Podcast Summary

Podcast: Don't Cut Your Own Bangs

Host: Danielle Ireland
Episode: Why You're So Tired — And What Actually Helps
Original Air Date: December 22, 2025

Episode Overview

This special episode is part of Danielle’s December “Countdown: Best Lessons of the Year” series, which features comforting and practical insights for listeners navigating the “messy middle” of life. This week’s focus: the invisible mental load—the exhaustion that builds from unspoken, ongoing tasks and worries, especially for caregivers and parents. Danielle unpacks why this feeling of being constantly tired is so prevalent, practical tools to feel more grounded, and features an insightful segment with SupportNow co-founder Jordan Arighetti, introducing "Support Languages" and how to better both give and receive support.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Invisible Mental Load

Definition: Danielle describes the "invisible mental load" as the background buzz of remembering, planning, worrying, and responding to the needs of others. This often leads to a feeling of being "wrung out" by day's end, even when no single big thing has been accomplished.
Automatic Reactivity: Daily routines become a blur of automatic, responsive actions (“waking up to someone needing you, jumping into emails, dousing fires, etc.”) with little time to breathe or reflect.
- “There is a momentum that is now carrying you throughout the day where you are constantly responding and showing up and responding and showing up and responding.” (06:30, Danielle)
Physical and Emotional Costs: Danielle highlights how this state feels like having your brain float away like a helium balloon, while your body lags behind—a split between mind and body.
Learning to Pause: She emphasizes small rituals (“brain breaks”)—like setting a one-minute timer to sit, breathe, and do nothing else—as profound, approachable tools to reconnect with self and break the cycle of constant chase.

Memorable Quote:
- “An intentional present minute, when you actually sit with it, it expands. It's like time slows down and expands. A minute can feel like a long time when that's all you're doing.” (11:18, Danielle)

2. Recognizing & Respecting Limits

Spotting Draining Effects: The host shares that exhaustion isn’t just about the tasks, but how we respond to them. The difference between healthy productivity and depletion is about internal recognition, not outward action.
Example: After encountering an overwhelming daycare supplies list, Danielle noticed physical signals (“a weight and compression on my chest, a wave of heat, an ache in my gut”) that prompted her to ask her husband to fully take over that task—demonstrating the importance of listening to body signals and seeking help.

Notable Quote:
- “My emotions are information and I look at my emotions like information, and I let that information inform how I interact with others, how I ask for what I need or how I take the space that I need.” (14:51, Danielle)
Tiny Shifts Matter: These one-degree course corrections (like Martha Beck’s airplane analogy) accumulate more impact over time than they seem in the moment.
- “You don't have to overhaul your whole life for this to matter... a one minute shift counts because those one minutes add up over time.” (18:45, Danielle)

3. Asking For and Accepting Support

Receiving Help: Once aware of our mental load, the next step is to allow others to help. Danielle gently frames support as a necessary, not shameful, part of human life.

Support Languages: Insights from Jordan Arighetti ([20:59])

Introducing Support Languages

Origins: Inspired by the concept of “love languages,” Jordan and her team created “support languages” to help people understand how they naturally offer and prefer to receive support.
Framework: Three main criteria:
1. Socialization: Individual vs. collaborative; do you like working alone or with others?
2. Activation: Assertive (take charge) vs. adaptive (wait for direction).
3. Action Type: Tangible support (doing things, making meals) vs. relational support (listening, emotional presence).
These factors combine into one of eight types (e.g., Connector, Community Builder, Problem Solver, Listener, etc.).
- “What we did was we created this entire formula... to say if you respond to certain questions in a certain way, it would create one of eight different support languages.” (22:21, Jordan)
Not Fixed: Roles and support types can shift depending on the relationship and situation.

In Danielle’s words:
- “There is…what is my personal style, but also what is the relational dynamic.” (23:38, Danielle)

Reading the Room

Relative Role: Jordan stresses the importance of understanding one’s role in relation to the people and context, not making oneself the ‘main character’ in every situation.
- “Reading the room is the lost art of realizing you're not the main character in every chapter.” (24:23, Jordan)
Taking Small Action: Even a simple text message counts as showing up; the act itself matters more than perfection.
- “The goal is not, by the way, for that person to respond. The goal is for you to feel good that you have taken some action that makes you know that you have played a role.” (25:31, Jordan)

Why is Support So Hard?

