Spinning on the Inside
The exhaustion of keeping pace when your spirit is begging for stillness.
There’s a version of you the world sees: polished, steady-eyed, always‑on.
And then there’s the version that whispers at 2 a.m., I really don’t know how much longer I can keep this up
[Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash]
It’s a deep-in-the-bones ache: being the one who holds it all while wondering if you’ll ever feel held.
You’re the strong one. The rock. The late-night lifeline for everyone else, yet internally, you whisper: I’m unraveling.
You’re highly competent: tight schedules, crisp deliverables, thoughtful replies. But you’re chronically exhausted, emotionally burned out, fighting back sadness that doesn’t always have a name.
You perform competence like a mask, silencing your own need for softness.
You’re in therapy Wednesdays, still getting triggered every Monday.
The guilt of resting while others hustle rumbles in your chest.
The exhaustion from hustling while craving stillness eats at your bones.
You might find yourself promising rest…after the next deadline, the next big launch, the next break that never comes.
If that feels familiar, I want you to know:
I’ve lived there too.
I’ve cried in the car between client calls.
Wiped my face in the rearview mirror.
Turned on the camera like nothing happened.
And convinced myself I “should” keep going and hold on a little longer.
Then enter:
The guilt of showing up differently.
When things don’t go as plan, how do you reinvent yourself and pivot?
This week, I posted on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday, and my brain told me everyone hated me for it. That I was inconsistent. Unreliable. Falling behind. Letting everyone down.
It’s wild how quickly the weight of expectation can turn presence into pressure. How easily the desire to connect becomes a performance you never meant to give.
I have to intentionally challenge the dark spaces in my brain.
I know that I’m building consistency. Slowly and Intentionally.
Not to impress anyone, but to anchor myself.
I’m building the muscle of sharing.
Of showing up once a week with my raw, unfiltered thoughts.
For presence, practice, and community.
To shed light on truth in real time.
Somewhere along the way, we started losing something sacred:
The stories told around kitchen tables.
The long, winding conversations with our grandparents and great-grand parents, rich with wisdom earned through decades of struggle.
The kind of storytelling that wasn’t repurposed, captioned, or curated.
It was just human.
Digital screens have replaced eye contact.
Comments have replaced conversation.
And sometimes, our deepest truths get lost in the scroll.
So this, this rhythm of showing up, is my small act of resistance.
A return to connection.
A way of saying: Our stories still matter.
I was in a meeting this week when someone looked at me and said, “By the way, I love your Substack.”
They weren’t even subscribed. I had no idea they read it.
(Cue immediate embarrassment for feeling completely and utterly seen)
Frankly, I’m still getting used to sharing, visibility, and people calling me a writer. It’s something I’ve always wanted to be,
and simultaneously something I’ve quietly felt unqualified for.
As if I need a New York Times bestselling book, a blue check, a million subscribers, or a big-name feature to claim it.
But I’m learning:
Consistency and honesty is enough.
Making people feel seen, even if no one says a word, is enough.
I keep realizing I’m already becoming what I used to hope for,
and every time it catches me off guard in the best way.
Maybe one day it’ll settle in.
Maybe one day I’ll believe it without flinching.
This business was born in the middle of my struggle with postpartum depression.
On paper, I looked fine. I showed up. I smiled and did all the things.
I maintained surface-level conversations because that was easier. It felt like what I was carrying was too much to explain.
I was in the middle of the biggest identity shift of my life.
And I wasn’t fine.
I was foggy, fragile, quietly breaking behind every calendar reminder and bottle feed.
Grieving the version of me I used to recognize while learning to hold a whole new world on my shoulders.
And in the middle of that invisible heaviness, I started building.
I didn’t feel whole, have many answers or even know where my path was headed.
Something inside me needed light.
A larger purpose.
Proof that I still existed beyond diapers and grief and 3 a.m. feedings.
There were days I couldn’t see out of the darkness.
And when therapy alone wasn’t enough, medication helped bring me back to myself.
It was a hard pill to swallow, especially after having a natural, unmedicated birth.
To go from that kind of unwavering strength to needing pharmaceutical help just six weeks later felt like a personal failure at first.
But it wasn’t.
It was a turning point.
Sometimes healing looks like asking for help and accepting it.
But first, you have to actually believe you’re finally worth saving.
This has never been about about hustle.
It is about legacy.
This is the canopy gap.
The space where strength becomes armor, and healing feels like a luxury.
Where perfection hides the parts that are breaking.
Where rest feels suspicious and reaching out for care feels dangerous.
Here’s what I want you to know today:
You don’t have to fall apart in secret to deserve gentleness.
You don’t need a meltdown to ask for softness.
You don’t have to carry invisible weight to earn your rest.
Wholeness is the goal.
Not survival
And wholeness is beautifully messy, tender, and slow.
It’s emotional unravelling and breathing again.
It’s rewriting not enough into grace, every single day. Maybe every hour on the hour, if needed.
If you’ve been carrying extra, for everyone but yourself, or for everyone and yourself, let this be your invitation:
Let your softness count.
Allow the cracks to show.
Let rest be your act of rebellion.
Let unfiltered vulnerability be the revolution.
Even here, even now,
You are becoming.
Into the real, raw, complex, evolving being you’re meant to be.
You’re not broken.
You’re becoming.
And that, right there, is more enough.
It’s special. And I’m right here alongside you.