Gone to Soldiers, by Marge Piercy

One of the most fantastic books I have read in my lifetime, and I don’t offer that with hyperbole or exaggeration. My dad handed me this book a few months ago, telling me he’d read it in the early 90s and thought I’d like it because of the strong women. He was absolutely right.

The novel follows eleven people — eight women, three men — during World War II. Piercy’s use of language, her ability to craft full-bodied characters who live beyond the page, and her capture of the inner experience of war, trauma, and grief are exquisite.

I fell in love with many of these characters, and I respect how Piercy handled the differences in how men and women experience the world: power, relationships, need, loss.

More than that, I’m still struck by how present these characters remain with me… embodied, visiting my dreams, walking beside me, whispering and wondering about what might come next in their story.

Gone to Soldiers is a long, emotionally hard, worthwhile read, and a read I’ll be revisiting for years to come.

The Change, by Kirsten Miller

Someone mentioned to me that their book club read this recently, and on a recent trip to a local bookstore, not remembering much about it other than it had to do with “the change” and “women in midlife,” I asked the 20-something guy behind the counter if he might have any idea what this book was. “Oh — that’s my staff pick this month!” he exclaimed. “My absolute favorite this year! You’ll love it!” And off he went to find me a used copy for $6.34.

The Change follows three women who discover witchy powers brought on by menopause and, in the process, take down a small corner of the patriarchy. Think Jeffrey Epstein’s island meets rage-filled, fed-up, menopausal women. Light-hearted at times, predictable often, but still delightful, this is an easy evening read.

Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi

A bestseller, light and easy, and clearly the subject of conversation in several circles I'm part of, I found Theo of Golden a bit lacking. The character development is thin, the plot predictable almost from the first page, and I was more curious about what the author might be working through personally than about the story itself. Still, there are a few precious, tender moments that kept this one alive enough for me to finish. Maybe that's reason enough to give it a try.

Tell me — what are you reading now? I'm always looking for a good book, so drop a comment and let me know what should go on my list next.

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A woman is the only creature who allows herself to be trapped. She will stand in an elevator, the doors closing, a strange man stepping inside at the last second, the hair rising on the back of her neck, a pit of fear expanding in her stomach, and she will smile.

Every other animal would run, would escape, would fight, would make loud, threatening sounds.

But from a very young age, a woman is socialized to ignore what feels right for what looks right.

Every so often, a woman feels what’s right and follows that — but for most of us, this doesn’t happen until midlife.

From a young age, a woman is taught to ignore her bodily instincts that tell her she is uncomfortable, she is in danger, she should leave, she needs more, she hurts, she wants something different, she feels good.

A boy pulls a girl’s hair, she yelps, and someone tells her it didn’t hurt, he was just playing, he likes her. A girl sits with legs wide open, stretched out, comfortable, and someone tells her to sit up, cross her legs, sit lady-like.

A baby cries when picked up by an unfamiliar man and the baby is shushed. A toddler is told to kiss the old aunt, the one who pinches cheeks so hard they turn bright red and feel blistered, and if she tries to turn away, she’s told to be nice.

A young girl adores her doll and is told to share even though she doesn’t want to.

A teen girl’s boyfriend smacks her ass as she walks by a group of boys and they laugh; heat brightens her cheeks and shame fills her throat, but she’s told she’s over-reacting, too sensitive, if she mentions it later.

By midlife, overriding a woman’s instinctual wants and needs has become habitual.

It’s the way a woman at a dinner party laughs at a comment that stung, because saying it stung costs social capital.

It’s the way she says “it’s fine, really” about the vacation she didn’t want to take, the backhanded compliment about her weight, the years she spent making a difficult marriage work.

She says yes when she doesn’t want to. She says she’s not hungry when she is. She says she’s satisfied when she wants so much more. She says she’s not yearning when she’s desperately longing. She stays when she wants to go. She nods along when she wants to interrupt.

She does not do this because she is denying her own reality.

She does this because long ago she learned to go along, to get along, in order to belong.

She learned to share.

She learned to take up less space in order to allow space for others.

She learned not to make others uncomfortable by making herself uncomfortable.

I have done this too.

I have smiled when someone was being cruel or undermining to me. Smiled when someone was excluding me. Smiled when trying to ease a volatile and dangerous situation. Smiled through tears and pain so deep the smile nearly split my lips just as I declared I was fine, everything was fine, and I ensured others were comfortable as I remained utterly uncomfortable.

Like most every woman I know, I learned at an early age to walk in groups, never go out alone, keep keys between my fingers, and check the back seat before I even get close to my car — yet I have overridden my body’s knowing, its wisdom, in order to make nice and get along.

Making nice, fawning, people-pleasing, appeasing… used short-term, these can either defuse a tense situation or create an instant social connection and sense of belonging. Used long term, they become a pattern of self-abandonment and self-sacrifice in an effort to maintain connection and inclusion.

And by midlife — after decades of absorbing what everyone else needed, after the accumulation of every small slight and every large one — belonging at the cost of ourselves simply stops feeling worth the price.

Which is why I adamantly believe we must first learn to belong back to ourselves.

To belong to oneself is to begin to reconnect with our body wisdom, our instinctual knowing, our highest intelligence, and our innate desires.

This is not about learning to better manage feelings that others are uncomfortable with.

This is not about working toward better emotional regulation in service of tolerating what shouldn't have to be tolerated.

This is to become so intimately connected with oneself — to listen to, to be with, to feel one's own sense of self so closely — that we begin to recognize the sound of our own knowing again.

I want to be honest about what this actually requires, because it is not simple and it is not fast. You cannot decide on a Thursday afternoon while at a yoga class, or on a Monday morning while headed into the board meeting, to suddenly trust a body that the social, religious, political, familial, and cultural environments have spent a lifetime training to be ignored.

The soma—the whole living body system—doesn’t work that way. The entire system takes time, repetition, and intentional awareness in many small moments before the instinctual signal begins to feel trustworthy again.

For most of us, it begins with the questions themselves. Instead of leading with is he comfortable? Would I upset him? Would I upset her? Would this be okay to say? Is this okay to do?

We build trust with innate knowing again, and we begin to ask something different:

Where do I feel safe enough to be present?
What helps me return to myself?
What allows my body to soften, to settle, to become more available to me?
What do I need right now?
And most importantly: To whom do I belong right now?

If you have spent your life reading every room except your own, I want you to know this isn't something you failed to grasp; it's something you were never allowed to keep.

The body is the way back — somatically, personally, innately. It has always had signals for what feels good, what feels wrong, what must change, in the moment and overall.

You don’t have to learn a new language. You have to remember the one you were born speaking.

To belong to oneself is to keep coming back into your own body, even when the elevator doors are closing.

P.S. I’d love to hear about you, and about your own belonging experience.

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Welcome to the first step of the Midlife Starter Pack.

Throughout this starter pack, I’ll provide you with information, insight, and a practice to try.

But before we go further, I want to ask you something: Where are you right now?

Underneath the busyness of your days, the schedule you’re keeping, the demands before you, the people you are attending to, the version of yourself you show up as most days… where are you?

I built this quiz because most of us, when we get to our 40s, 50s, and 60s, begin to ask that question, but in a slightly different form.

We ask, who am I, really?

Because the demands, the relationships, the responsibilities require so much, many of us have lost touch with the essence of who we innately are.

This is a good place to start, I think—asking that question—because I want to start with you before you read another word from me.

So let’s discover where you are in the messy middle of midlife.

And remember, there is no right nor wrong answer here.

Take your time. I’ll be here when you’re ready.

Let’s begin: Take the quiz →

Continue on to:

Warmest of welcomes to those who have been with me from the very start and to those who are just finding their way here.

If you’re somewhere in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, you might agree with me that midlife hits harder than most any of us were expecting.

And sometimes midlife makes us wonder if we still have a place — at work, in popular culture, within our own communities, in our closest relationships — while we’re also battling brain fog, hot flashes, anxiety, irritability, fatigue.

Midlife has been called a crisis. I call it an unfolding, a reckoning, an opportunity.

But like all great opportunities, the first experience of it is messy and disorienting.

Where did I go?
What happened to me?
Who am I, really?
What do I actually want?
This isn’t working for me anymore—now what do I do?
Is there still time?
What if…?

These questions deserve more than a quick-fix, a mantra, or a couple of deep breaths. These questions require attention… and midlife demands our attention.

When we attend to these questions, midlife gives us embodiment: the felt, lived experience of being fully rooted in our own sense of self.

And an embodied woman is a powerful force in her own life, her own being.

After over 25 years as a clinical therapist, and as my own midlife unfolded, I developed this framework that underpins everything I do:

It is a transformational arc for the messy middle that allows us to fully realize our deepest self.

But first, we must learn how to belong back to ourselves.

Here, Where Women Belong, you’ll come to know that you belong. You’ll get language for what you’re going through and the strategies that have helped the women I work with:

• tell the difference between what you want and what you’ve been told to want.

• comfortably disappoint someone.