Cultural and Practical Reasons: Feeling pressure to appear capable, physical separation from our support networks, and loss of communal living have all made receiving—and recognizing—the need for help harder.
- “When we struggle, we have this tendency to push people away... we're very mindful of our... reputation. No one wants to be seen as not capable.” (26:40, Jordan)
- “We've forgotten all of these little things that add up to the stress and anxiety and difficulties that families feel.” (27:37, Jordan)

Repair: Handling Missed Opportunities to Support ([28:25])

Repair Is Always Possible: Both women stress that it’s never too late to apologize or show up differently, and this act of “repair” can have a powerful impact on a relationship.
- “Repair, repair, repair, repair. It is never too late to acknowledge that you might have misread a situation... You can never underestimate the power of just acknowledging that.” (28:59, Jordan)
Self-Compassion: Danielle and Jordan acknowledge the awkwardness, messiness, and inevitable imperfection of giving and receiving support, especially across life stages.

Memorable Quotes:
- “That's gray though. That's gray. It's not good or bad, black or white, mistake. I don't know if I was a hero or a villain and I may have been both, but just again, the more you can open that capacity for that, that it's messy.” (31:09, Danielle)
- “No one is perfect. No one. Life is not black and white.” (32:04, Jordan)

Actionable Takeaways & Practical Tips

For Yourself: Identify one place where your load feels heavy—whether visible or not. Ask: What is one small, specific way someone else could help? Let one person in on that need.
For Others: Think of someone in your world carrying a burden. Consider a gentler, imperfect act of support or even reach out to make amends if you missed a chance in the past (“Hey, you’re in my thoughts and I’m here”).
- “You don't have to fix everything. And you also don't have to find the perfect words or use mine. Tiny, imperfect support still counts, and you are allowed to receive it too.” (34:35, Danielle)
Remember: Your exhaustion isn’t weakness—it’s a sign you’ve been carrying a lot. You deserve to rest and be helped.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (With Timestamps)

“If you've ever wondered, why am I so tired at the end of the day when I don't even really know what I've done?... This episode is for you.” (04:35, Danielle)
“Every decision requires energy. And at the point in time where I saw that list, I did not have the fuel in the tank...I needed the thinking, the feeling, the executing and the delivering to be in someone else's hands.” (14:05, Danielle)
“It's noticing when the chasing is draining you. There is this pursuit of more...But the rest that happens on the other side of exhaustion or burnout or fatigue is essentially collapsing. It’s not resting, it’s not replenishing.” (10:49, Danielle)
“Support languages...are meant to do is to bring awareness to you so that you feel empowered to show up when it is appropriate.” (21:26, Jordan)
“Reading the room is the lost art of realizing you're not the main character in every chapter.” (24:23, Jordan)
“Repair, repair, repair, repair. It is never too late to acknowledge that you might have misread a situation or that you didn't act in a certain way or you acted too much in a certain direction. It's never too late.” (28:59, Jordan)
“You're not exhausted because you're weak. You're not exhausted and therefore need to push harder and drive yourself into the ground and over-caffeinate. You are exhausted because you've been carrying a lot, often silently, and you are absolutely allowed to set some of the load down and let somebody else carry a piece of it.” (35:49, Danielle)

Closing Tone

Danielle’s style is gentle, warm, and affirming, focusing on small, doable steps, extending grace to ourselves and others, and normalizing the imperfect and messy parts of asking for and giving support. Her therapeutic background underpins her practical, emotionally intelligent guidance.

In Her Words:
“You deserve support. You deserve rest. You definitely don't have to earn either one.” (36:48, Danielle)

For more resources, visit danielleireland.com

This episode offers concrete, compassionate strategies for coping with invisible exhaustion—and simple, brave ways to ask for and give support, especially when life feels like just too much.

