Overwhelmed, Burnt Out, and Still Holding It All Together?

There’s a simple metaphor I keep returning to, especially when I’m sitting with someone who feels overwhelmed.

It’s the image of that vase that’s too full.
Many of us have heard some version of it growing up: a vase filled to the brim, one drop away from spilling over. That sense that just one more thing will break the balance.

But what I keep seeing, again and again, is that instead of letting the water spill, people find a way to make the vase bigger.

They stretch it. Somehow, impossibly, they expand their capacity just enough to hold that one more drop... and then the next one... and then the next.

And it seems impossible.
How could they do that? Wouldn’t it be easier to let some of it spill out and be done with it?

But they don’t. Or maybe they can’t.
So they stretch.

By the time people arrive in therapy, whether it’s for burnout, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, or just feeling “off”, they come in carrying these enormous, invisible vases.
Stretched to what seems like the absolute limit.
Holding a weight that no one else can fully see.

To me, that vase?
That’s tolerance. That’s survival. That’s the emotional capacity they’ve learned to build, not out of choice, but out of necessity.

And the more they learn to hold, the more the world expects them to keep holding.

Even if it’s too much.
Even if they’ve never stopped to ask, What would happen if I didn’t hold it all?

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If this feels familiar, if you’ve become someone who always holds it together, even when it’s heavy, you’re not alone.

Therapy can be a place where you don’t have to keep stretching.
Where you don’t have to carry so much alone.
Where we ask new questions about what you want to hold, and what you’re ready to set down.

If you’re curious about starting therapy, or just want to ask a question, you can reach out here.

This space is for you, too.