You can listen to the full episode here: Lisen to Ep 32: How to Stay Calm When Life Gets Overwhelming

The end of the school year brings an overwhelming surge of activity.

Schedules shift, summer plans begin, and families find themselves navigating logistics, appointments, emotional transitions, and a long list of responsibilities all at once.

Even if you don’t have children, late spring often carries a similar energy. Life speeds up, expectations increase, and it can feel like there’s simply too much to hold.

In this episode, Blaze explores how to move through the end-of-school-year rush without burning out, and why pacing yourself is far more supportive than pushing harder.

🌿 In this episode we explore:

• why late spring often creates logistical and emotional overload
• the hidden fatigue that comes with caregiving and responsibility
• how acknowledging your effort helps reduce resentment and burnout
• why being seen (even by yourself) restores emotional capacity
• small ways to create moments of restoration during busy weeks

Hello and welcome back. This is what I would like to call the end of the school year frenzy, and it's not even actually the end of the school year yet, because if you were in the US and you happen to be part of all of the blizzards that happened, you know that your kids barely went to school in February and you're now dealing with the consequence of that.

And kids are amped up. They're ready to be done with school, but school got extended.

You're amped up because you're like, "Oh my God, I thought I knew what was going to happen, but got pushed out and I'm relieved about that. But now my kid has a lot of energy and I'm dealing with it."

And all of us are just dealing with the fallout of how the year actually played out.

And there's a push and a pull between having a lot of energy and also being really impatient because you have that energy but nowhere for it to go.

Certainly, the kids have a lot of energy, and it doesn't have anywhere to go yet, so it's coming out at us.

I think that this is a perfect time to talk about pacing ourselves rather than pushing ourselves and demonstrating patience and pacing versus pushing for our kids.

My kid is so excited about summer vacation, but also has all of her anxieties about camps and changes.

What's going to happen, how is she going to deal with being home all day on the times that there isn't camps? What is the camp schedule gonna be? I'm looking at the logistics of okay.

What gear do we need to buy? What time do I need to be at different places? Which town are we going to? What have I signed her up for that hasn't opened yet? What hasn't been signed up for?

All of those things. I also find that in this month, it's me confirming and making sure that all of the medical appointments and stuff are set up already for like September and the next school season. So.

Even though it hasn't happened yet, there's a lot of planning and things that are happening.

And here we are, trying to gear up for summer.

So some of us are planning like are we going to do family trips? Are we going on a week-long vacation? Is it a road trip? Where are we going to stay? Who's coming? What are we packing? Who's going to take care of the pets? Who's going to water the plants? What's going on?

It feels like there's such a high amount of demand. And I think even if you don't have kids, some of these are still things that you're dealing with too, which is, "What are these appointments happening? What clothes do I need to get?" Everything is switching again, like if you had springtime clothes, now we're full into the summer clothes.

And what's happening with the thermostat? Do I need to get the AC checked out and all of those things?

Everything's on the radar. There's a lot on our plates and it's a good time to talk about how to take care of ourselves in the midst of all of it.

Because we can't really step away from it. It's not like we actually get to take a break from our lives. This is just the reality of what's happening around us. So we have to figure out how do we regulate ourselves and how do we come back to feeling peaceful and feeling good about all the decisions we made.

How do we feel like we have enough energy to be able to hold up a boundary with our kids or with whoever we're scheduling things with or whatever we're doing with like phone conversations? We want to be able to have enough of ourselves available that we don't give up on ourselves or not ask for what we want or not get what we want.

Some of that comes from being able to know when to say, "Hey, this is a lot, give me a second." I'm really learning how to do that with my daughter and be like, we need to have a signal with each other about, "It's not about you, it's me, but also give me a minute."

And it helps.

Because once there's a signal and everybody knows what's being communicated, it's like a shorthand for being able to say, "I love you, and..."

I need a break. I love you and please stop talking for these five seconds. Hey look, I'm on the phone, please, no.

So it's learning how to reinforce boundaries. For me, it's about having practical conversations with people in advance so that some of the things that derail me don't come up and don't have to be a big tragedy.

I like planning in advance, but I recognize that no matter how much I plan, stuff comes up.

And there's always going to be some weird phone call I have to make, and there's always still going to be laundry and cleaning and stuff that needs to happen.

Me driving people places that they need to go. So I'm trying to manage all of that and realizing that feeling responsible for so much is emotionally draining.

So this one's going to be a little bit about caregiver fatigue, I guess I would call it, where you realize that as much as you appreciate and want to be there for people and show up for them.

It does cost something. It doesn't come from nowhere. And anyone who's taking care of children or parents or anyone, someone who's sick, someone who's dying.

We all understand that we're happy to do it. We show up and we do it.

It's tiring and it's exhausting and sometimes it hits you emotionally in ways that you're not expecting.

Or it spurs something in you that you're not wanting to be there.

Sometimes you're angry and resentful, but you don't like that and you don't want to say it. Sometimes you're just sad or you're just too tired to do it, but you feel like you can't say no, so you do stuff anyway.