Transcript

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Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required. Hello, hello and welcome back to don't cut your own bank's countdown, the best lessons of the year. All December long, I am pulling some of the most helpful, comforting or for me, the oh, that was the moment I needed again. Moments from the podcast and bringing them to you in these cozy, bite sized mashup episodes. Today's theme is one that I see come up over and over again in my practice and in my own life, the invisible mental load and the kind of support that actually helps. First, we're going to revisit a solo cast where I talk about the low key exhaustion that comes from constantly holding everything in your head and tiny practices that can help you feel more grounded and less alone in your own life. Then we dip into my conversation with Jordan Araghetti, co founder of SupportNow, where she breaks down support languages. It's a framework she did a TED Talk on that actually helps us learn how to give support, show up thoughtfully, and if we don't get it right the first time, how to properly repair. If you are listening while wrapping gifts or doing dishes or hiding from your to do list in your car, that's fine. I got you. You're in the right place. Let's do this. As we find ourselves in the holiday season, I have been thinking a lot about meaningful gifts. The kind that help us slow down, reflect, connect with ourselves and the people we love. If you're looking for something special, I've created two resources that come straight from my heart and my therapy practice. The first is called the Treasured Journal. It is a guided reflection tool built around seven keys, key areas of your life, filled with prompts, sentenced stem stories and space to explore the things that really matter to you. It's a beautiful way to reset, especially as we're heading into our new Year. For the little ones in your life, or maybe grown ups who are helping them navigate their emotions, there's also my children's book, Wrestling a Walrus for Little People with Big Feelings. It is a sweet story about a small penguin, a big obstacle, and the power of meeting our feelings with kindness. And instead of fear, both make wonderful holiday gifts for friends, family, or for yourself. Because calm, curiosity and connection are gifts we all deserve. You can find both the Treasure Journal and Wrestling a Walrus in the links in the show notes or on my website danielireland.com let's start with the experience that so many of us have, especially anyone that's a caregiver of feeling completely wrung out by the end of the day, but you're not totally sure why. So in this solo cast, I talk about the invisible mental load. It's something you've probably heard about a ton on social media on TikTok. You maybe have read a couple articles about it, but this offers more context and nuance that there is a constant background hum of remembering, planning, worrying, keeping everyone's lives spinning, keeping the to do list to doing, and how simple one minute pauses can actually bring you back into your body and out of survival mode. Here's the clip. Today we're diving into a kind of exhaustion that most of us carry but rarely name. It's the invisible mental load. It's this constant background buzz and noise of remembering and planning and checking and worrying and ruminating and all the places our mind goes, even when it feels as though nothing big is happening. And if you've ever wondered, why am I so tired at the end of the day when I don't even really know what I've done? Like I've done a couple of things, but somehow the day came and went and I'm utterly exhausted. This episode is for you, so we're gonna shine a light on the hidden weight that you are likely carrying and talk about how to spot what's draining you. Explore small, doable shifts that can also help you feel lighter, hopefully right away, but certainly in time. These are things that I've used or things that I've recommended firsthand to mental health therapy clients that I work with. I'm so glad you're here joining me on your walk or your errand running or in your car or wherever you like to catch your podcast. I am choosing to join you today with my cup of tea and my water in hand. So grab your beverage, grab your notes. Grab your AirPods. Let's do this. If you've ever felt exhausted without doing something big, this is probably why the invisible mental load we move through our day and so many aspects of that day are automatic and responsive. There is a sense, I think a lot of mothers and parents of littles feel when you wake up and you are reacting and responding to your day. You're waking up to an alarm or a child waking you up, or you're waking up and jumping into email and responding to the needs or requests or I just need to pick your brain for a moment. Dishes to be done, laundry to be done, a to do list to be checked off, errands, et cetera, et cetera. We it's so easy. And by easy I don't mean desirable, but it is so easy to wake up and show up with who needs me, what fire needs to be put out, what problem needs to be solved, and before you know it, there is a momentum that is now carrying you throughout the day where you are constantly responding and showing up and responding and showing up and responding. And I can't tell you how many times I will start my day, I'll get the kids dropped off and then I blink and it's three o'. Clock. And I feel these dual feelings can come up at the same time. One is the countdown of oh my gosh, this is how much time I have left before the kids are home and I have to put what I'm doing for myself aside and show up fully for them. It's either that like the crunch of my freedom window closing, or it is this sense of like blurriness, like how, how did I get here? How is this? It's like a time warp. And so the theme of reactivity and just responding and then the mental load when you're not in your body or in the present moment of what's happening, you're either 10 steps ahead, two