You wake up and immediately there are fires to put out.

You go through your day tending to everyone’s needs, making sure everyone’s taken care of AND happy.

You meet all the deadlines and urgencies of the day.

You are exhausted and yet your list of things to do for others is endless. There is no end in sight to what you need to make happen to keep your life running smoothly.

And so you crash into bed exhausted and feeling not enough because you think you failed everyone — especially yourself because you didn’t get one minute to do anything that brings you joy, that brings you a sense of wholeness.

And, as a result, you hover between states of anger, resentment and overwhelm.

This, my friend, is the Land of Bitter and Sour and it’s where women end up when they have given all of their time, emotions and energy to others and left very little for themselves. 

Do you relate to that phrase? I talk a lot about this place that so many women find themselves in as they are busy tending to everyone and everything else but themselves and feeling stuck and lost and filled with doubt about the life they’ve created.

What is the Land of Bitter and Sour?

It looks a lot like this:

• Waking up late and filled with dread.
• Walking around angry.
• Yelling and snapping a lot.
• Feeling resentful of what other people have and do.
• Extremely tired and lacking motivation.
• Dreaming of quitting it all.
• Feeling hard and inflexible about everything.
• Saying no to almost everything.

The Land of BS — as I call it — isn’t a forever destination. You can get out of it — without burning your whole life down.

I cannot give you any flight tickets or keys to a room of your own. I cannot give you a fast car to escape your life in no more than I can give that to myself.

But what I can off you is this:

• You’re tired because you’re so busy trying to create the perfect life … that you forgot you already have one.
• You will get that break you need as soon as you start releasing some of those high expectations you have on what happiness really means.
• You’re tired because you’re filling up your calendar with activities, to-dos that are really based on a life you want to have rather than the one you already have right now.
• You’re tired because you’re consumed by the fear of imperfection — both your child’s and your own — and it’s keeping you captive.
• You’re tired because you’re numbing out on social media instead of turning inward and asking yourself what you really need right now.

Being in the Land of Bitter and Sour happens when you don’t have the well-being skills you need to handle stress and keep yourself in what I call the Upward Spiral Effect .

It’s OK to feel angry and resentful. These are normal human feelings.

It’s NOT OK to stay in that place, though, because it’s not good for you, your career or your family.

The great thing is that it’s never too late to step out of the Land of BS.

The secret is to really start to journey toward your own wholeness. 

You hold all the secrets within you to release all of those shoulds and coulds that consume your everyday.

You have the power to mother yourself the way you need to be mothered. You have joy inside of you and you can unearth it and claim it and expand it.

The joys of being human do far outweigh our sorrows. It’s easy to forget that when you get stuck in the Land of Bitter and Sour, though.