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You carry the heavy, exhausting tension of relational trauma when those meant to protect you instead left you feeling unseen or unsafe, which makes asking for support feel both urgent and deeply risky in your adult life. Your nervous system’s health isn’t about constant calm, but about building the capacity to move through stress and overwhelm without shutting down. Which means giving yourself active, deliberate permission to rest and restore, not just pushing through exhaustion.
Last reviewed: June 2026 by Annie Wright, LMFT
- Today’s blog is another in the pep talk series.
- Even lions need to lick their wounds.
- Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
- Frequently Asked Questions
And if you want a few that are more direct, here are some that I’ve watched land for women like Devorah.
- “Devorah, you don’t have to be impressive today.”
- “Devorah, your job is to survive the day, not to be cheerful in it.”
- “Devorah, you’re allowed to cancel plans without a dissertation.”
- “Devorah, I’m not scared of your feelings.”
- “Devorah, if all you do today is eat and breathe, that counts.”
- “Devorah, you can let the dishes sit. I mean it.”
- “Devorah, you’re not too much. This is just a lot.”
- “Devorah, I can hold the hope for you until yours comes back.”
- “Devorah, tell me what would make tonight 5% easier.”
- “Devorah, I’m still here even if you don’t text back.”
- “Devorah, you don’t have to earn rest.”
- “Devorah, can I sit with you while you do the one hard thing?”
- “Devorah, do you want me to bring groceries, or would that feel like pressure?”
- “Devorah, you’re allowed to be a person, not a project.”
- “Devorah, you’re not alone in this.”
A pep talk for the day you can’t be brave
If you’re reading this because someone you love is going through it, I want to start with the thing I wish more people knew. In my work with driven women over 15+ years, especially women who are used to being the competent one in the room, I’ve seen that the hardest part of a hard season is often the loneliness of appearing fine.
If your nervous system learned the safest way to exist was to manage everyone else's world, my self-paced course Enough Without the Effort is the recovery map.
Not the big crisis. The private aftermath. The Tuesday afternoon where she looks normal on Zoom, then turns her camera off and puts her forehead on the kitchen counter because she can’t make herself answer one more email.
That’s the day this post is for.
Imagine Devorah, 44, sitting in her parked Subaru outside the grocery store on a drizzly March Saturday. Her cart is still empty. She has her phone in her hand, and she’s staring at a text thread where she typed, “I’m fine” for the third time this week. She’s not fine. She’s exhausted. She can’t decide whether to go in for milk or drive home and get back under the duvet. The windshield wipers keep time like a metronome.
“I keep waiting to feel stronger,” she told me later. “Like there’s going to be a moment where I snap back into the version of me who can handle things. And it isn’t happening.”
Sitting with her, I felt that familiar ache I feel with so many high-capacity women. The ache of watching someone treat their nervous system like a machine that should restart on command. What we were really talking about was grief. And depletion. And the way the body refuses to be motivationally bullied.
This content is psychoeducational in nature and is not a substitute for professional mental health treatment. If you are in crisis, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
What does a real pep talk sound like when life is heavy?
A real pep talk doesn’t demand positivity. A real pep talk names what’s true, helps you regulate for ten minutes, and reminds you that needing care doesn’t make you weak.
What therapists call this is co-regulation, the process of borrowing steadiness from a safe other until your own nervous system can settle. Think of co-regulation like putting your phone on a charger. You don’t shame the battery for being at 12%. You plug it in because that’s how batteries work.
Which means in practice: if you’re the one going through a hard time, you need messages that don’t ask you to perform. If you’re supporting someone, you want language that doesn’t accidentally pressure them to be inspiring.
Co-regulation is the nervous system process of settling through connection with a safe other, especially when stress pushes you toward fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
In plain terms: sometimes you can’t talk yourself into calm. You need another steady human to lend you their calm until your body can find yours again.
Why encouragement can backfire (and what to say instead)
Encouragement backfires when it sounds like a performance review. Driven women hear “You’ve got this” and translate it as “don’t fall apart where anyone can see.”
In my clinical experience, the words that land best in a hard season are the words that reduce aloneness. Not always, but often enough that I now teach partners and friends to lead with presence before problem-solving.
Think of it like this. When a house alarm is going off, you don’t stand outside the house and shout instructions through the window. You go in with a flashlight, you move slowly, and you help the person inside find the breaker. The body in stress is that alarmed house.
