Overwhelm and burnout therapy in Austin

Already tired before the day starts

The alarm goes off at 6 am and you have to force yourself out of bed. You unload the dishwasher, prep breakfast, and then hear your littlest crying — somehow they always know you’re up. You snuggle for a minute, and then they’re up for real, and then you’re getting everyone ready, and everything ready, and by the time you’re heading out the door at 7:45 you’ve already completed 43 tasks and you’re already tired. As the long day stretches ahead, you wonder how you’re going to get through it when you’re exhausted before it’s even started. Your partner could help — but you’re faster at it, and they didn’t respond the last time you asked (okay, the 274th time).

What burnout actually is

You feel drained, like there’s nothing left to give. You don’t have any reserves to draw from, and nothing you do seems to help. This is likely burnout. In their book Burnout, the Nagoskis describe it as a combination of emotional exhaustion, depletion, and a sense of futility. Burnout is that moment you finally sit down on the couch and you’re too done to even lift the remote. It’s the feeling of having to mentally push yourself out of bed because you barely have the energy to sit up.

What we’d work on

Burnout is a normal response to doing too much inside a system that doesn’t prioritize rest or support. There’s no magic fix for burnout in our current lives — but relief is possible, and we’ll get there together. We’ll figure out what you actually value, and work together to deprioritize what isn’t serving you. I know what you might be thinking — I’ve already tried that — and you probably have. But I’ll be there to help you sort out what doesn’t really need your time and energy, even when it feels like it does, and to help you actually act on it. If it’s appropriate, we’ll talk about ways to help clear stress hormones from your system — there are concrete ways to use up the adrenaline and cortisol your body produces under stress. And for the things that can’t change because of the world we live in, we’ll work on reframing them so you can stay focused on what matters most: your family, yourself, and your community.

You’ll still have exhausting days, and you’ll still have moments of burnout. But instead of feeling endless and insurmountable, they’ll become data — and you’ll have a set of tools to work with the problem, in your actual life.

If that feeling of burnout is impacting your relationship with your kids, you can read more here.