As an athlete, you are held to a different standard and the invisible pressures of your role and responsibilities can be debilitating. You love your sport, but lately the demands of it paired with the stress of academics, work, your social life and taking care of your health have been exhausting and you’re wondering if continuing to compete is even worth all the stress. You feel pressure from your coaches, peers and yourself, and your sport is starting to lose its joy. You dread going to practice and feel anxious almost every time you compete, and you fear that you’re one small stressor away from just leaving your sport behind, but you know that you don’t actually want to quit. Worst of all, you feel like you can’t talk about it because athletes “aren’t supposed to show their struggles.” I’ve been there, and I’m here to help.

You’re overwhelmed with the demands you feel from yourself and the world around you, and you feel pressure to be everything to everyone all the damn time. You’re tired of carrying it all - keeping track of everyone’s schedule and losing sight of your own needs; making sure the dog is fed, the house is clean, the kids are happy; trying to find a work/life balance in a culture that glamorizes hustle and stress. You dread the days ahead and everything feels like a task or checkbox that you need to complete. You feel like you need to be the one to do everything because if you don’t then it won’t get done at all. You’re running on few hours of sleep, squeeze in “me time” and self-care only on occasion, and you can’t remember the last time you sat down to have a real meal. You forget what joy feels like.

Parenting is hard — and when you're overwhelmed because your deeply feeling child just had another meltdown in the grocery store, you’re late to baseball practice because your kid was frustrated that you forgot to get more goldfish, or your kid refuses to go to school for picture day, it can feel impossible. You’re juggling a thousand responsibilities, replaying every misstep of nearly every interaction, feeling like nothing you do is ever good enough or “right,” and wondering why what worked with one kid or what worked in the past isn’t working now. You love your kid with your whole heart, AND you feel like you’re struggling to fully understand them. You feel guilt and shame for snapping at your kid in moments when you feel like you’ve just about had it, and you feel so alone and lost in how to manage everything.