Overfunctioning is tricky — because it’s praised.
You’re reliable. You’re capable. You handle things.
People come to you because you can.
But just because you can… doesn’t mean you should.
And just because you’re holding it all… doesn’t mean it’s not hurting you.
🌱 This is your reminder:
You don’t have to earn your rest.
You don’t have to hold everything to be worthy.
You’re allowed to be human, too.
Journal Prompt
💬 When was the last time you let yourself put something down?
She had to carve the path with her own two hands.
She wasn’t handed peace.
Or protection.
Or an easy out.
Life threw its punches—
and she took them.
She spit out the blood.
Swallowed the tears.
And kept going.
Her story?
It’s not tidy.
It’s not a highlight reel.
It’s full of heartbreak and hard choices,
shaky hands and sleepless nights,
moments where her spirit whispered, “I can’t,”
but her feet kept moving anyway.
This—
this is what resilience really looks like.
It’s not polished.
It’s not Instagram-worthy.
It’s not wrapped in daily affirmations or curated vision boards.
It’s raw.
It’s real.
It’s getting up again—when no one even knows how hard it was to open your eyes that morning.
You’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You are not too much, and you are certainly not not enough.
You are a woman who’s been surviving in a world that hasn’t made it easy.
But you’re here now.
Not just to survive—
but to rise.
Not because you’re done being tired,
but because some part of you—
maybe a tiny, trembling part—
still hopes there’s more than just this.
And there is.
Who knows how to breathe again.
Who trusts her own voice.
Who says no without guilt and yes without fear.
Who sees overwhelm not as her identity,
but as a signal—
a whisper that something needs to shift,
and that she is allowed to shift with it.
This isn’t about pretending life isn’t hard.
It’s about meeting that hard with gentleness
and finally asking:
“What if I don’t have to do this alone anymore?”
This is your invitation:
To lay down the weight.
To catch your breath.
To remember who the hell you are underneath the exhaustion.
You are not too late.
You are not too far gone.
You are not broken beyond repair.
You are a phoenix.
And this?
This isn’t your ending.
Sometimes overwhelm doesn’t look like falling apart — it looks like overfunctioning.
You’re managing everything. Showing up for everyone.
But inside? You’re exhausted.
This week’s blog explores the hidden cost of being ‘the strong one’ — and what your body actually needs instead.
But for many of us, it looks more subtle.
It looks like being “on top of things.”
It looks like being capable. Efficient. Dependable.
It looks like being fine.
Even when we’re not.
Overwhelm Doesn’t Always Look Like a Breakdown
Last week, we explored how overwhelm shows up in the body — through fatigue, tension, headaches, insomnia, and more.
But the truth is, most of us don’t slow down when those signs show up.
We do the opposite: we speed up.
We start doing more. Fixing more. Helping more.
We double down on control, and call it strength.
Overfunctioning is a coping mechanism. We respond to emotional or mental overload by trying to manage everything for everyone.
It looks like:
It’s not laziness we fear — it’s what might surface if we stop moving.
This pattern often develops in early life or during traumatic times.
You may have learned:
Overfunctioning helped you survive — and perhaps even succeed.
But now it’s burning you out.
Your body doesn’t want more efficiency.
It wants safety.
It wants rest.
Softness.
Breath.
You need the safety where you can let go. Even for a minute. And not feel like the world will fall apart.
Because deep down, you’re tired.
And tired isn’t a weakness.
It’s a message.
If you recognize yourself in this, take a breath.
There’s no shame in this pattern — it served a purpose.
But now, you’re allowed to pause.
You’re allowed to soften.
Here are a few gentle questions to hold this week:
Start small.
Start honest.
And remind yourself: you don’t have to earn your rest.
Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly reflections on the body, boundaries, healing, and coming home to yourself.
It can show up as:
• Tight shoulders or a stiff jaw
• A racing heart or shallow breath
• A sudden headache or wave of fatigue
• A knotted stomach or loss of appetite
• Sleepless nights or restless energy
• That urge to clean everything right now
When you’re overwhelmed, what shows up first?
Do you feel tightness in your chest?
Do you get snappy, numb out, or suddenly need to organize everything?
Drop a comment and name it — no judgment, just awareness.
Sometimes the first step to clarity is simply noticing.
Saying yes when your body is screaming no.
Getting through the day but forgetting how to breathe.
If this feels familiar… you’re not alone.