Which means on a Tuesday afternoon: the text that helps is the one that makes it easier to breathe, not the one that tries to make the feeling go away.
Devorah said it bluntly. “When people tell me I’m strong, I feel like I have to keep proving them right.”
25 things to say to someone going through a hard time (that won’t make it worse)
These are the phrases I see actually soothe people. Read them out loud and choose the ones that sound like your voice.
- “I’m here. You don’t have to make this sound better for me.”
- “You don’t have to respond right away. I’m not going anywhere.”
- “Do you want comfort, distraction, or help solving something?”
- “It’s okay if today is a low-capacity day.”
- “I believe you. This is hard.”
- “I’m proud of you for getting through the last hour.”
- “You can borrow my steadiness right now.”
- “Tell me what the hardest five minutes of your day have been.”
- “Do you want me to sit with you on the phone while you do the one thing?”
- “Do you want company, or do you want quiet with someone nearby?”
- “You’re not failing. You’re in pain.”
- “What would feel like a tiny relief today? Like a 2% shift.”
- “Do you want me to bring food, or would that feel like too much?”
- “I can take one task off your list. Pick it.”
- “I don’t need you to be inspiring. I just want you alive and held.”
- “If you want to vent, I can hold it without fixing it.”
- “If you want to talk, I can listen. If you want silence, I can do that too.”
- “What’s one thing you need permission to not do this week?”
- “I’m thinking about you. No need to reply.”
- “Do you want me to check in tomorrow, or would that feel like pressure?”
- “If you feel numb, that’s still a feeling. It’s your body protecting you.”
- “If you’re angry, I get it. Anger makes sense here.”
- “You can fall apart with me.”
- “Your pace is allowed to be slow right now.”
- “We can get through the next ten minutes together.”
What not to say when you want to help
What not to say is anything that makes the person manage your feelings about their pain.
What therapists call this is emotional labor, the hidden work of keeping other people comfortable. Think of emotional labor like carrying a second backpack you didn’t pack. The weight doesn’t show on the outside, but your shoulders feel it by 3 p.m.
Which means in practice: if Devorah is already white-knuckling her way through the day, “at least” statements and silver linings can land like extra homework. “At least you still have your job” might be true, but it can make her feel like she’s not allowed to hurt.
- Skip: “Everything happens for a reason.”
- Skip: “Just stay positive.”
- Skip: “Others have it worse.”
- Try: “I hate that you’re carrying this. I’m here.”
- Try: “Do you want me to sit with you in it, or help you get through the next task?”
Devorah once said, “When someone tells me to look on the bright side, my body does this weird thing where my throat closes.” That’s her nervous system telling the truth. The truth is that pain needs company before it can move.
How to be the friend who actually helps (a simple 3-step script)
Being the friend who helps is less about perfect words and more about a predictable pattern: offer, consent, follow-through.
What therapists call this is attunement, the skill of noticing what’s happening in someone and responding in a way that matches, instead of steamrolling them. Think of attunement like matching someone’s walking pace on a sidewalk. You don’t drag them. You don’t leave them behind. You walk beside them.
Which means in practice: you can text Devorah, “I’m going to offer you three options. You can pick one, or say no to all of them.” Then you send: “1) I can bring dinner. 2) I can do a Target run. 3) I can sit on the phone with you for ten minutes while you take a shower.”
Notice the consent piece. You are not deciding what she needs. You’re giving her a small menu when her brain can’t make decisions. That’s care.
Devorah’s middle-of-the-post return: what strength looks like in the messy middle
Two weeks after her grocery-store parking lot moment, Devorah came back and told me something that made me trust her nervous system more than her words. “I let my sister come over,” she said. “I didn’t clean first. I didn’t apologize for the mess. I just let her see the stack of mail on the counter.”
I felt my chest soften when she said it, because that is the work. Not a breakthrough montage. A tiny permission. A woman letting another woman see the unperformed version of her life.
In my experience, this is where healing actually happens for driven women. Not always, but often enough that I look for these small, unglamorous shifts as the true markers of recovery.
How do you help someone who keeps saying “I’m fine”?
Helping someone who keeps saying “I’m fine” is about making it safer to tell the truth, not catching them in a lie.
