Are You Working WITH Your Body, or Against It?

For a long time, I thought being tired meant I simply needed to get through the next thing.

I'll just do this first.

Then I'll rest.

Except there was always another thing.

And another.

And another.

Before I knew it, “I'll rest after this” had become the soundtrack of my entire day.

When I was getting closer and closer to burnout, my days felt almost like a giant checklist running inside my head.

Get up. Walk the dog. Make breakfast. Get everyone ready. Leave the kids at school. Take the train to university. Study. Take the train back. Pick up the kids if I was home first. Walk the dog again. Make dinner. Sort the next thing.

None of those things, individually, were necessarily exhausting.

But I wasn't really there for any of them.

While I was walking the dog, I was thinking about what I needed to do afterwards.

While I was studying, I was already thinking about getting home.

While I was doing one thing, my mind was somewhere else entirely—trying to stay ahead of everything waiting for me.

I wasn't living my day.

I was managing it.

And there is a difference.

The body usually knows before we are willing to listen.

Looking back, one of the clearest signs that I had been running for too long was that I had stopped experiencing the little things around me.

I used to love walking in nature.

But when I was running on empty, even those walks became another item on the list.

Walk the dog. Check.

Move on to the next thing.

After burnout, something changed.

At first, I didn't have much choice.

I was exhausted.

There simply wasn't enough capacity in my brain to keep planning, anticipating, organizing and mentally jumping ahead all day long.

And slowly, something I had forgotten how to do started coming back.

I started noticing things again.

The trees.

The light.

The air.

The little details around me.

I started actually being on the walk instead of simply completing it.

And somewhere in that process, I began reconnecting with myself.

Not the version of me who was constantly trying to keep everyone happy.

Not the version who was measuring her worth by how much she could handle.

Not the version who thought she had to become someone else's image of who she should be in order to be loved.

But me.

The me who had always been there underneath it all.

And today?

I still get tired.

I still have days when I would rather keep going.

Sometimes I'm not particularly thrilled when my body tells me, “Nope. We're resting today.” 😂

But I've learned something incredibly valuable:

Listening doesn't make me weaker. It actually helps me move forward.

When I listen to my body and allow myself to rest, I almost always have more energy, clarity and presence afterwards.

And that has completely changed the way I see rest.

Rest isn't something I have to earn after completing everything on the list.

My body isn't an obstacle standing between me and my goals.

It is part of me.

So the question becomes:

Am I working WITH my body, or am I constantly working AGAINST it?

Because there is a huge difference between being tired because you have lived a full day…

…and being exhausted because you have spent the entire day overriding yourself.

There is a difference between taking a break because your body needs one…

…and pushing yourself until your body eventually forces you to stop.

There is a difference between being present in your life…

…and constantly mentally racing toward the next thing.

And if you recognize yourself in this, I want you to know something:

You don't have to wait until burnout forces you to slow down.

You can start listening now.

Maybe today that looks like taking the walk without mentally planning the next five things.

Maybe it means sitting down for ten minutes without convincing yourself that you should be doing something else.

Maybe it means noticing that you're tired and choosing not to argue with your body about it.

Or maybe it's simply asking yourself:

“What do I actually need right now?”

And then giving yourself permission to listen to the answer.

Because the goal isn't to become a woman who never gets tired.

The goal is to become a woman who hears herself when she does.

That is part of coming home to yourself.

And honestly?

She's been there all along. 🦋

If you feel like you've spent a long time taking care of everything and everyone except yourself, maybe it's time to pause and listen to what you need.

Let's start there.

Book your Return to You Reset and give yourself 90 minutes to slow down, reconnect with yourself, and explore what alignment could look like for you.

You don't need to have everything figured out before you begin.

You just need to be willing to come back to yourself.

Wishing you a beautiful weekend, Teresa, She Elevate