steps ahead, you're constantly ticking things off the list or ticking the to do list. It is so easy to essentially have your brain and body detach. Like your brain is a helium filled balloon and it's just has a string attached and now it's just floating off in the ether and your body is just that like lump of plastic that's holding it down and keeping it from flying away. And what is often needed to either ground or recenter or connect the brain and the body or bring you back down. And something that I have been trying to do a lot lately is really look for little things, little rituals. I Don't mean a long complicated thing, but little rituals to bring me back to exactly where I am. One of the ways that I do that is I will set a 1 minute timer on my could either be on my Apple, watch my phone, or even just sitting and looking at a clock that actually has a second hand that you can watch. And for that one singular minute, there's nothing else I'm doing, nothing else I'm thinking about, there's nowhere to go and nothing to be done for that one minute. And I challenge myself with a minute because it sounds, it sounds comically simple a minute. But a minute is just short enough for my anxious, productive mind to know, we can spare a minute. Everybody can spare a minute. There is no project, no task so urgent, apart from maybe putting on a flyer that I can't take a minute. And what I know, having guided so many clients through mindfulness exercises, is that an intentional present minute, when you actually sit with it, it expands. It's like time slows down and expands. A minute can feel like a long time when that's all you're doing versus how quickly 30 minutes of scrolling on your phone can feel like 30 seconds. So the presence of mind, bringing myself back in, creating a limit, just helps center me a little more and bring me back into my body. Of course there is the momentum throughout the day, but we want to be able to spot when the mental load is draining you because they're all of the things that I mentioned at the top about responding to emails or responding to your children, or responding to the needs at work or home, those are all facts of life. We can't negotiate all of those away. That wouldn't be the a realistic world to live in. The thing to note is recognizing that the root of the exhaustion isn't doing more. It isn't chasing, getting more done so that I can rest. It's noticing when the chasing is draining you. There is this pursuit of more and this sense of I have to keep moving so that when I get to the other side, then I can rest. But the rest that happens on the other side of exhaustion or burnout or fatigue is essentially collapsing. It's not resting, it's not replenishing, it's putting enough gas in the tank that you don't have to keel over on the side of the road, creating these little buffers, these little, sometimes I call them brain breaks for a minute. And I can, and I've done that every hour before for one minute, which can feel like a lot. I've also done it every four hours I'll stop for one minute, but no matter what I'm doing, I'll pause for a minute just to make sure that I'm in my body, I'm not. So in my phone, so in my to do list, so in the tasks or the needs of other people that I forget myself. There's a big difference between being productive, getting a lot done, crushing your to do list, feeling like you're on top of your goals, and getting a big project done at home, or getting a big project done at work, or being completely present with your kids when they're having a hard time, or maybe getting up in the middle of the night. There are absolutely times in moments in life where doing that very thing is exactly where you need to be. That's exactly where your energy should be focused. And it can feel really good or very right, very aligned to show up for those people or those spaces or those tasks. In that way, the big distinction for what we're talking about is the exhaustion and the fatigue that comes from not paying attention to when those things are draining you. That's a radical difference because what we're talking about is an internal recognition. It may not look different from the outside. Meaning when I'm chasing my to do list, running from task to task, getting things done, then running to my kids school, then maybe running to a meeting from the outside, if we were just like looking at if this were an episode of television. The activities that Danielle is doing look essentially the same when she's either burnt out or thriving and feeling really energized. But the experience that I'm having as someone who is either in my integrity, in my body, and feeling energized and good versus not is am I not replenishing? Am I not present? Am I chasing my to do list, hoping that I can find freedom on the other side, or am I able to find that in the moment? One of the quickest ways, through the practice of adding more mindfulness into my day, taking deeper breaths, slowing down, reaching for maybe some tea and some water instead of my third and fourth cup of coffee. The practice of doing that consistently over time has helped me start to trust the responses of my body. My emotions are information and I look at my emotions like information, and I let that information inform how I interact with others, how I ask for what I need or how I take the space that I need. For example, a recent example, our kids went from summer camp to my daughter going to preschool and my son going to daycare. And at the end of that first week, every day, they came home with a list of some new supply or item or thing that they needed to have fulfilled, filled out, put in a bag, and brought back. I remember seeing my son's list for his daycare, and it was bulleted, and it was a full 8 by 10 piece of paper. I mean, it was large mop, but there were just so many bullets. And when I saw this list, I saw what the thinking through, okay, what do we have? What do we need to buy? What needs to be labeled, needs to be put in the car? All of those are decisions. And every decision