and necessary in those spaces.

SPEAKER_01: 23:39

Yeah. And I love that you're owning that, right? We're not perfect. We're humans. And it's also just something that we're thrown into because that's what everyone else is doing, right? Think about middle school cafeteria, miserable. That might be the worst place on this entire planet to ever be. And that's what you need to do for survival. Because if you're not talking about other people, they're talking about you. And what are they saying about you right now? They're getting the leg up. So you have to do it for survival. But then you get older and you realize it's actually not that important. Nobody really cares. And then it's our responsibility to pull back and stop doing that and start treating other people's with kindness at the bare minimum. And it's just so confusing because when I see other women like tearing women down or talking negatively, I'm even thinking about them. I'm going to throw my mom under the bus for a second, but my mom will watch a TV show and make comments about the women on the TV show. She doesn't know these people. Why does it impact her so significantly to the point that she has to call it out and like actually vocally say something. And I just, I don't have the time for that. I don't have the energy for that. Life is hard enough, right? Women are attacked enough. We're constantly fighting patriarchy, misogyny We're just trying to protect ourselves 24 hours a day. I'm not going to protect myself from another woman. I don't have time for that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:07

And it actually feels so much easier to just celebrate the women in our lives. Actually, I feel better when I leave a comment, when I share a post, when I'm like, hell yeah. Because there is a world that does not want to see women progress. And there is a world that would love to see women's voices stifled and minimized and so to see women stepping up in their niche to be stepping out and just like being bold and courageous in who they are and really owning who they are and being confident I'm like hell yeah you that internalized misogyny that like playing it small when we look at confidence it is ultimately that is the patriarchy saying women can't be anything but a mom a wife, caretaker, villain, all the other words there. All

SPEAKER_01: 26:05

the other roles that we were assigned. It's so true. Everyone is insecure. Everyone has gaps in their confidence, and that's okay. You don't need to be super confident. I always tell clients, and honestly, I tell myself, the best advice I ever received was fake it till you make it. If you don't know how to do something, say you don't know how to do it and then look it up. Or if you can fake it in that moment fake it right if it's not going to harm anyone or it's not going to harm yourself be confident be courageous right if I need to do something that makes me scared or if I feel insecure I'm going to fully mask up I don't care if I'm being authentic or not in that moment right if I need to get it done I'm going to get it done and then I'm going to reflect and think about it and then I'm going to integrate that into a part of myself right now we're in this parts work world again then I'm going to pull from that and create that characteristic or that quality within myself and build on it. You don't need to be this like super authentic, genuine, 100% you kind of person all the time. Yes, you want to be authentic and genuine to your own needs and your own interests and desires and vision for the future. But if you need to fake it sometimes, do it. Who's stopping you?

SPEAKER_00: 27:23

Nothing. Literally nobody. And then look it up later. Like you said, if it's not harming the other, person if it's really just preserving 30 seconds in that moment hell yeah I got this and then go home and be like ooh I might need to research how to actually do this task just double check make sure I got it 100 but yeah we don't have to be confident all the time I just made a post on TikTok we don't have to be fearless either we can actually be terrified and still say you know what I'm still going to do that thing. And it's helping to be

SPEAKER_01: 28:01

scared. If you don't feel scared, then you also can't feel proud and successful and accomplish. Our emotions sit on opposite ends of the spectrum. And if we don't feel one end of that spectrum, we can't feel the other.

SPEAKER_00: 28:15

Another plug, go watch Inside Out 2. It perfectly encapsulates and yeah, media can be sometimes really helpful.

SPEAKER_01: 28:25

I'm also noticing, I don't know about you, a lot more therapy in the media. It's fascinating, like movies and TV and even like books now. I just read The Fourth Wing. I read the first book of the series. I don't know if you've read it, but my partner got me into romantic books. So that's where I started. The main character is very much due EMDR therapy. And she has this safe space, essentially, right? Safe space is this resource that we use in EMDR therapy to go to this place in your mind. It's like a visualization exercise where you're completely at ease. So as you're unpacking really difficult things and trauma in EMDR therapy, you can go into that safe space to regulate after the processing happens. This character in the book has a version of a safe space. She's not necessarily using Using it for the same thing to regulate, but she's using it to access her power. That's what we're talking about, right? Female empowerment. If you need to mask to access that power and to not let the fear consume you and control you, do

SPEAKER_00: 29:31

it. Yeah. There is a healthy level of avoidance that does exist and is helpful. And there is a healthy level of masking that exists. It can be super helpful. It's a tool. Everything's a tool in moderation. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 29:45

You just have to learn how to control it and use it

SPEAKER_00: 29:52

consciously.

SPEAKER_01: 30:15

what it is that I want in the present day and then what it is that I want out of my future. And I'm pursuing that instead of boxing myself into something I think I should be doing.

SPEAKER_00: 30:27

I love that. How can people find you? Where can they find you if they are interested in working with your practice or just getting to connect with you?

SPEAKER_01: 30:37

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram. It's at lauracaruso.therapy. I'm a New York licensed therapist. So I see clients in the state of New York. And then I also run a low fee affordable therapy practice in the state of New York as well. So we have sessions starting at$70 per session. And that's called psychotherapy. And I think the website is well psychnyc.com. But yeah, that's pretty much it. I have a podcast called Safe Space, but everything is on my Instagram. So start there and you'll get the link and bio for everything else.

SPEAKER_00: 31:08

Everything will be linked in the show notes. Laura, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01: 31:13

Thanks for having

SPEAKER_00: 31:14

me. We're healing out loud together.