🌿You’ve Felt Too Much for Too Long

A Faith-Rooted Guide to Healing Emotional Exhaustion

Tina Coleman | Joy God's Way®

Jul 30, 2026

0:00

-16:35

You were never meant to carry everyone’s feelings and your own. Here’s how to start putting them down.

🌿 🌿 🌿

The Whisper That Stopped Me Cold

“You should be over this by now.”

That was the sentence that stopped me cold in the middle of folding laundry one afternoon last spring. It wasn’t spoken by anyone in the room. It was my own voice, repeating something I’d heard so many times it had started to feel like truth.

Underneath that whisper was a woman who had been smiling through pain for so many years that she no longer knew what her real face looked like.

That woman was me.

I was always smiling. No matter what.

At work, I smiled.

At church, I smiled.

In friendships where I was the shoulder, the prayer warrior, the fixer, the one who always showed up, I smiled.

My smile was my armor. It projected a confidence I didn’t feel, a strength I was borrowing from tomorrow, and a togetherness held together by nothing but habit and fear.

Behind that smile, I was holding in shame from decisions I’d made out of desperation. I was carrying a lack of confidence that had been planted in me before I was old enough to know it wasn’t mine.

From an early age, I was told what I couldn’t do, what I shouldn’t try, and what I’d never be.

My appearance was criticized.

My abilities were questioned.

The message, spoken and unspoken, was clear: ‘You are not enough!’ And the source of that message was the one person whose approval I needed most…my father.

My mother, in her own way, reinforced it. She once told me I could be “just average” and that would be fine. And you know what? I got really good at being average. I lived inside that ceiling like it was built for me.

What I didn’t know then, what took years to understand, was that they were dealing with their own insecurities. Their limitations weren’t about me or my brother. But that realization didn’t come until deep into my adulthood. And by then, the damage was already woven into the way I saw myself.

So I did what a lot of us do. I hid my pain by working. I started working at fourteen, though really I’d started hustling at seven, sending away for greeting cards to sell because I was tired of hearing, “No. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

By sixteen, I owned my first car. Paid for the insurance. The gas. My clothes. My braces. Even took the responsibility of paying for my higher education.

All of it, on my own.

I worked while attending college. Not the traditional four-year path. It took me twelve years to finish community college because I was working the entire time and juggling other responsibilities.

Twelve years.

While my friends graduated in their early twenties, I was still grinding, still proving, still trying to earn the right to exist in spaces where other people seemed to belong naturally.

And then came the relationships. Narcissistic relationships, both personal and professional, that cost me everything I had left.

I cried alone. No audience. No comfort. No one to hand me a tissue or say, “You don’t have to carry this.”

And through all of it, I kept smiling. The smile was my mask that kept me going.

That wasn’t strength. That was emotional exhaustion wearing a mask.

🌿 🌿 🌿

When Your Feelings Tell You Otherwise…

“You should be over this by now.”

“Other women have it worse.”

“If your faith were stronger, you wouldn’t feel this way.”

“You’re being dramatic. Just pray harder.”

These are the whispers. And every single one of them is a lie.

The 7 Faces of Exhaustion™ (And Sleep Won't Fix Most of Them)

Tina Coleman | Joy God's Way®

Apr 23

Read full story

🌿 🌿 🌿

Emotional Exhaution: This Is What’s Really Happening Inside You

Emotional exhaustion is not a character flaw.

It is not a lack of faith.

It is not weakness.

It is what happens when your heart has been running at full capacity for so long that your emotional reserves are genuinely, completely depleted.

Here are a few specialists who helped me understand what was happening to me, and how to move forward.

Dr. Christina Maslach, the psychologist whose groundbreaking research at UC Berkeley defined the science of burnout, identified emotional exhaustion as the primary dimension of burnout.

She describes it as feeling emotionally overextended and depleted of one’s emotional resources. Her research shows it doesn’t just come from work. It comes from every area of life where you’re giving more than you’re receiving.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a licensed clinical psychologist, Professor Emerita at California State University Los Angeles (my alma mater), and one of the world’s leading experts on narcissism, has spent her career studying how narcissistic relationships devastate the people trapped inside them.

Her New York Times bestselling book “It’s Not You” carries a message every emotionally exhausted woman needs to hear: the damage done to you in these relationships is not your fault.

The patterns of gaslighting, love-bombing, and emotional manipulation leave lasting wounds that look exactly like emotional exhaustion.

Dr. Les Carter, a bestselling author and therapist with over 40 years of experience and 65,000 counseling sessions, brings a compassionate therapeutic lens through his Surviving Narcissism platform.

His work has helped millions understand that control, self-absorption, and lack of empathy are at the root of most interpersonal pain, and that healing begins when you stop blaming yourself.

And then there’s Lee Hammock, known his Mental Healness podcast. Lee is a self-aware diagnosed narcissist who has spent years in therapy and now offers a perspective almost no one else can: what narcissism looks like from the inside.

His raw honesty about the “how” and “why” of manipulation has given countless survivors the clarity to stop asking “What’s wrong with me?” and start understanding “This was never about me.”

Bréné Brown, research professor and bestselling author, draws a powerful distinction that matters here. She identifies affective empathy, the practice of absorbing other people’s emotions, as one of the primary drivers of burnout.

If you’re the woman who feels everything everyone around you feels, you’re not weak. You’re wired for deep connection. But without boundaries, that wiring will drain you dry.

NOTE: I offered the three perspectives on narcissism because this was the core of my personal emotional exhaustion challenges and healing.

I am not sponsored by any of these individuals.

