Big Lessons in Shoulding

That happened to me this week in therapy.

If you’ve been following along, you know my number one thing to recommend right now is self-compassion. Validating your emotions, feelings, and needs will lead you toward the best version of YOU. And that YOU can show up for everyone else who needs you in a healthy, vibrant way.

While I thought I was doing better at this, especially since reading this book, I came to realize I still struggle greatly to value and empathize with my needs.

To put it another way, I still kind of suck at boundaries.

I push my social and professional interactions to burnout status more often than I would like to admit. I am beyond fortunate to have a lot of really wonderful, smart, fun people in my life. And if they ask me to do something, I want to do it regardless of how close to E my tank has become. I know almost everyone who is reading this can likely relate. But here’s the tricky part…

The reason I do this is because I don’t respect my needs.

I discount them as needing too much time for rest and self-care. I think I should be able to do all those things. I think people who are way busier than I am do all those things and survive them just fine. I think that because I don’t have the same obligations as some others, I should have plenty of time to do all the things and to still be a ball of energy and light every day.

Here’s the truth I’m still learning, it doesn’t matter what I think I should or shouldn’t be able to do.

It doesn’t magically change my energy levels to think, “I shouldn’t be too tired to do this,” no matter how desperately I want to be the gracious person that shows up for everyone. The should’s sound great and logical…and make absolutely no difference to reality.

Your needs are your needs whether you choose to accept them or not.

Your energy is your energy whether you choose to tax it or not.

The amount of time YOU need to recover from social interactions, late nights, long meetings, or nerve-inducing interactions is what you need. Whether you think you should or not.

“Check the facts,” my therapist likes to say. And if the fact is that I’m exhausted and starting to lose this balance I love so dearly, then I simply must step back. Not only step back but get super real about what’s causing the exhaustion in the first place.

That was the mirror that got turned on me this week.

I wasn’t recognizing 50% of my day as taxing my energy when it absolutely still is.

Example: When floating in my pool, what am I thinking about? What am I talking to my husband about? Am I with him in that pool relaxing? Or am I strategizing about work, planning our next social gathering, stressing about how much I have to bake for people this week. Am I recharging or am I adding to the load? No matter what it should feel like floating in that pool, the reality can be a whole lot different. I could still be climbing a mental mountain in that pool.

This is a season of energy, of lots of daylight, of going and being and doing before the hibernating time hits again. So be sure to take a look in that mirror friends. Be sure to stop, shake off the should’s, and take care of yourself so that you can care for others. Let’s both take a leap toward genuine validation this week, towards the deeper truths of self-compassion.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

A woman is running with two dogs in a park.

Balancing a Brain that’s Fighting Back

By Katherine Warren • April 6, 2025

Your brain will straight up lie to you. There’s no way to sugar coat that, friends, there just isn’t. But your brain also creates beautiful ideas and inventions, and well, everything you see that surrounds us. It’s the power of the AND. Your brain is the king of the “and.” The first step in finding balance is recognizing this. The second step is discerning the beautiful part of your brain from the beast. The third is not reacting to, judging or negotiating with the beastly part. It’s tough, tough work. It’s lifelong work. And even if your friends start calling you things like the “definition of balance” (a term so kindly bestowed on me by some friends recently). You’re still gonna have to work your a** off on this part for the rest of your life as you sway back and forth, in and out of balance. Does it get easier? Yes and no. The beauty of understanding the feeling of balance is that you don’t have to rely on your brain so much. You know how it feels to be in a place of solid, grounded peace, no matter what your brain is shouting you “should” or “could” be doing. The harder part is that the more you find balance, the more likely it is that you are upleveling your life. Your focus and pure presence have likely brought about more of whatever you define as a successful life--mentally, physically, or materially. That uplevel can mean those brain lies cut a little deeper, make you question every decision you make to protect your peace. If you’ve learned to sit with that pain in your belly, it might fight a little harder to make you pay attention to it. It might put up a bigger fight to try to force you to listen to those untruths. This is when you have to remind yourself, your brain will straight up lie to you. Under no circumstances should you negotiate with these thoughts. That’s where spiraling lives, that’s where lack of balance lies. Sometimes holding hard to your balanced routines will do the trick.