• follow your body’s wisdom.

• stop abandoning your needs to meet the needs of others.

• intuitively know when to go, when to stay, and when to take a risk.

• go after your dreams without talking yourself out of them.

• make peace with what was, what is, and consciously determine what will be.

I’m a therapist of 25 years, steeped in depth psychology, trained in trauma, mindfulness, somatic, and expressive techniques.

I received my undergrad in English Lit, then a master’s in Humanistic & Transpersonal psych with post-graduate certifications in addiction, play therapy, and applied somatic Jungian psychology.

In midlife, I’m rediscovering, I’m writing, and I’m answering the same questions for myself. Even after decades of holding space for other women, these questions don’t get easier; they become more essential.

Briefly, a bit more about me:

• Licensed Professional Counselor in Georgia for over 25 years.

• Published in the Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies special somatic edition (“When the Body Speaks What Words Cannot”)

• Previously co-owned a vinyl record store.

• Currently living in the southeast with Eric and two cherished Chihuahuas, Midge and Zoey.

• Have more unfinished projects than I’ll ever admit to, a sewing machine I have no idea how to operate, and a firmly held opinion about the patriarchy.

What You Get as a Free Subscriber to Where Women Belong

By signing up, you can expect to see these things in your inbox!

• A weekly essay on the messy middle — the fog, the fury, the questions no one prepared you for, and so much more.

• Occasional What I’m Reading Now — books, mostly fiction, alongside whatever else catches my eye.

• The Midlife Starter Pack — a short quiz to find out exactly where you are right now, four essays that walk you through the Belonging · Becoming · Being framework, and one small practice to actually try.

• First word on workshops, courses, coaching openings, and anything new, before anyone else hears about it.

Subscribe now

And lastly, I’m really glad you’re here with me. You’re exactly where you belong.

Warmly,

Sara

P.S. If at any time you’re looking for more, here are a few ways to work with me:

• Individual, Transformational Depth Coaching → private, depth-oriented work, built around exactly what you need. Learn more at saraanderson.me →

• Courses → Refueled, The 10-Minute Triage, and The 5-Minute Reset — recording soon. Get on the waitlist →

• Therapy → If you’re in the state of Georgia and looking for therapy, I take a very small number of clients at time. Learn more at secondacttherapy.com →

“Sara’s compassionate nature, responsiveness, and coaching helped me understand more about where I am, why I am there, and how to create the best day out of immediately available resources. It’s an anchor for further healing change.”— Alison

“Sara is so knowledgeable, well-prepared, and compassionate. Self-compassion and mindfulness have been huge for me — even the memory of our coaching work together brings me calm.” — Joanne

“I have emotional energy to connect with friends, complete tasks — freedom to participate in my life in a way that wasn’t available before.” — Nisa

“I am watching my life transform in front of my eyes. Old patterns are unraveling. Every choice is a deliberate choice in how I feel. I am being bold in life. It is fun.” — Anna

“When I look at where I was and where I am now, the shifts are profound and delightful.” — Sarah

“Sara helped me reshape the remainder of my life, whether it be short or long, into one of wonder, hope, joy, love.” — Jessica

“Sara reintroduced me to my younger self. She was always there, but I had lost her in all the noise. I will work hard to never lose her again.” — Tanya

“After working with Sara, I am starting to wonder about some dreams I abandoned. My life is getting in a better groove.” — Beth

Today I read the CNN article about a porn site promoting spousal rape that received 62 million visits in the month of February alone. A global network of men on Telegram sharing tips on how to drug and violate their partners. Twenty thousand women captured on video — unconscious, being raped by the men they chose to trust.

Today I watched part of the Manosphere documentary on Netflix. I turned it off after a few minutes. My disgust ran too high.

For over 25 years I have worked with victims of violence. Victims of sexism and patriarchy. Victims of men.

I have assessed more than 2,000 cases of intimate partner violence — perpetrator and victim both. In all of those cases, only one victim was a man. I have provided expert testimony in nearly 500 court cases, educating judges, attorneys, and courtrooms about family violence, domestic violence, intimate partner violence — the very system of power and control the patriarchy is built upon.

I have argued online, in person, and everywhere in between with people who say not every man and women have equal rights now — if they wanted to change it, they would.

I have held space for women beaten to the brink of death, saved only because a stranger risked everything to follow them and call the police.

I have held space for women trafficked by men.

I have held space for three-year-olds. Eleven-year-olds. Seventeen-year-olds. Trafficked to men, and by men.

And today, sitting with all of it — the news, the documentary, the many stories of women whose partners blame them for not being enough, whose partners use intimidation and physical violence and destruction of property until she begins to doubt her own reality — I hit a wall.

I wondered what I’d been doing all these years.

I understand the architecture of this patriarchal problem. I understand that men are raised to look for opportunity — to wait for the no rather than the yes, to beg for forgiveness rather than permission, to view women as prey and sex as conquest, to believe that women are theirs for the taking, to see women as part of their collection no different than a car or a pair of shoes — simply objects to be acquired and discarded when done.

This is why women going up against men to change the very foundational beliefs and programming that feed this problem always fails. Women cannot challenge men one on one. The risk of violence and escalation is real. For change to occur, women must challenge policy. Men must challenge men. Men must believe women in order to challenge men. But too many men have been conditioned not to respect the voice or lived experience of women.

Me Too proved it. The Epstein victims proved it. The violence continues.

I hit the wall of my own inadequacy — the full, crushing certainty that nothing I have said or done in 25 years has amounted to anything at all.

Then I found an old email.

A former client, writing to say goodbye. She wrote:

You have helped me reshape the remainder of my life, whether it be short or long, into one of wonder, hope, joy, love. You have reminded me of the gift of living, not just the duty, and reintroduced me to my younger self — before the pain and betrayal. You told me over and over that I deserve love and kindness and respect, and if I am the only one offering it to me on that day, then that is enough.

I sat with that for a long time.

One woman. One life reshaped. Her children now watching a mother who knows she is allowed to care for herself. The people who mistreated her noticing something has shifted. A younger self, lost beneath the noise and fear, found again.

This is what I know to be true:

The belief of entitlement that allows men to rape their sleeping partners, to share instructions for doing so, to accumulate 62 million visits to a site teaching violation — that belief is not born fully formed. It is embedded early through observation, through permission, through practice, through disregard, through rigid structures that teach some that they are worth more than others, through silence.

Women have been waiting for the systems to save us. I have been screaming at the systems to save women. But the systems won’t change. The systems are the architecture.

Which leaves women fearing for their lives — fearing for their safety in their own beds, beside the men they choose to love.

And if you are that woman — if you are lying awake tonight wondering how crazy you are, how you got here, whether anyone sees you —

I see you.

I am here with you.

And together, we will burn this shit to the fucking ground.

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Coverphoto by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Three things happened during my time there:

First: I was told I had to support other therapists who were withholding food and using it as punishment for what they labeled as misbehavior.

Second: I learned that every single teenage girl in the program had been told by her parent that she was an unwanted pregnancy—that they got “stuck” with her.

Third: I developed compassion fatigue and moral injury so severe it has shaped my entire career.

I couldn’t stop the food punishment. I couldn’t fix what those girls had been told. I had a master’s degree, clinical training, and a position of supposed authority—and I was completely powerless.

That’s when I learned: there’s a type of burnout that rest can’t touch.

It’s the burnout of having agency in theory but none in practice. Of being told you have power while watching systems harm the people you’re meant to help. Of feeling utterly ineffective despite doing everything “right.”

This is moral injury—and it doesn’t respond to spa days, boundaries, or time off.

For this type of burnout, there often feels like only one choice:

Burn it all down.

I would love to say that I took the moral high ground and quit that job immediately.

But the truth is, I stayed. And my body paid the price.

I was a brand new therapist, terrified of damaging my career and my livelihood. So I swallowed my objections—even though I made them public.

One time, I stepped in and fed kids who had been denied dinner because they were “too loud.” They weren’t bad; they were hungry.

I was forced to publicly apologize to the staff person for “usurping her power.”

My body absorbed every ounce of this betrayal. The pain I felt for those adolescents. The fear. The powerlessness. The rage at a system I couldn’t change despite my many objections.

Eventually, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I became so sick I couldn’t work.

I didn’t leave with my integrity intact. My body forced me out.

This is what moral injury does. It creates:

• Ethical wounding that results in rage and helplessness

• Cynicism and shame for being complicit

• Existential exhaustion that no amount of rest can relieve

And it creates grief—grief for the world you believed you were serving, grief for the difference you thought you could make.

High-achieving women—who carry disproportionate emotional labor, witness injustice but cannot intervene, are forced to uphold systems that harm others, and are naturally empathetic but have little to no agency—suffer it constantly.