This is for informational purposes only.

🌿 🌿 🌿

What Emotional Exhausation Looks Like in Your Life…

You feel numb more often than you feel anything at all.
You’re irritable with the people you love most, then crushed by guilt.
You have nothing left to give, but you keep giving anyway.
Rest doesn’t restore you because the weight you carry is internal, not physical.
You’ve started withdrawing because being “on” is exhausting.
You say “I’m fine” so often you’ve stopped noticing it’s a lie.
You isolate so you don’t have to expose that you’re in a situation you feel you can’t get out of because it’s drained you emotionally for so long. There is simply nothing left!

The Psalmist knew this place. Psalm 42:3 says, “My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’” David wasn’t lacking faith. He was emotionally depleted. And he was honest about it.

📩 Not sure which face of exhaustion is running your life? Take the free 7 Faces of Exhaustion™ Assessment and find out in 5 minutes.

✨TESTIMONIALS✨

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“This one stopped me in my tracks. Ten minutes. That’s all it took to finally have words for something I’ve been carrying for years. The questions are gentle but honest. The results felt like someone actually saw me. And it’s free. Just go get it.” — Raquel Devillé

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“A sophisticated and enlightening assessment tool and mirror in which I can see my current experience reflected. The 3-part results format is thoughtful and significant - thank you!” —Anonymous

🌿 🌿 🌿

What God Says When Your Heart Has Nothing Left

📖 Scripture 1: The Permission to Throw It at Him

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” - 1 Peter 5:7

The word “cast” here isn’t gentle. In the original Greek, it means to throw forcefully, to hurl. God isn’t asking you to politely hand Him your feelings. He’s saying, “Throw them at Me. All of them. I can handle what you can’t.”

📖 Scripture 2: The Permission to Pour

“Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” - Psalm 62:8

Pour out.

Not organize.

Not edit.

Not make it pretty first.

Pour.

The page can hold what your heart can’t. And God can hold what the page can’t.

📖 Scripture 3: The Permission to Come As You Are

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” - Matthew 11:28–30

Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me when you’ve got it together.”

He says come weary.

Come burdened.

Come as you are.

There is no prerequisite for His rest. Only an invitation.

🌿 🌿 🌿

Five Steps Back to Breathing Again

This isn’t a “5 Steps to Fix Yourself” list. This is an invitation to begin.

Pick one. Just one. That’s your assignment today.

🌿 Step 1: Name It to Tame It

Emotional exhaustion thrives in silence. The moment you say, “I’m not fine, and I haven’t been for a while,” you take away its power. Write it down. Say it to God. Say it to one safe person. Naming the emotion doesn’t make you weak. It makes you brave.

Try this:

Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write every emotion you’ve been suppressing.

Don’t edit.

Don’t judge.

Don’t make it pretty.

Just pour.

When you’re done, close the journal and breathe.

🌿 Step 2: Stop Performing Strength

You were never meant to be the strong one for everyone. Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 says, “Two are better than one… If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” Call the friend who lets you be real. Not the one who fixes. Not the one who compares. The one who listens.

Try this:

Make one honest phone call this week.

Say the thing you’ve been holding in.

Let yourself be seen without performing strength.

🌿 Step 3: Practice the Boundary Whisper

Practice this sentence until it stops feeling selfish: “I love you, and I can’t carry that right now.” Galatians 6:5 says, “Each one should carry their own load.” Setting boundaries isn’t selfish. It’s stewardship of the heart God gave you.

Try this:

Identify one emotional weight you’ve been carrying that isn’t yours.

Say the boundary sentence out loud, even just to yourself in the mirror.

Start there.

🌿 Step 4: Create Emotional Margin

Just like you can’t keep writing checks on an empty bank account, you can’t keep giving emotional energy you don’t have. Margin isn’t laziness. It’s wisdom. It’s the space between your load and your limit.

Try this:

Block 20 minutes this week that belong to you alone.

No one else’s needs.

No one else’s feelings.

Just you, breathing, being still, and letting God refill what’s been poured out.

🌿 Step 5: Let God Hold What You Can’t

This is the hardest step because it requires surrender. You’ve been holding everything because you don’t trust anyone else to hold it right. But 1 Peter 5:7 says “to cast, to hurl, to throw it at God.”

He is not asking you to carry this alone.

He never was.

Try this:

Tonight, before you sleep, pray this: “God, I’m handing You the things my heart can’t hold anymore.

I don’t know how to let go, but I’m willing to try.

Catch what I’m throwing.”

🌿 🌿 🌿

A Prayer for the Woman Who’s Felt Too Much🙏🏼

Lord,

You see the woman reading this right now.

You see the weight she’s carrying, the emotions she’s been stuffing down, the smile she puts on when all she wants to do is cry.

Meet her here.

Right here.

In the tired, messy, honest place she’s finally brave enough to stand.

Give her permission to feel without performing.

To grieve without guilt.

To need help without shame.

Teach her that vulnerability is not weakness.

That tears are not failure.

That asking for help is not a burden on others but an invitation for love to do what love was designed to do.

Restore what has been depleted.

Refill what has been poured out.

And remind her, as many times as she needs to hear it, that she was never meant to carry this alone.

In Jesus’ name, Amen. 💛

🌿 🌿 🌿

An Invitation

If this resonated with you, I want you to know: you’re not alone in this.

Not even close.

Will you do one thing for me?

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: “What’s one emotion you’ve been carrying that you’ve never said out loud?”

The 7 Faces of Exhaustion™ (And Sleep Won't Fix Most of Them)

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?