All of us do that. We do it because we care and we do it because we very much love the people in our lives and we really need to build in places and moments that help restore us in the midst of all that.

So no matter what it is that you particularly are facing and who you're caring for,

Recognize that when you're doing for someone else as well as for yourself.

There will be moments where you just want to walk out the door and walk far, far away and be left alone and not talk to you, and just do something for yourself.

And it doesn't mean that you did anything wrong or that they did anything wrong. It doesn't mean that you don't care. It means that when you have that feeling,

It's feedback to yourself saying, "Oh, okay, I need some nourishment and I need a place where I am not...the regulator, the person on demand all of the time." And how can I build that in for myself?

That's a really tough question sometimes and I will not pretend that I can give you a solution in 15 minutes about how to, you know, create pockets of life that are not requiring everything of you.

It takes a lot to figure that out. There is support for that. There's a lot of different angles that you can attack it from, and in the Anchored & Alive course, I teach a lot of them.

Looking at it from how you handle your emotions generally and what your emotional weather might feel like at any particular season or just generally what the patterns of your year like and how those feed in.

Who are your support systems and your people in your life, what are the actual lived spaces and shared spaces like that you're living in and how can you set them up to better support you.

How is your scheduling? What's going on with your work? Like all of those things kind of get addressed throughout that program.

Helping you to really see what's working well for you and create solutions and flows that work better for you in all of those situations to kind of build a scaffolding that's more supportive.

And we also should be looking not just at programs like that, but at our actual lives, our friends, our community and realize that we're not alone and that it's okay when things get busy and we get slammed like this to call a friend and to call someone in your family or whoever, and vent a little bit and just be like, "Hey, I'm calling because I'm really overwhelmed. There's a lot going on."

And sometimes when I call my friend, I'll say, "I'm not even looking for help with this. I just need to bitch for five minutes," and be like, "Rah, I'm so upset, and I can't believe I had to," and just list off the five million things that I feel like I've done.

And for some reason, after saying all the things that I was upset that I had to do, suddenly it's fine. And I'm like, oh, I just needed to say out loud that I did them.

And have someone I care about hear that I did them. And then they say to me, like, wow, you've really done a lot of things, Blaze. And it makes all of the difference in the world feeling like someone noticed and cared that I did a lot of things.

And sometimes that's all I need. So when I hit weeks like this, when it's really busy and I'm feeling the emotional rise of my daughter as well as everyone else in the house because of just the general energy of the season.

I will turn to my friends and make a call or talk to my husband and be like, "Hey, just for five minutes, I'm going to go and be like, 'Baba, bababa, bababa, bababa." These things happened, nothing happened. This one said this and that one said that. Did you know that I had to scrub the toilet in the middle of all that? Like all of the things that were just normal parts of my day but that add up and feel like they get no acknowledgement.

It is a time when we crave being seen.

Something that helps is being able to even give yourself that acknowledgement. So sometimes if I can't call a friend or talk to them,

I will actually sit down and either type out or write out a list of all of the things that I have done that day, that week, or whatever, and look at it. And really take a moment to go Blaze, be present, and look at how long that list is. Look at how many things got done that wouldn't have gotten done if you hadn't done them.

And you did them, and because you did them, life is better. And I will say that to myself.

And call out whose life is better and what experience is better because I did all those things because it makes me feel better and it helps me see myself.

And relax a little bit and go, "Okay, at least I can acknowledge it." So I'll be like, "Oh, because I took care of the cat this whole week and she always has her food on time and she has her water cleaned and the litter box is nice."

She's living a pretty cushy life. It's really nice to be my cat. That's awesome.

I did that. And sometimes it's nice to be able to say, "I did that. No one else did that. I did that. I provided the lab. I provided the space. I took out the trash. I did that." It sounds frivolous and stupid and petty, but it...

It delights something in me to give myself that. And then when I start adding up the other things of things I do for other humans in my household or for myself, the general cleaning, all of the things that are just part of living, right? They're part of everyday life.

I don't need to get a pat on the back all the time for just doing general hygienic clean things, but sometimes

I do want someone to go, you know what, that's a lot. That's a full-time job and I'm proud of you. You did it, you did it great. Sometimes that person has to be me.

And that's okay. I like normalizing that and I've even told my daughter about it. Sometimes we'll all be like, "Hey, I just wanted to list to you all the things that happened this week that I was working on."

And what's been cool is having her go, "Whoa, I didn't know that you did all that," or that so many things even needed to happen.

And it lets her have a glimpse into what my experience is like and also kind of lets her know, hey,

One day when you're living on your own, like, you know, bills don't just get paid automatically, like you have to pay them or set them up to be paid and your room doesn't just clean itself you have to clean it.

And your dishes also don't just automatically get put away. Someone puts them away. And she's already on board and doing a lot of these things. But I remember talking with her throughout the years when she was very young all the way up to now.

And each conversation, she's picking up a new thing where she's like, I didn't know that was a thing that didn't just happen, someone has to do it.