Who Experiences This

The moral injury has stayed with me. And I see it constantly in accomplished women from all walks of life:

Executives who know their company’s policies harm employees but can’t change them

Healthcare workers watching insurance companies deny necessary care

Mothers (especially of special needs kids, struggling teens, or aging parents) navigating school systems and court systems that fail their kids

Therapists, social workers, attorneys, doctors, teachers, nonprofit workers, HR professionals absorbing others’ pain while watching systems fail

Small business owners, leaders in organizations whose values contradict their actions

Anyone who’s been the “reliable one” for decades, carrying invisible emotional labor at work and home

These women have titles, credentials, and influence—and they’re utterly powerless to stop the harm they’re forced to witness or participate in.

That’s moral injury. And it’s one of the two types of burnout that self-care can’t touch.

The Second Type: Compassion Fatigue

Compassion fatigue often accompanies moral injury.

Compassion fatigue is what happens when you’ve absorbed everyone else’s pain for so long that your nervous system can’t tell the difference between their crisis and yours.

It’s a combination of empathic overload and over-giving. You feel another person’s pain as your own while desperately trying to fix, help, and relieve it.

When this happens repeatedly, saturation occurs—resulting in:

• Desensitization

• Protective numbing

• Vicarious and real trauma

• Compassion collapse under the weight of systemic powerlessness

Again, this is a type of burnout that cannot be resolved through care, kindness, rest, or respite.

Why High-Achieving Women Are Especially Vulnerable

High-achieving women are especially vulnerable because, from a young age, you’ve been conditioned to be:

• Empathic

• Responsible

• Relational

• High-performing

• Morally attuned

This creates the perfect storm:

• Empathy fatigue (feeling too much)

• Compassion fatigue (giving too much)

• Moral injury (can’t fix the broken system)

• Burnout (keep pushing through no matter what)

High-achieving, accomplished women are not burned out because they’re weak.

They’re utterly exhausted, feeling absolutely ineffective, and steaming with cynicism—the three hallmarks of burnout—because they’re still trying to care in systems that do not.

What This Looks Like

When you’re experiencing compassion fatigue and moral injury, your body tells the story:

Your nervous system stays on high alert—anxiety that won’t quit no matter what you try. Sleep doesn’t restore you because the exhaustion is existential, not just physical. You feel numb or detached (self-protective shutdown that keeps you safe but also keeps you feeling awful). You’re irritable and cynical about helping, being needed, giving anything to anyone. Your body absorbs the angst—migraines, gut issues, pelvic pain, muscle aches. And you dread that one more person might need one more thing from you.

How They Overlap: The Devastating Combination

Here’s what makes this particularly insidious: compassion fatigue and moral injury often happen together. And when they do, the burnout is devastating.

Compassion fatigue says: “I’m exhausted from absorbing everyone’s pain.”

Moral injury says: “And I’m powerless to actually help them.”

Together, they create:

• Bone-deep exhaustion (compassion and empathy fatigue)

• Soul-level betrayal (moral injury)

• Complete depletion with no outlet (burnout)

Examples of the overlap:

Healthcare worker:

Compassion fatigue: Absorbing patient suffering daily.

Moral injury: Insurance denies the care they need; you can’t help.

Attorney in family court:

Compassion fatigue: Carrying another child’s trauma.

Moral injury: Watching the system fail to protect them despite your every effort; you’re powerless.

Executive:

Compassion fatigue: Managing everyone’s stress and problems.

Moral injury: Company policies harm the people you’re supposed to lead.

Why Midlife Makes This Worse

Midlife worsens this, and it’s the reason it feels unbearable right now.

Decades of accumulation

Your nervous system debt is enormous. Your body’s own safety and protective capacities will not let you keep going, giving away, and tending to others as you have been.

You can’t unsee what you see—and have seen—any longer.

When you were younger, you could rationalize or turn a blind eye. You told yourself:

“I’m making a small difference where I can”

“The system isn’t perfect, but at least I’m showing up”

In midlife, those rationalizations hit your body and soul as a lie. Not just any lie—but a lie you can’t believe you’re still dealing with.

You realize: you’ve spent decades dealing with this harm, with these issues, with these concerns, and nothing has changed.

You begin to wonder: “Is this really what I’ve spent my life doing?”

Why Standard Burnout Advice Doesn’t Work

The reason typical burnout advice doesn’t work is that “practice better self-care” feels insulting when you’re experiencing moral injury and compassion fatigue.

Let me be specific about what doesn’t help:

“Take a vacation”

You come back to the same broken system. The moral injury is still there. Your nervous system is still fried.

“Set better boundaries”

The problem isn’t personal—it’s structural. Saying “no” doesn’t fix what’s broken.

“Practice gratitude”

Let’s be honest: when the problem is ethical harm—insurance denying coverage to kids with cancer, family courts failing to protect children—gratitude practices feel insulting. This is toxic positivity masquerading as help.

“Do some self-care”

Bubble baths, massages, and float tanks don’t address soul-level damage.

You can’t spa-day your way out of betraying your values.

The truth:

When the problem is systemic, individual solutions don’t work.

When the problem is ethical, personal management strategies are insulting.

What Actually Helps

So what do you do when you’re carrying both compassion fatigue and moral injury and absolutely burning out?

There is really only one option, it’s not easy, and you already know it:

Burn it down.

Remember: I told you at the beginning that when you’re experiencing moral injury, it often feels like there’s only one choice—burn it all down.

I meant it.

But here’s what I’ve learned in the twenty-five years since my body forced me out of that adolescent program:

You can burn it down without burning yourself.

Here are the three ways to do it:

Option 1: Leave

What this looks like:

• Quit the job

• Leave the organization

• Sell your business

• Walk away from the role/system

• Exit the situation causing moral injury

When this is right:

• The harm is ongoing and you can’t change it

• Your presence makes you complicit

• Your health (mental, physical, spiritual) is deteriorating

• You’ve tried to change it and failed

What it requires:

• Financial risk (often significant)

• Identity shift (”I’m not a [therapist/executive/attorney/doctor/business owner/helper] anymore”)

• Grief for what you built and what you’re leaving

• Courage to disappoint people who expect you to stay

My story:

I didn’t leave the adolescent program with my integrity intact—my body forced me out.

But later in my career, I did walk away from a very large behavioral health agency I had built from the ground up. My decision impacted three clinical sites, staff, hundreds of clients, and multiple communities.

It was absolutely terrifying. And it was absolutely necessary.

I recognized my compassion fatigue, my moral injury, and the toxic relationship I had with believing I had to stay to change systems that could not—and would not—change.

Leaving was the most self-affirming, nurturing experience of my life.

Option 2: Radically Change the Situation

What this looks like:

• Stay but blow the whistle

• Organize internally for systemic change

• Go to the board, the media, regulatory bodies

• Force accountability

When this is right:

• You have some power or leverage

• Others will back you up

• You’re willing to risk your position for change

• The system is salvageable with pressure

What it requires:

• Political skill and strategy

• Willingness to be the “difficult one”

• Acceptance that you might get fired anyway

• Thick skin for backlash

Who can do this:

• Not everyone (and that’s okay)

• Usually requires privilege, resources, support

• Often those most harmed have the least ability to fight

Option 3: Contain the Harm + Heal the Compassion Fatigue

What this looks like:

• Stay in the role

• Do what you can within constraints

• Accept you can’t fix the system

• Focus on healing YOUR nervous system

When this is right:

• You can’t leave (financially, practically)

• You’re close to retirement/transition

• You’ve determined this is the “least bad” option

• You’re strategic about what fights to pick

What it requires:

• Radical acceptance of limits

• Aggressive nervous system care (not “self-care”—actual somatic work)

• Clear boundaries on what you will/won’t participate in

• Finding meaning outside the broken system

• Exit plan (even if it’s years away)

The brutal truth:

This option requires you to grieve—daily—that you can’t fix it.

You have to hold: “I’m doing what I can” AND “this system is still harming people.”

That’s tragic optimism (Viktor Frankl). It’s not for everyone.

The Nervous System Piece (Non-Optional)

Regardless of which option you choose for moral injury, if you’re experiencing compassion fatigue, you MUST address your nervous system. This isn’t optional.

Compassion fatigue healing requires:

1. Stop absorbing

• Learn to witness without internalizing

• Practice: “This is their pain, not mine”

• Somatic boundary work (not just mental boundaries)

2. Discharge what you’ve carried

• Your body is holding decades of other people’s trauma

• Talk therapy alone won’t release it

• Somatic practices: shaking, crying, movement, sound

• Clinical interventions: EMDR, somatic experiencing, Havening

3. Reciprocity

• You can’t only give

• You need people who care for YOU

• Mutual support, not one-way helping

4. Reclaim your own emotions

• Learn to distinguish: Is this MY feeling or absorbed from someone else?

• Practice: “Am I anxious or angry? Sad or depleted?”

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

Here’s what I wish someone had told me twenty-five years ago when I was trapped in that adolescent program, watching harm I couldn’t stop:

The burnout from moral injury and compassion fatigue won’t kill you quickly. It will kill you slowly.

It will burn you to the ground. It will erode your health, destroy your relationships, eradicate your sense of self. It will make you cynical, numb, bitter. It will steal years of your life while you tell yourself you’re “making a difference.”

