With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I had a to-do list packed with more items than any reasonable human could complete. Work deadlines for the industry magazine I produce. A week of early morning meetings that required me to be in the office long before my day normally starts. Menu planning and grocery shopping. And the biggest stressor of all: pulling my house back together after a months-long “home refresh” that began in August and eventually required me to empty every kitchen cabinet and live without a fully functioning kitchen for weeks.
On top of this bonus chaos, I was still trying to manage the regular rhythms of life: laundry (sort of), feeding my family, caring for the pets, fulfilling a few volunteer commitments, being a wife and a mom, and teaching yoga twice a week.
It was somewhere in the middle of this spinning, overstuffed season that I felt the quiet nudge that something wasn’t right.
If I’m honest, I think I noticed it before then. I remember telling my therapist back in early October that I felt empty inside…a kind of hollowing out I couldn’t quite explain. I felt tired in a way sleep didn’t fix. Nothing was sparking joy for me anymore. I was getting headaches almost daily. I was getting sick more often. It was as if my body was trying to get my attention while my brain kept insisting: Just push through, it’s fine.
And when I look back now, the signs were everywhere, even in the things I was creating for other people.
A perfect example? I had just planned a five-week yoga workshop called The Gift of Rest. I designed it as a soft landing place for people who move through the holiday season giving more of themselves than they ever receive back. It was meant to be a gentle pause, a chance to breathe and replenish before the world demanded more from them. In my heart, I wanted to offer people a moment of relief, a space where they could lay down what was too heavy.
But one week before it was set to begin, I canceled the entire thing. My family needed me, and I simply couldn’t stretch myself any thinner. As much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t have the capacity to pour into others when I was barely holding myself together. Canceling felt like another failure, another responsibility I’d dropped because life had become too heavy.
Then, just days later, I got sick again with another virus that came with a high fever and bone-deep exhaustion that knocked me flat. And somewhere between the chills, the body aches, and the fog of fatigue, I realized something important and uncomfortable:
I had designed The Gift of Rest because I wanted someone to offer it to me.
I had created exactly what I needed and was too depleted to give myself.
That realization landed with a clarity I couldn’t ignore. I wasn’t “just tired.” I wasn’t “just overwhelmed.” I wasn’t “just busy.” I was burned out. Truly, fully, and unmistakably burned out. Once I finally named it, I began to see how woven burnout had become into every corner of my life. And I know so many other moms feel it too, this slow unraveling that sneaks up on you until you no longer recognize the version of yourself you’re moving through the world with. So before I talk about how I’m trying to recover, let’s talk about what burnout really is and why it affects so many of us.
What Burnout Really Is, and Why Moms Are So Vulnerable
Burnout is what happens when the demands on your heart, mind, and body consistently exceed what you have the energy to give. It isn’t a bad week or simple exhaustion; it’s a slow unraveling that eventually leaves you disconnected from yourself.
For moms, the risk is especially high. We carry invisible labor, emotional responsibility, mental lists, and the pressure to hold everything together. Burnout builds quietly until you cannot ignore it anymore.
How Burnout Shows Up in Real Life
Burnout doesn’t look the same for every mom, but it often feels like emotional exhaustion, irritability, decision fatigue, and mental fog. It can show up as snapping faster than you mean to or feeling nothing at all when you know you should feel something.
Some moms over-function by doing more, striving harder. Others freeze and can hardly begin basic tasks. Both are burnout. Both deserve compassion.
Why It Happens to All Kinds of Moms
Stay-at-home moms often burn out from constant caregiving with no breaks and little adult interaction. Working moms burn out from juggling two full-time roles and the feeling of being stretched thin everywhere at once.
Burnout doesn’t discriminate. It shows up anywhere a mother’s own needs repeatedly fall to the bottom of the list.
How I’m Working Toward Recovery (and How You Can Too)
Burnout recovery is slow and gentle, not something solved in a weekend. For moms without nearby family or financial flexibility, recovery requires micro-changes: lowering the bar on purpose, simplifying meals, using screen time without guilt, and finding 2–5 minute pockets of rest. Sometimes that looks like leaving the clean laundry in a basket for a few days, letting the dishes wait, choosing the easiest dinner possible, or allowing yourself to sit down for one full minute before jumping into the next task. Those tiny pauses matter. They are small but measurable ways of telling your nervous system, You’re allowed to stop for a moment.
Support can come from unexpected places: childcare swaps with another mom, neighbors, coworkers, community groups. And sometimes support looks even simpler than that, like giving yourself permission to simplify meals when you’re running on fumes. A rotisserie chicken and a bagged salad absolutely counts as dinner. So does pasta with jarred sauce, frozen veggies, breakfast-for-dinner, or a plate of cut fruit and cheese. These small choices aren’t failures or shortcuts; they’re acts of care that keep your family fed while protecting the tiny bit of energy you still have left.
If you do have some financial margin, using it is not indulgent. It’s the healthy thing to do. Hiring a cleaner once a month, using grocery delivery, or paying a mother’s helper for two hours can create breathing room you didn’t realize you were missing.
One of the biggest choices I’ve made for myself is taking a temporary leave from teaching yoga. My body has been whispering (and sometimes shouting) that it needs rest too. So, I’m choosing to receive instead of constantly giving by letting myself heal physically and emotionally without forcing productivity.
A Hopeful, Realistic Path Forward
I’m learning that the cold, dark stretch of winter can be a quiet invitation to let go of the hustle and rest. To let things lie fallow for a season. To trust that stepping back isn’t failure but wisdom.
I’m not “fixed.” I’m not all the way through it. In fact, I’ve only just acknowledged my burnout and need to recover. But just naming it has helped so much. I’m noticing small openings: a deeper breath, a lighter morning knowing I’ve taken one thing off my plate, a moment of genuine joy as I watch the sunlight shift on a wall. Recovery isn’t linear, and it definitely isn’t glamorous. But it is possible.
