A few weeks ago, I sat down and recorded a podcast episode about the winter I learned to stop—about an energy healer telling me I was "f'ing exhausted" and what happened when I finally gave myself permission to rest.
I was so proud of it. I felt ready to share it with the world.
And then... I didn't post it.
Because somewhere between recording that episode and now, I hit exhaustion again. The irony is not lost on me.
What Actually Happened
Here's what January and February actually looked like for me.
At first, I sunk into winter mode—nesting, resting, and not feeling at all guilty about it. It felt good. It felt on point.
And then life started life-ing, as it tends to do.
I began doing my year end analysis for the shop- what worked, what didn't, what could we have done differently and what will we do this year- I love this stuff...LFG! I allowed myself to rise from the sleepy January rest and shifted naturally into what felt aligned. But then it happened- outside noise started creeping in. Suddenly, I found myself doom scrolling way too much, getting lost in news and social media and all of it. I became frozen, discouraged, unsure of what to do next. It started to feel like the Twilight Zone. What was happening? What have we become?
Then the weather turned...in a word: brutal. We had arctic blasts, double digits below zero, and more snow than we've seen in couple of years. Winter wasn't letting up.
And then things got even heavier.
There was a death of someone in our community and the ripple was felt deeply among us even if we didn't know them. My community was grieving. There were close call car accidents and 'in the thick of it parenting struggles' with my friends and I that felt hard and raw. And then it hit too close to home—my 21-year-old nephew died in a car accident.
I wanted to run away and hide. I didn't want to be anywhere but somewhere else.
And through all of it, my brain kept saying: "You're a fraud. You can't even do what you teach."
The Fraud Story
Here's the lie I was telling myself during those weeks:
"If I really knew how to build a sustainable life, I wouldn't be struggling right now. If I was actually qualified to teach this stuff, I'd have it figured out. Who am I to talk about burnout recovery when I'm literally burning out?"
Sound familiar? Maybe you've told yourself some version of the same thing. "Who am I to give advice when my life is a mess? Who am I to help others when I can't even help myself?"
Here's what I want you to hear—and what I had to keep reminding myself:
Just because we are teachers doesn't mean we stop being students. Just because we are leaders doesn't mean we're heroes. Just because we help others doesn't mean we don't need help ourselves.
We are human. We will have hard seasons. That doesn't make us broken, and it certainly doesn't make us frauds. It just means we're in it—WITH you, not above you.
The Reframe
Here's what I'm learning, again, because the universe ensures I keep understanding it:
Sustainable doesn't mean invincible.
Building a sustainable life is like building a muscle. You don't just do it once and then you're done forever. You practice, you strain, sometimes you tear—and then you rebuild, stronger than before. Sometimes it takes a breakdown to get to the breakthrough.
And if there's one thing I know for damn sure after 15 years of sobriety, after building a business, after navigating my husband's diagnosis, after loss and grief and more hard winters than I can count—it's that nothing ever stays the same. Sometimes things get worse before they get better.
But they always get better. Not because life suddenly becomes easier, but because you get stronger. Because you learn. Because you build the muscle.
February Is a Teacher
February is a month of testing, isn't it?
It's the longest short month—that tail end of winter when you're completely DONE but spring hasn't arrived yet. The novelty of cozy has worn off, but the warmth is still weeks away.
February asks a hard question: "How committed are you to this? Not when it's easy, not when you're motivated, not when life is cooperating—but when it's hard. When you're grieving. When you're frozen. When you want to quit."
That's when you find out what sustainable really means. It doesn't mean you don't struggle. It means you don't abandon yourself when you do. And you don't ever have to do it alone.
Where I Am Now
So here's where I am today:
I'm still tired. I'm still grieving. I'm still figuring it out, honestly.
But I'm here, writing this, showing up messy—because that's the whole point.
You don't have to be healed to help. You don't have to be perfect to teach. You don't have to have it all figured out to share what you're learning along the way. You just have to be honest.
So this is me being honest: I recorded an episode about burnout, and then I burned out.
And I'm still here. And so are you. And that's enough.
If You're in a Hard Season
If you're in a hard season right now—if February is testing you too—I want you to know something:
You're not broken. You're not behind. You're not a fraud.
You're a human being having a human experience in a hard season. And seasons change. They always do.
So for now? Just stay. Just breathe. Cry. Just let winter be winter.
Spring is coming. It always does.