The question isn’t whether you’ll address it.

The question is: will you address it before your body forces the choice?

Again, the choices are:

1. Leave

2. Change it radically

3. Contain the harm and heal yourself

None of these are easy. All of them are better than staying silent while your soul dies.

Whether you decide to leave, fight, or stay and heal—make it conscious.

You deserve to choose your path forward.

You deserve to know you are powerful, even in this moment.

You deserve to have agency, even when all the options are hard.

And if you’re ready for deeper, one-on-one work to heal your nervous system and reclaim your whole self, learn more about private coaching at thesaraanderson.com.

As a therapist with 25 years of experience, I know burnout intimately—personally and professionally. Yet few of the accomplished women I’ve worked with ever call their experience “burnout.” They don’t walk into my office saying, “I’m burned out.” They say:

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”

“I’m so exhausted, but I have to keep going.”

“I’m so anxious.”

“I’m absolutely overwhelmed!”

“I’ve tried everything—boundaries, self-care, better sleep—and nothing works.”

These are women who’ve built careers, families, and lives that look like the pinnacle of success. On paper, they have it all. In reality, they’re barely holding on.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Accomplished women burn out differently—and what actually helps isn’t what most people think.

The Paradox: Not Overwork—Understimulation

There’s a general assumption that if you’ve achieved a lot, you’re doing too much.

The reality is different.

When work is rote and repetitive, when it has little stakes or investment, when it requires very little of your creativity, your intellect, or your passion, you find ways to fill the gaps. You pile on busy work until you’re overwhelmed.

One woman I worked with had built a thriving counseling business over 20 years. Instead of automating client reminders, she called each customer every day—manually, one by one. She was stimulating herself with busy work, which drove up her anxiety and stress until she could barely breathe.

Here’s the thing, she could pretty much do her actual work in her sleep. Not to make light of the seriousness of her work, but she was so good, so well trained, so knowledgeable, that she knew intuitively what others needed simply from a glance.

To keep herself engaged, she made everything harder, not easier. She talked about being overwhelmed and exhausted, but what she actually needed was to find a way to live more fully—to be stimulated in ways that mattered.

Once she addressed this, she began to really live. She sold her house, moved into an RV with her husband, expanded her counseling practice, added coaching programs, and started living the adventure her soul craved.

She was stimulated.

But the Opposite Is Also True

Too little stimulation—abject boredom—is the killer of desire.

Four years ago, I canceled a lucrative contract. Not because the work was hard, but because it was so boring that no amount of maneuvering engaged me. I was burning out fast.

I tried everything to make the work more interesting, but nothing worked. I was completely exhausted, hating everyone and everything, and feeling utterly ineffective—classic burnout.

This type of understimulation shows up constantly in the women I work with. They begin to think they’re the problem—that they’re not good enough. In reality, they’re too effective for their own good. Everyone takes their contribution and skills for granted, so they get passed over for promotion or recognition while burning out from boredom.

Not Just Boredom—Compassion Fatigue

This is particularly true for women managing careers AND families. Women who are so accomplished at work, their efforts appear effortless, and at home, their lives are enviable. Behind the scenes, they’ve been absorbing everyone else’s problems. With their spouse, their boss, their colleagues, their kids, they’re doing so much hidden emotional and real labor that no one realizes. They do this without notice, without complaint, without reciprocity. They do this while everyone leans on them, looks to them to solve every problem down to every lost shoe, every lost file. And after decades of caring for so much, their nervous system is fried.

This is compassion fatigue—and it’s the single source of anxiety and emotional overwhelm I see in accomplished women.

It sounds like this: You’re so good at being there for everyone else that no one is there for you.

Not Just Fatigue—Moral Injury

Compassion fatigue unchecked becomes an even greater injury. Moral injury is not just a violation of your own ethics and beliefs, it is what happens to you when you know you should stop, but you don’t—when you know you should leave, but you can’t. It’s what happens when the system is broken, and you’re trying so hard to work within it. It’s what happens when the very work you’re doing conflicts with the very essence of who you are. When you live against your deepest values for too long, it creates soul-level damage.

And moral injury doesn’t respond to spa days, vacations, or yoga. It requires existential reassessment.

Midlife Isn’t Crisis—It’s Development

Midlife presents itself just in time for the existential reassessment, but shows up in crisis form. Midlife forces you to face every decision you’ve made, every path you’ve wandered down, and reckon with how it’s impacted you and others. Burnout in midlife isn’t about exhaustion or cynicism or feeling ineffective. Burnout in midlife is a developmental phase that requires the crossing over from who you have needed to be to who you actually are.

For much of early life, we focus on safety, belonging, esteem. We focus on building a life.

In midlife, when you’ve achieved personal and professional success, and those needs are met, new needs arise: a need for meaning, purpose, truth, beauty, growth.

Instead of asking when the next promotion might be or if you’re in the right school system, you discover deeper, self-oriented questions:

“Who am I really?”

“What do I actually want?”

You’re outgrowing the life you thought you needed and focusing on the life that allows you to live with meaning, purpose, and intentionality.

Self-care retreats, yoga classes, or ayahuasca sessions won’t provide answers for navigating the liminal space between your idealized self and your real self—especially as time pressure intensifies with the “now or never” grasp of mortality.

Why “Just Rest” Doesn’t Work

For these reasons, standard burnout advice doesn’t address existential angst. The “just rest” mantra doesn’t help because more sleep can’t touch existential ache. Vacations don’t solve the empty hole that a lack of meaning and purpose leaves. Sabbaticals don’t offer relief when the problem isn’t overwork.

Setting “better boundaries” is also ineffective because the problem isn’t how much you’re doing; the problem is that you’re doing too much of what doesn’t matter.

You cannot self-care your way out of an existential crisis. You need embodied transformation, not more management and regulation strategies.

Name It Accurately

Which is why it’s necessary to stop calling this:

• “I need better work-life balance”

• “I’m so overwhelmed”

• “I need to manage my time better”

And to start calling it:

• “I’m understimulated and overfunctioning”

• “I’m experiencing moral injury from living against my values”

• “My nervous system is refusing to let me keep sacrificing myself”

• “I’m in a developmental midlife transition that requires reassessment, not rest”

Reassess What You’re Building (And Why)

The intervention begins here: Reassess what you’re really building and why.

Is it a life that looks good on paper? Or a life that reflects the essence of who you are?

Ask yourself:

1. Does this work require my full being?

If you can do it in your sleep—or if you’re adding busy work to stay engaged—it’s draining you. The cure isn’t rest. It’s increasing the challenge or changing the focus in ways that light you up.

2. Does this align with my deepest values?

Moral injury requires leaving or radically changing the situation. No amount of self-care will help you through ethical compromise.

3. Am I building something that matters to ME?

Too many women focus on how their success reflects to others—how they’re perceived. This is people-pleasing. The more you try to please others, the more you violate yourself.

Now is the time to ask: What do I actually need versus what have I been conditioned to want?

This requires courage to examine your instincts—not to doubt yourself, but to unpack what you’ve been conditioned to do that doesn’t serve your soul.

Do the Embodied Work

Your body carries decades of over-responsibility, suppressed anger, unprocessed grief.

Talk therapy, executive coaching, mindset shifts, breath work classes, and nervous system regulation strategies alone won’t touch this. You need embodied presence—somatic practices that help you identify what you’re actually feeling, access unconscious material, integrate disowned parts of yourself, and reorganize your life in alignment with your authentic nature.

Learn to distinguish not just in your mind, but in your body:

• Am I tired — or bored with a life that limits parts of me?

• Am I anxious — or angry about what I’ve been tolerating?

• Am I depressed — or grieving what I lost while becoming who I was supposed to be?

This connects psyche, soul, and soma. It allows your whole self to express what it actually needs.

Stop Banishing Parts of Yourself

This often requires shadow work—integrating the parts you exiled to be acceptable:

• The ambition you called selfish

• The anger you called unladylike

• The desire for more you called ungrateful

• The fear you disguised as perfectionism

• The parts that were “too much”

You burned out partly from maintaining the performance of the “good” version—competent, selfless, never too much, never not enough.

Integration means: Stop banishing parts of yourself to be acceptable. Let your whole self exist.

The Real Question

Accomplished women don’t burn out because they’re overworked.

They burn out because they’ve stopped asking the right question:

“What would it look like to live my life in a way that reflects all of me?”

Midlife allows you to finally answer this question—from the inside out.

What becomes possible:

Not just surviving.

Not just managing.

Actually living.

I know myself from the inside out. I know my thoughts, my feelings, my reactions. I think other people know me from the outside in. They see my reactions, sometimes hear my thoughts, rarely know my feelings.

I think about how my dog, Zoey, always recognizes that I am thinking about letting her come with me. She recognizes this long before I say out loud that she can come.

I believe that Zoey knows me better than I know myself. One time, after another of my dogs died, and I leaned against the shower wall crying, Zoey braved the warm water to step into the shower and lick my ankles. She knew I needed comfort.