Stick with me. It’s not about overhauling everything.
It’s about starting here.
We often think of overwhelm as being “too busy.”
Too many emails. Too many responsibilities. Too much to manage.
But for many of us, overwhelm doesn’t start in the calendar — it starts in the body.
And the truth is, your body always knows before your brain catches up.
Overwhelm can be quiet or loud, depending on how long it’s been sitting with you.
It may whisper through:
Emotionally, it might feel like:
If any of this sounds familiar, I want you to know — you’re not broken.
You’ve just been carrying too much, for too long, without enough support.
A Personal Story
In 2016, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
At the time, I was in a relationship with a man I loved deeply — someone who struggled with alcoholism. For years, I stayed. I tried. I hoped. I believed that if I loved him hard enough, he’d eventually choose healing.
He didn’t.
He refused to change his life, and I didn’t know how much of his emotional weight I was carrying until it was embedded in my own cells.
It wasn’t until after we ended the relationship — and two years later, after his death — that I discovered he had been living with deep, unspoken trauma. Trauma I didn’t know about. Trauma that shaped him… and shaped the environment I had been living in.
And here’s what I’ve come to understand:
My body held what my heart couldn’t express.
The grief.
The guilt.
The emotional labour of loving someone who couldn’t meet me in the middle.
That diagnosis — though terrifying — became the catalyst for me to stop ignoring my needs and start listening to what my body had been trying to tell me for years. Decades even.
This is the work I now support others with — because overwhelm doesn’t always look like chaos.
Sometimes it looks like quietly surviving.
This is an important distinction — and one I speak about openly with clients.
Therapy focuses on healing past wounds, mental health, and trauma. It’s clinically grounded, and often addresses the why behind what’s showing up.
Coaching is future- and action-oriented. It’s for people who are generally functioning — but feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unclear. Coaching helps you reconnect to your body, shift patterns, and move ahead with grounded support.
One is not better than the other. Sometimes people do both — and sometimes one naturally leads to the other.
Your well-being is always my priority, and I support you in whatever path feels right for you.
My coaching work is rooted in the belief that you already hold wisdom. I simply help you hear it again. You already hold wisdom. I simply help you hear it again.
Here’s what that looks like:
We name what you’re feeling — physically, emotionally, energetically. We uncover the patterns and get honest about what you’ve been carrying (and why). No judgment. Just space.
Overwhelm disconnects you from your body’s signals. I help you slow down, listen in, and rebuild trust in your own voice.
We work gently but steadily. You’ll leave with clarity, practical tools, and a feeling of momentum — without bypassing what’s hard or forcing toxic positivity.
You don’t need to push harder.
You need support that actually sees you.
Sometimes the first step to clarity is simply noticing.
So let me ask:
When you’re overwhelmed, what shows up first?
Do you feel it in your chest?
Do you get short with people you love?
Do you suddenly crave control, or check out entirely?
Start there.
Name it.
No judgment — just awareness.
You don’t have to fix it all today.
You just have to listen.
Take a moment to reflect and write:
“Where in my body do I first feel overwhelmed, and what is it telling me?”
There’s no right or wrong answer — just your truth.
If you’re navigating overwhelm and want gentle, grounded coaching that helps you come home to yourself — I’m here.
🟣 Book a free 30-minute clarity call
This is a no-pressure space. We’ll explore what’s feeling heavy or unclear. We’ll find out whether working together is the right fit.
It’s not a coaching session — it’s a chance to connect, ask questions, and get a sense of what’s possible.
🟣 Learn more about 1:1 coaching with me
🟣 Or send me a message if you’re not sure where to start.
You don’t have to carry it all alone.
Let’s take the first step — together.
— and maybe, the beginning of something new for you.
If this series stirred something in you…
If you recognized pieces of yourself in the stories…
If you’ve been nodding along, quietly thinking,
“That’s me. I’ve been holding back. I’ve been disappearing…”
Then I want you to know: you’re not alone. And you’re not stuck.
You don’t have to live in the loop of people-pleasing, perfectionism, or self-abandonment anymore.
Your truth. Your needs. Your becoming.
If you’re ready to explore what that looks like with support, I have a few coaching spaces opening this month.
This isn’t about fixing you — you’re not broken.
This is about coming home to yourself.
💌 Comment below “I’m ready” if you want to talk about what working together would look like.
