Community Conversations: Honest Takes & Tips on Motherhood, Burnout & The Invisible Load
Following My Poll Revealing 83% of Mothers Feel Pressure To Always Appear “Fine”
Last week, I wrote an article called Are Mothers Ever Allowed To Have An Emotionally “Off Day”? about the pressure so many of us feel to constantly show up as “fine” while carrying the invisible load of motherhood, work, relationships, emotional regulation and everyday life.
I didn’t expect the response it received, but I am so grateful for the honesty in the comments, messages and conversations that followed. It felt less like a response to an article and more like permission to exhale, be seen and feel validated.
One of the polls I shared showed that 83% of women put pressure on themselves to always appear “fine”. Another showed that 100% of respondents believed motherhood would feel less lonely if we allowed each other to see our full truths more often.
I think that says everything.
What struck me most wasn’t just how many women resonated, but how many had built their own ways of surviving, softening or supporting themselves through difficult seasons. So I asked the women in my community:
What has helped you when you’ve felt emotionally overwhelmed, burnt out or like you’ve been carrying too much for too long?
What followed was one of the most thoughtful, compassionate conversations I’ve witnessed in a long time: there was no pretending, no performance, no “bounce back” culture, just women telling the truth. And while everyone’s circumstances were different, I noticed a few themes emerging again and again.
Not Everything Needs To Be “Fixed”
One of the strongest threads running through the responses was the idea that not every difficult emotion is a problem to solve immediately.
One Woman Village shared something that stopped me in my tracks:
“The more I performed being fine, the further away I felt from myself.”
She spoke about creating what she calls a “base camp” – a space where she no longer needs to improve herself, optimise herself or earn her rest, but can simply arrive exactly as she is.
This is such a powerful reminder, because when you’re overwhelmed, exhausted or emotionally stretched, our instinct is often to immediately go into fixing mode: researching solutions, creating new routines, optimising schedules, pushing harder and trying to become “better” at coping.
But motherhood has a funny way of exposing the limits of that approach.
Similarly, Anna Luiza Boide shared that what didn’t help her was constantly being told to “rest more”, “delegate” or “ask for help”, because those suggestions assumed she had support available in the first place.
As an expat navigating toddlerhood alongside the onset of perimenopause, she realised her exhaustion wasn’t simply behavioural – her body was genuinely depleted. She said: “What helped: understanding that depletion in this season has a biological substrate, not just a scheduling or support problem…I'm a physician and I ended up creating the thing I was looking for because it didn't exist.”
I thought that perspective was incredibly important because not all burnout is solved with better time management. Sometimes there are physiological, hormonal, emotional or structural layers underneath the exhaustion that need acknowledging too.
Perhaps part of healing begins when we stop treating ourselves like problems that constantly need solving.
The Smallest Things Often Matter Most
Another theme that emerged repeatedly was that healing didn’t necessarily come from huge lifestyle overhauls or perfectly curated self-care routines. Instead, it came from small moments woven gently into everyday life.
Meghan Jaquier shared that rather than waiting for long stretches of uninterrupted alone time, she started inviting her children into moments of peace with her. Sometimes that looked like saying: “Mummy needs a timeout.” Other times it looked like lying down together, scratching her children’s backs, meditating alongside them or quietly painting watercolours side by side.
She also said:
“It’s unrealistic to hold out for big pockets of time away to relieve your stress, so you have to make it fit your everyday.”
I think so many mothers need to hear that. Because the idea that self-care only “counts” if it happens separately from motherhood can make support feel even further out of reach.
Joy Harvey shared something beautifully simple too: “We would get outside.” And described how she didn’t always plan elaborate days out or expensive activities. Just intentionally chose fresh air, movement, space and a few quiet moments to breathe while her children played.
And Anjum echoed something very similar. She wrote about learning to regulate her nervous system through small moments of presence woven throughout ordinary family life:
birdsong in the morning
wind through the trees
a deeper breath before reacting
reading together
standing outside while waiting for the school bus
She reflected that what didn’t help was believing she needed huge, uninterrupted blocks of time to feel calm again. This felt especially important to highlight here.
There is a strong tendency to feel we need to momentarily escape motherhood to recalibrate, but allowing ourselves to soften within it more often could actually be the key.
On a similar note, Kavi 🌸 described the serendipity of my last article and shared a recent article where she describes this stage of motherhood of becoming “the hinge”…“The person the whole door swings on.” Especially for those of us caring for children and elderly parents – something so many of us can relate to.
It’s a wonderful metaphor, and is a perfect segue into the next theme.
What Happens When We Stop Pushing Through
Another powerful thread was the importance of honesty with the people closest to us.
Georgina | The Soul’s Bloom 🌷 shared that she has slowly stopped forcing herself to endlessly push through depletion.
Hugely relatable, she shared how some evenings, after work and parenting, she simply has nothing left in the tank. But now, instead of masking it, she communicates it honestly with shorter bedtime routines, quieter evenings, less pressure to perform and more openness about her capacity.
What struck me most was her reason why:
“I don’t want to model to my children that it’s ok to neglect my needs.”
That sentence stayed with me all week, and I’m sure it will strike a chord with many of you, too.
So many of us grew up watching women abandon themselves in the name of caregiving. And now, many mothers are trying to rewrite that pattern in real time while still carrying enormous loads themselves.
Georgina also spoke about meditation becoming a daily non-negotiable – not as another thing to achieve, but as a reminder that her worth is not tied to constant productivity. I think that distinction matters, and I wonder whether you resonate?
Rest Is Not Failure
Finally, there was something incredibly healing about hearing from women who were further along in motherhood. Some commented publicly, while others messaged privately. But many shared variations of: “This season is intense, but you will get through it.”
There’s something profoundly comforting about women reaching backwards with reassurance for those still in the thick of it. Especially for those of us raising children without the village.
Jenny / Keep Going, Mama wrote: “I’ve learned that rest isn’t quitting – it’s part of how we keep going.”
It’s simple, honest, and so validating to hear out loud. So many of us have internalised the idea that needing rest means we’re failing. But to hear confirmation from mothers a few years ahead is deeply comforting, as rest is often what protects us from losing ourselves entirely.
When I wrote my original piece, I thought I was writing about emotionally “off days”.
But after reading comments, messages and reflections from women, I think this conversation was really about something much deeper: Permission.
Permission to:
stop performing “fine”
stop treating every emotion like a problem
stop believing exhaustion is weakness
stop carrying everything silently
stop measuring our worth by productivity alone
And perhaps most importantly, permission to let ourselves be seen.
I think many of us are craving exactly this kind of village – not one where everybody has the answers, but one where women can tell the truth about their lives without fear of judgement.
Not perfectly curated motherhood, not performance, not pretending. Just honesty, softness and women reminding each other: “Me too. I’ve felt that as well.”
Substack is such a special place for this kind of conversation, and I’m deeply grateful for every woman who shared part of herself with me this week.
Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability – you make other mothers feel less alone. 🤍