Zoey saw me.

Which makes me wonder how much I really know myself, and how much other people really know me? Because to be known so well by Zoey makes me question what knowing is possible.

This, too, is a question many of my clients seem to ask of me, without words: Do you get me?

I wonder that, too.

Much of the work I do in session with clients is shadow work; it is the work of excavating the layers of self that have been pushed aside.

Recently, I did my own shadow work.

I examined my eyes in a mirror for a minute, then I closed my eyes for a minute, and then—stream of consciousness for a minute—I wrote all of the words that came to me.

Intense. Beautiful. Strong. Warm. Sensitive. Inviting. Kind. Shy. Curious. Cautious. Challenging. Invested. Hurting. Wanting. Needing. Knowing. Gentle. Sad. Confused. Capable. Loving. Caring. Intimidating. Smart. Seeing. Real. Honest. Emotional. Scared. Resilient. Much.

There were more than this, because I repeated the exercise several times. What emerged were words I was comfortable with and words I squirmed with. Both sets are my shadow; only one set do I like to own—only one set do I admit to. The other set are the ones I fight hard against.

Sometimes others reflect these same words to me. The ones that sting the most are the ones someone else notices and with which I have yet to make peace. So I keep working.

Your feet are sweating and sliding inside your slippers, you desperately want to take off your shirt and pants because it’s too damn hot all of a sudden, and you can’t remember why you walked into the kitchen.

Midlife hits hard.

You turn on the news and it’s filled with violence, shootings, political unrest, and you can’t remember why you bothered.

Current events hit hard.

You hurry to sign into Zoom and your client is late and you’re remembering a time when you could walk around the building, but now you’re stuck working out of your house.

Work hits hard.

Your spouse is sick, again, and you’re not sure if this is the beginning of the end of feeling young and free.

Aging hits hard.

Your bank account is lacking, your friends are dying, your parents are failing, your kids are growing, younger people are stepping into your work, older people are stepping away, armed men are smashing through doors and disappearing people, and you’re pushing forward every day and you can’t help wondering how in the fuck you got here.

The world hits hard.

Underneath all of it is a quiet, unnameable ache. It’s not just stress, not just frustration, not just anger.

It’s grief.

Your body is changing. Your world is changing. You didn’t ask for any of this.

You speak truth now—midlife has taught you that—and you’re less tolerant of pretending you’re fine, everything is fine.

This world that feels unstable shakes you harder than you can reckon with. Even if you never say it out loud, your body is registering these changes you did not agree to.

This is not clean grief. There is no funeral. There is no recognition. There is only the continued push-through.

It feels like recent history. The pandemic, when so many were dying and suffering, when so many were giving everything to save the people who were so sick — and you were isolated from your neighbors, and you still had to show up, get to work, change the laundry, find a way to get groceries, and try not to be destroyed by a world that couldn’t agree on what was even real.

What is the point of any of this?

You’re in the middle of a life review, questioning the choices you’ve made, wondering what life would be like if you took a different path, wondering if you’re brave enough to try something new. This grief compounds because the answers feel trite, feel out of touch with the weight of what is actually happening.

But none of this is trite. These are not small questions. These are grief questions.

Grief doesn’t follow a script. It doesn’t move through neat stages.

What it asks is something simpler, and harder: acknowledgment.

The feelings, the questions, the overwhelm, the angst. The choices that brought you here, the paths you didn’t take, the losses along the way. How hard this actually is. What is missing. What you miss. What you most fear.

And then this: you’re not alone.

You’re not alone with these feelings, these questions, these experiences. Everyone is going through this—individually and collectively. But when you can remember the universal connection to the same struggles, something shifts.

Perhaps most of all, it gives you permission to simply be with it, without having to fix a single thing.

Because grief is not failure.

Grief is proof of love — for life, for others, for yourself.

And love always leaves a mark when things change.

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For a long time, I lectured clients about the deadly sins.

Not the biblical sins. The neuroscience sins.

There are six, so far as I have named them: scrolling, snacking, sipping, streaming, staying up, and shopping.

Scrolling on social media. Snacking late at night. Sipping wine, beer, liquor. Streaming TV for hours. Staying up way too late (fun fact: humans are the only animals that refuse to sleep when they’re tired). Shopping online for dopamine hits.

I would love to say I’m above committing these sins, knowing — as I do — the neuroscience behind them.

But lately, I’ve been stuck in an endless scroll. While watching TV, running to the bathroom, first thing in the morning, last thing before bed, between clients, moments when I should be exercising or reading or writing.

I feel such urgency to jump on social media to find out what I might be missing. Not who had dinner where or caught a recent movie. I mean the late-breaking, earth-shattering news about Venezuela or Greenland or Minnesota or Atlanta. Even the venerable monks walking for peace across the southeast—I compulsively check where they are, how they’re doing, if Aloka the peace dog is recovering from surgery.

I have been in a doomscrolling loop for weeks now.

When the world feels unstable, I can feel my own nervous system shift into hypervigilance. I want to know more, see more, predict more about what is happening. I feel uneasy, unsettled, overwhelmed. There is a part of me that believes if I can gather enough information, I’ll finally know I’m safe.

So I keep scrolling, not out of curiosity, but out of survival.

I’m scrolling because some part of me believes if I just keep looking, I’ll find reassurance. Or resolution. Or a sign that things are improving. I like seeing the videos of people in Minnesota singing in the streets.

But I never find it.

So I search. My body floods with stress. And I search again. And again. And again.

I’m not enjoying this. It’s not the thrill of a roller coaster. It’s urgency. Alertness. I have to keep looking.

Even when I’m fully spent, I scroll. Lights out and I’m hiding my phone near my pillow so its screen doesn’t wake my dogs or husband.

The cruelest part? The illusion of control.

When life feels unpredictable and chaotic, information feels like control.

Scrolling says: At least I know what’s happening.

But knowing more doesn’t make me feel safer.

So the doomscrolling continues even as I become more fried.

And then I invite the other five sins to the party.

Because now I feel more anxious, more hopeless, more helpless, more disconnected from real life, community, supports—and because my nervous system has taken in threat signals without resolution, action, or co-regulation—I reach for something else to feel better.

I like chocolate as a late-night snack. I also stay up too late. Sometimes I tell myself I’m not tired, but that’s a lie. The worst is bingeing series in a single day or weekend. The other day, I watched all of The Pitt and then switched back to Bones, which I’ve seen so often I know practically every episode by heart and can rattle off my favorites. Familiarity feels good, and the bingeing never stops.

None of these actually resolve the stress my system is carrying. It’s like revving a car engine while parked in the driveway.

Or my favorite metaphor: standing in the middle of a burning house rearranging the furniture.

And there’s one more layer that makes doomscrolling especially hard: midlife.

In midlife, I’m finding I can’t tolerate this the way I used to. My system is more sensitive. More easily overwhelmed. And I can’t just override what my body is telling me anymore—though I still try.

So what used to feel like “staying informed” now feels like emotional flooding and utter exhaustion.

Which, again, feeds the doomscrolling loop when I’m looking for a little relief, respite, and release.

Here’s what I try to remind myself:

I’m not weak for wanting relief. I’m human.

I ask myself: Can I have compassion for how hard this is right now? Compassion that there is no perfect way to handle any of this. Can I stop shaming myself for trying to survive something that feels completely unsurvivable?

Instead of: I need to stop doomscrolling.

I try: My nervous system is looking for safety in the only place it knows to search right now.

That shift—from sin to understanding—is the only thing I can actually control.

I’m not trying to stop scrolling. That feels impossible right now.

What I’m trying to do is notice the moment I shift from curiosity to compulsion. I’m trying to notice when my breath gets shallow, my throat tight, my whole body frozen.

That’s the signal. That’s when I know I’ve crossed over.

I’m not aiming for perfect. Just noticing.

If there’s one thing I can remember today, it’s this:

Doomscrolling isn’t weakness. It’s my nervous system trying to protect me in a world where the threats feel constant and unresolved. Right now, the ratio of alarm to safety is flipped.

That’s worth remembering, I think.

Because the truth is, I’m dysregulated too. My nervous system is shot. I’m a trauma therapist with 25 years of experience and I still can’t focus on regular tasks while people are being rounded up, shot, or worse. I still feel my throat clench when I open my phone.

So instead of pretending I have some wise perspective from above all this, I’m going to tell you what I know about why you feel the way you do. Not to fix it; just to name it.

Because sometimes understanding the mechanism is the only solid ground we have.

So here it is: you pick up your phone to text a friend or tell a co-worker you’ll join the Zoom a few minutes late, and without thinking — out of habit — you open Facebook.

Immediately your feed shows another angle. Another video. Another story.

Your throat clenches. Your heart beats faster. You want to scream and yet you can’t. Your mind scrambles.

You have to get back to work.
You need to remember to call the plumber.
You still have to pick up chicken for dinner.

How can this be happening right now?

