“I am so tired of emotionally regulating for everyone else."

This phrase stopped me mid scroll.

Not because it was particularly profound or new.

Because it was true. Painfully, deeply, recognisably true.

As women, many of us have become experts in emotional regulation. We smooth the edges. Keep the peace. Hold the space. Anticipate needs before they're voiced. We manage our children's emotions, our partner's emotions, our parents emotions, our colleagues's emotions… but mostly we are managing our own emotions against a backdrop of all of this dis-regulation!  Being the one who holds everything together.  And let’s not forget the craziness of the wider world that arrive in our pockets every day through our phones.

And for years, we do it brilliantly.  Without diving too deeply into the science, women’s hormonal evolution is built to take us through each phase of life - from puberty, to post partum, to peri menopause and then finally onto post menopause.  And one of the ‘required skills’ in the mid to latter part of that journey, is to be emotionally present. And so Mother Nature ensures that our systemic hormonal systems give us the tools we need to care-give, to nurture and to protect.

But then one day we feel exhausted.

Not physically exhausted (although often that too). But emotionally exhausted. Tired of carrying the invisible load. Tired of being the steady one. Tired of being the person everyone leans on.

Somewhere in the middle of perimenopause and midlife, something interesting is happening….

The capacity that once seemed limitless, begins to change.

Many women describe it as becoming less tolerant, less patient or less willing to put up with things they once accepted. They worry they are becoming difficult. Less capable. Less resilient.

I see it differently.

I think many women are simply becoming more honest.  No longer willing to exploit their own nervous system, for everyone else.  The ‘awakening’.

Perimenopause is a profound neurological and physiological transition. As hormones shift, the brain shifts too. The systems that once helped us absorb, tolerate and carry everything for everyone else begin asking different questions.

Questions like:

Why am I doing all of this?

Who is looking after me?

How long can I keep carrying this?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

What do I actually want?

This isn't selfishness.

It's awareness.

For decades, many women have been conditioned to place themselves at the bottom of the list. To be useful. Helpful. Reliable. Self-sacrificing. (And, remember, this is not about the stuff you see such as the cooking, the cleaning or the school run.  This is about the invisible emotional load. A very different thing.)

Then midlife arrives and quietly challenges that arrangement.

Not because you've become a different person.

But because you've spent years becoming everyone else's.

I tell my coaching clients that midlife isn't a crisis. It's a reckoning.

A moment where the life you've built asks to be examined.

The relationships, the career, the routines, the expectations, the endless giving.

And whilst that process can feel uncomfortable, it can also be incredibly liberating.

Because underneath the frustration, the fatigue and the overwhelm is often something far more powerful:

A woman reconnecting with herself.

A woman setting boundaries she should have set years ago.

A woman discovering that her needs matter too.

A woman finally realising that she doesn't have to earn her worth through endless service to others.

And a women finally saying that she is NOT ok with a situation.

So, if you've recently found yourself thinking this, perhaps don't judge yourself for it.

Listen to it. 

You’re not failing.

In fact you’re becoming wiser.

Ellie McCluskey | 12th June 2026