Last updated: 02/12/2025 terça-feira

Something shifts in late October and you feel it before you consciously register it. It comes in the form of a familiar tightness creeping into your shoulders, as a mental checklist starts scrolling before you’ve even opened your eyes in the morning. Most women recognize this feeling instantly. It’s the unofficial start of what we politely call “the holiday season,” but let’s be honest about what it really is: the overwhelm season.

The Load Nobody Talks About

During this season, while everyone gets excited for christmas and new years eve, women start mentally preparing to become everyone’s glue. We slip into the role of organizer, peacekeeper, the one keeping all the plates spinning, all the while wearing a smile to make it look effortless. As a result, before the christmas tree is even up in the living room

I used to think the creeping anxiety meant I cared deeply, that the chest tightness was just responsibility doing its job. I believed if I planned early enough and anticipated thoroughly enough, I could somehow outrun the pressure. Never once did I ask why I felt responsible for all of it.

Perfect Everything, Broken You

There’s this performance many women put on during the holidays—perfect meal, perfect atmosphere, perfect family harmony. We work so hard making everything right that we miss the moment we stop being alright. Somewhere along the way, we confused doing with caring, service with connection, usefulness with worth.

Women become the emotional center of gravity without anyone asking us to. We manage the invisible stuff that keeps everything running:

• Tension between relatives who don’t get along but must share a table

• Traditions nobody helps create but everyone expects to magically appear

• Conversations that need smoothing before they escalate into fights

• Needs we anticipate before they even surface as problems

This invisible work would exhaust anyone, yet we do it without acknowledgement and often without questioning why it falls on us.

What Your Body Knows

I didn’t understand the cost until I started listening to my body. That chest tightness wasn’t preparation—it was exhaustion. That dread wasn’t lack of holiday spirit—it was depletion warning me I was running on empty.

My body knew I was carrying too much before my brain caught up. It knew I was faking fine when the pretending had worn dangerously thin. The shift came when I slowed down enough to hear myself think. My Wait What Watch practice became survival: pausing before automatic yeses, questioning why I felt so responsible, noticing what happened when I let someone else step in first.

Was it uncomfortable? Absolutely. But then came space, breath, and actual presence with what mattered. Most holiday pressure isn’t placed on women by others—we hold it in place ourselves with unquestioned roles. The helper. The fixer. The emotional buffer who makes everything easier for everyone else. These roles are familiar and rewarded and expected, but they’re also crushing when they become our only way of showing up.

A Different Season

When I let go of doing everything, I noticed what I’d been missing for years. Small moments of connection only appear when you’re not rushing. People wanted to contribute when given room. The difference between someone wanting my presence versus wanting what I could provide became crystal clear, and that realization changed everything.

I got honest about my actual capacity. I stopped fixing tension that wasn’t mine to carry. I released the idea that strength means silence about needs and started offering myself the same consideration I’d always given others.

The Real Question

Women hit burnout early because we’re trained to stay three steps ahead of everyone’s needs, taught our emotional labor should stay invisible, praised for resilience long after it’s become self-abandonment. The shift doesn’t come from doing better—it comes from seeing clearly. Burnout isn’t personal failure. It’s what happens when you live misaligned with your own truth.

Now I ask different questions: Where am I responsible for things I never agreed to? What tension am I holding that isn’t mine? What am I controlling because I’m scared of how I’ll feel if I don’t? These questions don’t make the season easier, but they make it honest, and honesty creates breathing room.

You’re Included Too

Your overwhelm isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom trying to get through. Constant giving without receiving isn’t generosity; it’s depletion, and it’s completely unsustainable. When women stop surviving the holidays and start being human in them, everything shifts. Expectations lighten. Connection becomes real instead of performed. The season transforms from something you brace for into something you can actually experience.

The overwhelm season isn’t inevitable. It’s a signal, a reminder to stop performing and start remembering yourself. Return to you before you return to anyone’s table. Make space in your own life before making space for everyone else. Women deserve a holiday season that includes them too.

Kimber Hardick is the author of An Invitation to Shine: From Invisible to Invincible coming out soon. You can also follow me on Instagram and Threads Living in Panama and working with women’s empowerment, she helps women remember who they are. If anything in my story reflects something in yours, I hope it gives you permission to trust what you already know. The work continues, quietly and honestly, one lived moment at a time.

Burnout Holidays Kimber Hardick mental health

Last modified: December 18, 2025