You finish work. You’re too tired to sleep, too exhausted to watch a movie, too distracted to read. You think, for a moment, about what it used to be like, and you wonder if this will ever end?

Of course you feel this way. Of course.

Your nervous system isn’t just shot. It’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do—reading the world for threat. And right now? The threats are real. The uncertainty is real. The chaos is real.

But here’s what makes this particular moment so unbearable:

It’s not just one thing overwhelming you. It’s three things happening at once, all converging on the same system meant to keep you safe.

First: Collective Nervous System Strain

We aren’t built to absorb this much distress, this fast, this often.

We’re not meant to scroll past suffering and then switch gears into everyday life like nothing happened. We’re not meant to hold global fear in one hand and grocery lists in the other.

And yet, here we are, worried all of the time.

This worry is collective. Even when the comments online are dismissive or cruel, even when it feels like you’re the only one who cares — the strain is shared. We feel it in our bodies, in our conversations, in the air between us.

The part of your nervous system designed to detect threat is in overdrive, trying to anticipate and prepare for everything at once.

That is exhausting. That is destabilizing. And it erodes our sense of trust and agency over time.

Second: Personal Burnout

It’s impossible to live in collective strain without it becoming personal.

When you scream at the driver who cut you off and then cry because no one is kind anymore — that’s not you “losing it.” That’s burnout.

The cynicism.
The bone-deep exhaustion.
The feeling that nothing you do makes a difference.

Burnout isn’t just about being busy. It’s what happens when your system has been giving more than it has to give for too long.

Third: Midlife Nervous System Disruption

If you’ve been alive for four or five decades or more, there’s another layer.

Midlife brings hormonal shifts that change how stress lands in the body. Old griefs and old traumas surface. Cultural messages about aging activate fears about visibility, relevance, and time.

Your system has less tolerance for override; less interest in pretending; less capacity to keep pushing through.

So the same world that felt hard ten years ago now feels unbearable.

The Trifecta

When collective strain, personal burnout, and midlife disruption collide, your nervous system has nowhere left to go.

You’re maxed out. Tapped out.

And no amount of “stay positive” or “look for the helpers” can reset a system that’s been flooded for this long.

That advice isn’t wrong.
It’s just not sufficient for the state your body is actually in.

So here’s what I offer instead:

Each day, connect with someone.

Look into their eyes and feel them. Let them feel you. Stand together.

If you don’t have a someone, look to a pet, a tree, a bird flying overhead. Connect with a living being.

Not to solve everything, not to make it all okay.

Do it because connection is one of the only signals that tells a human nervous system, right now, in this moment, you are not alone.

Remaining connected to what makes us beautifully human is how we survive a world that feels so utterly inhumane.

Sometimes, someone sees something in us long before we’re ready to see it ourselves. Other times, the people closest to us miss what feels most tender and true inside. Both experiences can feel disorienting. They make me wonder about the space between who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, and who others imagine us to be.

We move between a private self and a public self almost without noticing. We curate, shape, and adapt — sometimes as protection, sometimes as belonging. And it raises the question:

How much of the persona we present still feels real to us?

I think about this often with clients. Many of us try to “know ourselves” through thinking: journaling, analyzing, talking, gaining insight. All of these can be helpful — but insight doesn’t always create integration. Sometimes the thinking brain simply can’t answer the deeper questions.

This is why I often invite the body and imagination into the process.

We start by noticing where a question lands in the body. Does the jaw tighten? Does the throat constrict? Do the hands subtly clench? That sensation becomes a doorway. From there, we move into expressive exploration — movement, drawing, sound, writing. We let symbolic language say what words alone cannot.

Recently, I introduced self-portrait work in a session, inspired by artists like Frida Kahlo — looking in the mirror and drawing what is seen.

I’m not trained in formal art, and neither are most of my clients.

We use basic supplies: Pens and paper. Crayons. Watercolors. Scraps of collage.

When we combine simple materials with imagination, something honest emerges, something deeper than accuracy or aesthetics: the soul begins to speak.

Today, I drew my own portrait.

I studied my face — the parts I tend to avoid, the parts I soften, the parts I don’t always love. I added color and symbol to reflect them back to myself. And what came forward surprised me:

I felt a deep sense of adoration.

Years ago, when I trained as a play therapist, we were taught that the child must feel “delighted in.” It is the foundation of safety — to be seen with warmth, not evaluated or corrected, but delighted in.

As I looked at my drawing, I realized:

I was delighting in myself.

It felt beautiful.

This week, someone dear to our family passed away. He was one of those rare people who delighted in everyone. I can still see him rising from his chair in my grandmother’s dining room, meeting me with joy, making sure I knew I was welcome and loved. He had a gift for adoring others, and everyone who knew him felt it.

As I sat with my portrait, I felt his presence — the memory of being seen, the sweetness of loving and being loved.

To my beloved aunt — who often reads here, though I would understand if this week she cannot — my heart is with you. What a privilege it was to be loved by Uncle Gerry, and to love him.

If you’d like to try this gentle exploratory art practice yourself, here’s a simple way to begin:

Self-Portrait Mandala

From our earliest days, we come to know ourselves through relationship — through being looked at with warmth, curiosity, and care. There is something deeply human about offering that same gaze to ourselves later in life — not critically, but with steadiness, kindness, and attention.

In my work, I think of this practice as a conversation between the body, the symbolic world, and the deeper Self.

This exploration uses self-portrait and mandala — not as “art projects,” but as quiet ways of noticing:

Who am I right now?
What in me wants to be seen?

What you’ll need

• Paper or a sketchbook

• Pen, pencil, markers, or paints

• A mirror you can look into comfortably

• (Optional) collage scraps, pastels, or watercolor

Use whatever you have. Nothing needs to be fancy.

How to begin

Arrive in your body.
Take a slow breath. Notice your shoulders, jaw, and belly. Let them soften.

Create your container.
Draw a circle on the page — large enough to feel like it could hold you.
Think of it as a boundary of safety.

Meet your reflection.
Look into the mirror with curiosity instead of critique.
Let yourself simply see.

Sketch your face — gently.
Loose. Imperfect. Human.
Let the lines wobble. Let proportions be “off.” Keep breathing.

Let more emerge.
Around your face, add color, images, shapes, or symbols.
It does not have to be accurate or “good.” Follow instinct, not perfection.

Pause and sit with it.
You don’t need to interpret anything yet. Just be with what appeared.

Reflection prompts

Choose one or two to journal or share with a trusted friend or loved one:

• How might I describe the person I see in this portrait, if they were a stranger?

• What did I notice first when I looked at this image of me?

• What surprised me? What felt honest?

• Where do I sense tenderness, sadness, strength, or vulnerability?

• What might the colors, shapes, or symbols be expressing?

• What was it like to pay such close attention to my own reflection?

A gentle reminder

This practice is not about doing it “right.”

It’s about allowing yourself to notice:

• who you are in this moment

• what feels meaningful

• and what you might be needing

That noticing — without pressure to fix or improve — is the work.

One last thing: If you try this practice, I’d love to hear what you noticed — not about how the drawing turned out, but about the experience of being with yourself.

I’m so glad you’re here.

It’s that liminal moment again: fireworks, countdowns, the ball dropping, midnight kisses, and a thousand whispered wishes for what might come next.

Yesterday was June, I thought.

February through May is a haze, and August until now disappeared like mist on a summer morning. And somehow, we’re here again — the New Year arriving with its usual demands:

Review. Resolve. Reset. Improve.

Motivation to change.
Motivation to optimize.
Motivation to throw out everything tender and complicated in us and emerge shiny, focused, and “ready” to conquer whatever list we’ve created.

In years past, I spent this week in reflection:

What did I accomplish?
What worked?
Where did I falter?
What do I need to fix? improve? amplify? tweak?

There’s an almost moral pressure to become better — to be better — than last year. Between ice baths and breathwork, habit trackers and meditations, gym workouts and yoga classes, productivity hacks and nervous system regulation strategies, the call for more is louder than ever.

The calendar resets.

But the psyche does not.

And while so much of the world is focused on reinvention and renewal, I find myself — maybe you do, too — simply tired.

Bone tired.

Not the kind of tired sleep solves.
Not burnout-from-working-too-hard tired.

A deeper tiredness.
An existential ache.

The fatigue that comes from years of being told that who you are is somehow insufficient — and that the next version of you will finally be okay.

For the coming year, I want:

More women to intuitively know they are enough — without being required to do, offer, or give more.

More women to reject the idea that the only way to keep up is to work harder.

More women to experience parity without having to over-function or over-excel.

More women to know they belong — without sacrificing their essence or their existence.

For me, if I’m going to have resolutions this year, they will sound like this:

• Remember, don’t fix.

• Choose truth and kindness over speed and performance.

• Let this year be about becoming whole — not new.

• Be authentic. Be gentle. Be compassionate. Be kind. Be present with who you already are.

Those are New Year intentions I can live inside.

A New Year.
Here’s to a Whole You.

