The Quiet Burnout of Being There for Everyone but Yourself

Relational burnout, the people who drain you, and how to love from your core

A woman sits across from me and tells me about her week.

On Saturday she helped a friend pack up her apartment, and on Sunday she organized the birthday dinner for her partner's mother. At work she covered a colleague's meeting again, and somewhere in between she remembered the dentist, the school form and the gift for the teacher.

Then she laughs a little and says: I think I just give too much.

Her jaw is tight and her shoulders are up near her ears while she says it. She doesn't notice, but I do.

Last time I wrote about the one who knows, the one who wants and the one who explains. This is what happens when the one who explains runs a woman's relationships for too long. She gets very good at loving everyone around her, everyone except herself.

She has already tried to fix it. She read the books about boundaries and practiced saying no in the car on her way to work. She wrote the long, kind text that explained everything, and once she even took a whole Sunday off, only to feel guilty about it until Tuesday.

And still the resentment stays, because giving too much is rarely about being generous.

When a woman says "I give too much," what she often means is:

I say yes before I check with myself.

I don't know where I end and you begin.

If I stop giving, I'm not sure anyone will stay.

I love you the way I wish someone loved me.

I'm tired of always being the one who shows up.

Most of us learned this very early. We watched the woman who served everyone first and ate last, standing up in the kitchen, and we learned that a good woman is an available woman and that love is something you prove by being useful.

I grew up in Latin America, where the language of love is service. We show love by being available, by doing favors, by making sacrifices and by being there no matter what. When I moved to Europe, that belief shifted completely. I learned that a friendship is much more than an act of service, and that love is also an act of cultivating your own individuality while sharing your life with others.

She is like the best friend in every romantic comedy, the one who is always there and always has great advice, but never gets a story of her own.

In my sessions I see the same thing again and again: your ability to love someone else depends on your ability to love yourself first. I know it sounds like a quote on a coffee mug, so let me make it practical.

Love needs a place to come from, and I call that place your core. Your core holds what you value, what you need and where your edges are. When it is clear, the three voices are back on the same wave, and love can flow out of you freely.

When the core is empty, love turns into a kind of payment. You give and give, while somewhere inside you keep a receipt. That receipt is resentment, and it is your body sending you the bill a few weeks late.

The body always knows first. You can feel it in the drop in your belly when you say "sure, no problem," or in your tight jaw at the birthday dinner. That is your edge speaking, and it speaks in sensations because nobody ever taught it words.

There is a distinction I teach that makes all of this easier: accepting and allowing are two different doors.

To accept means I am at peace with who you are, with how you live, what you believe and the choices you make. That is tolerance, and it is both generous and healthy.

To allow means I let what you do step on what matters to me.

I can accept that my friend is always late, because that is simply who she is. But I don't have to allow her lateness to eat my whole Saturday, so I can wait fifteen minutes and then go for my walk.

Acceptance is about them, and allowance is about me. A woman who gives too much keeps both doors open at the same time, because nobody ever told her there were two.

A boundary is simply you choosing which door stays open, and it is how you honor yourself. When a boundary comes from anger, it sounds like a wall. When it comes from your core, it sounds like a woman who knows what she wants.

That woman is magnetic. People can feel her edges, and it helps them relax because they know where they stand with her. The right people come closer and others quietly drift away, and both of those things are good news.

This is the root of every relationship worth keeping, whether it is with a partner, a friend, a boss or your own family, and it all starts at the core.

If you like, try this. Take a piece of paper and write down one thing you accept in someone close to you, and then one thing you have been allowing.

Now put a hand on your belly and read the second line slowly. Notice what your body does, because that is your edge saying hello.

You were never giving too much. You were giving from an empty place, and love that comes from your core never needs a receipt.

So, if you stopped over-giving tomorrow, who would still be there?

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P.S. Soon I'm opening The Clarity Codes, a live workshop where we find your core values and learn to draw your edges with love. I'll tell you more about it in the next letter.