Feeling anxious?

You’re so overwhelmed you don’t even know where to start. Each night you go to bed, you tell yourself that you’ll wake up and do something differently. You plan to workout, journal, meditate…all the things you see on the internet and social media that will help. Since you’re an impeccable planner and have amazing follow through, you have no doubt that tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow comes and goes and you’re still feeling like an anxious hot mess. You don’t workout, you don’t take a walk, you continue to scroll social media to distract from your stress and anxiety. Nothing is different and you feel defeated yet again.

You scroll endlessly at night and during down times to distract from the chaos in your life and this just ends up making you feel worse. Because you’re comparing yourself to others on the internet and because you just wasted two fucking hours of your life looking at completely utter bullshit that has no relevance or importance to you in your actual life.

You’re constantly thinking about what you should or shouldn’t do. You are indecisive about the big things and the small things. Every decision seems overwhelming and you have to make a ton of them in your life—not just for you but for those around you. You plan the meals, do the grocery shopping, you work a full time job only to come home to another full time job. If one more person asks you “what’s for dinner?”, you might just lose your fucking mind. When it comes to your personal decisions, you are so over it. When you get an hour to yourself, you spend most of the time debating what you should do: should you do some chores? Should you go for a walk? Should you go browse at a local shop you’ve been wanting to check out? Should you read a book? You get through questioning all of your options, and the hour is over.

OVERWHELMED WITH GUILT?

You’re drowning in a symphony of negative self-talk, the constant running dialogue in the back of your head telling you that you’re not good enough, that you’ll never get your shit together, that you’ll never compete with that person you’re low-key stalking on social media. You constantly feel guilty when you’re not spending your time giving to others. When you need a moment to yourself, you are overwhelmed with guilt. You compensate by giving more to others. This leads to the never-ending cycle: you give away all you’ve got, get resentful that you’re not getting as much in return, you get irritable and angry with those around you, and then you feel guilty. And the cycle repeats. Making a decision without guilt as a motivator seems impossible.

You are struggling to tell others what you think or how you feel because you feel too guilty to share your feelings. In fact, you can’t make any decisions that aren’t motivated by guilt. You are struggling to communicate with your partner because you’re afraid of adding too much to their plate so you keep it all to yourself even though there is literally no more fucking room on your plate.

You struggle to establish boundaries with your family members because they are so used to you being the “go-to” person that everyone relies on. Do you even know what a boundary is? Maybe. Maybe not. But a part of you thinks you might need to know what they are and how to establish them. You have so much to be grateful for and from the outside, you’re life looks great. In the grand scheme of things in the world, your problems feel so minimal. You feel kind of silly for even struggling…dare I say guilty?

Completely burnt out?

You are consumed with creating efficiency in your life to the point where it has become a barrier rather than a solution. A to-do list is your jam, and those lists are so damn organized they have headers and categories, and the satisfaction you get from crossing things off that list gives you such a sense of satisfaction. You work a full-time job outside of the home. Your job requires you to be “on” constantly. You are giving to others, full of empathy and compassion. You’re acutely aware of the needs, wants, and feelings of others. This is where you thrive and everyone around you is amazed by your ability to manage everything that comes your way.

All day you listen, solve problems, are completely tuned in and then when you get home, it’s job #2. And an unpaid job at that. You’re giving everything you have to those around you and you’re depleted. When you get home, you’re irritable with your family when they want something from you—even if it’s just your time. That feels like too much to give. You want to retreat and be left alone but you don’t have that luxury. Because after that long day at your depleting job, you have more things to cross off that organized and color coded to-do list. There’s part of you that knows deep down that your homelife shouldn’t be represented by a to-do list but you have no other way of organizing all of the demands. It feels like everyone’s needs and wants are smothering you and you haven’t even considered your own. And now because of all of that, you are burned out. And not just burned out—like, crispy. Burnt to a motherfucking crisp.