requires energy. And at the point in time where I saw that list, I did not have the fuel in the tank to think through, to execute or even delegate, like making all the decisions and then just delegating the action. I needed the thinking, the feeling, the executing and the delivering to be in someone else's hands. And here's how I knew that. Here's how I knew that. I saw the list, and what I immediately felt when I saw the list was this weight and compression on my chest, this twisting, tightening, almost like a wave of nausea, but not nausea like I'm actually going to get sick, but this wave of heat that turned into just an ache in my gut. I felt both of those feelings almost instantly when I saw that list. And through enough time and attention and focus in this way, I knew I'm not in the place to execute this list. So I called an audible and I asked my husband, hey, do you have the capacity to handle this? I actually did explain, and by handling, I mean you handle all of it. Do you have the capacity to take this piece on for Luke? And he said, yes. And it was as simple as that. Now, is it that simple every time? No, but it can be. And more often, asking for help or asking for someone to show up for me, I can think of so many times where the ruminating, the storytelling, the stressing, the imagining, the role playing in my mind of how it would go, almost never, I'm going to venture to say, actually never matched what actually happened. That doesn't mean that every time I ask for help, someone says a hundred percent yes in the. In the way that I need it, but more often than not, met with someone, I can't do all of that, but I can do this version of this, or I can take this off, or this is an element that I can own, trusting that my body is telling me important information about where I'm at mentally, physically, emotionally, with regard to taking another task on looking at that information, running it through my filter and then believing myself gave me the opportunity to ask for the help I really needed and then receive it. Small changes add up over time Martha Beck has this great example in her book the Way of Integrity about how if an airplane is flying from New York to California and decides every 30 minutes to make a 1 degree shift in the direction that it's headed, by the time it lands, it's going to be in a completely different destination. So one degree shifts, like taking a one minute refocus integration reset, taking a one minute break, taking some deep breaths, grabbing a light caffeine free cup of tea instead of something sugary or caffeinated. They feel so small that they may seem insignificant, but that's also how virtually everything is. My hunch is telling me if you're listening to this podcast because you're experiencing the low level draining fatigue of carrying a mental load, what you want is something gentle. You want something soft, you want something approachable and you want something kind and a little tiny shift. Looking inward, feeling what you're experiencing in that moment, believing yourself and validating that, carrying that information forward. I love that. The idea that your emotions are information, they're. It's not a character flaw, it's not proof of failure, but it's. It's data, it's input. That the moment wasn't about being dramatic, but your body is saying something and that is likely that this is just too much. A couple of quick questions that you can ask yourself this week in real time. Where does my body say no before my mouth does? Or one tiny one degree shift that you can make like a one minute pause so that you're not collapsing by the end of the day and actually replenishing a little bit as you go. You don't have to overhaul your whole life for this to matter. Believe me. It may sound overly simplistic, but a one minute shift counts because those one minutes add up over time and you're only ever living life one moment at a time. Tiny shifts count. They're going to make a bigger impact in the long run than you think. And it's the easiest thing for me personally to overlook, but it is the reminder that I need constantly. And when I actually listen to it, when I engage with it, and when I practice it, my life feels incrementally better. Now once you start noticing that your invisible mental load is impacting your mind, your body, your spirit, the next brave step is this. Letting other people support you. And when you are not the one in need, but witnessing somebody else struggle learning how to support them too. And that is where support languages come in. In this next clip, I'm interviewing Jordan Arighetti. She co founded SupportNow and also developed this framework with her team at SupportNow. It's a way to understand your default support style of giving and showing up, learning how to read the room and how to repair. If and when you realize, oh, I didn't show up the best way that I could have, I knowing what I know now, I wish I could go back and offer support in a different way. There's no expiration date on repair and we cover that in this conversation. So here's a bit of that. If cooking during the holidays feels overwhelming or, or you just want to bring a little bit more joy and intention back into your kitchen, my friend Sarah Klein Connect is your new secret ingredient. She's a private chef with 20 years experience cooking for celebrities and families and she shares simple, game changing recipes, tips and techniques that make everyday meals feel nourishing and fun. She believes in food as medicine, in quality over quantity. And she says, oh, that looks so yummy a lot. She really does. And honestly, it is. When you sign up for her annual substack subscription, you'll get a free 30 minute consultation where you can ask her anything. Meal planning, nutrition, organizing your kitchen, or even the perfect dinner party menu. I do it every holiday season. Visit the link in the show notes and bring more joy into your kitchen this season. So if you would please just, could you talk us through the support Support languages.