P.S.

If this finds you sitting quietly on the edge of this new year — a little worn, a bit unsure, and deeply reluctant to create yet another “better” version of yourself — I want you to know something:

You don’t have to.

There is a deeper rhythm within you waiting to lead — one that doesn’t demand perfection, only presence.

May this year be less about proving yourself and more about returning to yourself.
May you trust the woman you are, and let the rest go.
And may you remember that you are already more than you can possibly imagine.

Happiest New Year to you. I’m glad you’re here.

We smile. We go through the motions. We even experience moments of joy, gratitude, and delight. And still, a tender place of grief remains: not quite a hole, not fully formed, not always visible, yet there.

I’ve been reading more poetry lately. This morning, as my own grief was waking, I wrote a poem with it.

I offer it here now, in understanding, in recognition, and in fellowship.

I offer this wish, too:

May you know that you are not alone.

And may you know that you belong.

May you know that you are loved.

Most importantly, may you know that you are good.

With warmth,
Sara

HOME PLATE

The field is fenced.
Diamond-shaped bases —
Only first and second and part of third,
And maybe home.

The path worn from sliding and running
Disappeared.
Now it’s just grass.

You know what that means, don’t you?

I yearn for the carved oak table,
The one with garlands and leaves,
And angels dangling from chandelier arms.
Lace, red ribbons flickering with the lights.
The laughter, too.
And garlic,
Heavy in the air.

And where I was, I
Was a part—at least
For a while.
Sometimes longer.

I slowed by the fence.
Bobby’s Field, the sign says,
Still anchored between metal triangles
That wrap the field.

My fingers want to thread themselves through
Where my eyes can still peek in
And see it all again—
The run toward home,
The cheering, the heat, the smell
Of sweet bell flowers dancing in the grass.

You don’t want to see what’s there.

Staring through glass.
Dirt and dust clinging to the car.

White petal dresses,
Turned brown.

I see it now.
Home plate is missing

Men have midlife crises and find younger women.
Women have midlife crises and get rid of the men.

More women in midlife are choosing to remain single.
To live alone.

Irrelevant.

We’re told we’re irrelevant—at least that’s what a few politicians have taken to podiums over the past year or two to declare.
We should leave the workforce.

Guess what.
One in six of us already are—forced out, quietly, by menopause.

And menopause?
Irrelevant.

Irrelevant to funding.
Irrelevant to research.

Even according to the most loudly self-proclaimed liberal male politician—who refused to sign a bill for menopausal research and landed in the ire of Halle Berry.

She’s not irrelevant.
Though Hollywood has tried to make her so.

Same with Geena Davis.

And Kathy Bates—returning as Matlock, episode one, season one—named “invisibility” as the superpower of older women.

Are irrelevance and invisibility the same thing?
Or different?

They feel the same.

Semantics and all.
Tomato, tomato.
Potato, potato.

Irrelevant.

Years of knowledge.
Years of experience.

Irrelevant because a middle-aged woman running for president had a woman’s voice. A woman’s power.

Make that two women.
Irrelevant.

Irrelevant because victims—dozens, hundreds—are not believed.

One midlife woman—a Black woman—in 1991 spoke out against the nomination of a Supreme Court justice.
Irrelevant.

Another midlife woman—a white woman—in 2018 spoke out against the nomination of a Supreme Court justice.
Irrelevant.

Irrelevant.
Still irrelevant.

It’s not menopause that’s irrelevant.
It’s not work.
It’s not aging parents or growing children or spouses in their own midlife crisis.

It isn’t midlife women

Who refuse to quietly raise grandbabies,
Who refuse to anchor themselves to the dreams and desires of everyone else,
Who refuse to disappear,

Who refuse to remain invisible.

Because being a midlife woman

is anything but irrelevant.

It reminded me of a poem. I’ve never been much of a poetry reader—it’s not a genre I understood. But something is happening to me in midlife, and I’ve been drawn to poetry.

Marie Howe’s poem The Boy has been echoing through me, especially its last line:
“I was the girl. What happened taught me to follow him, whoever he was, calling and calling his name.”

I was the girl.

The 6-year-old girl whose brother showed his entire senior-year English class how to “train” a little sister.

He bounced me like a basketball. He told me to heel and sit, and I obeyed—rules he, a 17-year-old boy, created long before that moment to keep from losing me in the crowd.

In my 20s, after our mother died, I followed him from California to Minnesota at his request.

I’d left college to care for her. He’d left work. We crossed state after state together, exhausted, and arrived at his homestead table barely upright.

I intended to stay a while. But he stood up to go outside, and I followed. And then followed again. Everywhere he went, I went—until it occurred to me that I didn’t have to. That was a hard habit to break.

What happened taught me to follow him, whoever he was, heeling and sitting at his command.

But not now.

At this point in midlife, I wonder who I might have been had I been given different rules. I wonder what becomes possible since I’ve stopped playing by the outdated ones.

Now the rules are simple: my rules; my game. No more holding my breath waiting for someone else to tell me when to sit or heel.

That is the work of midlife: coming up for air and discovering that breathing underwater might have worked, too.

Reference: Howe, Marie. “The Boy.” What the Living Do. W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.

P.S. I’ve been working on something new—a membership and coaching program for women in midlife. Building it meant breaking some of my own old rules about what I was taught transformation should look like. It’s not quite open yet, but if you’re curious, you can find more here: https://www.thesaraanderson.com

I broke up with an old friend the other day. I don’t think she noticed. We haven’t really been friends in many years, though Facebook has kept us connected. I was in her wedding, but I don’t know her child who has, apparently, gone off to college this year.

When we were in college, she loaned me $20 for gas when I was too broke to make it to work. She bought me a bathing suit once because I didn’t have the money. She loaned me chairs and made a salad when my boyfriend’s parents came for dinner. I have memories of walking around her apartment complex, lap after lap, talking about boyfriends and parents.

What I know of her now comes from Facebook posts where she supports a completely different social and political perspective—one that celebrates what I most grieve: harm to others. She celebrated the elimination of safety supports, ignoring—or ignorant of—the fear too many have of being too broke to put food on the table or gas in their tank. The friend I know in my memories is different from this friend I know through Facebook. I am, too.

As I look at this face in the mirror, I hardly recognize the years that have passed. Years that have seen many friendships end; years that have shaped my face into a smile with so many creases; years that have made my hair pale at the temples.

I think of my mother when I look at my face. I wonder what it was like for her to see her own hair grey, her own wrinkles take over her once smooth skin. I wonder what changes in attitude or temperament she noticed most about herself during this phase of life.

Lately I’ve been craving pop literature—those light little novels about middle age women who remake their lives in ways big and small. It reminds me of watching Murder, She Wrote with my mom, and how she lit up seeing an older woman live so boldly. Yet away from the show, my mother whispered fears that she might end up as a homeless bag lady, and she whispered fears of being broke and alone. I reflect, sometimes, on how that fed my psyche, my fears.

At lunch the other day, my dad made a comment that I needn’t live my mother’s life. A few days later, a quote from a piece of Jungian literature reminded me that our archetypal meaning of “mother” and our own self-concept are both shaped by our lived, generational experience.

My mother died so long ago that I never had the chance to really know this version of her—the one that changed and morphed and became whiter at the temples and bolder in her life. I know she made radical changes in midlife. I also know that she suffered these changes. Her suffering, her whispered fears, her early death live in my own life, and I see those in the mirror, too.

My father didn’t seem to reckon within himself at midlife. He once told me that he never worried about his health, his age, or—I assume—his greying hair and wrinkling brow. I watched him age with the reverence and regard his greying gave him. Today, he enjoys his eyebrows growing wildly, brushing them up near his hairline.

I remember my mother lamenting that she married an ugly duckling expecting him to grow ugly with her, only he grew more handsome, more distinguished, more polished with age—and she felt betrayed by this. I understand.

Recently, I posted a picture on LinkedIn of myself, in my natural state of a sweatshirt and a doggie-patterned baseball cap. The caption discussed menopause, midlife, and the experience of being a woman in a world built with systems that are not intended to support women. Another old friend, a man, reached out and asked if I was okay. When I asked what he meant, he suggested that I seemed a bit down, depressed, like I was struggling with menopause. No, I don’t think men reckon with this age—with aging—as women do. At least not in the ways in which I am, and not in the ways I briefly witnessed with my mom.

Midlife is asking me to look—not with the eyes I had at twenty, but with the eyes that have creased and softened and survived. And maybe that’s the quiet truth of this age: that we finally see ourselves without the old filters, without the old stories, without the need to pretend.

Midlife has its losses, its reckonings, its grey hairs that announce themselves whether we approve or not. But it also has a strange kind of clarity. A certainty. A refusal I didn’t have before.

And maybe, in its own way, midlife is teaching me to stand closer to the woman I’ve been trying to meet my whole life.

P.S. I’ve been building something this past year to support women in midlife. It’s nearly finished, and I’ll be launching it soon. I didn’t build it because I have all the answers. I built it because I have all the questions.

