When You’re Tired of Trying: A Letter to the Women Holding It All Together

There was a moment recently when I found myself asking:

“How do I move forward when I’m so tired of trying?”

Not because I didn’t care…

But because I was just exhausted…

The kind of soul-tiredness that doesn’t come from one thing, but everything…

Where nothing feels particularly wrong, and yet everything feels…heavy.

Maybe you know that feeling, too?

• Perimenopause creeping in like a fog

• Holding space for clients while barely holding space for myself

• Building a business with heart, trying to stay aligned when the ground beneath me kept shifting

• Parenting two young kids, managing the endless logistics of a life that never quite slows down

• Searching for clarity while wondering where I’d left the version of me who once had it

It felt like I was losing the thread of who I was and what I was working toward.

Even the things I loved had started to feel like a list.

Rest started feeling like failure…

And maybe the hardest part was this:

I knew all the things…

I work with clients every day to help them soften their inner critic, rewrite their stories, trust their timing…

I knew it was something much deeper…

I’ve always been fiercely independent.

Not because I wanted to be a superhero, but because I didn’t know there was another option…

After my mum passed away, it felt like my last emotional landing place disappeared.

I’ve been in freefall ever since - learning to self-soothe, self-resource, self-coach.

Which is powerful, but also lonely…

Autonomy became my scaffolding…

Independence became my identity…

Doing it all myself became my worth…

Until it started to break me.

There was a moment when someone asked me: 

“If you could name your wild self - the one who wants to run in new lands, photograph wildlife, travel freely - what would you call her?”...

Once I thought about it (or pondered for days)…

I realised I’d forgotten she existed.

She hadn’t disappeared - she’d been buried.

Under motherhood…

Under business…

Under grief, expectations and responsibility….

I sat with that heartache and understood:

Maybe I didn’t need to do more, fix more, be more…

Maybe I just needed to make space for her again.

So if you’ve been carrying everything…

And wondering why it still doesn’t feel like enough…

If you’ve been asking “what should I do?”

Let me gently offer this:

That question is a quiet plea for relief.

It’s really asking:

“How do I honour myself in this moment?”...

“How do I return to the parts of me I’ve forgotten?”...

Because when you’re soul-tired, no strategy will save you.

Only softness will.

I’ve said it before, you’re not broken.

You’re not behind.

You’re in a hard chapter…

And chapters change…

And until yours does, you get to pause…exhale.

You get to ask for what you need - not just give everyone else what they need from you…

Because what’s buried isn’t lost…

And when you begin to unearth what’s underneath - not to fix, but to feel…

You start to remember who you are again.

Not the version of you that keeps everything together.

But the version of you that gets to fall apart sometimes, too…

And still be whole.

Still be worthy…still be truly enough.

Always.

I'd love to hear your thoughts or if anything resonated for you - leave a comment or get in touch to chat with me.