And then it's really neat watching her awaken up her capacity to want to pitch in and do some of these things and share in household because I'm not presenting it as a martyrdom or like,

Can you believe that I had to do this much? Sometimes I'm just saying, "Hey, did you realize like all of these things happened this week?"

And I did them or your father did them or you did them and isn't it neat that we all work together to make this household run?

It's kind of cool. I like thinking of it not as a job that only one person does or has to do.

I've always presented household stuff as a thing that we do for each other because we all live here and we care about each other and we want the house to be nice and we want to have a nice experience here.

Presenting that way has helped her really get on board and want to be a part of it and fulfill some of that.

So in a way, when I get overwhelmed, sometimes I will share some of the things that I'm overwhelmed about and be like, it would be really nice to have some help with some of these.

Do you think you'd want to help with some of it? And sometimes her answer is yes, and sometimes she's very honest and is like, "No, I have no desire in helping do that."

And sometimes as her mom I say, "Sadly you'll have to do it anyway."

Regardless, open communication, having places where you're acknowledging yourself.

Recognizing that no one can do everything alone and that it is normal to have moments of overwhelm or feeling like there's just too much to do and plan, or that you've managed to do it all, but you're a little bit pissed off because no one seems to understand how easy their life is because you did all of those things.

I think that's normal and I find burnout for me happens when nobody sees me.

A lot of me staying whole and healthy is making sure that I'm seen and

Again, not in a braggy way or anything. It's just letting people know when I'm tired or letting people know when I'm excited or have managed to get a lot of things done, but just being open about where I'm at and what's going on.

Conversely, I really appreciate when other people let me know what's going on with them and when they're tired or when they can't hold that much.

Somehow it's like easier to show up for other people than it is for myself. So if someone tells me, you know, like, I'm having a really hard time with this and I need some help.

Somehow I find the energy and I want to pitch in and help with that and that feels good and nourishing too.

That's part of this give and take in the season is allowing yourself to be seen, allowing your efforts to be visible and letting people come in and support and nourish you so that you're not alone and that you can get through and that when things get busy and complicated and hard. You know who your team is and you know where those supports might be.

If you are going through a lot right now, I want to offer the idea that it's cool to plan an hour or two for yourself and just sneak it in sometime.

Particularly right now before we get into like the fall months, like.

Before we even really get into the summer months. Some of the like sports season has happened, but some of it hasn't happened yet. There will be an hour here or there that you can sneak away. And for me,

I love this is my fun one. You can go to the supermarket or whatever and they've got like these little tiny sushi bowls, and I like getting them and bringing them to this little beach area and being able to just sit in the grass under a tree and look out at the ocean and eat it and it feels like this.

I don't know, I feel like I've gotten away with something. I'm like, ooh, look at me eating a nourishing meal under a tree with a squirrel looking at the ocean. It's nothing really. It's not that big of a deal.

But it feels rebellious and I need that in my life sometimes to kick back up my like, ha ha ha ha. Like that fuels me and I hold on to that because I'm like, well, if I can do that and be Wild Blaze, just grabbing sushi and running into the beach.

I'm gonna be okay and whatever your sneaky little retreat is that refills you, I wish that for you this week and I hope that you do it and enjoy yourself.

And nourish yourself and take that forward and know that you deserve that and you get to enjoy it and nobody else needs to know. But you could tell a friend and they'll probably also be like, "Hell yeah, do it and don't tell anyone else." Waha!

Have an excellent week, my friend. And I think next week we're going to talk about having more fun and creating more spaces for play because it's a really wonderful thing and hopefully as the summer opens up, we're gonna have a lot more time to do fun things.

I will see you then and have an excellent time until then.

Before you go, I wanted to let you know that I'll be holding a live summer solstice gathering on June 24th.

If you're feeling the shift in energy already and you want a space to move through it with support, you're very welcome to join us.

You can find the details on my website.

Related Episodes

🌿 More conversations about navigating busy seasons and protecting your energy:

You Don’t Have to Say Yes Just Because You Have Energy (How to Stop Overcommitting)
Why rising seasonal energy can lead to overcommitment and how to protect your capacity.

When Your Energy Suddenly Surges (Late Spring Energy Explained)
Understanding why late spring brings a surge of energy and how to work with it instead of fearing burnout.

How to Decide What to Keep Doing (and What to Let Go Of)
A practical guide to pruning commitments and focusing on what truly matters.

🌿 Feeling overwhelmed by the pace of life right now?

The Living in Rhythm Starter Kit will help you understand your emotional patterns, calm overwhelm, and make decisions that support your real capacity.

Inside you’ll learn how to:

• recognize seasonal energy shifts
• reduce burnout and emotional overload
• build rhythms that support your life instead of exhausting you

Download the Living in Rhythm Starter Kit

You don’t need to push harder to keep up with life.
Sometimes the most powerful shift is learning how to move in rhythm with it.

🌿 Join the Summer Solstice Gathering

If you’re feeling the shift into summer and want a space to move through it with support, I’ll be holding a live Summer Solstice Gathering on June 24th.

It’s a gentle, real-time space to reflect, reset, and work with this transition in a more grounded way.

Explore the details and join us here.