I wanted a place to explore my own sense of belonging—belonging first and foremost to myself, in honor of my body and its aging. I wanted a place to explore my own becoming—not becoming something new, but unveiling and recognizing the woman I’ve always been, yet haven’t always had the space or awareness to be.

And I wanted a place to explore my own being—how to be fully and completely myself: integrated, whole.

Because I wanted this place, I built it. It’s called The Sacred Return, a place just for women in midlife. I’ll share more soon.

For now, I simply want to say: midlife is teaching me to be with myself in new and different ways. And midlife is especially teaching me—echoing the midlife woman who has recently gone viral—“We don’t care” what other people think… though I do still care about what I think about other people.

If you’re in midlife and curious about what I’ve built—or you know a woman who might be—here’s a quiet first look: www.thesaraanderson.com

Between updates to the local grid, layoffs at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta, and a few curious squirrels who chewed through the wiring, my connection was gone.

I spent those days texting with one of the company’s bots—unsatisfying, even when I started calling it “Bot” and giving it prompts as if it were an AI system. It denied it, of course. And when I told it to “take on the role of a human being and communicate with me a complete analysis of my home system,” it glitched out entirely.

It was funny at first, then unsettling. Because what broke wasn’t just my internet—it was the sense of connection.

I share this because lately, I have been bothered.

Bothered by AI systems that pretend to be human.
Bothered that I am so dependent—because of my work, my communication, my livelihood—on technology.
Bothered because I miss the simplicity of human connection.

At a concert last night, I watched the B-52s and Devo.
As it turns out, I don’t actually like their music—and can’t, for the life of me, figure out why I ever did back in college.
But what struck me more than the music was the crowd. Thousands of phones in the air, recording the stage.

I miss the days when we held up lighters—when the air smelled faintly of butane and pot, when people swayed together, fully present, eyes reflecting light and song.
Now, even music is consumed through a device.
I am bothered.

I saw an AI video today of a pig farting, knocking a squirrel unconscious.
I laughed and then realized it wasn’t real.
That bothered me too.

I’m bothered by the leader of a country who creates AI videos of himself defecating on people.
I am bothered that some cheer it on.
I am bothered that, come November 1, foster children and families will lose the very benefits that sustain them.

I am bothered by what feels like an utter lack of humanity.

I miss humanity.
I miss people showing up for one another.
I miss disagreement that still held respect.
I miss community and connection.
I miss looking into someone’s eyes instead of a screen.

I’m so bothered that I haven’t even been able to do the one thing I love most: write.
Because writing means staring at a screen, and I hate that I’m dependent on that, too.

Maybe you’re bothered, too.

I wish I had some great advice. I don’t. Not beyond what everyone already knows: disconnect from social media, go outside, call your people, make something with your hands.

But in a world that keeps dividing us—through screens, through noise, through the very tools that were meant to connect us—I have only this to offer:

Resist.

Resist the reach for your phone.
Resist the reflex to turn on the TV.
Resist firing up your computer, scrolling the feed, checking the notifications.
Resist the pull away from yourself and from each other.

And instead…

Notice.

Notice what’s around you.
Notice what it feels like to be you.
Notice what it feels like to be with others.
Notice what it feels like to be fully embodied.

And if that’s hard, start small. Start with your breath.

Breathe deeply through your nose.
Pause.
Exhale.

Notice what that breath feels like.
Notice how your body responds.
Notice if you feel more alert, more alive, more aware.

And keep breathing.

Because there is one thing that makes us so achingly, beautifully human—
that no algorithm, no machine, no imitation can take—
and that is our breath.

There is a very fine line between life and death, and it occurs in a single breath.

So resist the urge to disconnect or check out.
Become bothered.
And breathe.

It’s a bone-deep tired… the kind that comes from both existential events and an internal drive to get too many things done at once.

In midlife, I’m finding that my exhaustion isn’t just physical or emotional — it’s the collision of drive and the quiet, ongoing question: Does this ever end?

The drive part is survival — making money, moving forward, hustling, doing what’s required to keep going.
The “end” part is existential — the politics, the wars, the violence, the power and control, the endless conflict of a culture at odds with itself.

I had hoped that by this age, there would be a kind of celebration — the way Oprah did on her 50th birthday when I watched her declare she had finally arrived.

Or a celebration like the current viral trend of midlife women declaring, “We don’t care” — about hot flashes, brain fog, husbands, or societal demands that no longer work for them.

But for me, those celebrations ring hollow.

Instead, I woke up tired.
Tired of fighting.
Tired of worrying.
Tired of the chronic anxiety and low hum of angst that fills too many of my days.

So today, I’m coming back to what’s immediately within my control:

1. My attention.
   I’m choosing to focus on what brings me ease and peace — time to sit outside beneath the wide-open sky, to soak in the sun, listen to the birds, the last of the bees, and the tiny, joyful screams of a Chihuahua howling at the squirrels.

2. My company.
   Lunch with my dad — long, deep conversations that stretch across consciousness, philosophy, spirituality, and the human experience.
   That kind of company feeds my soul in ways that most of life leaves me empty. It brings me back to center, to reflection, to what’s still available rather than what’s lost or what I might be losing.

3. My energy.
   I’m pacing myself. On days when I’m more tired, I require more compassionate kindness toward my efforts.
   When I trained as a yoga teacher years ago, we learned that each day on the mat is new, and that what’s available one day may not be the next.
   Yesterday I might have reached my toes; today, maybe only my shins.
   There’s no judgment in that, only recognition and grace.
   My energy deserves that same grace.

Hopefully tomorrow, more will be available.
But for today, I’m marveling at what is within reach: my attention, my company, my energy.

And with that, I plan to find a little more peace, a little more ease.

Note to self:
There are days meant for striving and days meant for softening. When the world feels too loud or too heavy, the kindest thing you can do is return to yourself — slowly, gently, and with as much grace as you can muster.

Somewhere along the way, our fully developed adult brains started whispering, don’t.

Children create and play and share without hesitation, without holding back.
Adults don’t. We wonder, we consider, we catastrophize.

Adults have an overly developed inner critic — the product of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which finishes developing in our mid-20s. It’s one of the last regions of the brain to fully mature, which is why adolescents and young adults are more impulsive, more spontaneous, less self-conscious. But as we age and that part of the brain comes fully online, so does the voice of self-monitoring — the inner critic who watches, evaluates, and warns, often louder than we’d like.

Don’t create — what would people think?
Don’t share — what if they don’t like it?
Don’t play — aren’t you too old for that?

My inner critic has been loud these last few days. I knew to expect her, because I’ve been writing more, sharing more, creating more, and yes, playing more (with language, that is).

I knew she’d have a lot to say — and she has.

She’s flooded me with anxious thoughts about whether what I’m saying and sharing has any merit.
She’s filled me with such regret that I’ve nearly thrown my writing into the proverbial trash can.
She’s filled me with doubt about my own ability, my own likability.

I knew to expect her because I’ve been moving through high and low levels of flow consciousness — that state where everything comes together with ease, joy, and such pleasant satisfaction that all I want is more.

But with each wave of flow comes the crash — the hangover — the flare of that inner critic determined to keep me safe, no matter the cost to my ego.

So, I’ve welcomed her — this inner critic of mine.

I’ve greeted her with warmth and thanked her for being here with me on this journey, reminding me that the stakes of not playing, not creating, not sharing are higher than the stakes of giving up.

Physically, I’ve offered myself comfort: an extra sweatshirt, longer and warmer showers than usual, and the quiet company of two semi-fluffy chihuahuas nestled in my lap.

Emotionally, I’ve softened toward the onslaught of self-critical thoughts.

I’ve almost perfected what I call the self-compassionate sigh, and it goes like this:

Think of a moment when you looked at a puppy or a baby and felt that instinctive “Awwww” — soft, tender, full of warmth.
Now, breathe in deeply through your nose.
On the exhale, let out that same “Awwww,” gently, as if cooing toward that puppy or baby — only this time, direct it toward yourself.
Let it be kind. Soothing. Reassuring.
Repeat once more.

Sometimes I place a hand over my heart as I do this.
Sometimes I imagine the youngest version of myself — the “little Sara” who first felt shy, overcome with fear and anxiety.
I remember her dearly, tenderly, and I offer the compassionate sigh to her.

Because the truth is, each of us — you, me, all of us — is only a memory away from the moment we first learned to keep ourselves safe through criticism.
And what I really wish is that we’d never had to learn that lesson.

But maybe remembering is what lets us begin again — to create, to share, to play — not because we’ve silenced the inner critic, but because we’ve softened and enveloped her.

So today, I’m compassionately sighing for both of us —
and choosing, once more, to play.

Will you join me?

If your own inner critic has been loud lately, maybe this is your invitation to soften, too. I’d love to know what helps you begin again — you can share in the comments if you’d like.

And if you know someone who’s been creating, sharing, or playing again — maybe send this to them. We could all use a little more permission to play.

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