Running on empty?

Or running over obstacles?

Alana Kirk

Sep 10, 2025

"Trying to fit it all in and stay sane.”

Sound familiar? How about this?

“Balance would mean being able to go to the gym without the pressure of needing to do 6 million other things!”

In my recent survey of women 40+ there is hope, there is fury and there is utter overwhelm and exhaustion.

One of the reasons I chose this specific work (I’d have made a lot more money in business and career coaching!) was because I know how hard it is to be a woman with the ambition of having a half-way decent life in this modern world.

But that struggle is often hidden behind closed doors and in overwhelmed brains that say “I”m fine” on the outside, but is in turmoil on the inside.

When women elbowed their way into equality, society didn’t press pause and say, “OK now we have women working, learning, earning, building and creating alongside men, we’d better restructure how society, workplaces and homes function so that all the unpaid, unrecognised, essential supportive and caring work that women do that keeps this whole shebang together is supported and shared equally.”

No, that memo was never written. We got equal rights but no equal roles.

For the last 100 years or so, women fought for and got the equality to work, play and learn they sought (to a degree).

But…. we did not get equity (the supports to access those rights fully).

It is this discrepancy that really hurts us. We were sold the myth we could have it all (equality) and externally it looks that way. Yet because the proper supports and shared responsibilities weren’t put in place at the same time, it feels we’re still just doing it all. We are in the race, but there are obstacles in our way:

This is where women then think we’re all mad and bad because we’re angry, frustrated, resentful and overwhelmed because on paper we have “succeeded” but in reality we are on our knees wondering why it’s all so fucking hard.

How many women announce they’re going to bed and then spend the next hour leaving out chicken (again) for the next day, making the kid’s lunches, clearing up the kitchen, taking the laundry out of the washing machine and hanging it up on the heated dryer, washing out the bathroom sink the kids have spat their toothpaste into, cleaning her teeth while standing on one leg (balance is key and there is no other time to fit this exercise in), picking up the dirty clothes that were aimed at the laundry basket but never made it, plucking a few chin hairs, slapping expensive anti-ageing cream on a tired and defeated face because despite the cream, it still seems to be ageing, leaving out her clothes for tomorrow because there’s too much to do in the morning, and adding three more things to her To-Do list for tomorrow before crawling into bed? Her husband, if there is one, then announcing he is going to bed, and he does?

This is why.

In the entire long length of human history, women have only had rights and freedoms for about half a centimetre. That means we are trying to figure it out as we go along as we take advantage of all the opportunities equality offers us, but still have to deal with the pressure caused from lack of equity (child care, shared housework etc).

I’m currently running a survey for women 40+ as I’m trying to get a sense of the real issues affecting us (I know mine are juggling parent care, teenagers and work, while trying to figure out how to have a life of my own). I'm putting together a number of my company talks for the coming months, and I want to be able to bring real voices to demonstrate where the amazing opportunities women have today collide with the unprecedented pressures.

Here are just a few of the answers when I asked about the main fractions / frustrations:

- Just tying to stay on top of or ahead of everything

- Balancing everything, teenagers, self employed, partner, house etc!!!

- Trying to find time for me and manage the kids expectations

- Trying to balance everything and dealing with massive imposter syndrome.

- Time and Energy! I never seem to have enough time for what I want to achieve, and then when I do, I run out of energy. It’s so frustrating.

- Constantly torn between demands of work, teenagers and elderly parents. Very little time to prioritize myself and look after myself.

- Not getting any help at home from husband and teen/young adult children

- Trying to balance the demands of work and home, feeling pulled in every direction and never getting to do anything calmly or to the best of my ability as I am always in a rush

-Constantly running around after everyone else, always being everyone else's first port of call, never having time to even think about what I want to do - never mind do it

And one of the most telling:

I just hope that for my daughters won't have this huge burden of being perfect. I hope they do not have to fight with mediocre men. I am supposed to be grateful that my husband isn't awful (he's not - but he's not my "partner") - he's "helpful" but I think he feels hard done by because I make him pull his weight. I thought my life partner would be my support and my equal. I didn't think I'd have to fight for that. He does pull his weight but I feel that he would change this at the drop of a hat. If I didn't enforce this he wouldn't do it. To me true love would be someone who would never take advantage of me. I don't have that- I hope my girls will but I'm not hopeful - I hope they don't have to do it all. And I'm sad that that is the role model I am "doing it all" and sometimes angry at a "good man" . If I could start again .......I don't know .......

A whopping 84% so far have said “having it all” feels like doing it all.

So much of what I’m reading in the responses and what I see (and feel) everyday is the Quadrant of Chaos I write about - the practical overload, the mental overwhelm, the emotional over-responsibility and the mindfuckery that keeps us drowning in the other three because of our tendencies for people pleasing and guilt (programmed into us that women have to be all things to all people).

So I want you to know that how you feel is normal. That lack of equity fucks up our chances for equality by exhausting, overwhelming and frustrating us. Only by understanding that the mindfuckery keeps you in the overwhelm can you break free from the constant “should-shackles” that hold you back so much.

Women never had choices until fairly recently. But we do now, even when the midfuckey (guilt, people pleasing, imposter syndrome, perfectionism) makes us feel we don’t. We have to unwind from the shackles that told women to behave a certain way to support a system that wasn’t built for, or by us. And then reform a new society woman by women, partnership by partnership, home by home, workplace by workplace that names and demands the equity and support to really make us feel equality is possible.

Every boundary you put in place.

Every demand for more help.

Every shared experience so that we don’t feel alone,

Every time you say no, every time you say enough, every time you recognise there is too much being asked of you, is a brick of the mindfuckery wall taken away.

And this is how it showed up for me this week. I had to make a hard decision to cancel my group programme and postpone my Soul & Spice retreat to Marrakech. My dad is in his final weeks and I’m caring for him in Belfast while parenting by text to my children in Dublin, and trying to work. I can manage my 1:1 work and my diaried-in-advance company talks. It wasn’t the decision itself that was hard - in fact, it’s rational. It was the mindfuckery that made me feel bad, that I should carry on regardless, and not give myself the proper self-support I need.

I still have to make up the income, but I can tell you that that worry is less sleep-depriving than the worry of trying to sell and run programme and events with this much going on.

Because we live in a world where men’s lives are the default and women’s lives are falsely portrayed by social media, it’s easy to think we are alone in feeling the way we do. Add in a dollop of guilt and self-sacrificing flagellation, and it’s can be a real shit-storm in our brains sometimes.

So it's really good to get proper feedback and I want you to know you are not alone, and you are not not coping. You are being asked too much of. And only you can decide what is enough.

Can I pick your brains too? I have over 70 responses so far in just a few days and would love to get it over 100 and so if you have 2 mins to spare and would like to vent, here’s your chance!

https://forms.gle/aU9cFUeAUdttkWTv5

I’d love to hear your comments as always.

Running on empty?

Or running over obstacles?

Discussion about this post