No pressure, just a real, heart-led conversation.
You deserve a life that feels like yours. 💜
The hardest boundary you’ll ever set might not be with your partner, parent, or boss — but with yourself. In this final post of When “Nice” Becomes a Cage, we explore what it means to stop overfunctioning, reparent the part of you that learned to earn love through exhaustion, and finally rest without guilt. This isn’t the end — it’s the beginning of coming home to you.
Part 6: When the Boundary Is with You — Breaking the Habit of Over Functioning
Sometimes the hardest boundary isn’t with a partner, a parent, or a boss.
It’s not with the people around you.
It’s with you.
It’s that quiet, familiar voice that urges you to say yes — even when your body’s begging for rest.
It’s the reflex to jump in, fix it, smooth it over, take it on…
Because that’s what you’ve always done.
This is what over functioning looks like.
And it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
It’s shaped by survival.
By childhood roles.
By trauma and identity.
By being “the strong one” — the one who holds it all together.
Over functioning wears the mask of competence and care.
But underneath?
There’s often fear.
Fear of letting people down.
Fear of being forgotten if you’re not useful.
Fear of sitting with your own unmet needs.
I know this place deeply.
I lived there for years.
Professionally, I over-delivered.
Personally, I self-abandoned.
I believed being needed meant I mattered.
But eventually, the weight broke me open.
The most radical shift in my healing didn’t come from saying no to others.
It came from saying no to myself — to the part of me that was addicted to overfunctioning.
Often, the part of us that overfunctions is still trying to earn love, safety, and belonging — as if we’re stuck in a younger version of ourselves who had to be helpful to be seen.
Breaking that habit meant learning to reparent myself:
To speak to that younger version gently.
To say:
“You’re not responsible for holding the world anymore.”
“You don’t have to earn your place here.”
“It’s okay to let go — I’ve got you now.”
Setting a boundary with yourself sometimes looks like protecting that younger part from old patterns that no longer serve your present life.
I had to learn to speak new truths:
🌀 “You don’t have to take that on.”
🌀 “It’s not your job to carry other people’s comfort.”
🌀 “You are allowed to rest — without earning it first.”
These weren’t loud boundaries.
They weren’t dramatic.
But they were revolutionary.
They gave me back my breath.
They reintroduced me to myself.
If you’re ready to look more closely at your own patterns, try journaling on one or more of these:
Let these questions stir — not as problems to solve, but as gentle openings into something more truthful.
When you stop overfunctioning, you begin to feel your own aliveness again.
You reconnect with your body.
Your intuition gets louder.
You remember how to exhale.
✨ You make space for relationships built on mutual care — not obligation.
✨ You discover joy in your own enoughness.
✨ You begin living from a place of being, not proving.
If this series has stirred something in you — if you’re feeling the ache of overfunctioning, the burnout of emotional labor, or the longing to come back home to yourself — I invite you into a free 60-minute Clarity Call.
This is a private, compassionate space to explore:
✨ What you’ve been holding
✨ Where you’re stretched too thin
✨ What it might feel like to finally breathe again
🦋 Book your Clarity Call here
This space is yours, if you’re ready to step into it.
Thank you for walking with me through this series.
We’ve explored the cost of emotional labor, the cage of “being nice,” the ache of saying no, and now — the quiet revolution of choosing yourself.
This isn’t the end.
It’s the beginning.
“I am no longer the keeper of everyone’s comfort. I choose rest — not because I’ve earned it, but because I exist.”
If this series spoke to your heart, there’s more to come.
✨ Subscribe for future series from Erika Patterson Coaching — thoughtful, soul-deep reflections to help you navigate real life with more clarity, boundaries, and self-trust.
Lighting the Way from Overwhelm to Opportunity.
You don’t have to walk this path alone.
Setting boundaries with family, partners, or at work can feel like walking a tightrope — especially when you’ve been conditioned to be “the nice one.” In this post, I share the personal cost of over functioning, what helped me rewrite my story, and practical, guilt-free ways to start honoring your limits without losing yourself in the process.
Part 5: Boundaries with Family, Partners, and Work – Without the Guilt
Let’s be honest:
It’s one thing to talk about boundaries…
It’s another thing entirely to set them — especially with the people closest to you.
The ones you love.
The ones who raised you.
The ones who rely on your “yes” to stay comfortable.
The ones who don’t even realize they’re crossing a line.
