Everything at once

What the most ironic three weeks of my professional life taught me about invisible labour - and receiving.

Three weeks ago, James hurt his leg. Badly. This comes straight after I hurt my back (I’m almost fully recovered, thank godess).

Which meant that by the time I rocked up on Thursday to run a two-hour masterclass called Why You’re Exhausted (And It’s Not Because You’re Doing Too Much), I had lived through what might be the most ironic lead-up of my professional life.

Let me paint you a picture of the past three weeks.

James can’t drive. James can’t cook. He can’t walk around or carry anything (crutches!). So I’m doing all the things - on top of running a business that is currently in full launch mode for Rise Above’s September cohort, which means every piece of content, every email sequence, every marketing decision lands on my desk right now, because September doesn’t move.

Some things have to slip. This newsletter is a couple of days late; I didn’t even do one last week. I am prioritising working with clients above everything else, which is the right call, but I notice the gap. No room for my favourite things: improving things or creating new ones. Just the bare necessities as Baloo would sing.

Oliver, my sixteen-year-old, has been helping. We’ve spent the past four or five years running what James and I quietly called Operation Independence - because we were determined not to raise a man who relies on the unpaid, invisible domestic and caring labour of women. So Oliver knows how to feed himself, do his own laundry, keep himself clean. The perfectly normal human tasks that somehow, in 2026, still need to be deliberately taught to boys.

Operation Independence has come in very handy.

I sat down with him and asked if he could do a bit more. He has, bless him, occasionally had the energy of a stroppy Cinderella about it. But he’s also got his GCSEs on, so we’ve been negotiating - his revision, my workload, James’s leg, everyone’s sanity. We’re managing.

And then there’s VITA.

I’m currently in an intensive phase of my love, sex and relationship coaching training - six hours a week of practical coaching on top of instruction, for the next three months. I am both coaching and being coached. We take it in turns. And I have met some of the most extraordinary women from all around the globe doing it.

Here’s the thing about VITA in the middle of all of this: it is the one thing this week that has not depleted me.

Because I’m not just giving. I’m receiving. Genuinely excellent coaching from peers who see me clearly and aren’t afraid to say so. And I’m letting it land - which, if you’ve spent your career being the capable one, the one who holds the space for everyone else, is not as straightforward as it sounds.

If I’m honest, it’s the most quietly radical thing I’ve done in years.

Now. The irony.

Everything I just described—covering for James, managing Oliver, absorbing the business crunch, holding it all together—I could map directly onto the Good Girl Conditioning framework I’ll be unpacking at my next free masterclass on 2 July. The roles we play. The expectations we absorb. The way we become the person who holds everything together without anyone ever officially asking us to.

But here’s what I want to be precise about: this exhaustion is different from the kind I described on Thursday.

What I talked about on Thursday is the chronic kind. The invisible, low-grade depletion that comes from decades of conditioning, from playing too many roles for too long without ever naming them as roles. That exhaustion is so woven into daily life that most women stop identifying it as exhaustion at all. It just feels like being a woman.

The past three weeks have been a lot. But I can see it. I can name it. I know it’s temporary. And crucially, I have a sixteen-year-old who already knows how to fold laundry (my literal kryptonite).

What’s shifted for me is seeing how much James normally does - and how completely invisible that was until it wasn’t there. That’s the thing about labour that goes unacknowledged. You can’t see it until it disappears.

And what VITA has reminded me, in the middle of all of it: receiving is a skill. Letting people help you is a skill. Not doing everything in silence is a skill. Most of us were never taught it. Some of us are only just learning.

Oliver’s doing great, for the record. James is very slowly getting there. And I am, as ever, fine.

(Working on the fine.)

If you missed Thursday’s masterclass, the replay is free: https://good-girl-deprogramming.kit.com/exhausted

The next one - You Are Not The Problem - is 2 July, 7pm (UK). That’s where we get into the roles, the conditioning, and why none of this is your fault. Details here - https://good-girl-deprogramming.kit.com/not-the-problem

Big love,

Mx