You Are Working Hard Enough
And You Need To Hear This
You Have Done Enough Work
I’m tired. Scratch that. I’m freaking exhausted.
I’m not just talking about the obvious exhaustion that comes with raising kids, an ebb-and-flow career, marriage, caregiving, and the mental load of holding everyone’s lives together while quietly trying not to unravel.
I’m talking about the exhaustion I and so many others (often women) feel from constantly trying to fix ourselves. Because women—especially women in recovery—have done an extraordinary amount of work.
We have sat in therapy rooms and cracked ourselves open. We have read the books, journaled until our hands cramped, gone on the stupid walks for our stupid mental health, practiced gratitude, connected with our inner child, learned nervous system regulation, and spent years trying to become the healthiest version of ourselves.
Many of us got sober and rebuilt our lives brick by brick. We learned how to sit with discomfort instead of running from it. We learned accountability. We learned humility. We learned how to keep showing up, even when it hurt.
We have worked, worked, and worked some more.
And yet, when something goes sideways—when a marriage struggles, when our bodies change, when our children are hurting, when we lose our temper, when a dream doesn’t work out—our first instinct is still so often the same:
What is wrong with me?
And we look for the fix. I would look for answers from my therapist. I would search self-help books and projects and promises of what will save me this time. Is it peptides? A better practice, or program, or diet? As if the answer is always more effort. More striving. More self-improvement.
What if you are already doing enough? No, I mean it. Stick with me here. What if your job now isn’t to keep sanding yourself down into some shinier, more acceptable version of womanhood—but to let yourself be?
To trust that your best intentions matter, even when outcomes are messy. To understand that not everything broken is yours to fix. To know that sometimes relationships struggle because they are all hard, not because you failed. Sometimes goals fall apart because life is unpredictable, not because you lacked discipline. Sometimes people misunderstand you, disappoint you, or leave—and it isn’t proof that you need another book, another breakthrough, another round of personal excavation.
And maybe midlife isn’t asking women to work harder on themselves. Maybe it’s asking us to finally put down the tools, stop treating ourselves like a project, and to stop carrying the crushing belief that if we could just be better, everything around us would finally work.
You are not failing because life remains imperfect. You have done enough work.
Couple of housekeeping items:
Reminder: If you are here for the Quiet Quitting in Marriage series, I’ve created a private Facebook group just for you. More than 300 women, with options to post anonymously or just listen. All I ask is kindness and respect, and of course: Privacy. Find our group here.
I started my new community last week! Thank you to everyone who dove in headfirst to a space that is very near and dear to my heart. There She Os is a community for midlife women who feel disconnected from their bodies and finally ready to experience real desire, pleasure, and sensuality. It might feel random. It’s not. I promise everything will start to make sense as I roll out all the beautiful bells and whistles I have planned for this space. In the meantime, I’ve decided to keep membership free for my founding members. Join us today!!
My friend Emily Lynn Paulson has an incredible book coming out this week and I hope you will order it! The Revenge Party is her debut novel, and it’s a thriller! You probably recognize Emily’s name from her last two books. Highlight Reel and Hey Hun. She’s an amazing writer, and I had so much fun reading her early drafts and seeing her writing process come alive
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