This is where boundary work gets tender — and deeply personal.
Because when you’ve been conditioned to be “the nice one,”
saying no can feel like betrayal.
You might ask yourself:
What if they think I don’t care?
What if this changes everything?
What if they push back… or worse, pull away?
I’ve lived those questions.
For years, I tiptoed around boundaries because I didn’t want to be seen as ungrateful, cold, or “too much.”
Especially as a woman who’s survived trauma, raised children, carried emotional labor at work and home — I became the fixer. The over-functioner. The emotional first responder.
And it came at a cost.
I didn’t just stretch myself thin — I nearly disappeared in the process.
It wasn’t until I hit a quiet breaking point that I realized:
✨ Being endlessly available doesn’t make me good. It makes me exhausted.
✨ Being nice doesn’t mean being self-sacrificing.
✨ Being loving doesn’t mean abandoning myself.
The hardest boundaries I ever set were the ones that forced me to rewrite the story I had lived for too long:
That love means overextending.
That my needs come last.
That discomfort must be avoided at all costs.
But I started telling a new story:
One where I was worthy of protection.
One where boundaries and love could coexist.
One where peace didn’t require permission.
Start Small and Practice Saying No
You don’t need to overhaul your entire life overnight. Begin with small “no’s” in less difficult situations. Each one builds your confidence and makes the next boundary easier.
Use “I” Statements to Keep It Personal
Express your needs in a way that focuses on how you feel and what you need, rather than what others are doing wrong. For example, say “I need some downtime after work to recharge” instead of “You’re too demanding.”
Prepare for Pushback, and Stay Grounded
People might resist your boundaries, especially at first. Their discomfort doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Remember: Your boundary protects your well-being, and that’s valid.
Recognize Guilt as a Sign You’re Growing
If guilt creeps in, notice it — but don’t let it stop you. It’s often a sign you’re breaking free from old patterns, which takes courage.
Prioritize Self-Care as a Boundary Reinforcer
When you care for yourself with rest, hobbies, or quiet time, you build the strength to maintain your limits. Self-care is not selfish; it’s survival.
Create Clear, Consistent Limits at Work
Communicate your availability and workload clearly to your team. Set expectations around your work hours and deadlines. Saying no to some tasks doesn’t make you less committed — it makes you sustainable.
Seek Support from People Who Understand
Surround yourself with those who respect your boundaries and encourage your growth. Having a support system makes this work feel less isolating.
Remember: Boundaries Protect Relationships
Boundaries aren’t walls to keep people out. They’re bridges to healthier connections. When you protect your energy, you show up more fully and authentically in your relationships.
If you’re navigating relationships where boundaries feel tangled with guilt or fear, I invite you into a free Clarity Call — a 60-minute 1:1 session where we can gently unpack what you’re carrying and explore a path that honors you.
No pressure. Just space.
To reclaim your time.
Your voice.
Your energy.
Spots are limited, but the space is yours if you need it.
Up next in this series:
When the Boundary Is With You — Breaking the Overfunctioning Habit
With deep understanding and care,
Erika
Boundaries don’t have to be loud or dramatic to change your life. Sometimes it’s the small, quiet choices — like turning off your phone, taking five minutes to breathe, or saying ‘not right now’ — that slowly bring you back to yourself. These tiny acts of self-respect build a life where you no longer have to run on empty to feel worthy.
When we think about boundaries, it’s easy to picture the big moments — a bold “no,” a line in the sand, a major shift in a relationship.
But here’s what often goes unnoticed:
🧩 The smallest boundaries can make the biggest difference.
These are the quiet ones. The ones you make just for you. They don’t always get noticed — but they change your life from the inside out.
Each of these small actions becomes a thread in the fabric of self-respect. Over time, they:
I remember when I started with micro-boundaries — it was awkward. Saying no, even gently, brought up guilt. But something powerful happened:
Each time I honored myself, I felt stronger. More whole. Less burnt out.
These tiny boundaries may feel small — but they’re sacred. They remind you that your time, energy, and peace matter.
If you’re ready to explore what tiny boundaries could look like for you, I’d love to invite you to a Clarity Call — a free 60-minute session where we can talk about your unique challenges and how to take your first steps toward freedom, without guilt or overwhelm.
Up next in this series:
Boundaries with Family, Partners, and Work — Without the Guilt
With care,
Erika
Erika Patterson Coaching 
Leave a comment